Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2024 March 29

= March 29 =

US pertussis resurgence in the 1980s
Why did pertussis go from historically low levels due to vaccination to increasing levels in the 1980s in the US? Is it because of the rise of the religious right during the Reagan admin, and their presumed opposition to vaccination? Viriditas (talk) 02:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Foreign workers (legal) and their families? Foreign students? Tourists? Immigrants? Sleigh (talk) 03:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure the vaccination rules applied to them as well. Viriditas (talk) 03:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Pertussis rates were high in Australia at that time too. I don't remember us blaming foreigners. HiLo48 (talk) 04:23, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't recall any widespread opposition to vaccinations during the Reagan administration. That seems like a much more recent phenomenon. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:52, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * "In the early 1960s, Kennedy's Vaccination Assistance Act thus targeted poor children, those older than five years of age, and provided the four vaccines that were then available: polio, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. That act was renewed during the Johnson administration, but the funding mechanism changed under President Nixon to a set of block grants to states, some of which chose to put the funds to other public health uses...In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter's plan, which included shots for seven vaccine-preventable diseases (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, rubella, and mumps—the latter three having been developed since 1963), also focused on poor children. Carter's Childhood Immunization Initiative relied more on volunteers and attempted to keep the federal footprint subordinated to state oversight., reporting on US vaccination policies often compared them (rather negatively) to those of poor countries. Bill Clinton's plan, like his overhaul of welfare a few years later, relied on what was termed personal responsibility, even though it was clear at the time that vaccination rates were related to socioeconomic status. Regardless of the semantics, the program has been successful in diminishing nonvaccination among the poor and improving rates overall. A comparison of vaccination rates from the mid-1990s to today demonstrates that over a twenty-year period that began in 1995, significant gains were made in improving rates of MMR and polio vaccination for infants up to thirty-five months, and that most other childhood vaccination rates have improved marginally over time. In 2015, only 0.8 percent of US children under the age of three years received no vaccinations at all." (Hausman 2019, pp. 18-20.)
 * "Reporting in Time and the New York Times in the 1980s focused primarily on low vaccination rates, measles outbreaks, and extending recommendations for physicians to get the flu vaccine. Especially in New York City, efforts to ensure that schoolchildren were vaccinated for the measles dominated coverage. Late in the decade a series of measles outbreaks dominated news on vaccination... The measles outbreaks of 1989–1991 were widespread, and President George H. W. Bush was attacked for not prioritizing public health (immunization programs of the 1970s had lapsed during the Reagan/Bush years). President Clinton’s Vaccines for Children program was, in large part, a response to low vaccination rates that were thought to have caused the 1989–1991 measles outbreaks. Parent blaming emerged in reporting after the passage of this program in 1993, although much of that reporting also suggests that, so the blame was tempered by sympathy. As immunization rates rose through the 1990s, though, the mildly inflammatory reporting associated with the topic’s overt politicization diminished." (Hausman 2019, p. 39.)


 * From the abstract of an article with the title The decline and resurgence of pertussis in the US:
 * Further, despite this spatial variation, broad patterns in pertussis epidemiology can be described by two dominant phases: (1) a period of decline ending in the mid-1970s, followed by (2) nationwide resurgence. Together, these patterns explain 89.7% of the variation in US case notifications between 1951 and 2005. This resurgence was interrupted, however, by a synchronized downturn in 2005 that continues to the present in many large states. The causes of these two transitions in pertussis epidemiology remain hotly debated, though our findings suggest that evolution of the Bordetella pertussis bacterium, loss of immunity and persistent transmission among adults, and demographic drivers are more probable explanations than changes in reporting or the introduction of acellular vaccines.
 * --Lambiam 08:39, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

How is "the dalai lama" nowhere recognised as peonage (of a child)?
For comparison.. "a 17-year-old girl was reported to have been sold into peonage at the age of two by her own father" from the page Peon. And.. "He held an old mala that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, and the boy Lhamo Dhondup, aged two, approached and asked for it. The monk said 'if you know who I am, you can have it.'"

