I've been sarcastically "thanking" Jenny McCarthy for bringing the U.S. the gift of measles through her tireless efforts on behalf of Generation Rescue and other antivaccine groups and will continue to do so whenever I deem it appropriate. But Jenny isn't the only one who deserves our "thanks" (no, I'm not going to thank Andrew Wakefield again). Let's not forget all those religions who, either because they think vaccines are messing with God's will or because of some interpretation of a holy book written in prescientific times, religions like this one in Canada:
With the number of confirmed and suspected mumps cases in the Fraser Health region closing in on 200, public health officials are worrying it will spread into the Vancouver Coastal region and looking for ways to avoid such a daunting scenario.Since the outbreak began in Chilliwack in February, cases having been spreading like wildfire through the Fraser Valley, fuelled by a high rate of transmission among vaccine objectors from unnamed Christian fundamentalist groups that are against vaccines of all kinds.
About half the 190 confirmed and suspected cases are individuals who have never been immunized, either on religious or philosophical grounds, said Dr. Elizabeth Brodkin. She said another 25 per cent of cases involve people who are only partially immunized.
Public health officials have declined to disclose the church affiliations, saying that would violate confidentiality, but said the denominations' interpretation of the Bible dictates their aversion to vaccines.
This is stupidity itself. Why on earth would officials not reveal the churches spreading vaccine rejectionism, churches directly responsible for this outbreak of mumps? There are nearly 200 cases; no individuals will be identified, just the church(es) responsible for this outbreak, which is something the public needs to know. After all, it's causing a serious problem for the health authorities in Fraser:
"This outbreak is really taxing us, and we think a provincial consensus is needed to determine whether we should just resign ourselves to large numbers of cases, or [determine] what to do to mitigate the spread through some sort of immunization campaign," Brodkin said in an interview.
"After all, this is not a trivial disease. We've had many cases resulting in hospitalizations and complications like deafness, meningitis and testicular involvement, which can cause sterility," she added.
But, antivaccinationists tell us, mumps is not serious. Oh, no, they tell us, it's just a benign childhood disease. Rubbish.
Worse, as is often the case, concentrations of unvaccinated individuals are putting everyone else at risk:
Because of the mobility of individuals, she said "there's no guarantee it won't spread to the Vancouver region."
"At the moment, there is some evidence that it is moving out of the faith-based communities and into the broader communities," she said, noting that there are now cases as far west as Burnaby.
I'm not Canadian; so I can't express my "thanks" to the religious fundamentalists responsible for letting mumps run wild in Western Canada, but I'm sure there are Canadians reading who can.
Unbelievable.
Well, the current story from John Scudamore and associates is that vaccination programs are a nefarious plot to sterilize whole continents (they don't seem to be able to distinguish between polio programs in Asia, rubella campaigns in Latin America, or tetanus prevention in Africa.)
Looks like the religious antivax set are going for copycat status. A few score cases of orchitis in their menfolk ...
Before we had vaccines for many of these diseases, public health officials had broad powers to close down sources of infection and quarantine homes of the infected. I have no love for government intrusion into our lives, but if these people are endangering the lives of other citizens, it is the proper role of government to intervene.
I really wish they would start being more truthful about the number who were vaccinated and still contracted it. Also, when were they vaccinated? Recently? I honestly would not doubt it if all 200 were vaccinated. Also, did the strain match the vaccine used? Another bogus scare tactic. Nice try though.
Dawn,
what part of
About half the 190 confirmed and suspected cases are individuals who have never been immunized, either on religious or philosophical grounds, said Dr. Elizabeth Brodkin.
don't you understand? We are (I assume) looking at the same community that already brought Canada Polio and CRS. Sad.
Don't even get me started about CRS. The Rubella Vaccine has done more harm than good. There were only 14 Cases of CRS reported in the U.S. one year before the vaccine came on the market according to our government officials here in the U.S. There were even less in previous years. So, my hearing loss was not worth it.....especially when I learn that the number of CRS cases skyrocketed as soon as the vaccine came on the market.
Polio, another joke.
Dawn,
on which planet do you live and how do you get this fast internet connection there?
Dawn;
Do you really believe the things you say (the generalities about diseases) or do you merely make them up as you go?
Dean, I'm not following. What is your question? Which part do you doubt?
