Don't worry, faithful readers, my blogging about the "Green Our Vaccines" rally last week is reaching its end. If my poor neurons can take it, there are still the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Dr. Jay Gordon to be commented on in one more post (the latter of whom I used to consider somewhat reasonable albeit incorrect but who, if his speech and statements to the press at the "Green Our Vaccines" rally are any indication, has gone completely over to the dark side of antivaccinationism). Then that's probably about all I'll be able to take for a while. It'll be back to writing about cancer and other science next week. Maybe I'll even find the time to do a major update of the Academic Woo Aggregator, as I've been promising for a month now, although doing so might depress me even more than "Green Our Vaccines."
You may have noticed that, along with some parents who are suspicious of vaccines and could probably be persuaded, a few intrepid antivaccinationists have invaded the threads of my recent posts. One made a statement that is so typical of the unrealistic mindset of the people in the "Green Our Vaccines" movement that I thought it worth addressing with a brief post, given that I haven't written about this issue in nearly two years. A commenter writes:
Could someone please tell me what is so wrong about asking the vaccine companies to take the toxins out of vaccines? Whether or not you believe they cause autism, do you want to be injected with crap that hasn't been proven safe?
Do you think it would be good for the auto industry to inspect their own cars and tell us that they are safe?
How about the food industry? Do you think Hormel should be in charge of telling us how safe their products are instead of food and drug?
Then why is it okay that big pharma gets to rate the safety of their own products?
These people are not crazy. They have been through a lot. Some of them are probably radical, yes. But most are not anti-vaccine.
I am one of them. I was there. I believe in vaccines.....but I don't believe they are 100% safe. Until they prove it to me, my child is having no more.
Here's my response:
Interesting. You demand "100% safety" before you vaccinate, but, like all parents whom I've encountered who demand that standard for vaccines, you're almost certainly curiously selective about what you apply your standard to. Let me ask you something: Do you drive your kids around in a car? My God, man, how can you do that? It's by no means "100% safe"! Do you know how many children die or suffer permanent brain injury in car crashes every year? Thousands! By your standards, then, shouldn't you should be demanding "100%" safety from your auto before driving them anywhere? Do you let your children swim? How can you be so irresponsible? 5,000 children a year are hospitalized for drowning or near-drowning. 20% die, and 15% suffer permanent neurological injury. Do you have a child who plays baseball or softball? Holy crap! 4-5 children a year in the U.S. die of injuries suffered playing baseball or softball. But deaths are only the worst injuries. Among children ages 5-14, well over 100,000 children are taken to the emergency room for injuries suffered playing baseball each and every year. These include sprains, contusions, fractures, dental injuries, head injuries and concussions, and internal injuries. In fact, although its overall rate of injury is fairly low, baseball has the highest child fatality rate of any sport. Helmets and face shields would reduce, but not eliminate fatalities. It's the very nature of the game, with high speed projectiles being launched in the general direction of kids. Some batters will fail to get out of the way of a wild pitch; some fielders will unfortunately catch a line drive with their heads.
Indeed, I really hope your children don't like sports, especially baseball. Clearly you, their father, by your demand for 100% safety must not allow them to participate in any of these activities, nor must you allow them to cross the street or go to school. All these activities are far more dangerous than any vaccine. Indeed, one can't help but note that if you applied the same standard to daily activities as you do to vaccines, your children would have to live in a hermetically sealed bubble, never venturing out. Oh, wait. That wouldn't be "100% safe" either. Life isn't "100% safe." Nothing is.
What you are practicing is a variant of what known as the "perfect solution" or "Nirvana" fallacy. It is an excuse for not doing something based on the assertion that the solution isn't perfect. The specific variant you are practicing is something I like to call the "100% safe fallacy." By any measure, vaccines are incredibly safe interventions, with a low risk of complications. The risk, however, is not and never will be zero. Nothing is absolutely, positively 100% safe, including vaccines. However, they are certainly far safer than allowing your children to be vulnerable to the diseases they prevent.
You're also adding some conspiratorial thinking into your mix. Do you honestly think that the drug companies are in charge of telling us how safe their products are? Whatever flaws there may be in the FDA, it is the FDA that approves any new drug, vaccine, or medical device, and the standards are pretty rigorous.
No one here is arguing against safer vaccines. That's a straw man argument that the GOV crowd tries to pin on us. In fact, a lot of money and effort are put into trying to make our vaccines as safe as possible, and that's a good thing. Nor do we argue that the parents in the GOV rally don't care about their kids or aren't trying to do what's best for them. What we do argue is that they are, alas, spectacularly mistaken about the science. Indeed, the entire "Green Our Vaccines" is based on a toxic mix of bad science, emotion, and dishonest misinformation about "toxins" that ignores chemistry, pharmacology, and even common sense, all tied together with the fallacy of the perfect solution. That's no basis for public policy, and the GOV movement has the potential to do real harm to public health.
But maybe I'm wrong. If that's the case, then I ask the GOV'ers who have been lurking and occasionally commenting here: How safe is safe enough? Be specific. (100% safety is completely unrealistic and unobtainable for any human activity, including vaccines, and in the case of vaccines it's a transparent excuse for not vaccinating, no matter what.) What, specifically, would it take for you to agree to vaccinate? (Vague platitudes about removing the "toxins" from vaccines don't count, as such a standard is meaningless. Which specific toxins need to be removed. Read this before answering, please, because answers based on a willful misunderstanding of chemistry, pharmacology, and toxicology or on misinformation about what's in vaccines don't help either.)
"Green Our Vaccines" is a nice slogan, but what does it really mean and could any vaccine ever be "green" enough for you? If the answer to the latter question is "no" or completely unrealistic and impractical then you're an antivaccinationist, your protestations otherwise notwithstanding.
THE "GREEN OUR VACCINES" COLLECTION:
- The Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey rally to "Green Our Vaccines": Anti-vaccine, not "pro-safe vaccine"!
- An Open Letter to Congress on Immunization
- "Green Our Vaccines": Further skeptical reading
- "Green Our Vaccines": Serendipity and schadenfreude as antivaccinationists go to war
- "Green Our Vaccines": Best comment EVAH! Or: How to preserve biological diversity through not vaccinating
- "Green Our Vaccines": Celebrity antivaccinationist ignoramuses on parade. Or: I didn't know that Dumb & Dumber was a documentary
- "Green Our Vaccines": "Pro-safe vaccine" or anti-vaccine? You be the judge!
- "Green Our Vaccines": "Pro-safe vaccine" or anti-vaccine? You be the judge! (Part 2)
- "Green Our Vaccines": The fallacy of the perfect solution
More like this
Wait a minute....Green Our Vaccines...GOV....hmmmm........... GOVERNMENT!!!!! This is all a government plot with big pharma to pour billions into pharmaceuticals to treat vaccine-preventable illness!!! Such is the thinly-veiled antivax rhetoric!!! That's it!!!! This has all been a reverse conspiracy..I KNEW IT!!! RFK,jr. you evil genius!!
Orac, you might want to close the italics tags.
Here, let me:
It might need an em tag. I wonder if this will work.
A related question worth asking is:
How low does the concentration of a "toxin" have to be before you will consider a vaccine to be safe enough for human consumption? "Zero" is not an acceptable answer. Because of inherent physical limitations on purification, every substance known to man is present in trace levels in our air, water, and food. You can't eliminate toxins entirely, only reduce their levels.
Would you allow your children to be injected with a substance containing 2.5 parts per million of formaldehyde? If your answer is "no," then you are saying that you would not allow your child to receive a transfusion of his or her own blood--because the body makes formaldehyde, and that is the normal concentration in human blood.
Every one of the "toxins" that antivaccinationists complain about in vaccines is present in the water you drink and the air that you breathe. It is not possible to reduce the levels to zero, no matter what you do, or how much money you spend.
What is more, the closer you get to zero, the greater the expense becomes of reducing the level further. This is not merely the case for "toxins" in vaccines, or water, or air, but for everything. Risk can always be reduced a little bit, if price is no object. Would you be willing to pay an extra $100,000 for your car if it could be made just a bit safer, so that the risk of your child being injured in an accident is reduced by 1%? How about 0.1%? Or 0.01%? Why not? Don't you love your kids? Can you put a dollar value on the safety of your kids?
Got the markup. He opened with an em tag and tried to close with an a tag.
How much money for vaccine research have they raised so far ? Thought so.
Once more into the breach, dear friends.
As far as the antivax crowd are concerned there is no safe level of any chemical in vaccines, period.
They don't want proof it's safe, they don't even care if government outlawed vaccines tomorrow. What they want is a convenient whipping boy. For those with autistic children, I understand their trauma at the discovery. They need to hear that it's fixable and or that it's not their fault.
They desperately want to know it was not just genetics.
Unfortunately, no one in the medical science community can as of yet tell them that. So, they seize on the next nearest invisible trauma -- their child being injected with a substance they do not understand and which scared them when they experienced it themselves.
I do not sympathize with their desire to wipe out vaccines. It's a nihilistic desire to cause misery.
not that anything I've said will make a gnat's weight of difference, but, I had to try.
Even after Title IX, there's still probably a lot more boys playing baseball than girls. For girls, parents should be wary of the dangers of cheerleading. See: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/117/1/122.
Also, when children reach the age when they can bathe themselves, wearing a motorcycle helmet in the bath or shower will substantially lower the risk of head injury.
I just want to point out the somewhat 'awkward' position that some of us are in when it comes to this issue. I am 100% with Orac on this issue but I conflicted with the whole 'evil government agency' issue. No, I do not believe that the FDA and CDC are shills for big pharma. Unfortunately, I do argue (on other issues) that the Bush administration has corrupted some agencies and hence lost all credibility. I do feel like a hypocrite when I say, 'trust the CDC/FDA' on one thread and 'Bush/government blah/blah/blah' on another thread. Just another reason to be pissed about the collateral damage Bush has done (there can be no blind trust of government agencies).
Damn, I hate the mess he's created.
This is only a test to close the EM.
Maybe we could arrange for that poster to engage a homeopath in a cage match.
rmp: I agree with your words, but I don't feel awkward about these things. I worked for the CDC under Bush. (I'm retired now.) 95% of my co-workers were career Federal scientists who detested Bush and tried their best to get on with their work, despite constant interference from the White House and HHS political appointees. Julie Gerberding is undoubtedly the worst Director in CDC's history (although she was a good infectious disease epidemiologist once). The fact that most of the "leadership" of the CDC, FDA, and other Federal agencies are ignorant right-wing hacks doesn't negate the good work done by the scientists who work in those places. Life is complicated. Only 226 days left!
It seems you didn't bother to point out that *not vaccinating* is a long way from 100% safe... in fact, it's much more dangerous than vaccinating, which is why people do it.
No food product, drinking water, or even air is 100% safe. That doesn't mean you should starve or suffocate your children to protect them from those dangers.
When doing something and not doing it both have risks, you have to weigh the risks *against each other* in order to determine the safer course of action.
It's just the flip side of homeopathy. Homeopaths believe that negligibly small concentrations of toxic substances can help you. "Toxin" phobics believe that negligibly small concentrations of toxic substances will harm you. Both ideas reflect the same kind of magical thinking.
I have a copy of the "Yearly Bills of Mortality" for London from 1657 to 1758 (Google Books PDF). Although they are not 100% complete and the author gripes about the lack of data for "dissenters and papists", it is under-reporting, not over-reporting.
For the years 1746 through 1750, 56,721 children under the age of 10 were buried. There were 72,480 christenings.
For the years 1748 through 1752 there were:
750 deaths from whooping cough
569 from measles
5341 from "teeth" (dehydration deaths in infants was usually blamed on teething or worms ... probably rotovirus, norovirus and other diarrhea causing viruses)
2774 "Abortive or stillborn"
10179 from smallpox (children and adults)
These were children getting all-organic foods, no cell-phone or wi-fi radiaiton, the water was not flouridated and none of them were vaccinated. about 1/3 didn't make it to their first year, and hgalf of them died before age 5.
**************
Someone tell me again why science is worthless. SCIENCE figured out that clean water and vaccinations could stop the carnage.
One other thing to point out: 100% free, apart from being unattainable, would also leave the body wide open to damage from far lower levels than normal should there be any contact: some contact is necessary for developing defense - this is what vaccination itself is all about, after all.
My Mother's words from the 50's: "A little dirt never did anybody any harm". I'm 60, never coddled, have lost maybe 5 days to flu in my life. Childhood mumps and measles. That's it. And vaccinated. in childhood for the rest, of course
Thanks for your thoughts Epi Wonk. I just wish we could engage these arguments from the high ground/confidence that our government can be trusted. I certainly hope that 226 days from now, we can start regaining that trust.
rmp: Fortunately, the Bush misadministration's attempts to suppress science don't extend beyond our borders. The entire developed world produces and researches vaccines, so you can get reasonably suspicion-free information from other countries' equivalents of the CDC.
Well, this is a bit of an overstatement. The body does have a system for developing antibody defenses to low levels of molecules, but it is pretty specific to large, biological-type molecules such as proteins. And in fact, is a quite remarkable system, with a very high degree of amplification built into it. Ironically, considering the fears of toxin phobics, your body has "make an effort" to have any kind of reaction to foreign substances at such tiny levels. Most of the "toxins" they fear are small molecules that normally do not trigger immune responses.
Ah bugger. Failed to close blockquote. My words start at "Brilliant, trrl!" Sorry.
Good thought. Maybe we it is just a matter of relabeling. Instead of vaccine, we can label the box "Homeopathic protection against toxins and disease"
Every one of the "toxins" that antivaccinationists complain about in vaccines is present in the water you drink and the air that you breathe.
Exactly. Idiots who live in Los Angeles and breathe the air there have no business worrying about a few parts/million of some "toxin" in a once-in-a-lifetime injection. Especially not if they are breathing every day.
Water is toxic, in high enough doses. "Removing all toxins" makes no sense.
http://celebsmokers.altervista.org/albums/userpics/10001/Jen_McCarthy_2…
Jenny started smoking when she was 11. There are different stories about whether or not she stopped smoking when she was pregnant. She's had one of the world's most toxic substance injected into her face several times. She's made some kind of joke (or maybe not) about using street drugs. Now she's all concerned about toxins in vaccines? What about that hair dye and all that makeup?
I got a question for Orac or anyone else interested:
True, there is no perfect solution, and the element of risk seems to have completely disappeared from woo science. However, should we be bothered by the fact that iatrogenic causes are the third largest cause of death in the United States (after cancer and heart disease)? About 225,000 people die each year from causes related directly to the administration of healthcare -- 106,000 of those deaths from negative drug effects alone.
I don't know how worried to be about iatrogenic diseases and deaths. If you are waiting for perfect pharmacists, perfect doctors and perfect nurses before you seek medical care, you'll die waiting. Does anyone think that this question would even be raised in areas where there is little available medical care? Personally, I expect medical personnel to make mistakes. Just like I'd expect to make mistakes if I worked in medicine.
How many children are killed every year by parental mistakes? Mom gives junior the wrong medicine. Dad puts baby in the car with no seat belt? Gramma put's baby in the back yard near the pool and leaves baby to answer the phone? Baby falls down a well...
Parents find some way to forgive their own stupid errors, usually.
Jeff Read said " However, should we be bothered by the fact that iatrogenic causes are the third largest cause of death in the United States (after cancer and heart disease)?"
Where is this listed? Because the cause of death is very much dependent on age. For certain ages the first cause of death is by accident (usually vehicular).
Let's go through some of the stats of the top three causes of death by age available from http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/ ...
Age 1 to 4:
1 Accidents and adverse effects 2,155
. . . Motor vehicle accidents 834
. . . All other accidents and adverse effects 1,321
2 Congenital anomalies 633
3 Malignant neoplasms, including neoplasms of lymphatic and hematopoietic tissues 440
Age 5 to 14:
1 Accidents and adverse effects 3,521
. . . Motor vehicle accidents 2,002
. . . All other accidents and adverse effects 1,519
2 Malignant neoplasms, including neoplasms of lymphatic and hematopoietic tissues 1,035
3 Homicide and legal intervention 513
Age 15 to 24:
1 Accidents and adverse effects 13,872
. . . Motor vehicle accidents 10,624
. . . All other accidents and adverse effects 3,248
2 Homicide and legal intervention 6,548
3 Suicide 4,369
Age 24 to 44:
1 Accidents and adverse effects 26,554
. . . Motor vehicle accidents 14,528
. . . All other accidents and adverse effects 12,026
2 Human immunodeficiency virus infection 22,795
3 Malignant neoplasms, including neoplasms of lymphatic and hematopoietic tissues 22,147
Age 45 to 64:
1 Malignant neoplasms, including neoplasms of lymphatic and hematopoietic tissues 132,805
2 Diseases of heart 102,510
3 Accidents and adverse effects 16,332
. . . Motor vehicle accidents 7,659
. . . All other accidents and adverse effects 8,673
Age 65 and over:
1 Diseases of heart 612,886
2 Malignant neoplasms, including neoplasms of lymphatic and hematopoietic tissues 386,092
3 Cerebrovascular diseases 140,938
There is also a very interesting table of deaths from 113 causes for all ages:
http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/Age%20of%20Deaths%20113%20Causes%2020…
Some of the interesting lines are:
Whooping cough (A37) 31 28 (the last number is for children under age 1).
Measles (B05) 1 - 1 (that was for a child between 1 to 4)
Meningitis (G00,G03) 669 57 (the last number is for children under age 1)
Pneumonia (J12-J18) 61,189 246 (again, that is for a child under age 1).
Looking at it, the top three major categories are:
Major cardiovascular diseases (I00-I78) 856,030
Malignant neoplasms (C00-C97) 559,312
All other diseases (Residual) 217,632
Well, it is a long and very detailed table. I would like you to tell me which lines are the ones that would considered "iatrogenic". Are they the ones listed under all other diseases? Thank you.
Thanks for this article.
I would assume that all of the "Complications of medical and surgical care" are considered iatrogenic; as for all other diseases, who knows? Thanks for showing me this table, btw.
I'd like to find some way to compress the data Tsu Dho Nimh posted into a poster that I can parade in front of any anti-vaxers that attack my neighborhood. Thanks for that post.
How about (Front Side):
*London, 1748-52: no modern "pollutants"
Population: 750,000+/-
750 died from whooping cough
569 died from measles
10179 died from smallpox
---------------------------
Science is worthless because?
*Yearly Bills of Mortality
and (Back Side):
*USA, 2005: all modern "pollutants"
Population: 300,000,000
30 died from whooping cough
1 died from measles
0 died from smallpox
---------------------------
Science is worthless because?
*Table 10, www.disastercenter.com
Probably not. Imagine a world in which medicine has been literally perfected: there is no illness, no injury that cannot be completely cured, so long as the patient is given care correctly, and in time. We can even eliminate the latter condition by imagining a medical computer which monitors your health and instantly teleports you to the nearest hospital should you require assistance. In this medical utopia, humans are near-immortal - and fully one hundred percent of all deaths are iatrogenic.
High rates of iatrogenic events can be indicative of a very bad health care system, but they can also be indicative of precisely the opposite.
Mortality tables. Wonderful things. This link brought to you by the CDC tabulation of all deaths in the United States, set up for rather detailed queries.
Yup, you got it: death, sliced diced and dissected.
How does anyone who demands 100% safety ever make the decision to have a child in the first place? The entire process from conception to birth is fraught with potential disasters from deformity to death.
"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
THE FACTS
â¢No study exists evaluating the General health of the vaccinated vs. non vaccinated populations. There is a bill currently in front of congress, HR2832 to accomplish just this. Please support it, if it makes the senate floor.
â¢No study exists evaluating of the long term impact of 26 vaccines by age 2 on the immune system or overall health.
â¢No study exists evaluating of the safety of multiple shots being given in one day. Our current program requires that as many as 5 shots be given in one day containing 7 vaccines. Existing safety studies only evaluate individual vaccines.
â¢No studies exists addressing Causation or tracking of the 1,322 brain injured children that have been paid settlements by VAERS (Vaccines Adverse Events Reporting System) since 1991.
â¢Thimerosal has not been removed from all vaccines. A full compliment still exists at 10 times the EPA acceptable limit, in all but one brand of Flu vaccines and the tetanus shot, with traces still existing in other vaccines. Also it is still used, as before, in the manufacture of vaccines but is supposed to be removed by filtration by the manufacturer. The FDA only inspects this process at the time of licensure. There are no follow-up inspections conducted and when the filtration process is being used correctly trace amounts of mercury are still allowed. There may well be subsets of children who can not tolerate even trace levels of mercury.