The religious "fluff" aside, both at the age of two, and both meeting the definition of "a person with little authority, often assigned unskilled tasks; an underling or any person subjected to capricious or unreasonable oversight.". Ybllaw (talk) 10:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * "Peonage is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation". It doesn't really fit. The young 14th Dalai Lama was given a priveledged upbringing rather than a life of enforced labour. Alansplodge (talk) 12:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thus you say that a 2 year old being abducted from their family is "[being given a] priveledged upbringing"?
 * And you say that "mentally 'training' your entire life to be a fantasy to others is not enforced labour" and "having no control over your own future and your own identity is not enforced labour"?
 * Have you any idea of what a person goes through? The mental indoctrination? The dismissal and condition out of any personal ideas/initiative of what a person may choose with their life?
 * What are you basing your claim "that he is priveledged" on?
 * Are you saying that a 2 year old is of consenting age? Ybllaw (talk) 13:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * "Peonage is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for [an] obligation". That entirely fits. The obligation is the fabricated claim "that their arbitrary ritual is said to be proof that a person is obligated to be this country's cult's spiritual leader".
 * Debt bondage almost entirely fits..
 * "Debt bondage only applies to individuals who have no hopes of leaving the labour due to inability to ever pay debt back.".
 * The person made "dalai lama" has no realistic option to ever purchase their freedom. People have decided their identity for them. The kind of mental help required to escape such a situation of indoctrination from a very young age is not available to them, as they are surrounded by people that endorse the abuse. Ybllaw (talk) 13:42, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It is however, not debt if there is no story of "him being able to pay it back". Thus in that case perhaps human trafficking is a better label. Ybllaw (talk) 13:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * "Abducted" doesn't seem to be the correct term. He wasn't stolen AFAIK. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:53, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * He didn't consent to being taken from his parents. And the systemic pressure of "once they say your child is 'the dalai lama' you cannot refuse" means that consent was impossible, hence abducted. Ybllaw (talk) 12:06, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Parents decide what's best for their very young children. Consent from a two-year-old is not usually a major issue. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * In this region in the 1930s, I wouldn't think the parents realistically had agency to consent (or not) to such a mandate. Within academic studies of Tibet and China there's serious debate over issues of conditions of the region prior to, during, and after Communist takeover -- see e.g. Serfdom in Tibet controversy. This was not a nice place. SamuelRiv (talk) 01:39, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * "Parents decide what's best for their young children". This is false. Parents decide for their children, but not "what is best". To see proof of this see the documentary "born into brothels", where parents forbid their children to go to school so they can grow uo to become prostitutes like them. Ybllaw (talk) 10:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia capitalizes the titular name Dalai Lama throughout articles about those considered to be successors in a line of tulkus leading to the incumbent 14th Dalai Lama whose article includes a section 14th Dalai Lama. Material here must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy. This dictates immediate removal of contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced. Arguments by the OP that verifiable sources for their peculiar claims should exist ("so why aren't there any?") are just their own synthesis that cannot qualify as WP:RS. Be warned that attempts to promote anti-religious attacks on article or talk page spaces can be reported to this noticeboard. Philvoids (talk) 18:27, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The question here is not "that it should", that is a false accusation. I won't deny that that is my opinion, but the question here is how it is legally possible that it isn't classified as such, even though it seems to meet all criteria. Saying that my question, which is entirely about publically accessible information amounts to "anti religiousness" is not only false, as it is about a very specific case not religion in general, it would also be censorship. Ybllaw (talk) 12:05, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think we would need at least a reference that showed that whichever legal system had jurisdiction over the particular place and time had a concept of peonage in order for it to be "legally possible" to be classifed as such. ColinFine (talk) 18:51, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Obviously the OP is asking about whether the international community would/could/should object to such a practice based on some notion of universal human rights, namely (per OP) peonage and child abduction. Furthermore, one surely would not dismiss concerns over the condition of slaves in the antebellum United States for the fact that slavery and such treatment was often explicitly legal [edit: and tacitly or explicitly supported by the international community right until the end].
 * To address your response to OP, per legal concerns [edit: all of this is assuming at face value that peonage and/or abduction is roughly accurate], most international law recognizing the rights of individuals was established after WW2. (For example, it was only the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949 that directly addressed civilians, plus the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights, but it's not much later with the Rome Statute, etc. that there's some agreed enforcement of individual rights in international law -- prior to all this international law was essentially understood to apply only to states and/or just war.) Noting that the 14th Dalai Lama was selected in 1937, none of this would apply or likely be recognized as applicable. Regarding a concept like peonage, maybe one could have made an argument regarding serfdom in Tibet that international condemnation is justified per the 1926 Slavery Convention, but that probably would be a huge stretch for the time. (Note I have nothing resembling qualifications in this field -- this is just what I'm gathering from my reading over the months.) Now, while the greater international community may not have had much to say in the 1930s (as far as my lack of reading), Mao Zedong was certainly willing to use serfdom and the inequity of the priestly class as part of the drive for toppling Tibet's government in 1959 after the 1951 annexation. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:24, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that detailed contribution. Ybllaw (talk) 10:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Iliinois electoral College ballot of 2004
Hello. I have a little curiosity and I don't know if you can take it away from me, since it's been a long time as well, but I'll try anyway. To anyone's knowledge was the Illinois electoral College ballot of 2004 like the one in the link below? The ballot in the link, goes back to the 2008 presidential election. I know this is a bit of a special request so don't worry if you can't help, no problem! Thank you very much. https://www.google.it/search?sca_esv=b9d6d2bbf88385f9&sxsrf=ACQVn09c6V3MCuuMMrqGPefvx7ht2LyefQ:1711726739199&q=illinois+electoral+college+ballot&tbm=isch&source=lnms&prmd=nivbz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj66veB55mFAxXBhv0HHaV6DW8Q0pQJegQICRAB&biw=2133&bih=1021&dpr=0.9#imgrc=yA-xZ6nEmhhLtM&imgdii=J_qDC516vm-G5M 2.39.110.85 (talk) 15:49, 29 March 2024 (UTC)