Here, Dawn, are the rubella and CRS numbers for the USA from 1966 through 1986. CRS wasn't reportable until 1969:
Year_rubella_deaths_CRS
-----------------------
1966__46,975___12___NA
1967__46,888___16___NA
1968__49,371___24___NA
1969__57,686___29___31
1970__56,552___31___77
1971__45,086___20___68
1972__25,507___14___42
1973__27,804___16___35
1974__11,917___15___45
1975__16,652___21___30
1976__12,491___12___30
1977__20,395___17___23
1978__18,269___10___30
1979__11,795____1___62
1980___3,904____1___50
1981___2,077____5___19
1982___2,325____4____7
1983_____970____3___22
1984_____752____1____5
1985_____630____1____0
1986_____551____1___14
The only year with 14 CRS cases was 1986. Are you telling us that the rubella vaccine "came on the market" in 1987?
Dawn,
Nice job in continuing to run your mouth after having your original point completely destroyed. Now go back to polishing your tinfoil hat and watching Kevin Trudeau infomercials.
D.C. Sessions, that is too funny. Something very fishy here.
http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/yellowBookCh4-Rubella.aspx
Funny, those figures that you previously cited match mine exactly. However, I ALSO have the number of CRS cases reported for the years 1966, 1967, 1968.
CRS cases reported by the CDC
1966 - 11
1967 - 10
1968 - 14
Also, how does it work that 20,000 cases of CRS were reported in 1964-1964, yet the figures are not available in your information until the vaccine came out (missing for 3 whole years)??
Weird, huh?
I'm Canadian, so I get to say it: Thanks heaps, ya whackaloons.
The west coast seems to have a lot of that sort of thing -- either you get crunchy-granola hippy-dippy liberals or else right-wingers who feel anything that happened after 1900 is bad for the trees. (Not all right-wingers are anti-environmentalists, and not all liberals run screaming from the term "technocrat," either, especially in the Canadian context.)
Incidentally, a number of those religious colonies out there are neopentacostal, and they are not nice folks to tangle with. Every so often, the RCMP goes in to one of those communities and arrests a bunch of guys whose catchphrase seems to be "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!"
Here's a hint: Your source doesn't say that.
My source is the same source...the CDC.
For those of us who don't know...what is CRS?
Also, I'm feeling vaguely alarmed that this corner of the world keeps getting these preventable diseases. According to the MSNBC graph, Washington State has over 6% vaccination exemptions, presumably of kids entering school. I wonder how much higher the figure really is if we include the unvaccinated homeschoolers. If this keeps up, my state will get demonstrate what happens when herd immunity drops.
Well, I'm Canadian, so I'll say it; thanks! Jerks.
CRS is congential rubella syndrome. You can look it up on Wikipedia if you want to know more.
I have no idea how Dawn can be claiming that "20,000 cases of CRS were reported in 1964-1964." As far as I know, that would be one year, though an odd way of putting it.
Catharina said "on which planet do you live and how do you get this fast internet connection there?"
and
Dean said "Do you really believe the things you say (the generalities about diseases) or do you merely make them up as you go?"
During her last pregnancy Dawn had preemplamsia. More than likely the high blood pressure caused bleeding in her brain. That should help explain her alternate reality.
I don't think you guys are understanding the "big picture".
D.C. Sessions figures are exactly what I have. The only difference is that D.C. Sessions is lacking the number of CRS cases reported for the 3 years prior to the vaccine making its big debut. This evidence clearly shows that the rubella vaccine did not do a thing to change the reported CRS cases.
Don't believe me? Locate a HARD copy of MMWR dated October 25, 1996 which clearly outlines reported CRS cases from 1966-1980. Apparently, the "online version" is missing those three very important years - 1966-1968.
Wow, thank you D.C. Sessions for pointing out that alarming fact. Not only is the CDC responsible for altering studies, but also responsible for omitting statistics that they already reported too.....12 years ago. Big oopsie on their behalf.
Diane, from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/rubella.pdf ... "Prevention of CRS is the main objective of rubella
vaccination programs in the United States.
A rubella epidemic in the United States in 1964-1965 resulted in 12.5 million cases of rubella infection and about 20,000 newborns with CRS."..."Congenital infection with rubella virus can affect virtually all organ systems. Deafness is the most common and often the sole manifestation of congenital rubella infection, especially after the fourth month of gestation. Eye defects, including cataracts, glaucoma, retinopathy, and microphthalmia may occur. Cardiac defects such as patent ductus arteriosus, ventricular septal defect, pulmonic stenosis, and coarctation of the aorta are possible. Neurologic abnormalities, including microcephaly and mental retardation, and other abnormalities, including bone lesions, splenomegaly, hepatitis, and thrombocytopenia with purpura may occur."