â¢Aluminum is used in excessive levels in childhood vaccines. No studies exist that determine these levels to be safe. I say excessive because the FDA recommends no more the 25mcg injected per day in preemies and those with impaired kidney function via other IV medications. However, on day one of life a newborn receives 250 mcg in the Hep B Vaccine and at each of the 2, 4 and 6 months visits and infant receives 295 mcg to 1225 mcg, depending on the combination of brands.
While the expectation of 100% safety is unrealistic our government agencies, who by the way MANDATE vaccines, should always set a standard of safety as the highest goal. The previous list certainly does not reflect that they are doing that.
Pamela -
No study exists evaluating the General health of the vaccinated vs. non vaccinated populations. There is a bill currently in front of congress, HR2832 to accomplish just this. And whose babies and toddlers will be given placebo injections to make this study possible? One assumes they will denied vaccines and be studied for their entire lifetime.
â¢No study exists evaluating of the long term impact of 26 vaccines by age 2 on the immune system or overall health. You know, compared to the thousands of antigens that a newborn is exposed to during the trip down the birth canal, the stay in the nursrey, and coming home to the family dog or cat ... it's really irrelevant. Contrary to what you may think, the human immune system is not that easy to overwhelm.
â¢No study exists evaluating of the safety of multiple shots being given in one day. As opposed to meeting granny for the first time, and having her purse pooch slobber all over the baby and shed anumal dandre? As opposed to going to a petting zoo and being exposed to kangaroo poop, horse dander, duck feathers, etc. ?? See previous paragraph.
Ah, marvelous retrodiction.
The Francis Field Study found that of the four groups (vaccine, placebo, refuse, and observe) the "refuse" group had a lower rate of polio than either the placebo or observe groups. They were not surprised, since that was a common pattern for the reasons you cite.
What I'm consistently failing to grok is what anti-vaxers would do to ethically decrease the already very small risk of vaccines. Along with public health measures in general, and germ theory (including antibiotics), vaccination has been one of the greatest successes of medical science. Not all public health actions are easy and none(?) are risk-free; incorrectly used antibiotics can be dangerous; and there are assorted risks with vaccines in some people. Excepting the mis-use/over-use of antibiotics, the risks are so small sensible people accept them.
Yes, it'd be nice if the risk could be further reduced. But how? As pointed out by previous commenters, ethical double-blinded trials are impossible. So how?
Never underestimate the power of human self-deception.
If you start from the presumption that vaccines are never justified, then it follows that they don't work and never did. From there you can deduce all sorts of interesting things, such as the harmlessness of smallpox, the necessity of measles to the developing immune system, the discovery that polio was going away on its own before the vaccines were introduced, and so on.
To Tsu Dho Nimh
From Pamela
You failed to make a single valid point.
â¢The vaccinated vs. unvaccinated population study would evaluate the general health of people vaccinated in our current program vs. those who never have been. There would be no placebos and there are ample unvaccinated people in the Amish community and in the home school community where parents have chosen not to vaccinate. No one who wants their children vaccinated would be denied the opportunity. I pray the proposed bill is passed.
â¢Regarding natural exposure and antigens. The number of vaccines is not about excessive antigens. There are actually fewer antigens in our entire schedule than used to exist in the small pox vaccine. The issue is the toxins contained in the shots and the lack of studies to determine appropriate safe limits. For example the aluminum and the fact that safe limits are set at roughly 50mcg by the FDA for adult IV medications but a 2 month old will receive 225 mcg to 1200 mcg in one visit based on the combination of brands. The FDA sets no limit on aluminum exposure in vaccines and safe thresholds have never been determined through studies. Aluminum is used specifically to activate the immune system. Logic would dictate there should be some limit.
â¢To your last attempted point, regarding studies of multiple vaccines in one day. Again, this is not an antigen issue it is a toxicology issue and a question of drug interaction and interaction of the multiple components in the vaccines. Also you fail to recognize that pooch slobber is a natural exposure allowing the immune system to go through its natural process, where as a vaccine is an injection straight into the blood stream containing many additives aside from antigens. This is not a logical comparison.
Better luck next time. Though this has been fun I'm done here... you folks are grossly uneducated on the nature of the concerns.
Again, you miss the concept of confounders. There are also numerous other differences between the general population between home-schoolers and the Amish that would be incredibly difficult to control for. (Besides, the Amish do vaccinate at a fairly high rate.) Mr. Bohlman is correct, and you have no clue difficult such a study would be to do and still control for the numerous huge confounders.
This is the dumbest thing you''ve written yet. IV administration is hugely different from intramuscular administration. It produces a much higher and immediate level; the two are not comparable. Moreover, there is no compelling evidence that aluminum in vaccines causes any harm and plenty of evidence that it is safe.
Finally, spare me the "toxins" gambit. It's nothing more than a transparent moving of the goalposts now that epidemiology and science are failing to find evidence of a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. You'll have to do better than that.
No, it isn't. If you don't believe me, consider the difference between an intramuscular injection of morphine versus an intravenous injection. Intramuscular injections sit in the muscle and are slowly released. That is very different than an injection straight into the vein. An intravenous injection of a vaccine would very likely not produce much of an immune response because the components would be eliminated from the body too quickly.
It appears that Pamela has declared victory and gone home.
http://img363.imageshack.us/my.php?image=toomanyjennycf5.jpg
O.K. so I came back for a peek and since you responded to me directly Orac...I'll play.
Regarding confounders in a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated population study, there would certainly be a good number of confounders between the Amish population and the rest of us. However I do not believe this would render a valid study impossible or not worthwhile. Also there are certainly enough unvaccinated Amish to include in such a study, confounders aside. I did not say that all Amish were unvaccinated. However, I fail to see how this would be true for the Home School community and would love for you to elaborate on what you think those confounders are.
Regarding aluminum -I do stand corrected on the intramuscular vs. IV administration statement. I can admit when I err but please don't respond to me as though I am a regular visitor to your site who repeatedly makes dumb comments. This is disingenuous as I have never visited your blog before today and one misstatement does not completely negate the point. But I have the sense that disingenuous vicious might be your M.O.
I am well aware there is no compelling evidence that aluminum in vaccines causes harm. Science doesn't find something it doesn't look for and I would challenge you to find and post safety studies concerning the use of aluminum in vaccines, specifically ones that address tolerable limits. I am always in search of reasons to restore my trust in the CDC, NIH and IOM.
Regarding toxins - I am not hung up on the thimerosal issue. Mercury is a known neurotoxin. Whether it causes autism or not is yet to be fully proven. However I am tired of the lie that it has been removed from all vaccines.
What I am more concerned about is the general lack of studies regarding the vast toxins in vaccines. Is there any excuse for not doing the science? Former Director of the NIH, Bernadine Healy just came out in support of all of us who have questions about our vaccine program when she said on CBS News that "There is a completely expressed concern that they (government officials) don't want to pursue a hypothesis (link between vaccines and autism) because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large because it might scare people away...However, if you know the susceptible group you can protect them."
She ends the interview with, "The more you delve into it...and you look at the individual cases and the evidence that there is no link, what I come away with is that the question has not been answered."
Regarding Pooch Slobber - let me correct my original statement and leave it this way... Also you fail to recognize that through pooch slobber one experiences natural exposure allowing the immune system to go through its natural process, where as a vaccine in the form of an injection by-passes the natural immune process and contains many additives aside from antigens... additives which lack proper safety studies. Pooch slobber and vaccines are not apples and apples.
My ultimate point is that there are many basic unanswered questions. If you want to reference specific studies regarding vaccine toxins and administration of multiple vaccines in one day, I will definitely read them. I would love to have my faith restored.
Your point about vaccines bypassing anything because they are injected is really no point at all. Show how it is that the body reacts differently to a virus that enters from a scratch or through the mouth or nose and through an injection. I'm dying to get the details. Vaccines are not full of toxins, dear heart. Get a grip.
More religious, more attention from parents, more of a tendency towards a "crunchy" lifestyle with organic foods and such, a tendency towards higher socioeconomic status (one parent has to be able to stay home full time to teach the children, and most lower income families can't afford not to have both parents working), and those are just ones that come to mind off the top of my head.
A comment as blatantly wrong as using the "IV aluminum" canard (it's such a common antivax canard that I gave it a name) needs only be stated once to demonstrate that you don't know what you're talking about. If you did know what you were talking about when it comes to some very basic issues in medicine and immunology beyond antivaccinationists talking points, you would have recognized it immediately as a completely irrelevant red herring. Sorry to be harsh, but think of it as tough love. If I didn't think you were at least semireasonable and thus worth a passing attempt at persuasion, I would have just ignored you as I do most antivaxers who infest my comments.
You want to impress me? Stop spouting easily debunked antivaccinationist talking points about aluminum and vague "toxins" and say something that makes sense. For example, what evidence do you have that all these "toxins" at trace levels are unsafe? Remember, it's impossible ever to remove "all the toxins" from vaccines or any other medicine. They'll always be there in trace amounts. So the question becomes: Are they safe at trace levels. Babies are exposed to more formaldehyde, for example, in a day from household products (plastics, furniture finishes, plywood, and the like) than from any shot.
I did. True, it was an indirect link, but it was a link to a large Cochrane review and a Pediatrics article. There are numerous other articles supporting the safety of vaccines in their current formulation. However, I'm guessing that no matter how many references I were to come up with you'd find a reason to discount them. I sense skill at moving the goalposts in you. These questions have been looked at, just not in the way you want.
Besides, the whole "toxins" thing is a canard, too. Read this, as I explained why a long time ago.
Healy has become a bit of a crank in her old age. She's made over-the-top and ridiculous criticisms of evidence-based medicine and has been commenting in embarrassing ways on cases like that of Terri Schiavo. She isn't always a crank, but she's said some pretty dumb things often enough that I no longer trust her. Remember: Authority matters little, and heads of the NIH are as often politicians as they are competent researchers. Healy was a political hack, and quoting her means little.
Do tell. This is another common antivax canard with a grain of truth (but not nearly enough to make it a valid argument against vaccines). Perhaps you can explain exactly what the difference is. How about humoral immunity? Or antibody-mediated immunity?
Pamela: What I am more concerned about is the general lack of studies regarding the vast toxins in vaccines. Is there any excuse for not doing the science?
"Vast Toxins"?
FYI, the normal formaldehyde level of human blood is about 2.5 ug per ml ... it is produced naturally and is needed for some critical processes. By your standards of "must be formaldehyde free", I couldn't set up a crossmatch for a baby because of the formaldehyde.
a vaccine in the form of an injection by-passes the natural immune process and contains many additives aside from antigens As opposed to the accidental "vaccinations" I have had when a cat sank its fangs into my hand, when a splinter of mesquite wood went through the web between my thumb and forefinger, or when I stepped on a nail and it came out the top of my foot? Care to estimate the hit my immune system had to take for those subcutaneous injections of cat spit, mesquite resins, and all the stuff on that nail?
Also, Pamela, you consistently refer to the ingredients in vaccines as "toxins". I prefer to reserve that name for things like rattlesnake or scorpion venom, botulin and other genuinely toxic substances.
I am kind of curious of how you figure out which kids you leave in the placebo group. Exactly how do you choose which ones get to be more vulnerable to Hib, measles, tetanus and pertussis?
Oh, and forget the Amish... as mentioned before, they are not exactly unvaccinated, and they have some interesting genetic differences (look up Maple Syrup Urine Disease).
Pamela said "If you want to reference specific studies regarding vaccine toxins and administration of multiple vaccines in one day, I will definitely read them. I would love to have my faith restored."
Here, from one review (Pediatric Combination Vaccines:
Their Impact on Patients, Providers, Managed Care Organizations, and Manufacturers by S. Michael Marcy, MD, VOL. 9, NO. 4 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF MANAGED CARE, April 2003).... Which starts with:
BEGIN Quote
Objectives: To review the potential benefits of pediatric combination vaccines to children, parents, providers, managed care organizations, and manufacturers and to discuss the scientific, social, and economic issues that need to be addressed to provide optimum uptake of these vaccines.
Results: Combination vaccines provide multiple advantages
for children, parents, and providers; however, their development involves considerable research and expense to ensure efficacy and safety. As the complexity of these vaccines increases, more extensive laboratory and clinical trials will be needed to ensure antigen compatibility, immunogenicity, and acceptable reactogenicity.
END Quote
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27. Murphy TV, Gargiullo PM, Massoudi MS, et al.
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Tsu Dho Nimh said "other genuinely toxic substances."
Like spasmogenic toxin or tetanospasmin...
(your name looks familiar... like from Usenet --- you know Jan Drew has paid me the best compliment, she claimed I was you! ... http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.health/msg/343a6958dd95668f )
Don't forget there is an ethical side of withholding a vaccine that is known to work from a vast group of kids. These things are thought about:
http://www.nature.com/ni/journal/v5/n5/full/ni0504-465.html
You've got to be kidding. Based upon twin studies, autism is the most heritable of all of the common neurological disorders, demonstrating that there must be a large genetic component. This means that a study would be absolutely worthless unless both the vaccinated and nonvaccinated populations are genetically identical. The Amish, due to their high frequency of in-group marriage, are genetically different from the general population.
Well at least there is an upside to all this....the unvaccinated children won't be around long enough to reproduce and be as stupid as their parents. Natural selection really does work!
I have never been to this site before, but I can say I find the discussion here interesting. I personally am anti vaccine, but the relative dangers of the additives is not the primary reason. For me, it is the lack of proven effectiveness of the vaccines. Also, vegetarians may not care for the practices used to create the vaccines, which involves practices like infecting animals with the disease, and using their blood/serum/pustules to create the vaccines. Some people may have issues with these methodologies.
Another factor I do not see discussed is the unintended viruses and other materials that accompany the desired viral agents. "In 1954 Dr. Bernice Eddy (bacteriologist) discovered live monkey viruses in supposedly sterile inactivated polio vaccine[8] developed by Dr. Jonas Salk. This discovery was not well received at the NIH and Dr. Eddy was demoted. Later Dr. Eddy, working with Sarah Stewart, discovered SE polyoma virus. This virus was quite important because it caused cancer in every animal receiving it. Yellow fever vaccine had previously been found to contain avian (bird) leukemia virus. Later Dr. Hilleman isolated SV 40 virus from both the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines. There were 40 different viruses[9] in these polio vaccines they were trying to eradicate. They were never able to get rid of these viruses ontaminating the polio vaccines. The SV 40 virus causes malignancies. It has now been identified in 43 % of cases of non-Hodgekin lymphoma[10] , 36 % of brain tumors[11] , 18 % of healthy blood samples, and 22 % of healthy semen samples, mesothiolomas and other malignancies. By the time of this discovery SV 40 had already been injected into 10,000,000 people in Salk vaccine. Gastric digestion inactivtes some of SV 40 in Sabin vaccine. However, the isolation of strains of Sabin polio vaccine from all 38 cases of Guillan Barre Syndrome[12] GBS in Brazil suggests that significant numbers of persons are able to be infected from this vaccine. All 38 of these patients had received Sabin polio vaccine months to years before the onset of GBS. The incidence of non-Hodgekin lymphoma has"mysteriouly" doubled since the 1970s. citation: ( 8 Harris RJ et al Contaminant viruses in two live vaccines produced in chick cells.J Hyg (London) 1966 Mar:64(1) : 1-7
I have seen the above in an article by Dr. James Howenstine, and he contends that vaccines are ineffective, and cites instances such as the following: "In 1986 there were 1300 cases of pertussis in Kansas and 90 % of these cases occurred in children who had been adequately vaccinated. Similar vaccine failures have been reported from Nova Scotia where pertussis continues to be occurring despite universal vaccination. Pertussis remains endemic[4] in the Netherlands where for more than 20 years 96 % of children have received 3 pertussis shots by age 12 months."
I do not know the credentials of this Dr. but the issues raised go well beyond the 'toxin' debate and raise concerns about contamination by other viruses and the ineffectiveness
of vaccinations in general.
Care to comment about how stupid I am for not sheepishly following the dangerous vaccination schedule set up by the CDC?
And one more thing. Why do they feel it necessary to vaccinate newborns for hepatitis B, a disease that is acquired through sexual contact or intravenous drug use? Anyone here want to champion that cause? Tell me I am stupid to think giving newborns hep B vaccinations is a unnecessary disease preventative. My baby won't be having sex for a while, nor sharing intravenous drugs.
Orac, you make an excellent point regarding the IM and IP injections vs. intravenous. A little additional thought shows the "toxin" idea doesn't quite make sense.
All actual toxins have a dose-response curve. A larger dose is more toxic than a smaller dose. When a vaccine is injected, the tissue it is injected into is exposed to many orders of magnitude higher concentrations than the remaining body (which is only exposed after the "toxins" diffuse and mix, which dilutes them).
If 0.5 mL of the vaccine mixture is "toxic" to a 20 kg child, wouldn't that 0.5 mL be 10,000 times more toxic to the 2 g of tissue immediately surrounding the injection? If the "toxins" in vaccines were actually toxic at the doses given to entire organisms there should be local effects with the 10,000 times higher local concentration. The tissue at the site of the injection should be killed.
Orac that was really weak. Again, point me to the research that addresses safe levels of aluminum exposure in infants. You have no reason to believe that I move the goal posts, that's just a diversion tactic because you can't deliver.
As to all the folks here who say there are no toxins in vaccines. If the EPA sets safe levels of exposure to a substance then it qualifies as a toxin. If you don't believe toxins, i.e. ethylmercury, aluminum, formaldyhide, ether, msg, etc. exist in vaccines, then go to the FDA website and look at the pharm. inserts from various vaccine packages. The proof is readily available. I fully realize that for most people, low level exposures of these additives are no problem. The two problems that exist are lack of studies to identify tolerable safe limits, specifcally in infants, and studies to identify subsets of people who can not properly excrete toxic additvies. If you knew, based on science, if these subsets exist then we could probably protect them from harm. Likely protect them and vaccinate them.
And please...if you are going to reply to this reply with a provable fact based response not rhetoric and not with something like "their are no toxins in vaccines dear heart." I am totally open to changing my view if I learn, through documented fact, that I am wrong.
MR.P, you really have to be careful who you spout this kind of nonsense to. There are some of us around here who are old enough to remember polio, who had friends who were crippled by us. Where do you suppose polio went, if the vaccines are so ineffective? I received those vaccines. Why am I still alive if those vaccines contained horribly dangerous cancer-causing viruses? You yourself point out that millions of people received those vaccines, so there should be a huge spike in overall cancer death rates and a decrease in life expectancy for that time period. Where is it?
For anybody interested in the facts, here is the CDC info page on the matter, with citations of the original scientific literature
This is, by the way, an excellent example of the "fallacy of the perfect solution," nicely bringing the discussion around Orac's topic. Do you really believe that we should have waited for a perfect polio vaccine, at the price of many, many more children crippled or condemned to spend their lives on respiratory support? There was a case in the news only a few days ago of a woman who died when the power went out and her iron lung failed--an iron lung in which she had spent her entire adult life. Isn't a risk of cancer in later life, even if it were real and serious (which it isn't, see the CDC web page), a reasonable price to pay for people to protect their kids from such a horrible fate?
Does ignoring every point you made and waving your response away with something along the lines of 'that was really weak' qualify?
By that definition there aren't any toxins. The EPA doesn't do exposure limits; that's outside of their scope. They do set limits on environmental releases of nasty things like oxygen and water vapor [1].
Perhaps you're thinking of OSHA? They set limits on oxygen exposure among other things.
[1] It's a gas, it's released by industry. That's the two-part test.
MR.P, a significant fraction of people who get hepatitis B will get prompt liver failure. Even more will get cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer.
Hepatitis B is transmitted in daycare.
Vaccination of infants of infected mothers at birth protects some of them from getting infected by hepatitis B.
Pregnant women could be tested for hepatitis B, but there are false negatives and the risk from a hepatitis B vaccination is very small.
The EPA definately sets exposure limits to a range of chemicals. Google it.
Doesn't common sense dictate that if there are water and air exposure limits set on chemicals that also happen to be in vaccines that there would be studies to determine safe exposure levels to those chemicals when they are injected into our bodies?
If any one would like to learn more. Look at the work of Dr. Richard Deth of Northeastern University. He just testified about the toxic effects of ethylmercury and aluminum in the Autism Omnibus hearings currently before the federal vaccine court.
How many of you are aware the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System has paid out 1322 claims of vaccine induced brain injury since the early 90's. Guess what no studies or tracking of these people have been conducted to to determine exactly what it was about the vaccine that injured them. This would be a great test group for identifying susceptable population and protecting the subset of people.
Do you guys notice, I am not saying "do not vaccinate". I am simply saying that more effort should be put into making them as safe as possible for as many people as possible.
"Then why is it okay that big pharma gets to rate the safety of their own products?"