Care to provide a link to that hard copy? Scanning is easy and you can put it up on flickr or any other hosting site of your choice.
Distressing as this is, why do you overstate by several orders of magnitude?
An exercise for you - go to Google Maps. Look at western Canada. Big place, isn't it? Now zoom in ... zoom way in ... on the area affected. Miniscule piece of western Canada, isn't it?
This is not deny the stupidity or the seriousness of the trend, but gross overstatements do nobody any favours.
the CDC says:
"During 1964 and 1965 a rubella epidemic in the United States caused an estimated 12.5 million cases of rubella and 20,000 cases of congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) which led to more than 11,600 babies born deaf, 11,250 fetal deaths, 2,100 neonatal deaths, 3,580 babies born blind and 1,800 babies born mentally retarded."
Rev. BDC said "Care to provide a link to that hard copy? Scanning is easy and you can put it up on flickr or any other hosting site of your choice."
No she won't because she has never seen it. It is probably one of the unverifiable bits of "information" she picked up on a Yahoo group, often from the math illiterate homeopath Sheri Nakken.
Dawn,
Care to share your "CDC source" for your CRS cases in 1966-68. Let me guess, hmm, you're "paraphrasing" that vaccine book you love to push.
Not on the page you linked.
Oh yeah I know.
Dawn do you have access to the paper you claim? If so settle this and support your assertion. If not you're just running your mouth.
Something we've all see here from the anti-vaxxers. Lots of noise no actual support of their side.
I wonder how Dawn and the like feel about being placed on par with extreme religious fundamental fanatics. Their reasoning skills are about the same. "Hey, it's what I am believe, regardless of the scientific evidence! you cannot prove (to me) that you are right or that I am wrong! Therefore, I am going to do/not do ____ because you are going to go to hell/you are going to give kids diseases/disorders."
At least they can get a good reference as to where they stand rationally and ultimately in the eyes of society.
BTW, Kim Stagliano wrote back to me about a response (answer) to a posted comment (question) Craig Willoughby placed on the AoA website. I submitted in another message, intended for her, that it's curious that they need to edit and filter out what doesn't match up with their agenda and that speaks volumes about the quality of information, the strengths of their position, and how these "journalists" really fell about free speech and the truth. She said that she doesn't have to post my comments or any that she doesn't want to and I should go to the science blogs with my medical professional and pharma/biotech friends.
I guess the truth hurts.
I really feel sorry for those poor parents who are being deceived. They deserve help and answers, not propaganda.
Other than profanity, it appears all positions are posted (although Dawn is really walking a fine line here since it is probably only fueling her paranoid schizophrenic delusion).
Has anyone explained to Dawn that the CDC updates the data when they get better information?
BTW: She's quoting this: "The last major epidemic of rubella in the United States occurred in 1964 and 1965 when millions of rubella cases led to 20,000 cases of infants born with CRS."
That was what led to it being a reportable disease in 1969 ... the inability to track the risk and figure out what to do.
DC Sessions said "Not on the page you linked." ...
this is what Dawn said "D.C. Sessions, that is too funny. Something very fishy here.
http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/yellowBookCh4-Rubella.aspx
Funny, those figures that you previously cited match mine exactly. However, I ALSO have the number of CRS cases reported for the years 1966, 1967, 1968.
CRS cases reported by the CDC
1966 - 11
1967 - 10
1968 - 14
Also, how does it work that 20,000 cases of CRS were reported in 1964-1964, yet the figures are not available in your information until the vaccine came out (missing for 3 whole years)??"
This is what that link says:
"The last major epidemic of rubella in the United States occurred in 1964 and 1965 when millions of rubella cases led to 20,000 cases of infants born with CRS. Following vaccine licensure in 1969, rubella incidence declined rapidly."
Basically, it shows that Dawn is cribbing her stuff directly from the Yahoo group without bothering to look at the links she posted.
By the way, the figures of rubella, CRS and others are easily seen at a scanned PDF here:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/appdx-fu… ... in those tables the CRS cases are not reported for the early 1960s. I'm looking for where the those cases were reported. That epidemic did not go unnoticed, it was documented somewhere.
Okay, I will repeat it...
Locate a HARD copy of MMWR dated October 25, 1996 which clearly outlines reported CRS cases from 1966-1980 in a graph version. Apparently, the "online version" is missing those three very important years - 1966-1968.
Wow, thank you D.C. Sessions for pointing out that alarming fact. Not only is the CDC responsible for altering studies, but also responsible for omitting statistics that they already reported too.....12 years ago. Big oopsie on their behalf.
No, don't expect me to do the work for you. Besides, even if I do scan it, you will probably assume that I altered the statistics before scanning the page. I'm not an idiot.
However, I do have a very bad habit of hitting the post button before proof-reading. With a correction to my previous post, it was years 1964-1965 (20,000 cases of CRS?)that cannot be explained (based on the CRS cases reported for the three years - 1966-1968, again, all information being reported by the same agency - the CDC.
The only people that must be "stomping" their feet saying it isn't so, must be either
a. confined to a wheelchair and going out is not an option
b. true blue employees of Big Pharma that already know I've proven my point based on D.C. Sessions accidental boo-boo, AND I have even provided a reference for my source.
Hard copy, hard copy, hard copy. That is all I have to say for all of you non-believers. The CDC is a very corrupt and misleading organization. If you do happen to research this very alarming and amusing fact, you will probably then begin to question everything else that you've ever been brainwashed into believing. All lies - about every disease and every vaccine.
Tsu Dho Nimh said "That was what led to it being a reportable disease in 1969 ... the inability to track the risk and figure out what to do."
Yep, that is what I found with my PubMed search. There are some notes from separate states, a paper on the impact on schools for the deaf, and calls for more research, surveillance and prevention. One complete paper I found is here:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1503251&pageinde…
Which is titled "Rubella: Some Comments on the 1964-1965 Epidemic in California" It is a photocopy PDF, so no cut and pasting. But I can type in the introduction:
The rubella epidemic of 1964-1965 resulted in the birth of a group of children with defects of vision, of hearing or of the heart. In this study of cases known to five Los Angeles agencies, it was found that about half of those affected have more than one defect. Findings demonstrate a need for more sensitive communicable disease surveillance and for the development of services for the multiple handicapped child.
Here is a chart of the CDC data on incidence of rubella before and after introduction of the vaccine, demonstrating the drastic decrease in incidence.
This Dawn person isn't funny anymore. She's scaring me, can't we just make her go away somehow. How about a trip outside of Vancover where you can attend an unnamed church which we hail you as a new prophet as they watch all their children get sick, go deaf and possibly die.
I know scienceblogs is an educational (and some entertainment) tool, but at some point its just not worth trying to educate those who are purposefully obtuse.
"The CDC is a very corrupt and misleading organization. If you do happen to research this very alarming and amusing fact, you will probably then begin to question everything else that you've ever been brainwashed into believing. All lies - about every disease and every vaccine."
How would you explain the fact that other nations have similar statistics, evaluations, analysis, and positions? Why do they model their systems and practices on our (U.S.) system? Are all people that work for the CDC (5 of them, in the basement somewhere) all in on the conspiracy too? Do you think they vaccinate their children or have a secret handbook somewhere about the REAL facts about these diseases?
I could ask a lot more questions, but you won't answer them...just like you skip over the glaring faux pas pointed out to you by other posters.
What a kook!
Dawn,
The burden of proof is on you. You're the one claiming this broad conspiracy. Let's see what you have.
They believe in God more than they believe in Science. They yearn for a time when Science did not show the unlikelihood of the existence of their God. They claim their God punishes those who disobey or disbelieve in Him. They have a theory that to use vaccines is to not put their trust in their Lord.
I wonder how they avoid the conclusion that their God is punishing them for not accepting the gift of the vaccines.
Oh and thanks, by the way. Thanks a lot. At the end of the week we will be taking our daughter to her new university there on the fringe of these fools. Booster shots are suddenly on my mind.
Based on the latest news report that the virus entered the religious community near Agassiz via 2 children from a similar community in Alberta, I'd guess they are Mennonite, or similar.
RJ, what were you trying to respond to from one of my posts on AoA? I can answer here if you'd like.
And Dawn, please stop...this is getting painful to watch.