This rhetorical question not only reflects bad science and worse medicine (which others have addressed, well, above), it also shows complete ignorance of legal standards. See, e.g., Labeling Changes And FDA's Oversight Of Drug Safety, May 13, 2008 at www.hunton.com/emailblast/pdfs/EMKT-1846_FDA_labeling_alert.pdf The article reviews the effects of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA), enacted Sept. 27, 2007. The FDAAA gave the FDA enhanced authorities regarding the post-market safety of drugs. The FDA has been aggressively using its expanded powers and frequently engages in over-warning, even when the science and law does not justify it.
"Big Pharma" is not evaluating the safety of vaccines. In the US, the FDA does that, and can be accused of being more likely to provide warnings of non-problems than failing to warn of possible problems. (Now, if only "homopathic medicines" were under FDA oversight).
For me, it is the lack of proven effectiveness of the vaccines.
I call Poe's law!
Pamela:
If the EPA sets safe levels of exposure to a substance then it qualifies as a toxin.
Thank you for playing, but this one really shows you have not the faintest idea what you are talking about. There are safe and unsafe levels for everything, including vitamins and water for crying out loud.
Pamela:
I am simply saying that more effort should be put into making them as safe as possible for as many people as possible.
Such as?
Pamela:
You seem to have missed this comment, where HCN listed numerous studies that supported combination vaccines.
Orac:
Nice post. As usual. :)
MRP-
Sex and IV drug use are not the only modes of transmission. Horizontal transmission from household contacts and daycare does occur. Children spontaneously clear HBV less efficiently than adults resulting in a greater risk of being chronically infected. HBV treatment in children is not as effective as adults. But the facts speak for themselves. HBV infection rates declined 94% among children aged 0-4 years, 92% among children aged 5-9 years, 93% among those aged 10-14 years since the implementation of vaccination.
Hi Pamela,
that's a good point - you're not against vaccination.
Everyone is entitled to have concerns regardless whether its based on good research or fear mongering. The truth of the matter is that no one can be an absolute expert on everything, including doctors, and this imperfect information can lead to conflicting views.
As neuroscientists, we are not experts on immunology but we are very familiar with various toxins and how it can affect the brain. Most toxins are rapidly digested by powerful enzymes in the liver, and I suspect much of the toxins you listed are not high enough in concentrations to produce acute effects, but that leaves long term effects in question. These effects will probably be extremely minimal considering the fact that there is not a big statistical blimp on vaccine users and various diseases. However, even a small risk, is definitely reasons for concern in any parent and if additional studies could allay some of that fear to encourage more usage, I agree with you that they should be done.
As for now, the benefits of vaccine outweighs the risk. In neuropharmacology, and drugs in general, the therapeutic index is heavily studied - it is the window of concentration levels between the beneficial effects of the drugs and the latency or mortility level. Pharmacology will never be benign - there is always some level of biochemical change that will affect the body, and at certain levels, can kill. Just as too much water or salt, or sugar can.
The importance of this issue is the weighing of costs and benefits, or looking at how wide the therapeutic index is.
I suspect vaccines are one of the few pharmaceutical products that has the largest therapeutic index especially since most of the concerns are not mortality but tied to diseases whose etiology has not be definitively identified.
The benefits of Vaccination far outweighs the proposed risk for it.
Especially in this day where most of the diseases that vaccines target are wiped out, not seeing the ill-effects and pain of these diseases on children may make vaccine seem like an unnecessary medication, but the devastating effects of viruses such as polio on a population mandates that a society be protected.
I appreciate the informative responses to my recent post. I am not agenda-driven here; yes, I have my opinion based on the facts I have reviewed up till now, and I am quite willing to learn, but there are quite a few MD's and other health professionals who strongly disagree with the pro-vaccination arguments presented here. It will take quite a bit of reading/research just to try to sift through all the divergent opinions on both sides, but since the pros have greater numbers here, consider me as playing devil's advocate, again from the position of presenting information that I do not see here, but challenges your 'assumptions'.
So, for the respondent who talked of the polio vaccines effectiveness, it is indisputable, and I am not necessarily advocating a zero vaccine approach, or a 'zero toxins' approach. Just a common sense one. So, on this website; http://alternative-doctor.com/vaccination/user_friendly_schedule.htm
I see such a common sense approach to vaccines.
And the dangers, so frequently derided here, do exist. From the linked article: "The viruses that cause measles, mumps, and chickenpox have infected countless generations of humans, akin to a rite of passage for each member of our species. Contracting these diseases strengthens both parts of the adaptive immune system (Th1 and Th2 ). Mothers who have had measles, mumps, and chickenpox transfer antibodies against them to their babies in utero, which protect them during the first year of life from contracting these infections. Vaccinations do not have the same effect on the immune system as naturally acquired diseases do. They stimulate predominantly the Th2 part of this system and not Th1. (Over-stimulation of Th2 causes autoimmune diseases.) The cellular Th1 side thwarts cancer, and if it does not become fully developed in childhood a person can be more prone to have cancer as an adult. Women who had mumps during childhood, for example, are found to be less likely to have ovarian cancer than women who did not have this infection. (This study was published in Cancer.) Could the fact that cancer has become a leading cause of death in children be a result of vaccinations? Only a randomized controlled trial can conclusively answer this question"
As to the CDC certifying the safety of the recommended vaccination schedule, if they are safe, why has the government, as of the time the articles was written, "the U.S. government has paid out more than $1.5 billion in its Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to families of children who have been injured or killed by vaccines.)"
As to the effectiveness issue, and I have this from many sources, there are reasons for doubt.
Here is a point from the same article, but I could cite others;
"These facts are well known and proudly cited by vaccine proponents. What is less known, and doctors are not taught, is that the death rate for measles declined 97.7 percent during the first 60 years of the 20th century. The mortality rate was 133 deaths per million people in the U.S. in 1900, and had dropped to 0.3 deaths per million by 1960. Measles caused less than 100 deaths a year in the U.S. before there was a vaccine for this disease (in 1963). The same thing happened with diphtheria and pertussis. Mortality rates dropped more than 90 percent in the early 20th century before vaccines for these diseases were introduced. This was due to better nutrition (with rapid delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables to cities and refrigeration), cleaner water, and improved sanitation (removing trash from the streets and better sewage systems), not to vaccines. The World Health Organization promotes mass vaccination, but knowing these facts states, "The best vaccine against common infectious diseases is an adequate diet" - fortified, one might add, with vitamin A."
So, the facts as I see them, and you certainly will rush to challenge my source(s), is that vaccine safety and effectiveness is not a 'given' and there may well be dangers in vaccines we are not even discussing. But, so as not to be vague, consider the dramatic increases in auto-immune diseases among children. Now, perhaps, because of the inherent problems in doing a truly scientific study that follows children for years (not just 6 weeks), you will argue that there is no definitive proof vaccines are harmful.
Well, I am old enough to pre-date mandated MMR vaccinations, so I got immunized the old fashioned way; I got measles, mumps and chickenpox as a child. The number of children who die or are permanently damaged from these usually benign diseases is very small. The number of children permanently injured or damaged from the MMR vaccines; have we followed them long enough to even know?
Josh
This is by far the most intelligent dialogue I have experience here. Thank you.
Your points are very well taken and I think the only way to save the U.S. vaccination program is to get these studies done. Becasue people are concerned and there are no answers to their questions. As it stands now the risk vs. benefit is actually undefined. I am the last person who wants to abandon vaccination all together and see accute illness return at epedimic levels. On the flip side we have an enormous increase in cronic autoimmune disease amongs our children (never mind autism) that has occured in right along side the increase in our vaccination schedule and no one seems to understand why. Until we understand exactly why children, as a population, are the most unhealthy in our countries history the possiblilty of vaccine causation is on the table.
As for my not being anti vaccine...no I absolutley am not. I attended the rally last week and I know many of those who did. They are not disengenuous people. They believed in vaccination and vaccinated and saw what happened to their kids and they have reasonable and intelligent questions given the long list of studies that need to be conducated. And they don't have answers.
Ozzy said: But the facts speak for themselves. HBV infection rates declined 94% among children aged 0-4 years, 92% among children aged 5-9 years, 93% among those aged 10-14 years since the implementation of vaccination.
Posted by: ozzy | June 9, 2008 11:30 AM
Well, where do these facts exist. After a bit of research on horizontal transmission of Hep B, I found a lot of studies from places like Gambia, and Ethiopia, and India etc. Nothing about America (yet). I found one instance of a child infected with hep B infecting another child in a daycare setting; here is the abstract from the study of that incident. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-842X.1997.tb017…
Abstract: Using molecular finger-printing, we provided evidence that, in a children's day-care centre, a known hepatitis B virus (HBV) hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) carrier transmitted HBV to another child (the index case). The chronic HBV carrier had an exudative skin lesion and a history of biting. We sought to identify other at-risk children and prevent further transmission. Blood samples were collected and tested serologically for HBV. Of the 90 other children, 78 (87 per cent) were tested and none had serological evidence of HBV infection; 73 (81 per cent) were of Caucasian background; 38 (49 per cent) had a history of HBV immunisation with serological confirmation. Therefore, 1 (2.4 per cent, 95 per cent confidence interval 1.0 to 12.8 per cent) of the 41 known susceptible contacts became infected. The risk of horizontal HBV transmission in a children's day-care centre is low but not negligible. Staff and children should be vaccinated when a child in a day-care centre is a known HBV carrier.
So, the conclusion is that the risk is low, and vaccination properly given if a child is a known carrier. But let's take a more pro-active approach. Let's say, we should immunize against hep B before enrolling a child in school/daycare. That does not seem too unreasonable on it's face. But that is not what the CDC recommends. They give the shot AT BIRTH, when hep B risk is pretty close to ZERO. Anybody got a reason why that's considered safe and effective?
And the overwhelming majority support vaccination. As a non-expert in the fields of public health and medicine, what special information do you possess that leads you to conclude that the small minority is on the correct side?
You seem to have missed the entire point of this blog post. Vaccines are not 100% safe, and no one has claimed otherwise. (I challenge you to find anything, anywhere that is 100% safe.) So the burden upon you is not to demonstrate that vaccination has risks, but rather to demonstrate that those risks are greater than the risk of not vaccinating.
they have reasonable and intelligent questions given the long list of studies that need to be conducated.
Such as?
Davis says: So the burden upon you is not to demonstrate that vaccination has risks, but rather to demonstrate that those risks are greater than the risk of not vaccinating.
As a non professional (presumably, you are one) I can only read the research of the professionals, and since I am researching the dangers, the professionals I am reading are aware of the dangers in vaccines and cite statistics to support their contentions. I am not a statistician, so maybe Davis, you are, and can show me how the statistics showing sharp increases in auto-immune disease among infants is not vaccine related.
Or explain why in this study of autism where statistics show decline in autism rates when mercury-containing thimerosal was removed...found here: http://www.a-champ.org/congressional_letter_2-22-06.html
An article that linked me to the previous study said this:
The study examined the trend for cases of autism during the period beginning 1994 and ending 2002 compared with the period from 2002 to June, 2005. The trends for increases and decreases of cases of autism found in the VAERS national database were consistent with the trends found in the CDDC California database. Most significantly, in each database the increasing and decreasing trends correlate with the time that the exposure to thimerosal through the immunization schedule was increased and then decreased after removal of mercury containing vaccines. "The consistency of the effects observed for the spectrum of NDs, including autism and speech disorders, and the agreement between the observations from two separate databases, support the conclusion that the effect is real and not a chance observation." The study found that the magnitude of the change in the decreasing trend of cases was significant after removal of mercury from vaccines. Data from the U.S. Department of Education, a third database, showed a recent decrease of autism diagnoses that is consistent with the findings in the two databases.
That article can be found here:http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/020306Neurodevelopmental…
So. Davis, what credentials do you bring to the discussion that invalidates this study?
Anyway, to your point, I only have to demonstrate to myself that the risks of vaccination outweigh the benefits, and clearly I can do that with the hep B vaccine as the post above indicates. I can with the MMR as well.
The burden is upon any parent with children. They often are not given the time or information to make an informed decision (as in the hep B vaccine, administered at birth, but no information given as to why it is necessary). It would be great if we could trust the establishment medical profession (do I even need to finish this sentence?) but with the medical profession's errors being the third leading cause of death in this country, I have trust issues (also based on personal experience)
MR.P, you really have to be careful who you spout this kind of nonsense to. There are some of us around here who are old enough to remember polio, who had friends who were crippled by us. Posted by: trrll | June 9, 2008 8:33 AM
Well, it would be prudent of you to indicate what you would consider nonsense in my post. And I have no idea who you mean by 'us' in 'crippled by us'?
Why am I still alive if those vaccines contained horribly dangerous cancer-causing viruses? You yourself point out that millions of people received those vaccines, so there should be a huge spike in overall cancer death rates and a decrease in life expectancy for that time period. Where is it?
Did you not even read the post you so strenuously are objecting to?
Here, I'll quote my previously posted quote so you can read it: 'Another factor I do not see discussed is the unintended viruses and other materials that accompany the desired viral agents. "In 1954 Dr. Bernice Eddy (bacteriologist) discovered live monkey viruses in supposedly sterile inactivated polio vaccine[8] developed by Dr. Jonas Salk. This discovery was not well received at the NIH and Dr. Eddy was demoted. Later Dr. Eddy, working with Sarah Stewart, discovered SE polyoma virus. This virus was quite important because it caused cancer in every animal receiving it. Yellow fever vaccine had previously been found to contain avian (bird) leukemia virus. Later Dr. Hilleman isolated SV 40 virus from both the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines. There were 40 different viruses[9] in these polio vaccines they were trying to eradicate. They were never able to get rid of these viruses contaminating the polio vaccines. The SV 40 virus causes malignancies. It has now been identified in 43 % of cases of non-Hodgekin lymphoma[10] , 36 % of brain tumors[11] , 18 % of healthy blood samples, and 22 % of healthy semen samples, mesothiolomas and other malignancies. By the time of this discovery SV 40 had already been injected into 10,000,000 people in Salk vaccine. Gastric digestion inactivtes some of SV 40 in Sabin vaccine. However, the isolation of strains of Sabin polio vaccine from all 38 cases of Guillan Barre Syndrome[12] GBS in Brazil suggests that significant numbers of persons are able to be infected from this vaccine. All 38 of these patients had received Sabin polio vaccine months to years before the onset of GBS. The incidence of non-Hodgekin lymphoma has"mysteriouly" doubled since the 1970s. citation: ( 8 Harris RJ et al Contaminant viruses in two live vaccines produced in chick cells.J Hyg (London) 1966 Mar:64(1) : 1-7
I even gave a citation so you can look it up. There is more, but as Jack Nicholson famously said "you can't handle the truth."
And with all due respect; you listed the CDC site looking into the polio vaccine connection to cancer as if it validated your argument. From the website you linked comes this:
"What has research found regarding the health effects of receiving SV40-contaminated vaccine?
The majority of evidence suggests there is no causal relationship between receipt of SV40-contaminated polio vaccine and cancer development; however, some research results in this area are conflicting and more studies are needed. Since the discovery of SV40, several studies have been done to compare cancer rates in groups of individuals known or strongly presumed to have received SV40-contaminated polio vaccine to rates in persons known or strongly presumed not to have received SV40-contaminated vaccine. A brief description of some of these studies follows."
It says the majority of studies show no connection, but some do. There is nothing to suggest which studies are more accurate in depicting any connection or lack thereof.
In fact, they actually cite these, among others:
n 1999, Fisher and colleagues reported increased rates of ependymomas, osteogenic sarcomas, other bone tumors, and mesotheliomas among people who were potentially exposed to SV40-contaminated polio vaccine. However, the number of cases in this study was too small to draw any statistically valid conclusions.
Farwell et al. (1979) found that of 15 cases of medulloblastoma in children born in Connecticut between 1956-1962, 10 were born to mothers exposed to SV40 contaminated polio vaccine while 5 were born to mothers unexposed. Interpretation of these results, however, is hampered by the low response rates and uncertain accuracy of vaccination histories by obstetricians (Strickler et al., 1998).
Of course I selected the two that showed a cancer effect to make a point, which the CDC also makes; to wit: "the possible role of SV40 in human cancers is not fully understood and is the topic of continued research."
Truth be told, they just do not really know.
One other point trrll; I also linked to a site advocating a reasonable approach to vaccinations. I am sure that you have not visited that site before taking issue with me, because you would have seen that the site recommends getting the following re; polio: "Polio (the Salk vaccine, cultured in human cells)"
Next time, as Clapton says, 'before you accuse me, take a look at yourself."
Davis says: So the burden upon you is not to demonstrate that vaccination has risks, but rather to demonstrate that those risks are greater than the risk of not vaccinating.
Note that you never address this point. You ramble on about dangers of vaccination, but that was not the question.
can show me how the statistics showing sharp increases in auto-immune disease among infants is not vaccine related.
Really. Point me to those statistics, please.
Or explain why in this study of autism where statistics show decline in autism rates when mercury-containing thimerosal was removed...
A-CHAMP? Are you joking?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/09/a_bad_day_for_antivaccination…
An article that linked me to the previous study said this: [blah blah blah] VAERS [blah blah blah]
Okay, out of the pool and thank you for playing. The VAERS database is absolute garbage for this type of information.
Most significantly, in each database the increasing and decreasing trends correlate with the time that the exposure to thimerosal through the immunization schedule was increased and then decreased after removal of mercury containing vaccines.
Only if you squint. And hold the data sideways. And really, really, really believe.
The study found that the magnitude of the change in the decreasing trend of cases was significant after removal of mercury from vaccines.
No such study exists. Sorry.
Then you link to an Alex Jones site for crying out loud. You are your own parody.
Davis, what credentials do you bring to the discussion that invalidates this study?
A brain, I presume.
Anyway, to your point, I only have to demonstrate to myself that the risks of vaccination outweigh the benefits,
What? Only if you keep your disease-incubator child at home 24x7 until death you part. This, unlike your previous silliness, is ACTIVELY DANGEROUS. Stay the hell away from me.
It would be great if we could trust the establishment medical profession (do I even need to finish this sentence?)
There must be an island somewhere where you can move to and not endanger people with your conspiracy lunacy.
Ah, now I get it. Polio vaccines were contaminated 50 years ago. Ergo, vaccines bad.
How stupid of me.
Gee Stuv, the mountain of evidence you present is overwhelming. Not one fact do you present to support any of your points.
No one is endangered by a free and open discussion of ideas, unless you have a vested interest in denying the truth.
I have presented, in previous postings today, evidence that diseases such as measles, had already declined prior to mass vaccinations:
"These facts are well known and proudly cited by vaccine proponents. What is less known, and doctors are not taught, is that the death rate for measles declined 97.7 percent during the first 60 years of the 20th century. The mortality rate was 133 deaths per million people in the U.S. in 1900, and had dropped to 0.3 deaths per million by 1960. Measles caused less than 100 deaths a year in the U.S. before there was a vaccine for this disease (in 1963). The same thing happened with diphtheria and pertussis. Mortality rates dropped more than 90 percent in the early 20th century before vaccines for these diseases were introduced. This was due to better nutrition (with rapid delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables to cities and refrigeration), cleaner water, and improved sanitation (removing trash from the streets and better sewage systems), not to vaccines. The World Health Organization promotes mass vaccination, but knowing these facts states, "The best vaccine against common infectious diseases is an adequate diet" - fortified, one might add, with vitamin A."
Take issue with something factual before you selectively fragment my points to ridicule them or their source. Or are you refuting the above statement by the author and the WHO?
If you have information (these are called facts)that would invalidate these points, I would like to see them. Just because I cite a source, does not mean I believe everything that comes from that source. I said earlier I am playing devil's advocate somewhat, because I wanted to see if your side (pro vaccination) could bring to bear facts to sopport your contentions. Many of you can only respond with insults, and the perceptive reader realizes that's all you have.
I read these insulting and misinformed posts, but get nothing of value from them. It would be nice if you had something factual to say. "The VAERS database is absolute garbage for this type of information." Is that your opinion or an established fact?
Here; let me show you how.
There is medical evidence that vaccines can and do cause harm. http://www.vaclib.org/email/hepbdang.htm
Citation:I have now been in contact with numerous physicians from several countries, who have independently described the identical severe reactions in thousands of Caucasians. It is obvious that their observations have been, for the most part denied or ignored by the public health systems, as is evidenced by the serious charges against healthcare officials and pharmaceutical companies brought recently in France. I can assure you that the reversal of the vaccine mandate for children in France was not based on lack of documentation. I have now been contacted personally by hundreds or more individuals (including children) with severe health problems and life long disabilities resulting in major medical costs following the administration of this vaccine. In my experience, as with my colleagues, virtually all of these individuals are Caucasians (clearly indicating a genetic linkage)."