Hey Craig,
It was nothing big, but it was about Merck and other big pharma's getting "caught" with their business tactics. My question to you (rhetorical, go figure) was WHO caught them? My point was the that the same scientists and regulatory agencies that have been sucked up into this conspiracy theory were the ones that provide took existing data, from Merck itself, as well as additional info that was produced by labs after FDA approval. The institutions that are nebulously described as "big pHARMa" are made up of people, like you, who have committed their lives to bettering humanity, through extensive education, exhaustive research, and a standards and ethics just like everyone else. Their families are affected from their products just like everyone else. The business elements in these corporations, however, are very questionable. Their motives are based on sales and revenue...oh, maybe a little safety on the side if that works out for their marketing departments. But do not be so quick to dismiss the people who make up this mysterious entity "big pHARMa"...they are just like you and me (an analogy would be like saying American's are evil because they torture people. Most of us do not believe in torture, but certain governmental policies put in place by a minority have led us to this position).
Many people believe, because the read the news, that somehow their big buddies in the media are there to protect them, as in this case. This is WRONG! All they do is report what others find, and generate as much hysteria in the process as possible, all for viewership and ratings. It is organizations like the CDC, the FDA, etc., and the professional scientific and medical staff that is what discovers and exposes these problems. Not CBS, not AoA. Scientists. If we thought for an instant that these agencies were up to no good, "in the pocket of big pharma", the game would be up. You can bet on that. We have families too.
I guess I don't know why Kim would have been so threatened by this. I guess it goes against what they over at AoA want you to believe. And looking at the narrow topics a site that purports to be about autism cover, I can see why. Clearly, autism is a mere side note in their campaign.
Anyway, thanks for chatting and to everyone else for letting me use this discussion board, on the topic of Kunukle heads and mumps to share an off-topic opinion.
Dawn, I am willing to accept your data the the CDC reported 11, 10, and 14 cases of CRS in 1966, 1967, and 968, respectively.
Why do you think this makes a case against vaccinating against rubella? Clearly rubella cases dropped precipitously after vaccination started. You seem to be looking at a transient increase in CRS reports from 1969 to 1970, but why do you think that is significant? There was a doubling of CRS reports from 1978 to 1979 and a tripling from 1982 to 1983. So what? It dropped again after each of them.
By the way, for those who still think the mumps is nothing more than yet another harmless childhood disease, fellow ScienceBlogger Sandra Porter has written a good summary as to why you are wrong, with the promise of more detail later.
I quite disagree. Dawn, like Scudamore, is no end educational. (Entertaining only in my guiltier moments.)
The thing that transforms Dawn from farce to education is the realization that she's telling the truth as she sees it -- and that includes the amount of effort she puts into influencing elected officials.
How much do you want to bet that those officials will recognize a kook and pay her the attention she deserves instead of the attention she demands? How about those of similar bent but better presentation skills? Are you sure? Are you willing to bet your grandchildren?
Why is it painful Craig Willoughby? These people are even bigger idiots than I thought. Here I am stating that my statistics on rubella and cases of CRS are almost exactly what D.C. Sessions has for "scientific evidence" (his are a little off though by just a couple of cases in some areas, but pretty much the same for the most part). However, I noticed that the hard copy of the MMWR that I cited is different than the online verson of the same publication by the same agency!! There are three years missing in the online version - which speaks volumes as to why we even have the rubella vaccine in the first place!! The years 1966-1968 are, in fact, missing from the online version. However, these years are NOT missing in the hard copy.
How hard is that to register in one's brain?? Yes, the number of rubella cases have dropped since the introduction of the vaccine. At the same time though, the vaccine did not do anything for the number of CRS cases - nothing at all. In fact, 1986 had the same number of CRS cases as 1968. 1967 had the same number as 1978 - 11! Again, the vaccine was not on the market in 1967 or 1968 either. It came out in 1969. Please explain this.
Thank you D.C. Sessions for further proving my point too... that if the CDC can lie, withhold important figures, AND change statistics about one disease - what is to stop them in all areas?
You really should take Craig's advice. He's basically on your side of the vaccine/autism issue, and even he realizes what a fool you're making of yourself. That's why it's painful to him to watch your antics. Heck, I'm utterly opposed to antivaccinationists like you and Craig, and even I find it painful to watch you. It's a human thing. After a certain point, watching even an opponent make a fool of herself ceases to be amusing or satisfying and reaches the point where I'm truly embarrassed for you.
Part of me wants you to stop, just so you stop digging yourself in deeper, while the darker side of me wants you to continue to make a fool of yourself (while my better side experiences guilt for feeling that way), because you're the best argument against antivaccinationism I've seen in a long time. Only John Best is a deeper embarrassment to the antivaccine movement.
IMHO, the folks leaving comments on this blog need to do a better job of speaking to their opponents in language they understand. People like Dawn are swayed by the anti-vaccination movement because their ability to interpret scientific data is so poor. And we are trying to counter her arguments with PubMed searches.
Someone please explain to her in clear, layman's terms, why the pre-1967 numbers she has seen are misleading, and why it matters that CRS was not a reportable disease before 1967.
Instead of getting frustrated, issuing nasty posts laden with insults, and asking "can't we just make her go away?", we should be asking ourselves why we are failing to change her mind.
You can be correct and still loose a debate. Maybe we need to polish up our debating skills.
Until you show us a copy of the document, your "numbers" mean nothing. Mind telling me what page that was on. Just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing.
RJ,
Fair enough.
Dawn,
What Orac said.
Peace out, guys
Scott Belyea says:
Google map fu skills include noticing that the Lower Mainland is home to about 60% of the population of BC, concentrated in 0.4% of the land area. That's 4000 km2 that includes the farming area where the outbreak is. We aren't much worried about the mountains and trees catching mumps.
In March, the CBC reported that "there are usually less than five cases of mumps reported each year." Now we have just under 200 in about half a year. That's orders of magnitude to me.
Jumping from the 300 in Alberta all the way to the Fraser Valley sounds like wild fire spreading to me.
BTW how does one quantify 'run wild' as 'several orders of magnitude'?
When I had mumps as a kid (many years prior to vaccination being available) I had the pleasure of mumps pancreatitis. Not funny. I'm glad I escaped with my testicles intact. When I was in medical school (still prior to a vaccination) the commonest form of viral meningitis was that due to mumps. Also not funny. As a paediatrics SHO I saw numerous HIB and meningococcal meningitis cases, some of whom died, and a few who would have, perhaps, been better off if they had. I saw a kid die of chickenpox encephalitis. None of it was funny. Now I have a high-functioning autistic son - clearly a result of genetics, with two generations of engineers in the family and me on the spectrum too. That wasn't funny either, but you won't catch me trying to blame vaccines, and encouraging the return of those diseases simply to assuage my guilt. My son was an enormous challenge to bring up, but after eighteen years of one long continuous rolling behavioural modification programme he starts university this week and has earned a full scholarship for his double honours in math and physics. There's more satisfaction in that, Dawn, than in knowing I have persuaded some parents to avoid vaccinating their kids so that some of them, in turn, will die unnecessarily. Think about it, you dangerous and deluded dingbat.
Clydicus said "IMHO, the folks leaving comments on this blog need to do a better job of speaking to their opponents in language they understand. People like Dawn are swayed by the anti-vaccination movement because their ability to interpret scientific data is so poor. "
Okay, I'll try:
In 1962 rubella was called 3 day measles or German measles. It was very mild, it killed only a little bit compared to regular measles.
It was not reported because it only killed and hurt a little bit. Measles, polio, tetanus, diphtheria and mumps killed and hurt lots more kids (and sometimes grownups).
In 1964 there was lots of rubella. Lots of pregnant ladies got rubella. Then when the babies were born lots were hurt or dead. Most of the babies were deaf.
Because lots of babies were being born with problems, and lots of babies were dead before they were born, it caused lots of people to worry. Some of these people were doctors, and some were scientists. Also the mommies and the daddies of these hurt and dead babies cried to their public health people.
So when all these people got together, they figured out that this disease was not so nice and safe. They got together and decided to add it to the list of bad diseases they count. But that took time, so this disease that used to be a nice disease but is really a bad disease was added to the list of bad diseases they count in 1968.
Does this help?
Dawn:
These are the comments to which I refer.
"The Rubella Vaccine has done more harm than good. There were only 14 Cases of CRS reported in the U.S. one year before the vaccine came on the market according to our government officials here in the U.S. There were even less in previous years. .....especially when I learn that the number of CRS cases skyrocketed as soon as the vaccine came on the market."
HCN, I find your allusions that some medical condition influences her thought processes disgusting, regardless of how I feel about her point of view.
Dean
Well, you have the vaccine program to thank for that JohnnieCanuck, FCD. At least, here in the U.S, according to the CDC, these diseases were pretty much eradicated 5-10 years before the vaccines came into the picture. We just have some pretty upset parents that are sick of their vaccine-injured children taking the heat for our ancestors actions.