That quote is part of a letter written to the head of the Texas dept of health and the official in charge of vaccinations. The author is: "My name is Bonnie Dunbar and I am a research scientist and medical graduate student professor who has worked in the areas of autoimmunity and vaccine development for over twenty five years (the past 17 years at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston).
She has credentials. She has facts.
Where are yours?
She says this:As I have worked extensively in vaccine development I am extremely sensitive to the need to evaluate the risk vs. benefits of any vaccine. Because of my established expertise in this area, it became immediately apparent to me that these two active, healthy individuals working in my laboratory developed "autoimmune" syndromes at a predictable immunilogical time frame following their booster injections to the Hepatitis B vaccine. After carrying out extensive literature research on this vaccine, it became immediately apparent that the serious adverse side effects of this vaccine (which appear to be related to the nature of the viral protein itself), may be more significant than generally known (or admitted)."
Go ahead, disprove her assertions, I'll check back later for your informed response. \sarcasm.
"I have presented, in previous postings today, evidence that diseases such as measles, had already declined prior to mass vaccinations"
Actually, what you presented is evidence that the death rate had declined. Infectious diseases can have negative side effects other than death, which vaccination can prevent. And even if a disease can be treated effectively enough to prevent death, vaccination is much cheaper and easier, with a lower public health cost, than treatment.
I was perhaps too generous in calling your statement evidence, as well. You quoted from a dubious source, and the quote itself cited no sources.
No one is endangered by a free and open discussion of ideas, unless you have a vested interest in denying the truth.
In medicine, mere ideas are worthless. Assertions are worthless. Anecdotes are worthless. Biased, bad research is worthless.
By the way, I'm sure that I'll get my Big Pharma Shill payola any day now. Whew, you sure caught me there.
I have presented, in previous postings today, evidence that diseases such as measles, had already declined prior to mass vaccinations
Okidoki, yes, fantastic. At no point did I say anything on that subject, but fine. Better hygiene and diet help. What is your point, exactly?
What is less known, and doctors are not taught, is that the death rate for measles declined 97.7 percent during the first 60 years of the 20th century.
So this is hidden from doctors? Doctors are unaware of this? Are you serious?
Take issue with something factual before you selectively fragment my points to ridicule them or their source.
I wasn't addressing this "point" at all, but hey. Whatever floats your boat.
Again, what's your point here? That measles is not a dangerous disease?
http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/yellowBookCh4-Measles.aspx
"Encephalitis, frequently resulting in permanent brain damage, occurs in approximately 1 per 1000-2000 cases of measles. The risk of severe complications and death is higher among children younger than 5 and adults older than 20 years of age (8)."
Walk in the park, obviously. Good times.
If you have information (these are called facts)that would invalidate these points, I would like to see them.
Take your strawman and stuff it.
Just because I cite a source, does not mean I believe everything that comes from that source.
Could've fooled me.
Many of you can only respond with insults, and the perceptive reader realizes that's all you have.
Not all opinions are equal. Many deserve derison. Dangerous ones, like anti-vax, deserve to be insulted. Or do you feel that we need to have an open exchange of ideas about my new Mandatory Mercury Enema program? That that program deserves careful consideration?
It would be nice if you had something factual to say.
"The VAERS database is absolute garbage for this type of information." Is that your opinion or an established fact?
For starters:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/01/how_vaccine_litigation_distor…
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/03/mercury_and_autism_foreordain…
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2006/03/paper_finds_mercury_does_caus…
"the VAERS database is designed only as an early warning system for reporting adverse events thought to be due to vaccines. It is not designed to track the incidence or prevalence of vaccine complications. One reason is that anyone can make entries into it, not just medical professionals, and the results are only checked in the most perfunctory way. For example, as Jim Laidler described before, it takes entering something like a claim that a vaccine turned one into The Incredible Hulk in order to get the staff there to question the entry."
There is medical evidence that vaccines can and do cause harm.
Not a soul here has said otherwise. Take this strawman, stuff it and put it with the other ones.
Nothing is completely safe. The question is whether not vaccinating is safer than vaccinating. Which again, you choose to ignore. Wisely, in a way.
http://www.vaclib.org/email/hepbdang.htm
Citation:I have now been in contact with numerous physicians from several countries
Poe. Poe Poe Poe. You are quoting a citation. Of second-hand anecdotes. From a site called "Vaccination Liberation".
My dog says she loves vaccinations. QED.
That quote is part of a letter written to the head of the Texas dept of health and the official in charge of vaccinations.
Wow. A letter. Awesome.
She has credentials. She has facts.
You obviously do not know what "fact" means.
Where are yours?
I'll give you facts as soon as you try to make a point. Still waiting. What is your point?
it became immediately apparent to me that these two active, healthy individuals working in my laboratory developed "autoimmune" syndromes at a predictable immunilogical time frame following their booster injections to the Hepatitis B vaccine.
One person has two un-researched anecdotal cases. These are your facts?
After carrying out extensive literature research on this vaccine, it became immediately apparent that the serious adverse side effects of this vaccine (which appear to be related to the nature of the viral protein itself), may be more significant than generally known (or admitted)."
Go ahead, disprove her assertions,
Her assertions that the effects "may" be more significant? Okay, as soon as you disprove my assertion that auto-immune disease is caused by the Great Green Arkleseizure.
See how that works? Assert something testable. Make a point. Then we'll discuss that point.
What is your point?
Dangit, another monster comment hung up in moderation. I hope it doesn't disappear like the one I did a few days ago.
Pamela:
I'm mostly an amateur when it comes to public health issues, but as a civil engineer, this one's up my alley.
Assuming this is what you mean by the "EPA safe levels", it's absolutely not reasonable to equate the EPA drinking water maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) to an equivalent safe dose in a vaccine. The EPA water MCLs are based on the maximum safe dose for long-term exposure in relatively large amounts -- a baby consumes orders of magnitude more water in a day than he/she would receive during an injection. Babies don't drink vaccines every day.
Also, as a mild corollary, the EPA regulates the amount of disinfectant present in water, even though too much disinfectant can cause nervous system issues in small children. Just because it can be unhealthy in large doses doesn't make it a toxin to be eliminated.
Derp. That last paragraph should be:
Also, as a mild corollary, the EPA regulates the amount of disinfectant present in water, since too much disinfectant can cause nervous system issues in small children, but eliminating disinfectant altogether can lead to dangerous amounts of microoganisms. Just because something can be unhealthy in large doses doesn't make it a toxin to be eliminated at all costs.
Natalie; thanks for replying. The evidence for the decline in communicable diseases is pretty unambiguous; whether or not to attribute these declines to vaccinations is debatable. You called my source dubious; why is that? Are you a health professional with access to data that refutes the dubious source?
And I would think a decline in the death rate by over 97% would be a positive, but you seem not to agree, and give the vague assertion that other side effects can be prevented by vaccination. A good but fact-less point. You seem to be avoiding the fact that vaccinations too cause side effects. Death is one of them.
In the case of hep B, which no one here seems to be able to give a reason for, especially in the U.S. where it is mandated for all newborns (someone with credibility please explain to me why that is. I honestly do not understand the benefit versus risk here.)
there is evidence that the vaccine is, indeed doing more harm than good. I have seen this same information elsewhere, but here is one link
http://www.naturodoc.com/library/bio-war/HepB.htm
And an excerpt: "Hepatitis B is a viral disease associated with risky lifestyle choices such as intravenous drug use or promiscuous sex. This virus causes a dangerous and miserable infection that can have long-lasting debilitating effects on the liver, so taking steps to prevent Hepatitis B is a good idea for those at risk.
For infants, Hepatitis B is an especially serious disease. If a pregnant mother carries this virus, it is certainly important to protect her baby from the disease.
However, most normal infants are at low risk for this disease. Infant infections are typically found only in babies born to a Hepatitis B-positive mother, and tests can determine who carries or is infected with the virus. By screening the mothers, only those babies who are at risk would need to be vaccinated at birth.
Perhaps any attempt at prevention would be a good bet if the vaccine were harmless, but it's not. Today there are more reports of adverse reactions from the vaccine than there are reported cases of the disease in children. Data created by the government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in 1996 confirm 872 serious adverse events in children under 14 years of age who had been injected with Hepatitis B vaccine. These kids were either taken to an emergency room, had life-threatening health problems, were hospitalized, or were disabled following the vaccination. 214 had the Hepatitis B vaccine alone, and the rest received it in combination with other vaccines. 48 kids died after being injected with Hepatitis B vaccine in 1996, and 13 of them had received the Hepatitis B vaccine alone just before they died. In contrast, in 1996 only 279 cases of Hepatitis B disease were reported in children under age 14."
Although the stats coming from the VAERS were disparaged here earlier as trash, I saw no evidence to support it from the trasher. I checked on my own, and true enough, the VAERS database is suspect. And very suspect in the case of hep B, but not in the way you would think. The problem is that they estimate only one percent of the cases of adverse side effects are reported. So, the actual incidence could be 100 times higher, if reported accurately.
No doubt you will cite this as an 'un-reputable source'. That's fine. Stick to the facts; what is the rationale behind vaccinating ALL NEWBORNS against a disease only likely to occur in young adults and older, and is a result of lifestyle choices; sex and drug needle sharing.
Another quote for you:The World Health Organization only recommends infant vaccination for Hepatitis B in areas where carrier prevalence is 2 percent or greater. This does not apply to the U.S., except for certain ethnic groups in Alaska. But current U.S. health policy is based on an exaggerated perception of the prevalence of Hepatitis B, and here vaccination is required for every newborn."
So, against the recommendations of the WHO, this vaccine is mandated for all newborns. I contend this is more about pharmaceutical profits than it is about the health and well-being of Americans.
The evidence for the decline in communicable diseases is pretty unambiguous;
Are you implying anyone here claimed otherwise?
whether or not to attribute these declines to vaccinations is debatable.
No, you human strawman-factory. A lot of diseases declined as diet and hygiene improved. Some diseases have been eradicated in countries since vaccinations started there.
You called my source dubious; why is that?
Because it is. Do we have to do all your research for you?
Are you a health professional with access to data that refutes the dubious source?
It's called pubmed. Go forth.
And I would think a decline in the death rate by over 97% would be a positive, but you seem not to agree,
Yet another straw-man. She did not disagree with that in the least.
and give the vague assertion that other side effects can be prevented by vaccination. A good but fact-less point.
Umm... if a vaccine prevents a disease, it prevents its side-effects. That is hardly factless. Actually, that would be a "fact", not a "point". Do you need a dictionary?
You seem to be avoiding the fact that vaccinations too cause side effects. Death is one of them.
And who here disputed that? You know, you could sell straw-men for a living.
In the case of hep B, which no one here seems to be able to give a reason for, especially in the U.S. where it is mandated for all newborns (someone with credibility please explain to me why that is. I honestly do not understand the benefit versus risk here.)
I actually agree with you there. Barring the mother being infected, it seems odd to mandate Hepatitis B.
Data created by the government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) [...] Although the stats coming from the VAERS were disparaged here earlier as trash, I saw no evidence to support it from the trasher.
My full refutation is held up in moderation, but please stop using VAERS. It is ridiculous to do so.
I contend this is more about pharmaceutical profits than it is about the health and well-being of Americans.
Well, that didn't take long. Chalk up another conspiracy theorist.
As an student of Epidemiology, the calls for studies looking at vaccinated and unvaccinated children are... rather horrifying.
I mean, for a disease as rare as autism (and it is still fairly rare), let alone some of the other conditions that have been errantly "linked" to vaccines, we're talking about a massive study. Thousands of children deliberately not given vaccines, probably enough to destroy herd immunity in the population around the centers administering the study, and a foot hold for the infections to reestablish themselves.
That's what the anti-vaccine groups are calling for. The limited studies we can do have all failed to pass their invisible "standards of proof" where they claim they will be convinced. So they want thousands of children to be put at risk of truly horrific, and entirely preventable deaths, to satisfy their curiousity, rooted in shoddy science. The reason it hasn't been conducted is I can't imagine a respectable scientist saying "Yes, this is a good idea", nor a respectable IRB approving it.
I personally am anti butt wiping and anti hand washing; these things upset our immune systems and should be discouraged.
The burden of proof is upon those who make the positive claim that the increases are vaccine-related.
VAERS stands for "Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System". It has nothing to do with tracking autism rates, and using it for this purpose is dishonest. Using the US Dept. of Education data, one finds no decline in the rate: source.
Knowledge of the scientific method.
To clearly demonstrate that the risks outweigh the benefits, you need to roughly show that the rate of adverse effects of vaccination together with the seriousness of those effects outweigh the rate and seriousness of the disease. So what is the rate of adverse effects of Hep B? How serious are the effects, typically? What is the rate of Hep B in a non-vaccinated population? How serious are those effects?
You have not answered those questions; you have not "clearly" shown anything thus far besides an unevidenced assertion.
Gee StuV; you have again engaged in a point by point selective argument and avoided responding to my direct questions, and I am king of the straw man argument?
I said: You seem to be avoiding the fact that vaccinations too cause side effects. Death is one of them.
You said; And who here disputed that? You know, you could sell straw-men for a living.
I was replying to this: "Infectious diseases can have negative side effects other than death, which vaccination can prevent."
Then I presented a link to an article which provided statistics to demonstrate the point. That, in fact, the adverse side effects reported were greater than the incidence of disease they were intended to prevent, and these have economic and health consequences for those unfortunates.
So, no, not a straw man argument but a direct reply to a statement, supported by an article with statistics which you choose, without justification, to disparage.
And You said: "And I would think a decline in the death rate by over 97% would be a positive, but you seem not to agree,
Yet another straw-man. She did not disagree with that in the least.
She did in the sense that she suggested, without facts or evidence to support her suggestion, that the statistics merely addressed mortality rates and not the side effects that came from those contracting the disease, in this case measles. No evidence to support those many people who received and suffered from the side effects, just that they probably occurred. So, in essence, she said it's great the death rate came down but what about the many who suffered from the side effects of the disease, again without factual support. That is what I meant by turning a positive into a negative.
Here's the thing. I have opinions. You have opinions. I cite facts to support those opinions. I came by these opinions over time, and through experiences with the medical profession and public health agencies, school officials etc. This was over twenty years ago, when my daughter was an infant. I did not vaccinate then. Now I am a grandfather,. and I was appalled when my newborn grandchild received the hep B vaccination (did not exist in 1987) even though she was fighting for her life due to complications at birth, so I went back and did the research.
StuV, you strike me as someone looking for an argument so you can smugly score your points. If I mis characterize your responses by saying this, sorry man. I am not looking for an argument, I am looking for the truth, and the facts. You can nitpick my comments all you want, if that gets you off, but I am thinking about an innocent life being threatened by bad public policy.
StuV, it took you all that verbiage to reach the conclusion, finally, that the hep B vaccine for newborns is a pretty stupid idea, and as I said, more about Merck's profits than it is about public health.
I don't get it. You agree that the vaccination of newborns, all newborns, regardless of the Mother's health status, is a bad idea. But, when I attribute this bad idea to being about corporate profits, I am suddenly a conspiracy theorist.
That would mean, you have an alternate theory to explain this odd mandated use of the vaccine.
I would love to read that fact-filled treatise, but I came here looking for facts to challenge my low opinion of vaccination schedules, in general, and hep B specifically.
And by the way, I have not said here that I oppose all vaccinations in all circumstances. I am challenging the conventional wisdom and application of vaccination schedules when there is a great deal of evidence to oppose such policies. And all I got was people looking for a fight. I guess I'll keep looking for the truth elsewhere, because I'm sure not getting much from the posters here. Here it's like going to a Republican website and arguing against the war in Iraq; you get character assassination and disparagement but little that is factual.
MR.P-
Typo. Should read 'virus. I take it that you regard it as pure coincidence that the virus disappeared once the polio vaccine be came widely available. And that the only places in the world where it still persists are those that lack effective polio vaccine coverage.
Try applying a little basic logical thinking. These vaccines were administered to an entire generation--millions of people. So if there was a cancer risk that came even close to the risk posed by polio itself, nobody would be quibbling about "which studies are more accurate in depicting any connection or lack thereof." There would be a glaring spike in the cancer death statistics for all to see, and there would be no debate about it. People of my generation who received those virus-contaminated vaccines would be wondering why their classmates were all dead of cancer. But of course, we aren't. I just visited some of my friends from high school, by the way--all of them are still living aside from one who died in Vietnam. It is, as everybody knows, impossible to prove a negative, so nobody will ever be able to prove that the cancer risk is absolutely zero. But if it even came close to approaching the risk that polio posed when it was prevalent, the impact on the cancer statistics would be so obvious that there would be no room for debate. What we know from the statistics is that the cancer risk of those vaccines is very, very close to zero. The only question about which reasonable men might differ is whether the cancer risk is actually zero, or merely negligibly small.
I'll retract this bit, as I hadn't seen the relevant data posted as I was writing my comment:
If the numbers are correct, I'm willing to acknowledge Hep B vaccination is a poor candidate for being mandatory. But I'm extremely skeptical that the numbers show a similar state of affairs for MMR, and most of the other childhood vaccinations.
trll;
you went a long way to argue against my opposition to the polio vaccine. This is pretty typical of the logic and reasoned arguments I see here.
Listen, I spent a good bit of time today trying to get to the facts, and all I get is insults and a total lack of understanding from the posters here. Re-read my posts, I am NOT AGAINST ALL VACCINATIONS and I cited the polio vaccine as one that was effective and I support.
However, there are studies that do show the cancer causing virus:
1999, Fisher and colleagues reported increased rates of ependymomas, osteogenic sarcomas, other bone tumors, and mesotheliomas among people who were potentially exposed to SV40-contaminated polio vaccine. However, the number of cases in this study was too small to draw any statistically valid conclusions.
Farwell et al. (1979) found that of 15 cases of medulloblastoma in children born in Connecticut between 1956-1962, 10 were born to mothers exposed to SV40 contaminated polio vaccine while 5 were born to mothers unexposed. Interpretation of these results, however, is hampered by the low response rates and uncertain accuracy of vaccination histories by obstetricians (Strickler et al., 1998).
Sure, these are not large studies, but why can you not acknowledge that a cancer causing virus was a component of the polio vaccine. You gave me the CDC link, where I found this:
The majority of evidence suggests there is no causal relationship between receipt of SV40-contaminated polio vaccine and cancer development; however, some research results in this area are conflicting and more studies are needed."
So, the majority of evidence show no causal relationship, but there are conflicting reports, so actually NOBODY REALLY KNOWS. That includes you.
You too, are just looking for someone to argue with. I'm outta here, you people have your minds made up and are ready to pounce on anyone who disagrees.
Too bad...your kids may also be at risk. If only there were some way for you to remove the blinders. 23% of the population still supports G W Bush. May explain the naysayers here...how many of you naysayers are still behind our fearless leader, huh?
Mr P --
You will get this reaction every time you quote biased, fringe sources with nothing more than anecdotes as "facts".
I'll stop nitpicking intent and semantics. People have given you facts and you have chosen to ignore them. That we challenge you on your sources and your logic should come as no surprise; it is, after all, the foundation of scientific thought.
Here is a simple question of basic logic: why is it fallacious to compare the rate of vaccine side effects to the rate of the disease in a vaccinated population?
Here is a hint: Suppose that a vaccine is 100% effective in preventing the harmful effects of a disease, and that (like all real therapies) the vaccine has a nonzero incidence of side effects. What will be the ratio of adverse effects of the vaccine to adverse effects of the disease in the vaccinated population?
By the way, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System does not do verification of reports. It includes any report, even if nonsensical, in which somebody suspects that an illness may be related to a vaccine. It is not limited to medical personnel, and anybody can submit a report. It is important to collect such unverified reports as raw data that might suggest hypotheses as to possible adverse effects of vaccines, but nobody who understood the system would honestly turn to it as a source of statistical data about adverse effect incidence. There are methods of evaluating incidence, such as surveys of medical records, but this is not one of them.
So if someone has the gall to challenge your unevidenced assertions, they must be Bush supporters?
You really don't have a leg to stand on if you're trotting out this garbage.
Shorter MrP:
Polio vaccines were contaminated with a virus 50 years ago and that caused cancer.
What that has to do with anything, I will not say. I will also pretend that this argument (for what, I also will not say) has been addressed twice, once ridiculed and once debunked. I will say that NOBODY KNOWS, and now I will take my ball and go home, because you are all meanies.
If the numbers are correct, I'm willing to acknowledge Hep B vaccination is a poor candidate for being mandatory. But I'm extremely skeptical that the numbers show a similar state of affairs for MMR, and most of the other childhood vaccinations.