The vaccine program never should have happened. So, what do we do?? Draw a line in the middle of the U.S. and the pro-vaccine could live on one side and the anti-vaccine on another? I actually like that idea. After all, us "anti-vax people" don't want you giving us your newly created stealth viruses and you don't want your young, elderly and immune-compromised people (aka the "herd") suffering due to the decline of people vaccinating. What a great idea. Let's write to Congress and the President about it. The anti-vax shall take the East Coast because their stronger immune systems can handle the cold better than you guys can.
Clydicus, I think if you read the threads where Dawn first appeared, you will see that people have tried to explain these issues to her in layman's terms. A lot of things have followed since then, most of them involving Dawn moving the goalposts each time she is proven wrong. This has included undermining her own position - she cited some things on PubMed until too many people pointed out how they didn't support her position, and then after that PubMed was part of evil Big Pharma/Big Medicine/Big Whatever.
In dealing with someone who is questioning vaccination, your approach would be very effective. The person has to be actually asking questions, though, not searching desperately for whatever little bits of information come remotely close to supporting their worlview. Dawn is the latter type, I'm afraid.
Lancelot says: "When I had mumps as a kid (many years prior to vaccination being available) I had the pleasure of mumps pancreatitis. Not funny. I'm glad I escaped with my testicles intact. When I was in medical school (still prior to a vaccination) the commonest form of viral meningitis was that due to mumps. Also not funny. As a paediatrics SHO I saw numerous HIB and meningococcal meningitis cases, some of whom died, and a few who would have, perhaps, been better off if they had. I saw a kid die of chickenpox encephalitis. None of it was funny. Now I have a high-functioning autistic son - clearly a result of genetics, with two generations of engineers in the family and me on the spectrum too. That wasn't funny either, but you won't catch me trying to blame vaccines, and encouraging the return of those diseases simply to assuage my guilt. My son was an enormous challenge to bring up, but after eighteen years of one long continuous rolling behavioural modification programme he starts university this week and has earned a full scholarship for his double honours in math and physics. There's more satisfaction in that, Dawn, than in knowing I have persuaded some parents to avoid vaccinating their kids so that some of them, in turn, will die unnecessarily. Think about it, you dangerous and deluded dingbat."
Thank you kind Sir, for the strongest statement about how ignorant Dear "Dawn" is, that I've seen in a while!
Favorite quote from Dawn;
"Polio, another joke."
Much like a tactical nuke can be an annoyance.
Got a friend (mid 50's) that is walking on crutches for life. What a crack up!!!
Natalie stated: "I think if you read the threads where Dawn first appeared, you will see that people have tried to explain these issues to her in layman's terms. A lot of things have followed since then, most of them involving Dawn moving the goalposts each time she is proven wrong. This has included undermining her own position - she cited some things on PubMed until too many people pointed out how they didn't support her position, and then after that PubMed was part of evil Big Pharma/Big Medicine/Big Whatever".
Really? Where? Please refresh my memory.
Natalie also stated: "In dealing with someone who is questioning vaccination, your approach would be very effective. The person has to be actually asking questions, though, not searching desperately for whatever little bits of information come remotely close to supporting their worlview. Dawn is the latter type, I'm afraid".
Natalie, I have actually given you one source today and you cannot even be bothered "looking into it". Again, this tells me that either you are
1. handicapped and cannot get around to find the hard copy of the source that I stated
2. know that I am exactly right and you work for Big Pharma
Uncle Dave stated: "Favorite quote from Dawn;
"Polio, another joke."
Much like a tactical nuke can be an annoyance.
Got a friend (mid 50's) that is walking on crutches for life. What a crack up!!!"
Oh really Uncle Dave? Was it contracted from the vaccine?
I wonder if the officials decided not to name the religious groups because they didn't want all the antivax freaks to go running en masse to the find the contagion. The antivaxers do not want their children ever to be vaccinated, but apparently they know that it's not smart for older boys or men to get mumps. I don't know if that makes a difference, but the belief seems to be that it's safer for boys to get mumps when they are like 6 or 7 compared to 13 or 18, or as adults.
What are they to do for their unvaxed boys then? Wait until they turn 13 and then hope for the best?
No, they need to make sure their boys get infected with mumps.