Posted by: Davis | June 9, 2008 5:45 PM
Hey, that's all I've been trying to say. The same people who insist the hep B vaccination is safe, effective, and NECESSARY are saying the same about MMR and the other dubious vaccines, like flu.
My point is, the evidence is not all in favor of vaccines, and hep B was the easiest to dispute, for reasons which should now be obvious. I don't have the time or patience to take these one-by-one and find the research that supports my ant-vaccination position, and again, I am not against ALL vaccinations. But, I am against most, and am still skeptical about the ones I feel are probably needed.
You would think the people arguing here have some kind of personal stake in the matter of whether I or my children are to be vaccinated. Is that it, you represent pharmaceutical companies? I do not understand why you feel so strongly about this, that you are willing to accept what is fed you by those with a vested interest in getting you to agree to be vaccinate4d. If a well respected caring medical professional and researcher into vaccinations, comes out against them, for valid medical reasons, why do people here have to disparage the source. These people honestly are concerned about dangerous medical practices, and I would single out Bonnie Dunbar, cited above, for her work along these lines. If you choose to ignore her voice and similar voices, it is at your own peril
Too many Right Wing Authoritarians here (yeah, look it up, you fit the profile) are quick to buy into the Pharma/Govt line that we must do these things... remember the anthrax scare of 2001, when they tried to scare everyone into getting the anthrax vaccine. The program collapsed because first responders (the first scheduled to be vaccinated) refused the vaccine on medical grounds.
Sheesh, you people have short memories.
Good luck living in your bubble!
N.C.
I agree with every thing you said here but my point was missed. I am simply saying if the EPA sets limits on external environmental exposures then shouldn't the FDA being setting limits on injected exposures to those same chemicals? If there is a limit to what we drink and breath there should be a limit to what we inject.
I don't have the time or patience to take these one-by-one and find the research that supports my ant-vaccination position
Indeed. You'd be looking for a LONG time. That's kind of the point.
I do not understand why you feel so strongly about this,
Because not vaccinating puts EVERYONE AT RISK.
that you are willing to accept what is fed you by those with a vested interest in getting you to agree to be vaccinated.
Vaccines are cheap. Big Pharma is much more interested in Viagra than MMR, trust me. I know, I work for them -- oops, I wasn't supposed to say that.
Yes, that was snark.
Anyway, you hold this position while quoting sources whose entire livelyhood depends on discrediting vaccines to sell quack remedies? Hello?
why do people here have to disparage the source
Because anecdotes are not data.
Right Wing Authoritarians
That made me spill my soda. Good one!
Since moderation is eating my posts, I will take my ball and go home now.
Pamela wrote:
"So, for the respondent who talked of the polio vaccines effectiveness, it is indisputable, and I am not necessarily advocating a zero vaccine approach, or a 'zero toxins' approach. Just a common sense one. So, on this website; http://alternative-doctor.com/vaccination/user_friendly_schedule.htm
I see such a common sense approach to vaccines."
Pamela: A basic thing that you need to do when looking at information and sites on the internet is to check the credentials of the person making the assertion. The site you provide is to A User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule
by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD. By googling "Donald W. Miller, Jr.", I quickly found that Dr. Miller is:
"Donald W. Miller, Jr., is a professor of surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. He received his M.D. degree from Harvard and did his cardiothoracic surgery residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He has written two books on heart surgery and one, Heart in Hand, on the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, films of Woody Allen, and his life as a heart surgeon. He also writes articles for LewRockwell. com, which includes pieces on the importance of integrative medicine for maintaining optimum health."
He's way outside his areas of expertise when discussing childhood vaccines. That's not to say that he doesn't raise valid questions for parents to discuss with their children's primary care providers. However, Dr. Green's opinions are not to be given more weight than they are entitled -- i.e., he's a medical doctor and a cardiac surgeon, but he isn't an expert in any field directly relevant to those involve in the risks and benefits of childhood vaccinations. Thus, while, as a M.D., he raises questions worth asking, he isn't qualified to be considered an authority whose opinions can be relied on.
Mr. P: I noted that all of the studies you cited, in addition to being fairly old, also involved very small numbers. No confirmatory studies have been cited. Prometheus at A Photon In the Darkness is currently addressing problems with evaluating such studies. You might want to check that blog, as it may answer some of your objections.
StuV, try to limit your responses to two or less URLs. Sometimes I have noticed that I have difficulty elsewhere with ANY URL, so I will mung up the address. So with a little bit of effort you can see what it is. Like here:
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=308#comment-3559
Also, wfjag is pointing to this blog:
http://photoninthedarkness.com/
N.C.
I agree with every thing you said here but my point was missed. I am simply saying if the EPA sets limits on external environmental exposures then shou ldn't the FDA being setting limits on injected exposures to those same chemicals? If there is a limit to what we drink and breath there should be a limit to what we inject.
I doubt if you realize just how revealing this statement is. Essentially, you are admitting that you start with a position and then go out to "find the research that supports it." This is very much in contrast to the way that a scientist thinks, who starts with a question and then evaluates the evidence on both sides to answer the question.
I do indeed have a personal stake. Not because I work for a drug company; I am an independent, academic biologist. And as others have pointed out, there is not a lot of money in vaccines anyway, because most people take only a few doses. The big money is in things that people take every day--vitamins, for example. My personal stake is that I remember a time when dangerous diseases such as polio, measles, and whooping cough went unchecked, and I believe that people like you are putting my family and friends at risk to their health and their very lives.
Or to put it in correct scientific terms, Fisher and colleagues failed to find any statistically valid increase in cancers in people who were exposed to the vaccine.
Or to put in in correct scientific terms, they failed to find any statistically valid increase in cancer among people who were exposed to the vaccine as compared to those who were not.
And you still haven't acknowledged the fundamental idiocy of harping on these tiny statistically invalid studies of 10 or 15 people when these virus-contaminated vaccines were given to millions of people, myself included. So if they actually posed any appreciable risk, there should have been a huge spike in the cancer death rate in my generation. It never happened. So while it is undoubtedly true that "some research results in this area are conflicting and more studies are needed," to find out whether the risk of SV40 contaminated polio vaccine was actually zero, or merely very, very close to zero, we do know with absolute certainty that the cancer risk--if any--was negligible. Once again, this reveals how you ignore the overwhelming and obvious evidence in your search for research to support your "antivaccine position."
"Could the fact that cancer has become a leading cause of death in children be a result of vaccinations? Only a randomized controlled trial can conclusively answer this question"
Vaccinations absolutely are one reason that cancer is one of the top 10 causes of death in children. Better plumbing and nutrition knocked out many of the causes, such as rickets and diarrhea and cholera. Antibiotics helped bacterial infections (strep throat, rheumatic fever).
It's because vaccinations and other medical advances eliminated or seriously decreased the number of childhood deaths from: Smallpox, diptheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles (combined with O2 therapy and antibiotics against the pneumonia), and polio.
Remember: there will always be a "leading causes of death" list.
Tsu Dho Nimh said "Remember: there will always be a "leading causes of death" list."
From http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/ the leading cause of death for children between 1 and 4 years old are accidents. And of those, less than half are for motor vehicle accidents. These are things like leaving a kid in the bath alone or not making sure a second floor window is secure (ever hear Eric Clamton's song "Tears in Heaven", about his young son falling out a window?). The 2nd most common cause of death are congenital anomalies, and the 3rd are cancers.
Now for children between the age of 5 to 14 the main cause of death is still accidents, but the motor vehicle deaths are now more than half! This is kids not being properly secured, or sitting in front of an airbag. The 2nd most common cause is now cancers, where the third is "Homicide and legal intervention". Now try to figure that one out!
Now for 15 to 24 years the top 3 causes are accidents (with vehicular being 3 times more than other accidents), homicide and legal intervention (that includes being killed while serving in the military), and suicide.
Now look up at the comment. It has something to do with "By your standards, then, shouldn't you should be demanding "100%" safety from your auto before driving them anywhere?".
Also, look at the suicide statistic. What are you telling your children about how "damaged" they are?
trrll, your comments wrt the VAERS database are spot on. However, just remember that Dr. Jim Laidler WAS questioned when he reported that a vaccine caused someone to turn into something like the Incredible Hulk.
HCN:
I lost two posts on this thread. The first one was to 2+ URLs (hey, it needed it, and I didn't know Orac was this busy), but why the second one was lost only hit me this morning...
In it, I made a quip about a certain ED medication that starts with a V. I can see how a spam-filter would not let that one by.
Now.
It was a good post, too.
Where's my ball?
Thanks, HCN for posting the hyperlink. It was late, I was tired, about to log off and more concerned with dinner than inserting the link.
I came by for a looksee at how my statements would be abused, and I am not disappointed.
Here is what you do not get, yet see it as a fault in my approach.
When I say I do not have the time or energy (or motivation, really) to look up links to the dangers of the vaccines you all cl;aim are safe...here is how it is.
I have a daughter, now 21. I did the research when she was born, and decided vaccinations as recommended by the CDC (BTW, the CDC is/NIH is the owner of PUBMED, touted above as a source of accurate research information...talk about spewing your beverage)were not appropriate, and with our physicians' blessing, put off most of these until she was school age. Even then, I had to get exemptions from the health department for vaccines we deemed unnecessary or inappropriate, in order for her to attend public school. Back then, I didn't have a computer, and I was unaware of the internet, if there even was one. Still, there was enough information for me to decide to skip early childhood vaccinations. So, my daughter got chickenpox at age 5 or 6. Big deal! We survived.
For me that should have been the end of the story. But now, I have a granddaughter, and I got involved when I was informed she had been given the hep B vaccination, which, at the time, I knew nothing about.
Now we have the internet, and I was quickly able to find enough to convince me of not only the medical ignorance that led to vaccinating all newborns against a (mostly)sexually transmitted disease, but the OBVIOUS profit motive behind such a mandate...some above think that vaccinations are not profitable to big pharma. When a vaccination is mandated, like they wished to do with the anthrax vaccine, thats 300 million shots...at taxpayer expense, for what would have been an unnecessary (not to mention likely ineffective) campaign to stick it to all of us. We are talking billions of dollars.
Now, some here are quick to criticize my sources or my motives or my sanity. I don't care. I take responsibility for my own body and make my own decisions for how to care for it, and it goes against the American ideal of freedom and independence to just blindly accept what the "Government" tells you is right and true. That's who mandates the vaccinations, government. If you want to trust their judgment on this be my guest. I have grown up with a justifiably strong skepticism about what my government thinks is best for me. You want to be sheep and guinea pigs for the government, feel free.
If I choose not to have my child vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease that she is highly unlikely to even come into contact with, that's my business and a threat to nobody else. If you have been vaccinated for anthrax, and the vaccine actually works ( I know, but it's a hypothetical, so play along) and I do not get vaccinated, and I get anthrax, how is that a threat to you? You are covered. I am the one dying of anthrax, so you really have no stake in the matter. That is why I cannot understand the vitriol from some of the posters here (StuV).
Other than the wellbeing of my new granddaughter, I am not interested in petty and really, meaningless arguments about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Both sides have their proponents and opponents, with valid reasons for their actions. You want to vaccinate, go ahead. But I, and other like-minded free-thinking people, should be able to make up our own minds, in consultation with a health care practitioner.
Now, since my mind was admittedly made up on vaccines in general, and I have seen nothing to convince me otherwise (despite the many 'fact filled' well researched and intelligently thought out positions here) I got linked here researching hep B. I thought many of the posters here were having a reasonably intelligent debate on the issue, without name calling or personal attacks, albeit most here were pro-vaccination. So I weighed in, unaware of the attack trolls waiting in the wings.
This is America. It's a free country. Free citizens should not be forced into accepting medical treatments (vaccinations)against the advice of their medical practitioner or religious beliefs.
I have the freedom and enough intelligence to make up my own mind.
One more point. Although attributed to Pamela, the link to a safe/alternative vaccine schedule was mine. A commenter sought to discredit the site and the Dr. because you googled him and found this: "Donald W. Miller, Jr., is a professor of surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. He received his M.D. degree from Harvard and did his cardiothoracic surgery residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He has written two books on heart surgery and one, Heart in Hand, on the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, films of Woody Allen, and his life as a heart surgeon. He also writes articles for LewRockwell. com, which includes pieces on the importance of integrative medicine for maintaining optimum health."
"He's way outside his areas of expertise when discussing childhood vaccines."
So, you googled the Dr. and apparently he's a charlatan of some kind because he's only a cardiothoracic surgeon. Again, we see someone disparaged as a source, as many others here have been, without a hint of what that person says about the matter and why it is wrong. No discussion of the issues. Why bother to see what he has to say...he's way out of his 'area of expertise' so anything he may have to say is immediately dismissed. How convenient, that the politics of personal destruction can even be used in the medical fields.
I'm still waiting for you to discredit DR. Dunbar, also cited above, with over 25 years in the field. I came on here looking for information, but some people come looking for an argument. I put up sources that you may deem unreliable, and some that are irrefutable (Dr. Dunbar) I understand it is easy for you to dismiss what you consider questionable sources, but you do not challenge the information they present by presenting evidence to support your position; you just disparage them as unreliable or kooks, or 'outside their area of expertise'. No where do you challenge them on the facts. And the sources you cannot disparage; you ignore, because you have no facts to contradict them with. Not one person can challenge the fact that hep B for all newborns is a bad idea.
I suggest that there are many other vaccines among the
So why should I bother to go back over all this, to me, old road? Your mind(s) is already made up. I thought , with the hep B issue, there might be some compelling reason for the mandated vaccination. Apparently, nobody here can provide one.
And I have seen nothing, absolutely nothing here, to even make me question my belief that most vaccines are either unnecessary, ineffective, or downright dangerous. Do you suppose it possible that maybe 1 or more of the 32 vaccinations we stick into our children by the age of 2 may not be in their best interest?
Well, that 'outside their area of expertise comment applies to pretty much everybody here, including me, so you can all STFU.
Now you go your way and I'll go mine, to paraphrase Dylan.
So, my daughter got chickenpox at age 5 or 6. Big deal! We survived.
I'm sure it would've been a bigger deal to you if she had developed encephalitis.
some above think that vaccinations are not profitable to big pharma.
As compared to let's say an ED medication whose name starts with a V that I shall not name because the spam filter will not let it through? No. Compared to that, vaccinations are bad business that many companies are moving away from.
And yes, the anthrax vaccination smelled like a money grab -- but stop moving the goal posts, it is not what we were talking about here.
I take responsibility for my own body and make my own decisions for how to care for it,
By not vaccinating, you are taking responsibility for others as well.
and it goes against the American ideal of freedom and independence to just blindly accept what the "Government" tells you is right and true.
How's the tinfoil hat fitting?
That's who mandates the vaccinations, government.
Umm, yes. It's kind of the purpose of government to mandate things that are in everybody's interest.
If you want to trust their judgment on this be my guest.
Well, theirs and every credible scientist world-wide.
If you have been vaccinated for anthrax, and the vaccine actually works ( I know, but it's a hypothetical, so play along) and I do not get vaccinated, and I get anthrax, how is that a threat to you?
Strawman again. You've bounced from "vaccines" to "Hep B" to "anthrax". Where do you go next?
Anyway... look up herd immunity. Not everyone CAN get vaccinated for all sorts of medical reasons. These people survive because everyone else is vaccinated. If you get measles and suffer permanent brain damage because you believe the government is out to get you, fine. If you infect an immunodeficient child that could not get vaccinated and cause permanent brain damage in an innocent because you believe the government is out to get you, well...
That is why I cannot understand the vitriol from some of the posters here (StuV).
...that's why.
Other than the wellbeing of my new granddaughter
And nothing about this strikes you as selfish.
But I, and other like-minded free-thinking people, should be able to make up our own minds, in consultation with a health care practitioner.
To a certain extent, yes. But not when you endanger others.
Look, you know we agree on Hep B. What is your point beyond that, other than calling people meanies?
This is America. It's a free country.
I see you haven't been following the news for the past 8 years.
Free citizens should not be forced into accepting medical treatments (vaccinations) against the advice of their medical practitioner or religious beliefs.
If these citizens want to hang out with other citizens, I think it is reasonable to expect that they do not endanger them.
I have the freedom and enough intelligence to make up my own mind.
And one hell of a passive-aggressive superiority complex to boot.
"Homicide and legal intervention".
What the HELL is death by 'legal intervention'? Execution?
MrP
"I was quickly able to find enough to convince me of not only the medical ignorance that led to vaccinating all newborns against a (mostly)sexually transmitted disease,"
... since you like to google, try "hepatitis B" and "restaurant"
What the HELL is death by 'legal intervention'? Execution?
Either that, or stroke caused by opening up legal bills.
No where do you challenge them on the facts.
Again, "fact" means something different than you think it means.
Anecdotes are not facts, no matter who's talking.
Your mind(s) is already made up.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Now you go your way and I'll go mine
Fine by me. Remember to keep your children away from me.
Mr. P:
You complain about ad hominum attacks in response to your arguments, and yet, when it is noted that the site linked to is for one by Dr. Green, and whatever his areas of expertise -- which appear to be considerable in cardiology -- those does not include any area directly involving childhood vaccinations, your response is an ad hominum attack. Frequently an ad hominum attack is a smoke screen for lack of factual support, and that appears true as to your arguments.
Hey MrP. I have been busy over the last day and haven't had time to respond. I will borrow the style of StuV (I hope StuV doesn't mind)
"Well, where do these facts exist" (regarding HBV infection rates)
The CDC publishes them in their MMW reports. Here's the one regarding acute HBV:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5343.pdf
183 cases in 1990, 11 cases in 2002.
"Not one person can challenge the fact that hep B for all newborns is a bad idea."
That is not a fact, it is your opinion. What evidence have you presented that shows HBV vaccination for newborns is a bad idea? I have yet to see any. Dr Dunbar doesn't present any compelling evidence. She just states that two of her adult employees supposedly had a reaction to the HBV vaccine. Of course, no reference as to what the time frame between vaccination and disease was, as well as family histories of these diseases. She just "sounds the alarm" and makes it sound like these "reactions" are pretty common. Her hypothesis about molecular mimicry is just that, a hypothesis. She has no experimental evidence to back it up, so it is far from fact. But it doesn't matter because you are unable to make a reasoned decision. You are extremely dogmatic and will never change your mind.
"I thought , with the hep B issue, there might be some compelling reason for the mandated vaccination. Apparently, nobody here can provide one."
How about preventing a debilitating, chronic and deadly disease? How about the fact that the vast majority of women don't get tested before and during their pregnancy. I mean we have a significant proportion of mothers who don't get adequate prenatal health care. How about the fact that frequent visits to doctors wane as children get older? It's difficult to get a ten-year old back to the doctor two times over a 5 or so month period.
"If I choose not to have my child vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease that she is highly unlikely to even come into contact with, that's my business and a threat to nobody else."
No it's a threat to your daughter. We all like to think that our kids will be perfect little angels and will follow everything we say. But it only takes one time, one mistake and infection can happen. I'm sure she'd be real happy with you when she found out that her disease could have been prevented.
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/204991.aspx
Brain expert Dr. Russell Blaylock believes much of the problem from vaccines is their effect on the cells of the brain's immune system called microglia.
For example:
-Invaders like viruses and bacteria activate the microglia, which return to normal after the threat.
-But vaccines - especially multiple vaccines injected the same day - can put the microglia into constant battle mode.
-In that mode, the brain turns on itself, causing what's known as "bystander damage."
A leading neurology journal seemed to confirm this with autopsies of autistic brains.
".They found all of them had over-activation of the brain's microglia, chronic brain inflammation, which is by this mechanism," Blaylock said.
Mercury, aluminum, and MSG are powerful activators of the microglia -- linking brain damage with vaccines. Fisher says the vaccine companies try to exclude that damage.
She explained, "The manufacturers conduct clinical trials and whenever anything bad happens in that clinical trial -- nine times out of 10 if not 10 times out of 10 -- they write off the health problem that occurs or the death that occurs as a coincidence."
I don't mind, ozzy, but I think you're far nicer than I am on average.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086…
Dr. Bernadine Healy is the former head of the National Institutes of Health, and the most well-known medical voice yet to break with her colleagues on the vaccine-autism question.
In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Healy said the question is still open.
"I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational," Healy said.
"But public health officials have been saying they know, they've been implying to the public there's enough evidence and they know it's not causal," Attkisson said.
"I think you can't say that," Healy said. "You can't say that."
Read more about the "open questions" of autism at Couric & Co.
Healy goes on to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are "susceptible" to vaccine side effects - afraid the answer will scare the public.
http://www.standupbecounted.org/issues.htm
More vaccines may not make our children healthier.
In 1982, the Centers for Disease Control recommended 23 doses of 7 vaccines for children up to age six. Today, the CDC recommends that children take 48 doses of 14 vaccines by age six. With the recent addition of annual flu shots for all infants and children, the CDC now recommends that children get 69 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18.
In 1983, one in 10,000 children were diagnosed with autism. Today, 1 child in 150 develops autism.
One out of 6 American children is learning disabled. One in 9 has asthma and one in 450 is diabetic.
Americans can be arrested for not vaccinating their children.
The supporters of the National Vaccine Information Center believe Americans should be allowed to make informed, voluntary decisions about vaccination for themselves and their children.
Yet, in November 2007, government officials in Maryland ordered several thousand parents and their children to line up at a county court house under threat of jail time and stiff fines if they did not prove the children had been vaccinated for chickenpox and hepatitis B. Most children were vaccinated on the spot, with no questions asked.
Mr P: You would think the people arguing here have some kind of personal stake in the matter of whether I or my children are to be vaccinated.
We do ... just as you have a personal stake if your neighbor's landscaping includes a mosquito-loaded fountain in the middle of a West Nile or yellow fever or malaria outbreak. To be blunt, unvaccinated people are a hazard to the health of others, including me and my relatives. It can't get more personal than that.
You might not give a damn if your grandchildren are vaccinated or not, but when everyone starts free-loading off the "herd immunity" a lot of the herd dies.
Mr.P-
Do you know the difference between a hypothesis and evidence? Your copy & pasted links are nothing more than untested ideas. They are EXACTLY as tested, valid, and scientifically proven as this:
The blogger Orac is not a person but a large squid. You see, squid have tentacles that they can type with and Orac types his blog. Thus, he is a squid.
If you don't understand the difference between the dreck you post vs. experimental or study data, you're going to be finghting a losing battle for a long time.
Healy is not considered a good source:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=846
Blaylock is a joke... he sells supplements. He may have been a neurologist at one time, but he retired. His qualifications on vaccine, immuniology and toxicology are par with Dr. Green --- it is not his specialty. Especially since much of the stuff he says is suspect.
I have an idea Mr. P... go find some real documentation of the scientific literature (JPANDS and Medical Hypothesis do not count) on how exactly vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases. In particular the big bad one that Jenny McCarthy (PhD, Univ. of Google) would never give a child, the MMR. Show us how the MMR is riskier than measles, mumps and rubella. Random biased web pages (CBN was also pushing a silly film called "Expelled", which had Ben Stein saying a bunch of nonsense like how "Darwinism does not explain planetary orbits", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X8aifay678 ), quotes from disgraced political appointees, supplement sellers and lawyers are not good sources.
By the way, Jayh... it is best to Google HepA and restaurants.
Mr. P, among his many factual errors and omissions, has included one of the more recent vaccination canards:
"The Myth of the Maryland Forced Vaccination."
In reality - which isn't too hard to find, if you read the news reports - the state of Maryland ordered the parents to provide proof of vaccination or a signed form (provided by the schools) stating that they had a religious or philosophical objection to vaccination.
That's all.
The parents were being pursued - in an admittedly heavy-handed and authoritarian fashion - because they had failed to comply with what was essentially a paperwork requirement. They had to either show that their child had be vaccinated or state (in writing) that they had religious/philosophical objections to vaccination.
Of course, the reality of that situation doesn't play into the conspiratorial fever-dreams of people like Mr. P, so they adjust reality to fit their fantasy.
Reality can be so disappointing, sometimes.
Prometheus
Mr P:
Bernadine Healy? Are you joking?
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2008/05/bernadine_healy_new_crank_on_…
Please, please research "argument from authority". And if you do use it, pick an actual authority. If you can find one on your side of the fence (hint: there aren't any).
"Healy said the question is still open" "Blaylock says"
It doesn't matter who says it -- without proof, it's worthless. I say the sun shines out of my behind. So there. No need to see the light, I am the authority on sunshine and most definitely my behind, as I have been sitting on it for decades.
By the way, you disparage the CDC as a source, but these people are credible to you?
http://www.geocities.com/issues_in_immunization/fearmongers/barbara_loe…
In 1983, one in 10,000 children were diagnosed with autism. Today, 1 child in 150 develops autism.
...which is because what we call autism now is not what we called autism in 1983.
One out of 6 American children is learning disabled. One in 9 has asthma and one in 450 is diabetic.
Which has what to do with anything?
Americans can be arrested for not vaccinating their children.
Good, because not vaccinating not only harms the children that are not vaccinated (and as such is pretty much the definition of child abuse), it harms others that cannot be vaccinated (which would be criminal neglect, or stupidity with the intent to harm... but I'm not a lawyer).
Have you looked up "herd immunity" yet?
Excuse me for going so far back in the conversation, but:
This is not how you determine whether anything of relevance occurred around 2002. This is how you manufacture the appearance of something occuring, whether it did or not. A proper analysis would consider trends over a variety of different time periods to ensure that what you're seeing is real. Mr P, you really need to take more care with your sources. At present, it appears you're throwing out anything you can find that seems to support your position, even if you lack the qualifications required to evaluate it.
"One out of 6 American children is learning disabled."
Oh, I missed that. That is known as the being more than one standard deviation below the norm. In a normal distribution about about 68% of the data falls withing one standard deviation from the mean. Then there is 16% of the data which falls beyond the first standard deviation on either side of the mean. So 16% (or 1 out of 6) are more than one standard deviation above the mean, and another 16% (or 1 out of 6) fall more than one standard deviation below the mean (or average). Explained here with pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation#Rules_for_normally_dist…
To qualify for special education services a child usually needs to fall more than 1.5 standard deviations below the mean.
Though, perhaps Mr. P lives where ALL children are ABOVE average!
Orac:
If one in 100,000 are injured by vaccines, then I agree with your points. If it's 1 in 150, as I think it is, you're wrong. The risk-reward trade-off has been blown by adding too many vaccines to the schedule and never testing them for combination risk.
My son plays baseball, but he doesn't have a 1/150 chance of dying, or I wouldn't let him play.
JB
Wow, the praise has been truly inspiring.
I cite sources from the alternative world; no, not those people, they have no credibility. Even if they themselves are in the medical field. Not good enough, that is not their area of expertise. The former head of the NIH and American Red Cross, a Republican establishment, card-carrying member of numerous Government bureaucracies; HER? what a joke. An
article from the Christian broadcasting network.
Who are these whacked out kooky people daring to challenge the orthodoxy of the vaccination regime? They are just trying to make a buck (unlike the pharmaceutical companies, who donate the vaccines for the good of all mankind.
You would think I was writing to a bunch of lobbyists and vaccine pushers, the way you react to any challenge to the premise that vaccines are safe, and effective, and we all must take them.
Statistics showing the dramatic declines in infectious disease rates prior to the introduction of vaccines; not credible. An expert, Professor of medicine, with 25 years of experience in; oh she only is talking about two isolated incidences (in the quote, maybe, but the linked letter had so much more for you to ridicule, if you'd only bothered)
Here is what she is talking about:
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/dunbar4.html
2. Do the benefits of administering the vaccine to infants outweigh the risks?
To date my studies have concentrated on the adult population. Sadly, even less is known about immunological reactions in infants, especially since they cannot communicate, as can older children or adults, their severe pain, fatigue, or other neurological or physical disturbances. In the event of deaths following vaccination, there is generally inadequate information collected by pathologists to adequately evaluate these reactions.
I would challenge any colleague, clinician or research scientist to claim that we have a basic understanding of the human newborn immune system. It is well established in studies in animal models that the newborn immune system is very distinct from the adolescent or adult. In fact, the immune system of newborns in animal models can easily be perturbed to ensure that it cannot respond properly later in life.
In contrast, it is highly improbable in the US that a newborn has any significant risk of contracting Hepatitis B as a child because the disease is caused by a blood-borne virus. Newborns are not likely to engage in intravenous drug use or promiscuous sex. Nor are they likely to suffer an accidental needle stick, as might a medical worker. About the only way they are likely to be exposed to the disease is by being born to an already infected mother.
In view of this lack of scientific and medical information of neonatal immunology, it is remarkable to me that newborn infants, especially those not at risk for the Hepatitis B disease itself are being administrated multiple injections of this vaccine and that there have been few, if any, clinical trials to adequately evaluate the potential long term effects of neonatal immunization especially as it relates to genetic diversity."
And from the same testimony:Many physicians and medical students have told me that, if this vaccine is recommended and mandated by government officials, "why should they look at it or discuss it with their patients?" Others have said that their colleagues do not report these incidences because they "don't want to get involved." They further tell me that they have been informed that this vaccine is the safest ever developed because it is a recombinant DNA vaccine and "therefore you can't get the disease". Unfortunately, they have clearly missed a major point of basic immunology. Any peptide (a limited sequence of amino acids of a protein) or a full length or truncated protein (produced by purification from a biological source or using recombinant cDNA technology) when introduced into the body will be "processed by the immune system" and, depending on the nature of that protein, could result in long term autoimmune reactions.
Sadly, in basic science courses in medical schools, many of these details of immunology (a medical research field that has exploded over the last decade) are not taught. I have taught in the basic science curriculum for over 15 years so I am well aware of this limitation. In fact, I recently was invited to speak at the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences on this subject. I was quite shocked when a senior member of a national health committee (involved in recommending mandates for childhood vaccines) came up to me and said: "Very interesting talk. I know you teach beginning medical students. Could you recommend me a basic immunology textbook? I think I need to catch up on some of this immunology stuff."
In summary, it is essential in my opinion that physicians be better educated on the potential risks of this vaccine, as well as the interactions with other vaccines and the increased risks of vaccinations of sick children. It is also critically important to conduct the research necessary so that they will have better information to identify people at risk for adverse reaction. In any event early diagnoses of these reactions will result in more effective therapies."
I would like say to you all that love to take every sentence and critique and ridicule my position, let me restate my position which apparently has everyone here so all-fired up.
I am not anti-vaccination so much as anti-mandated vaccination.
I believe some vaccinations may be necessary under certain circumstances. I do not believe, based on my research, that all the vaccinations recommended by the CDC on their schedule are safe and effective, and in many cases may be doing real harm. The people and articles I have linked to, have, for the most part, done the same; questioned the orthodox belief that all vaccines being mandated are safe and effective.
I never said all vaccinations are bad, or they should all be stopped. I am merely expressing the view that we do not know, (and despite your many protests, there are enough medical experts who agree, just not the ones you like) enough about the safety and long term effects of these.
And I linked to a Dr.'s web page that advocated a more common sense approach to childhood vaccinations, with his own schedule of vaccines.
Well, of course he too was ridiculed; I think because he sold some product or other or was a cardiologist or whatever bs excuse was used to dismiss him, not one person said; "gee, I looked at his vaccination schedule and the guy doesn't make sense because......" And the same for most of the comments. Not that guy, he sells homeopathic remedies, instead of, I read what he said, and he's full of it because (then you state a fact or cite a source in support of your position, hopefully one addressing the issue at hand.)
Because those here who attack, are not interested in being a reasoned discussion. You have to attack the poster, me, or the source cited. You look for a point to criticize, and take a piece here and a piece there, when the gist of what I am saying is what the studies have shown to be true;
We do not know enough about the long term effects of some of these chemical smorgasborgs we call vaccines. I think being cautious in areas we aren't really sure about is not a bad thing. I never even brought up the methods by which many of these vaccines are made. Talk about disgusting! From GSK:
http://www.gsk.com/research/about/about_animals_primates.html
Prior to 2005, a small proportion of primates used for safety and quality testing of oral polio vaccine were 'wild caught' African Green Monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) from Barbados. African Green Monkeys also were used before 2002 to provide kidney cells for oral polio vaccine production. 'Wild caught' is defined as animals captured from a free ranging environment. 'Purpose bred' is defined as animals specifically bred for use in biomedical research, either in large contained areas such as small islands or in enclosures.
GSK used wild-caught primates from Barbados as they were a reliable high quality source of animals with well-defined background data and favourable health status. For example, these monkeys are free of several contaminating infectious agents such as TB, Ebola & Marburg viruses, SV40, Herpes B and SIV. The monkeys were taken from the natural population on the island under the supervision of the local government. "
Translation; they moved away from using monkeys that they previously used which did harbor the viruses, to ones not infected by them.
Like I said earlier; if you want to take your government at face value and trust them, go ahead. Anyone paying attention these past years would be justified in withholding that trust. Hey you wouldn't want your smoking hypodermic to turn into a mushroom cloud!
Remember Anthrax and the vaccine they wanted all of us to take?
HCN makes a comment I'd like to flush out. Here in Winona, MN. we had yet again another Green Our Vaccines letter to the editor today. HCN hones in on 'Show us how the MMR is riskier than measles, mumps and rubella'. I really like this as an argument because it gets rid of 99% of the distractions/red herrings. Is there a prepared, 'sourced' argument that would serve well as a letter that simply pointed out that MMR is safer than Measles, Mumps or Rubella.
The MMWR rollups for the last 60 years are downloadable from the CDC. Measles has been reportable for that entire time. Both reported incidence and mortality are in the database, although the consensus is that the incidence is grossly underreported up into the 1970s due to parents simply never taking their kids with measles to the doctor (I know I wasn't.)
Bottom line: once the herd immunity is gone, it'll take one plane landing from Switzerland to start an epidemic that will affect something upwards of 20% of the population; call it 60 million people. Case mortality for measles hit a low of about 1 per 1000 reported cases in the 1960s [1], then rose partly due to cases occurring disproportionately in otherwise weakened (read: immunocompromised) people. Use the low number, and you'll have an initial butcher's bill of something on the order of 6,000 dead and a lot more either blind, deaf, or brain-damaged.
After that, it's back to the 1960s, since we really haven't improved out treatment options all that much. Annual mortality somewhere in the 400-1000 range, neurological damage several times that. State schools for the deaf and blind had a lot fewer enrollees once the vaccine got established.
Rubella? Think in terms of birth defects. Again, no reason not to go back to the 1960s for comparison.
Mumps? Same story.
[1] Estimates are that only about 10% of cases were reported, since measles is extremely contagious -- the entire birth cohort would end up with it, which would have been about 10x the reported number.
rmp, here you go: http://www.mmrthefacts.nhs.uk/library/sideeffects.php
Plus: MR. P, there is a new law akin to Godwin's Law, it is Scopie's Law:
"In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately."
See origin here:
http://www.badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5240&p=90463&hilit=…
(for fun just google with the following words: HCN Scudamore burned bum)
Since I'm a big believer that any letter to the editor of any length at all is easily passed over, (at least that's my attention span), I'm going to use the info you 2 gave me and try to condense it down to something that is consice and 'sited' without being non-trivial/bumper sticker level. I will post here for review/comment before submitting.
Thanks for the help!!
rmp, I would also suggest this paper:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/3/302
In it there are a couple of crucial paragraphs like:
"Approximately 1 in 1000 children with clinical measles develops encephalitis. Although most children with encephalitis recover without sequelae, approximately 15% die and 25% of survivors develop complications such as MR. We assumed that approximately 1 in 5000 cases of measles leads to MR."
and
"Infection with the rubella virus during pregnancy may lead to CRS. The association between maternal infection and fetal disease was first detected by Gregg in 1941, and 2 years later, Swan et al confirmed the occurrence of central nervous system abnormalities in affected infants. When maternal infection occurs during the first month of pregnancy, 50% of children will later be diagnosed with MR; overall, 10% of all of the cases of CRS result in MR. Because neonatal mortality in CRS is approximately 10%,62 we assumed that 9% of children born with CRS would later be diagnosed with MR."
Also, there is the recent outbreak of mumps in the USA:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5520a4.htm ...
"Parotitis was reported in 870 (66%) of the 1,327 patients for whom such data were available. Data regarding mumps complications and hospitalizations are incomplete. However, complications have included 27 reports of orchitis, 11 meningitis, four encephalitis, four deafness, and one each of oophoritis, mastitis, pancreatitis, and unspecified complications. A total of 25 hospitalizations were reported, but insufficient data were provided to determine whether mumps caused all the hospitalizations. No deaths have been reported."
Orchitis and oophoritis sound very painful.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/06/
vaccines_the_fallacy_of_the_perfect_solu.php#comment-926424
Vaccination is unquestionably a very important tool for disease control. However, vaccines can cause adverse events that may damage the public trust. In recent experience in Brazil, the implementation of mass campaigns with MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine was associated with outbreaks of vaccine adverse events. The decision-making process regarding the continuation of the use of this vaccine proceeded in the context of uncertainties, fears and contradictions between information from the scientific literature and data generated by a post-licensure monitoring. This experience showed how important is to have a critical view of previous recommendations and to get local data addressing questions to guide the decision making process."
http://vafvic.org/IOMreport.htm
The Institute of Medicine Committee concluded that "the evidence favors rejection of the causal relationship at the population level between MMR vaccine and autistic spectrum disorders" but also stated that "the proposed biological models linking MMR vaccination to autism spectrum disorders, although far from established, are NEVERTHELESS NOT DISPROVED (capitalization mine)." The Committee also called for further scientific research on the occurrence of autism in children following MMR vaccination.
Some of the polio vaccine administered from 1955-1963 was unknowingly contaminated with a virus, called simian virus 40 (SV40).
http://www.immunizationinfo.org/iom_reports_detail.cfv?id=49
The virus came from the monkey kidney cell cultures used to produce the vaccine. Because SV40 was not discovered until 1960, no one was aware that polio vaccine made in the 1950s could be contaminated.
Epidemiological studies of groups of people who received polio vaccine during 1955-1963 do not show an increased cancer risk. However, a number of studies have found SV40 in certain forms of cancer in humans, such as mesotheliomas--rare tumors located in the lungs--brain, and bone tumors; the virus has also been found to be associated with some types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
In 2002, the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee considered that the available data was inadequate to conclude whether or not the contaminated polio vaccine may have caused cancer.
Because there is biological evidence supporting the theory that SV40-contamination of polio vaccines could contribute to human cancers, the committee recommended continued public health attention in the form of policy analysis, communication, and targeted biological research.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/01/15/vaccine-b…
At present, primary suspicion for this epidemic of neurobehavioral disorders rests with the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine. Although scientific evidence has not yet reached the standards of scientific proof, one pioneer researcher in this area, Dr. Vijendra Singh with the Department of Pharmacology, University of Michigan, has published the report of a study in which he found that a large majority of autistic children tested had antibodies to brain tissue in the form of antibodies to myelin basic protein, a protein strongly correlated to measles antibodies (almost all of the children had been immunized with the MMR vaccine, and none had had these diseases).
« Previous Article Next Article »
Vaccine Safety and Benefits Not Scientifically Proven
By Dr. Harold Buttram
Any medical therapy must balance the "effectiveness" versus the "safety" of its actions on the human body.
For instance, aspirin therapy is effective in preventing a second heart attack after having a first heart attack, and it is quite safe, only having a very small incidence of stomach or intestinal bleeding as a potential long-term side effect. As you read the following, please keep these key points in mind in terms of "effectiveness" versus the "safety" of vaccinations:
Scientific evidence does support the effectiveness of immunizations. They do prevent infectious diseases; some better than others, but this point is not disputed.
Scientific evidence does not support the safety of immunizations. Safety studies on vaccinations are limited to short time periods only: several days to several weeks. There are no long-term (months to years) safety studies on any vaccination or immunization. There is small but increasing scientific evidence of long-term side effects from immunizations that need much more study.
Inadequate Proof of Benefit of Vaccines
It is true that there may be situations where extreme measures may be justified to preserve life and health. The basic question, therefore, is whether the benefits of current childhood vaccines outweigh the harm or whether the reverse is true.
As to the benefits of vaccines, polio has been eliminated from the Western Hemisphere, and smallpox may have been eliminated worldwide. Vaccine proponents would have us believe that vaccines have been largely responsible for controlling virtually all of the former epidemics of killer diseases in the U.S.
With the exceptions cited above, the facts do not bear this out. According to the records of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, from 1911 to 1935 the four leading causes of childhood deaths from infectious diseases in the U.S. were
* Diphtheria
* Pertussis (whooping cough)
* Scarlet fever
* Measles
However, by 1945 the combined death rates from these causes had declined by 95 percent, before the implementation of mass immunization programs. By far the greatest factors in this decline were sanitation through:
* Public health measures
* Improved nutrition
* Better housing with less crowded conditions
* Introduction of antibiotics
Also, the virulence of microorganisms tends to become weakened or attenuated with the passage of time and serial passages through human hosts, one example of which is whooping cough (pertussis), which is clearly a much milder disease today in Western nations than it was 100 or so years ago.
Safety Not Proven
It should be pointed out that today's children receive 22 or more vaccines before school age, whereas today's senior citizens received only one, the smallpox vaccine. Some of these vaccines contain potentially toxic mercury (though mercury-free types have recently been produced in response to safety concerns).
With growing public concerns about potential adverse reactions on the immature immune systems of children, it is reasonable to ask ourselves what is already known about such reactions. There is a school of thought that the so-called "minor childhood illnesses" of former times including:
* Measles
* Mumps
* Rubella (German measles)
* Chicken pox
that entered the body through the mucous membranes, served a necessary and positive purpose in challenging and strengthening the immune system of these membranes.
In contrast, so the theory goes, the respective vaccines of these diseases are injected by needle directly into the system of the child, thereby bypassing the mucosal immune system. As a result, mucosal immunity remains relatively weak and stunted in many children, complications of which may be the rapid increase in asthma and eczema now being seen, both in terms of frequency and severity.
This concept tends to be confirmed by four controlled studies, widely separated geographically, in which vaccinated children were found to have significantly more atopic disorders than controls.
In commenting on the increased incidence of asthma and other atopic disorders in the United Kingdom in the article, "Measles and atopy in Guinea-Bissau," the authors made the following comment:
"The rise of allergic disease among children in the UK over the past 30 years remains unexplained. One hypothesis is that infections in early childhood prevent allergic sensitization, and that successive generations of children have lost this protection as their exposure to infectious disease in early life has declined. Consequently the prevalence of atopy and concomitant allergic disease has risen."
It is true that in former times there were occasional serious complications from these childhood diseases, but this is an area in which nutritional approaches and homeopathy traditionally have been at their best. If these approaches were made widely available, it is probable that most of these complications could be eliminated. No one wants to see serious complications in our children, but the vaccine route may in time prove to be the worst possible choice that could have been made, as concerns the minor childhood diseases.
Threat of Brain Damage
Perhaps the greatest concern with vaccines today rests with their possible causal relation to the growing epidemic of childhood autism, developmental delay and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Regarding the latter, a recent news item stated that ADHD has increased from 900,000 in 1991 to nearly 5 million today.
Statistics may be open to question, but one cannot question the observations of veteran elementary school teachers who, in our experience, unanimously and emphatically report a marked increase in this disorder in recent years. Regarding autism, a recent survey mandated by the California state legislature found an increase of 273 percent in California in the past 11 years.
At present, primary suspicion for this epidemic of neurobehavioral disorders rests with the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine. Although scientific evidence has not yet reached the standards of scientific proof, one pioneer researcher in this area, Dr. Vijendra Singh with the Department of Pharmacology, University of Michigan, has published the report of a study in which he found that a large majority of autistic children tested had antibodies to brain tissue in the form of antibodies to myelin basic protein, a protein strongly correlated to measles antibodies (almost all of the children had been immunized with the MMR vaccine, and none had had these diseases).
This study tends to confirm the results of a similar study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Dr. Andrew Wakefield and coworkers of the Royal Free Hospital in London, indicating a possible link between MMR vaccination, Crohn's disease of the bowel and autism. If the MMR vaccine were causing an autoimmune reaction involving the brains of autistic children, what would be the mechanism?
Although research in this area is in its infancy, we do know some things. Both the measles and mumps fractions of the MMR vaccine are cultured in chick embryo tissue. As purely genetic material, viruses are highly susceptible to the process of "jumping genes," in which they may incorporate genetic material from tissue in which they are cultured.
Furthermore, protein sequences in the measles virus have been found to have similarities to those found in brain tissues. As a result, once this foreign genetic material is introduced into the child by a vaccine, it may set in motion an immunologic attack on brain tissues, a process that the work of Dr. Singh would tend to confirm.
Stealth Virus
A similar process may have taken place with the oral (Sabin) polio vaccine, which is cultured in monkey kidney tissue. Years ago Dr. John Martin, then serving as director of the viral oncology branch within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, found foreign DNA in contemporary polio vaccines.
He later learned that a simian (monkey) cytomegalic virus had been found in all of the 11 African green monkeys imported for production of the polio vaccine. After leaving the FDA, Dr. Martin took a position as professor of pathology with the University of Southern California. There he tested blood samples from patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, autism and other nervous system disorders.
This work led to his discovery of unique cell-destroying viruses that were not recognized by the immune system. Termed "stealth viruses," some of which he thought had clearly originated from the simian cytomegalic virus, these viruses were missing specific genes that ordinarily would induce immune responses from the host. It should be admitted that this work is preliminary. No definitive conclusions can be drawn from it, but the need for further intensive investigation should be apparent.
Overdue in the opinion of many, on June 17, 1999 U.S. government officials voted to withdraw their recommendation for the use of the live oral polio vaccine and to recommend exclusive use of the inactive (Salk) polio vaccine, because the former vaccine has been the only remaining source of polio cases in the U.S. since 1979.
To date (September 1998) in excess of 900 families have contacted the JABS group (1,800 to Dawbarns Solicitors) to report serious health problems following the MMR vaccination. JABS families come from all walks of life including the medical profession. We have doctors, nurses, health visitors etc who have reported severe problems in their own children. Problems include: encephalitis, epilepsy, acquired autism, loss of speech and communication, arthritis, diabetes, profound deafness, Guillain-Barre syndrome - a paralysis condition. Families quote time periods, symptoms and long term problems that in the main are listed in the vaccine manufacturers' own leaflets.
Mr. P has now proven beyond a doubt that he does not think for himself. He has resorted to cutting and pasting from various websites.
Buttram made himself infamous in defending a child killer (along with several others), claiming that the child died from a vaccine instead of being shaken to death by the mother's boyfriend. They got the out of jail, only to abandon him when he ended up in jail again in 2006:
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/yurko.htm
Mercola can't make up his mind what causes autism. The list includes:
Pasteurised milk, Fluoride, Aluminium, Mercury, MMR, Malnutrition, Glutamine, "An excess of grains, sugars, underground vegetables, and any fluid other than water" ... see:
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/mercola.htm
Genisoy bars contain methyl mercury and aluminum! Green our Genisoy Bars.
www.autismone.org/uploads/2006/Daniel%20Kaayla%20MV%20article.pdf
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1034/j.1600-0463.2001.09030…
OK HCN, D. C. Sessions and anyone else that cares. Here is my initial draft letter. Please feel free to comment. In fact, for the anti/green vaccination folks, please feel free to chime in. If I'm misrepresenting the data, please point it out.
Draft REV 000(that's right, I'm an engineer)
_______________________________________________________________________
If you believe in government conspiracies, do not bother reading this letter. If you believe that the CDC is lying to you to support the profits of pharmaceutical companies, nothing I can say will change your mind. However, for the rest of you, let me talk briefly about the MMR. As simply as I can put it, children do die or suffer from serious complications from measles, mumps and rubella. Measles, for example, is an extremely contagious disease and for every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it (and this is for 'advanced' countries like the USA). For every 1,000,000 children who get measles, 500 will suffer from mental retardation. Thankfully, because of the MMR shot, the number of cases of measles, mumps and rubella has declined to near 0, but don't think that these diseases have been eradicated because they haven't. As an example, Iowa and at least 10 other states saw outbreaks of the mumps just 2 years ago.
Some people say that they aren't anti-vaccination, they just don't want to give immunizations to young children. Excuse me for stating the obvious but it's young children that are the most susceptible to disease. Even more odd is when someone like Jenny McCarthy tells you that you should wait until there is a shot that is 100% effective with 0% risk. If someone tells you that, ask them what we should do with the sick and dying until that time.
For those of you that want supporting data, please refer to
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/3/302
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5520a4.htm
_________________________________________________________________
Very good. Though you might add that of the 1000000 children who get measles, over 500 will die.
Diseases are not risk free.
HCN, Thanks for the 'very good'. I'm not much of a word smith and it takes me several hours to write what some can crank out in 10 minutes.
I'll change
for every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it
to
for every 1,000,000 children who get measles, over 500 will die
anyone else got an issue with this?
The risk-reward trade-off has been blown by adding too many vaccines to the schedule and never testing them for combination risk.
Not it hasn't. It's mercury poisoning...remember?
I saw this on another blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Hhgaf3Co0
"If you line up 100 symptoms of mercury poisoning, and 100 symptoms of autism, they are exactly the same."
"You get the mercury out, you get your child back."
- JB Handley
Wait... get your stories straight. Is is the MMR causing autism (which has never contained thimerosal) or is it the thimerosal? Or is it just the avoidance of diseases that results in more kids actually growing up to adulthood?
Why would anyone take medical advice from a venture capitalist, or an actor?
It is confusing when researchers mix ratios and percentages but my reading of the maths is that 1 in a 1000 developing encephalitis from measles equates to 100 in 100,000. If 15% of them die and 25% of the survivors of encephalitis in measles have MR that works out at 15 deaths in 100,000 and 20 cases of MR in 100,000 cases of measles.
Of course the figures are much highrer in tareas with extreme poverty that lack modern health care facilities. 500,000 children die of measles every year. It used to be a lot more. But mass vaccination programmes are saving a lot of lives in the world beyond our comfortable existence.
Mike, what is scary is that so many Americans died during our last major measles outbreak. Whether it was from a depleted immune system from being born of vaccinated mothers or from a broken medical system (many were poor, and several in Philadelphia were from a pair of churches who did not believe in medical intervention!)... it was still higher than what had occurred historically in either the USA or UK in previous decades:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15106092?
The death rate was more like 2.5 per 1000 cases reported.
The statistics rmp is using are not as scary as what actually happened twenty years ago!
"Why would anyone take medical advice from a venture capitalist, or an actor?"
JB Handley is a very wealthy, ignorant, piece of shit. Amazing that anyone would actually fund his business enterprise with all his antigovernment ranting and conspiracy mongering. On the other hand, he does have a nice set of man-titties.
Mr. P is simply a cut/paste spammer. Anyone who uses whale.to as a reference for science is a fraud.
Love, Reality
As low opinion as I may have of J.B. (who, as anyone who's ever read his hit piece on me knows, thinks even less of me), I don't think bringing his wife into this is appropriate.
JB Handley: "If one in 100,000 are injured by vaccines, then I agree with your points. If it's 1 in 150, as I think it is, you're wrong."
Oh, I see, what you think is supposed to carry some weight? What about when you thought all autism was a misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning? Or when you thought Buttar's magic skin cream would reach in and grab up all the mercury curing your boy in mere months, 2 years on the outside? Or when you thought big ads in national newspapers declaring autistic people as toxic? How about that time when you thought Amy Yasko's magic yeast juice was akin to RNAi therapy and could cure autism? The sad thing is the thousands of parents who are out thousands of dollars for listening to your thoughts.
Is there a single instance of your thoughts being correct about any aspect of autism? Think about it for awhile and get back to us with your thoughts on the matter. Your thoughts are about as cluttered as your kitchen cabinet of cures.
If one in 100,000 are injured by vaccines, then I agree with your points. If it's 1 in 150, as I think it is, you're wrong.
Well, as I recall, JB, according to a survey you payed for, about 3% of totally unvaccinated children were autistic. Some of this unexpected high rate might be explained by poor survey design, but it certainly does not support your view that the risk of developing autism after vaccination is 1 in 150.
Mr. P - When a source has egregious errors such as claiming that 'wild caught' African Green Monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) from Barbados. were used in vaccine production, it is reason to distruct that source. (hint for the biologically and geographically impaired ... Barbados is not in Africa and has no native wild monkeys)
and, you claim ... via a cut and paste, "by 1945 the combined death rates from these causes had declined by 95 percent, before the implementation of mass immunization programs." * Diphtheria, * Pertussis (whooping cough), * Scarlet fever, * Measles
********
Diptheria anti-toxin was introduced in 1894, and vaccinations (against the toxin that is the real killer) were definitely in the "mass vaccination" category starting in the 1920s when the vaccine was introduced.
*******
Pertussis ... her's some cites from 1917!
The Therapeutic Value of Pertussis Vaccine in Whooping Cough.
ANNA I. von SHOLLY, JULIUS BLUM, AND LUELLA SMITH. J. Am.
M. Ass., Chicago, 1917, 68, 1451.
Pertussis Vaccine: Its Value as a Curative and Prophylactic
Agent in Whooping Cough. PAUL LUTTINGEK. J. Am. M. Ass.,
Chicago, 1917, 68, 1461.
The Use of Immune Serum in the Treatment of Whooping Cough.
ADRIEN BLEYER. Am. J. M. Sc.', Phila., 1917, 154, 39-42
NOTE: the "vaccine" was given to children who were already ill, in an attempt to shorten the duration, and was apparently mildly successful.
Public health measures - especially New York - were strict isolation, posting warning signs on the infected child's house or apartment, and with health inspectors having law enforcement powers: every case of whooping cough be confined to its premises, except upon receipt of your written permission to leave, such a permit to be issued if the patient is a child, only upon condition that the patient be accompanied by a competent adult who will assume responsibility for preventing contact with non-immune children.
The first DPT was introduced in 1942. (whole-cell pertussis vaccine with diphtheria and tetanus toxoids)
In Great Britain, pertussis incidence and mortality rates increased in the early 1940s: in 1940, 53,545 notifications and 678 deaths were reported, figures which more than tripled in 1941 (173,249 notifications and 2383 deaths) .... with that kind of mortality, to be blunt, a vaccine can kill a few people and still be acceptable.
**********
Measles: The big killer in measles has always been the pneumonia. Sulfanilimides were introduced in 1930s, and were effective in fighting the pneumonia. Add in the use of O2 and IV fluids and the mortality from measles pneumonia dropped. The deaths, mental retardation, blindness and deafness continued at the same rate until the vaccine in the 1960s.
***********
Scarlet fever was widely spread by contaminated milk. Requiring that milk be pasteurized cut the incidence dramatically. There si no vaccine to scarlet fever, BTW.
MR.P, It's hard to have credibility when you cite sources that repeat crackpot cards. For example, you cited
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/204991.aspx
where you will find the assertion
This is an amazingly stupid claim. Your body requires and makes glutamate. It's an amino acid that is present in almost all proteins, and it is also a major neurotransmitter. The normal blood levels of glutamate are on the order of a few milligrams per liter, which is quite a bit of glutamate, so there is no plausible way you could inject enough glutamate with a single dose of vaccine to appreciably alter that level. It is certainly true that glutamate, like most substances that are normally present in the body, can have harmful or toxic effects at enormous overdoses, but it takes quite a lot of glutamate. A meal that is spiced with glutamate may contain glutamate in gram quantities--far, far more than the minuscule traces that might be present in a vaccine--and will increase blood levels of glutamate by as much as 100-fold. Some people do indeed have mild ill effects, such as headaches, at this enormous dose, but most tolerate it just fine. So any child who consumes common food products will experience swings in blood glutamate that are massively greater than any vaccine could produce.
I cite sources from the alternative world; no, not those people, they have no credibility.
Not if they don't have proof.
Even if they themselves are in the medical field.
Not if they don't have proof.
Not good enough, that is not their area of expertise.
Not if they don't have proof.
Are you starting to see the pattern?
The former head of the NIH and American Red Cross,
Not if they don't have proof.
a Republican establishment, card-carrying member of numerous Government bureaucracies;
Alex Jones? Is that you? (For the record, I detest Republicans, so you're really not helping your argument with pointing out that particular tidbit... but that's neither here nor there).
HER? what a joke.
Yes, if she doesn't have proof.
An article from the Christian broadcasting network.
Yeah, it's not like Christians believe in silly things, right?
Right?
Who are these whacked out kooky people daring to challenge the orthodoxy of the vaccination regime?
People without proof.
They are just trying to make a buck
Some are. Others are misguided. Others are simply insane.
unlike the pharmaceutical companies, who donate the vaccines for the good of all mankind.
Congratulations. You have now fielded sufficient straw men for an entire football team. I think this one's the punter.
Ah, what's the point anymore.
You've turned into a sad, sad little cut-and-paste clown...
« Previous Article Next Article »
...and a really incompetent one, at that.
I am not anti-vaccination so much as anti-mandated vaccination.
For crying out loud. You still haven't looked up "herd immunity" yet, have you? Pathetic.
"About the only way they are likely to be exposed to the disease is by being born to an already infected mother."
Then why is the infection rate for 11-14 higher than that of 5-10 and 5-10 is higher than 0-4?
"which nutritional approaches and homeopathy traditionally have been at their best"
Oh yeah, homeopathy. Are you aware that homeopathic "treatments" are so diluted that nothing of the original substance remains. You are aware of Avogrado's number, right?
See, I've actually looked at the real, diagnosable symptoms for mercury poisoning, and as someone on the autistic spectrum myself, I'm well aware of what the symptoms there are. The two do not actually line up at all. Repeatedly saying that they DO doesn't make it true, it just makes you dumb.
I wonder if JB Hankly has done the math on the odds of his unvaccinated daughter dying of a vaccine preventable disease or of being the vector for carrying a deadly case of an infectious disease to another person? I wonder if he's figured out what he'll do if she gets tetanus or diphtheria or meningitis. Would he turn to cali phos and nat nur 30X to treat her, or would he get Amy Yasko on the phone to get the right dose of her yeasty RNA brew.
Mr. Hankly have you planned a measles, mumps and rubella party for your little girl?
Hey all; Look, I know you like to discredit the citing of other sources, but I'm not a DR. so my personal experience is not germane. Here's the government's own study. Vaccinations do not necessarily confer immunity.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000359.htm
Measles Outbreak among Vaccinated High School Students -- Illinois
From December 9, 1983, to January 13, 1984, 21 cases of measles occurred in Sangamon County, Illinois.* Nine of the cases were confirmed serologically. The outbreak involved 16 high school students, all of whom had histories of measles vaccination after 15 months of age documented in their school health records. Of the five remaining cases, four occurred in unvaccinated preschool children, two of whom were under 15 months of age, and one case occurred in a previously vaccinated college student (Figure 5).
Now, the study predictably concludes that these few cases could have been avoided if the oldest vaccinations received booster shots, but doesn't the original vaccination confer lifetime immunity?
Apparently, not.
Mumps too, from the vaunted hall of proofs, PubMed
From may of this year; the url is long so I'll break it up.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18539365?ordinalpos=7&itool=EntrezSy….
Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
However, a 2006 epidemic involved >5700 cases nationwide, with many reported among fully vaccinated college students. In an outbreak in two Iowa colleges, we investigated: (1) vaccination coverage using electronic records verified by provider records and (2) vaccine effectiveness assessed by comparison of dose-specific attack rates. Mumps was classified as typical (parotitis/orchitis) or atypical (parotid tenderness or submandibular/sublingual adenitis). Two-dose mumps vaccination coverage was 90% both for the student population (2128/2363) and case-students (97/108). Two-dose vaccine effectiveness was 76-88% with no significant difference for attack rates between one and two doses. Among two-dose vaccine recipients, 74% of the population (1482/2009) and 79% of the case-students (75/95) had received the second dose >10 years before. A large mumps outbreak occurred despite high two-dose vaccination coverage in a population most of whom had received the second dose >10 years before. Two-dose vaccine effectiveness was similar to previous one-dose estimates. Further studies are needed to examine the persistence of two-dose mumps vaccine-induced immunity and to determine whether US mumps elimination can be achieved with the current vaccination strategy.
Do your thing, StuV!
"The affected high school ..... All the students with measles had received their most recent vaccinations after 15 months of age"
So from something over 25 years ago, you now find out why there is a requirement for a SECOND vaccination for MMR.
...and "A large mumps outbreak occurred despite high two-dose vaccination coverage in a population most of whom had received the second dose >10 years before."
And the immunity might wane after 10 years (that is what the ">10" means, it means "more than 10").
This just shows that:
1) There needs to be a series of at least two inoculations of MMR (it was switched from 11 to 12 years old to around 5 years old about eight years ago).
2) Immunity may wane, so there is more incentive to keep herd immunity high.
The further research may indicate that students may need a third MMR prior to entering a college or university.
More from your fist link:
In this outbreak, vaccinated persons were at greater risk of clinical illness if they had close exposure to a measles patient and if 10 or more years had elapsed since their most recent measles vaccinations. .... A serologic study has shown that up to 15% of persons lose detectable measles specific antibody, measured with standard techniques, within the 16 years following vaccination. Upon revaccination, such individuals typically produce secondary immune responses, implying they are still protected from measles disease (..."
"If waning immunity is not a problem, this outbreak suggests that measles transmission can occur within
the 2%-10% of expected vaccine failures (5,7).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"However, transmission was not sustained beyond 36 days in this outbreak, and community spread was
principally among unvaccinated preschool children."
_________________^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Naturally occurring measles gives lifelong immunity in most cases.
You also neglected to mention the 2nd study I listed came from this year, 2008. I will admit that they showed that more recently vaccinated individuals were less susceptible.
You can always quibble about the nuances, but even when I show proof from your own sources (there is so much more, but for some reason, Pubmed is your bible, so that's where I went).
My point is/was/will be that we do not know for sure that these vaccines are safe OR effective.
There is more than enough evidence on both sides of the issue to sew doubt upon the conclusions of either side. That's where we exercise our own judgment. You think my judgment is faulty. I think yours is.
I have yet to be convinced that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risk.
If you do not have children, it is easier to be pro-vaccination. If you do have children, and I do, there is a bit more at stake. There is a lot of pressure to make the right choice, and finding the truth has been difficult. I appreciate all the sincere attempts to point me towards accurate information, and I am amused by the ones who only critique what I have to convey, without facts of their own to support them.
Just as there are risks to the un-vaccinated, there are risks to the vaccinated.
StuV; I understand herd immunity just fine...in fact that's what makes it okay for you to vaccinate and me not to vaccinate, if your vaccination theories are true (herd immunity is a theory, not an established fact)"
Herd immunity theory proposes that, in diseases passed from person-to-person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune. The more immune individuals present in a population, the lower the likelihood that a susceptible person will come into contact with an infected individual.[2]
Immunity does not necessarily imply vaccination. I am immune to MMR diseases, yet, I was never vaccinated against them.
So, since natural immunity is usually for a lifetime, and you have to admit that vaccinations, if they work, only confer temporary immunity and will require 'booster' vaccinations down the road.
An argument could be made that we would all benefit more from the 'herd immunity' theory if the immune population were a naturally immune population.
Is Mr.P. going to tell us something we don't already know yet?
I mean seriously - if he's come across evidence that vaccines can cause damage and can lose effectiveness - why does he assume that we haven't? Even more niave - why does he assume that people who work in the field are even less informed?
Could it possibly be that the reason contraindications are included with every vaccine and that the reason booster shots are recommended, is because, maybe, just maybe, the trained and experienced people behind the development, testing and approving of vaccines are just slighly more knowledgable about such things than an actress, an enterologist and a semi-retired cardiologist?
Mr. P said "Naturally occurring measles gives lifelong immunity in most cases."
If the child survives unscathed. Of the children who get it "naturally" about 1 in 5000 will become incur severe neurological damage, and about 1 to 2 in 1000 will actually die (munged URLs):
archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/3/302
w w w .ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15106092... "During 1987-1992, there were 165 measles-associated deaths ... Overall the death-to-case ratio was 2.54 and 2.83 deaths/1000 reported cases"
Those are not good numbers.
You were asked to produce documentation showing that the MMR was riskier than measles, mumps and rubella. Claiming that the vaccine wears off and is not 100% effective does answer that question.
Unless, you have some kind of warped reasoning that children who do not survive measles or mumps unscathed deserve their fate because their immune systems are faulty. That is a form of eugenics, and being a parent of a health impaired kid with a severe genetic heart condition --- that really makes me angry! Perhaps you think these boys deserved their fate because they were less than perfect:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1055533.ece
Basically, the studies you posted were actually showing that immunization with MMR may be needed, or at a minimum herd immunity needs to be maintained, not eroded.
Are you also going to say that because because we need tetanus boosters every ten years, that no one should bother? Though with tetanus there is something a bit different: there is no such thing as herd immunity with tetanus. And the death rate for tetanus is about 1 out of 10 (CDC Pink Book chapter on tetanus).
Now answer this question: What real verifiable scientific documentation shows that the MMR is riskier than measles, mumps or rubella?
aaargh... one little word completely changes the meaning... I meant so say: Claiming that the vaccine wears off and is not 100% effective does NOT answer that question.
"An argument could be made that we would all benefit more from the 'herd immunity' theory if the immune population were a naturally immune population."
Uh, that was the situation before vaccination and it didn't work. An awful lot of children died or suffered permanent disabilities.
I attended a talk today concerning autism and autoimmunity and came back with this interesting little fact.
30% of children born to mothers with gestational rubella infection develop autism.
So, the anti-vaxers are, in essence, backing policies that would lead to an increase in autism. Talk about short-sitedness.
Uh, that was the situation before vaccination and it didn't work. An awful lot of children died or suffered permanent disabilities.
Posted by: ozzy | June 13, 2008 1:16 PM
Before better sanitation and better understanding of how these spread, no doubt this is true.
That is different from whether or not these advances are due to mandated vaccination. I have presented some evidence above of statistical studies showing rapid and dramatic declines in such diseases as polio, before vaccinations were introduced, and further evidence of widespread epidemics in populations that had been vaccinated.
Examples of smaller episodes have also been presented more recently.I, like everyone else here, am not an expert in these fields, and can only read so much.
For the learning disabled, let me repeat, I am not anti-vaccine, I am against mandated vaccination. Call it a trust issue. I want to decide (with my physician) what to vaccinate against and when.
Tetanus was cited for another reason above, but I will use that. My Dr. told me my daughter did not need a tetanus vaccination unless/until she received a puncture wound, so there was no hurry.
(Should I have vaccinated against rabies? We live in the country, there are bats and squirrels) You trust the government when they tell you ALL of these shots are necessary for ALL of the children, at the very same age, as if all children develop at the same rate.
And HCN; I sincerely empathize with your situation, but you attribute this: "Unless, you have some kind of warped reasoning that children who do not survive measles or mumps unscathed deserve their fate because their immune systems are faulty"
To me. I said no such thing.
You ask for me to :"Now answer this question: What real verifiable scientific documentation shows that the MMR is riskier than measles, mumps or rubella?"
The fact that no such study has yet been 'authenticated' by the pro-vaccine community, is not the same as saying such do not exist. Have there really been studies where some kids were vaccinated, and some were not, and both groups were observed for a long enough period of time. long enough to conclude that one or the other hypothesis has been proven.
Studies exist, your side ridicules them. Parents of apparently normal happy children get the 18 month vaccination cocktail, autism signs are seen. The parent concludes the vaccinations were the cause. The vaccinators say, that's impossible or unproven or the child was already autistic etc, So, if I put in a citation like this, on autism:
" Dr. Aitken, based at Edinburgh University, said, "The substantial increase in cases in the US began about three years after MMR vaccine was introduced and the same thing happened three years after MMR was introduced in Britain. There has been a national increase throughout Britain and I find it very surprising that the change is so tightly linked in time with when triple vaccine was introduced."
You will have a million reasons why this cannot be true.
You will not be convinced. Show me 1,000 studies on Pubmed that assure the safety of the vaccine program; I am still a skeptic. I do not accept at face value the conclusions that you accept. I have said all through this that I am playing devil's advocate, to see if anyone here knew anything, and to those offering honest debate/exchange of ideas, without the insults and patronizing B.S. thanks.
FY 2008 87 $60,042,595.30 $3,461,399.16 56 $1,921,090.01 $65,425,084.47
It did not line up right, but these are the statistics for the year 2008 (to date) of compensation cases paid by the HRSA for vaccination related cases.
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/statistics_report.htm
Here's the break down 87 is the number of cases awarded payment, $60,042,595.30 is the amount of damages paid to the vaccine-injured plaintiffs. $3,461,399.16 is attorney's fees, 56 the number of payments to attorneys and $1,921,090.01 in attorneys fees/costs. The last, $65, 425, 084.47, the total amount of taxpayer dollars paid out to protect drug company profits (because they cannot obtain liability insurance for the damages they will undoubtedly cause.)
These are just the cases, so far this year as of June 2nd. Most cases take average 2 years to clear, so these are not cases filed this year, just cleared. Still, 6 months to go, lots more payments to come.
This money goes to verifiable cases only, right? Or does the government just give it to anyone making a claim?
That was rhetorical.
MrP:
"I have presented some evidence above of statistical studies showing rapid and dramatic declines in such diseases"
No you have not. You don't cite statistical studies, you cut and paste from whale.to and other sites. These are not studies. They are not reviewed for accuracy. But, you mean these distortions and, flat out, incorrect data:
"The mortality rate was 133 deaths per million people in the U.S. in 1900, and had dropped to 0.3 deaths per million by 1960. Measles caused less than 100 deaths a year in the U.S. before there was a vaccine for this disease (in 1963). The same thing happened with diphtheria and pertussis. Mortality rates dropped more than 90 percent in the early 20th century before vaccines for these diseases were introduced."
Here are the correct mortality data:
Barkin, R, MEASLES MORTALITY: A RETROSPECTIVE LOOK AT THE
VACCINE ERA, Am J Epidemiology, 1975, 102(4) p341-349
These data are from the National Center for Health Statistics. Where did your favorite "whale.to" site, that you cut and pasted from, get their "stats?"
1912 - 7 deaths/100,000 (6673 deaths)
1963 - 0.2 deaths/100,000 (371 deaths)
Notice, these are per 100,000 not million. There were almost 4 times as many deaths in 1960 than as you report.
Yes that is a > 90% decrease in mortality. But more importantly, let's look at rates of infection:
1912 - ~300 infections/100,000
1962 - ~250 infections/100,000
Boy, it doesn't appear that the rate of infection changed at all. Therefore, your proclaimed great advances in nutrition FAILED to prevent measles infection. Yes, it is true that decreases in mortality were seen in the era before vaccines but just as many people were getting infected so your natural immunity idea is just silly. Plus, there is no way to tell if the severity or associated morbidity of disease was any different between 1912 and 1960 because 1. morbidity statistics at the 1912 timepoint don't exist and 2. medical care was drastically different so there's no way of knowing if a more mild case would have resulted in death in 1912 but not 1960 due to better treatment in 1960.
Plus as mentioned before, there was the use of diptheria antitoxin in the 1890s and introduction of a vaccine in the 1920's. You really don't know what you are talking about.
I'm still waiting to hear your explanation as to why the HBV infection rate for 11-14 yr olds is higher than that of 5-10 yr olds and the rate for 5-10 yr olds is higher than 0-4 yr olds, if child are infected with HBV only from infected mothers at birth? That info must not be on your favorite whale.to site.
Mr. P already lost all arguments up thread when he linked to whale.to:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/06/vaccines_the_fallacy_of_the_p…
"In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately....... and gets you laughed out of the room"
See http://www.badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5240&p=90463&hilit=…
Anyway, you need to list the cases and deaths a full ten years before and after the introduction of the vaccine. Not selected dates (a classic Scudamore/whale.to tactic). This if from the CDC Pink Book Appendix (w w w .cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/G/cases&deaths.pdf... which is a photo pdf, I had to type the numbers in, so there may be some errors):
Disease: Measles in the USA
Year Cases Deaths
1961 423,919 434 (is this less than 100?)
1962 481,530 408
1963 385,156 364 <-- First measles vaccine
1964 458,083 421
1965 261,905 276
1966 204,136 261
1967 62,705 81
1968 22,231 24
1969 25,826 41
1970 47,351 89
1971 75,290 90 <--- MMR licensed
1972 32,275 24
1973 26,690 23
1974 22,690 20
1975 24,374 20
1976 41,126 12
1977 57,245 15
1978 26,871 11 <--- Measles Elimination Prog.
1979 13,597 6
1980 13,506 11
1981 2,124 2
Should have done a preview!
Disease: Measles in the USA
Year Cases Deaths
1961 423,919 434 (is this less than 100?)
1962 481,530 408
1963 385,156 364
(^^ first vaccine licensed)
1964 458,083 421
1965 261,905 276
1966 204,136 261
1967 62,705 81
1968 22,231 24
1969 25,826 41
1970 47,351 89
1971 75,290 90
(^^^ MMR licensed)
1972 32,275 24
1973 26,690 23
1974 22,690 20
1975 24,374 20
1976 41,126 12
1977 57,245 15
1978 26,871 11
(^^^ Measles Elimination Program started)
1979 13,597 6
1980 13,506 11
1981 2,124 2
"Studies exist, your side ridicules them."
So that is why you refuse to name them? If they are by Wakefield or the Geiers, they are not ridiculed... they are torn apart because of the bad science. Like the latest from the Geiers where they invented data:
http://epiwonk.com/?p=55 ...
"She's adding imaginary autism cases into the analysis. This isn't imputation -- it's cooking the data."
Seeing as you claim deaths from measles were down to less than 100 per year in the USA, when it was clearly many times more than that, the information you are using needs to be looked at more closely.
And while you wail and cry about "big pharma" and the "government" cannot be trusted, or have special interests... you seem to be perfectly comfortable using studies bought and paid for by lawyers (Wakefield, Geiers) or by parents who are active litigants against the USA (Poling, Hewiston).
Also, I am flabbergasted that folks think that even under a 100 deaths from measles or mumps are acceptible! Even the other disabilities that come from those diseases like deafness, blindness and in the case of one of the boys in the Timesonline article: paralysis.
Why do you think that is okay?
Why is it okay to have kids very very ill?
What kind of warped reality thinks that getting measles and being hospitalized for at least one out of 1000 cases with all the expense of equipment, medicine and health care providers from doctors, nurses to technicians is actually cheaper than prevention through vaccination? And it is not cheap, according to this report on the costs in California during the 1988 to 1991 measles outbreak:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedi…
Well, HCN, you sure are a busy guy/gal.
This topic is dead here, but I don't care about that.
This is the very first time I have visited a pro-vaccine site (meaning my very first post way above all of this) and so, obviously, my first time commenting. I was just researching hepB and got in here.
I made a comment challenging the conventional wisdom here which generated a flurry of angry responses. I was not looking to get involved in heated exchanges and unnecessary research to prove to a respondent that x or y or z.
Something about the dismissive tone pissed me off though, so I did some research, which led me to websites of quacks, charlatans and thieves; ie the pro-vaccination sites (that, I hope you can see, is a joke).
Seriously though, there were some genuine kooks, but not as many as you seem certain there are.
I found a few citations on pubmed, dismissed as too old or too small of a sample, and I did some research on MMR (which I had only a little interest in, but you were all "show me the studies that say MMR vaccinations are worse than the diseases." So I looked around. You knew I would find nothing, because such a study does not exist. You probably did a similar search many times, right?
I did find this, which you will be typing to discredit before you even read the rest of this: http://www.909shot.com/Diseases/mmr.htm
In 1994, the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is compelling scientific evidence that the measles vaccine can cause anaphylaxis that can end in death and that the MMR vaccine can cause thrombocytopenia (a decrease in the number of platelets, the cells involved in blood clotting) that can end in death. The incidence of thrombocytopenia was estimated to be 1 case per 30,000 to 40,000 vaccinated children. The IOM also concluded that the measles vaccine portion of the MMR vaccine can cause vaccine-strain measles virus infection that can end in death.
Because either no studies or too few studies have ever been conducted to investigate MMR vaccine reactions, a determination could not be made as to whether measles or mumps vaccine causes encephalitis or encephalopathy (brain disease); sensorineural deafness, or insulin dependent diabetes mellitus; whether the mumps vaccine causes aseptic meningitis, orchitis (inflammation of the testis) or sterility; or whether the measles vaccine causes subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, residual seizure disorders, optic neuritis, transverse myelitis, or Guillain-Barre syndrome.
You also, like StuV, pick and chhose statements you can challenge, and ignore things you cannot, like the government's own statistics on compensation to the vaccine injured ($65 million SO FAR THIS YEAR. and others up the chain of postings
So I did another study.
I googled "HCN" and "vaccination"
Bingo. There you are, on any site which allowed comments on vaccinations there you were.
http://whitecoatunderground.com/2008/02/19/flu-woo-immuno-woo-and-vacci…
http://autism-news-beat.com/?p=49
http://www.autismvox.com/doctor-who-falsified-vaccine-records-is-discip…
http://www.groupsrv.com/science/forum-68.html
http://mikestanton.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/vaccines-autism-and-actress…
http://photoninthedarkness.blogspot.com/2007/07/lets-do-study.html
http://www.cyclingforums.com/archive/index.php/t-99593.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/05/12/vaccination-update/
http://virginiahughes.com/2008/06/03/docs-fight-back-against-jenny/
http://myreader.co.uk/msg/11884656.aspx
Thats just off of the first two pages of my google search that yielded 10,400 hits. At least 10 pages cited above that I verified you commented on.
I did not have to look any further.
Any disclosures you'd care to make, before you change your handle, oh impatial commentor. It's obviously your job to debunk the anti-vaccination movement. And here I thought you were just a concerned citizen. :-D So, which drug company do you represent?
HAHAHAHA
Mr. P said "The incidence of thrombocytopenia was estimated to be 1 case per 30,000 to 40,000 vaccinated children. The IOM also concluded that the measles vaccine portion of the MMR vaccine can cause vaccine-strain measles virus infection that can end in death."
How is that more dangerous than at least one death per 1000 or one normal child out of 5000 becoming mentally retarded after getting measles?
Not to mention that in the about 5000 cases of mumps in the American Midwest during 2006 at least four people became deaf, and about two dozen young men may have been rendered sterile?
Oh, and 909shot is not really a verifiable scientific source. They tend to not include updates to their anti-vaccine information if it goes against their philosophy. Which is especially true for thrombocytopenia, because looking at PubMed I find that there is a paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17126957? ... that says "We conclude that the incidence of symptomatic thrombocytopenia after vaccinations is much lower than that after respective natural infections and that the outcome in most cases is excellent."... which means this is something that also occurs with the actual disease MORE often than with the MMR. So that does in no way show that the MMR is more risky than the actual diseases of measles, mumps and rubella.
Then you invoke the "Pharma Shill Gambit." See:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/09/the_pharma_shill_gambit_1.php (oh, and if you look, I also used to comment on the old Oracknows blog)
Big deal, I comment on vaccine threads. Go to the Whale.to posting that Orac made today... the groups.google thread he referenced includes me making lots of fun of John Scudamore. Look a bit further and you can see me posting on misc.kids.health, misc.health.alternative and elsewhere for several years (which is where I first "met" Orac, and several other commenters here). If you look at the history of my kid who would be seriously injured by the actual diseases you can see how I got into this debate, which I've been dealing with for the almost two decades he has been alive (oh, and about the time around 200 Americans died from measles between 1987 and 1992).
My job is to keep my children alive and healthy. Yours is obviously to prevent children from escaping pain, fever, misery and possible permanent injury from the diseases. See it works both ways.
Mr. P said " did find this, which you will be typing to discredit before you even read the rest of this: ....909shot.com/Diseases/mmr.htm"
I looked at the page. There are absolutely no references or bibliography for a person to check the statements. It is essentially "argument from blatant assertion".
Almost every time I have responded to you I have included back up documentation. Either from a journal webpage or the PubMed indes. Even the CDC Pink Book chapters I used have bibliographies http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/pink-chapters.htm ). Where is the equivalence for NVIC (sometimes called the National Vaccine MISinformation Center)? Where are the references for the MMR like the CDC Pink book measles chapter here? (cut and pasted, not reformatted, so it will be a bit wonky):
Selected References
American Academy of Pediatrics. Measles. In: Pickering L,
Baker C, Long S, McMillan J, eds. Red Book: 2006 Report
of the Committee on Infectious Diseases. 27th ed. Elk Grove
Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics, 2006:441-52.
Atkinson WL, Orenstein WA, Krugman S. The resurgence
of measles in the United States, 1989-1990. Ann Rev Med
1992;43:451-63.
Bellini WJ, Rota PA. Genetic diversity of wild-type measles
viruses: implications for global measles elimination programs.
Emerg Infect Dis 1998;4:29-35.
Bellini WJ, Rota JS, Lowe LE, et al. Subacute sclerosing
panencephalitis: more cases of this fatal disease are prevented
by measles immunization than was previously recognized.
J Infect Dis 2005;192:1686-93.
CDC. Measles, mumps, and rubella--vaccine use and
strategies for elimination of measles, rubella, and congenital
rubella syndrome and control of mumps: recommendations
of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
(ACIP). MMWR 1998;47(No. RR-8):1-57.
CDC. Immunization of health-care workers: recommendations
of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
(ACIP) and the Hospital Infection Control Practices
Advisory Committee (HICPAC).
MMWR 1997;46(No. RR-18):1-42.
CDC. Measles -- United States, 2005. MMWR
2006;55:1348-51.
CDC. Update: global measles control and mortality
reduction--worldwide, 1991-2001. MMWR 2003;52:471-5.
Halsey NA, Hyman SL, Conference Writing Panel.
Measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autistic spectrum
disorder: report from the New Challenges in Childhood
Immunizations Conference convened in Oak Brook, IL,
June 12-13, 2000. Pediatrics 2001;107(5).
Institute of Medicine. Institute of Medicine immunization
safety review: vaccines and autism. Washington DC: National
Academy Press, 2004.
Vitek CR, Aduddel, M, Brinton MJ. Increased protection
during a measles outbreak of children previously vaccinated
with a second dose of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.
Pediatr Infect Dis J 1999;18:620-3.