If I was a public health official I might think that...
on the other hand, I suppose it's more like they are trying to avoid stigmatizing the religious groups...
I don't think that's necessarily fair. I think these groups have stigmatized themselves by being stupid.
The Bible says nothing about vaccines. It does recommend quarantining for disease. The word "quarantine" comes from an Italian word for "40". From what I understand, in the days of things like smallpox epidemics the Jews in Spain tended to survive better because they would isolate obviously sick people for forty days (which is part of the Law given to Moses).
Here's what wikipedia says:
Jewish communities tried to separate infected people from others to prevent the spread of disease as early as 1513 BC, as recorded in Leviticus chapter 13 of the Old Testament.
The discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases and the use of quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases was introduced by AbÅ« AlÄ« ibn SÄ«nÄ (Avicenna) in The Canon of Medicine, circa 1020.[1]
The word "quarantine" originates from the Venetian dialect form of the Italian quaranti giorni, meaning 'forty days'. This is due to the 40 day isolation of ships and people prior to entering the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia (formerly known as Ragusa). This was practiced as a measure of disease prevention related to the plague (Black Death). Between 1348 and 1359 the Black Death wiped out an estimated 30% of Europe's population, as well as a significant percentage of Asia's population. The original document from 1377, which is kept in the Archives of Dubrovnik, states that before entering the city, newcomers had to spend 30 days in a restricted location (originally nearby islands) waiting to see whether the symptoms of plague would develop. Later on, isolation was prolonged to 40 days and was called quarantine.
Other diseases lent themselves to the practice of quarantine before and after the devastation of the Plague. Those afflicted with leprosy were historically isolated from society, the attempts to check the invasion of syphilis in northern Europe about 1490, the advent of yellow fever in Spain at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the arrival of Asiatic cholera in 1831.
Venice took the lead in measures to check the spread of plague, having appointed three guardians of the public health in the first years of the Black Death (1348). The next record of preventive measures comes from Reggio in Modena in 1374. The first lazaret was founded by Venice in 1403, on a small island adjoining the city; in 1467 Genova followed the example of Venice; and in 1476 the old leper hospital of Marseille was converted into a plague hospital. The great lazaret of that city, perhaps the most complete of its kind, having been founded in 1526 on the island of Pomgue. The practice at all the Mediterranean lazarets was not different from the English procedure in the Levantine and North African trade. On the approach of cholera in 1831 some new lazarets were set up at western ports, notably a very extensive establishment near Bordeaux, afterwards turned to another use.
------
From what I took away from a recent comment by Barbara "I love epidemics" Loe Fisher she doesn't think it's fair to keep antivaxers away from the public just because they might spread disease and death.
There's nothing in the Bible about people going out of their way to get their children sick.
Like I said, Dawn is no end educational. Look at how readily she discerns the existence of a deep, dark conspiracy.
Of course, those three years are present at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00039679.htm in Table 10, but I wouldn't mention it to her. She's so happy right now.
When I have left my decidely-not-related-to-pharmaceuticals job and returned home, I will find the series of threads and refresh your memory. It will also be a nice illustration of your behavior for Clydicus.
I've asked you directly for numerous sources to back up specific claims of yours in the dozen or so threads you are currently screaming into. Which ones did you provide?
1. Google "false dilemma", Dawn.
2. You don't have a very high opinion of the disabled, do you?
3. Work for Big Pharma? I wish. They would probably pay more than my current job. And think of the free samples!
Well, Ms. Clark, then if you read the Bible you surely know what brought about disease in the first place....sin.
Yargh, my blockquotes did not work properly. Dawn's comments are the first 1 & 2, mine the second 1, 2 & 3.
Sin, Dawn? You really hit all the crazy notes, huh?
Natalie stated: "When I have left my decidely-not-related-to-pharmaceuticals job and returned home, I will find the series of threads and refresh your memory. It will also be a nice illustration of your behavior for Clydicus".
Natalie, does your boss know that you are on the computer all day while he/she is paying you to work??? OR, is blogging, playing pro-vaccine parent all day/responding to news articles involving vaccines specifically your job?? Which is it?
Yeah, polio is just a bowl of cherries, ain't it Dawn?
http://wehelpwhathurts.homestead.com/iron_lung_ward_op_650x546.jpg
Natalie stated: "Sin, Dawn? You really hit all the crazy notes, huh"?
It has become very apparent Natalie that you've never even read the first book of the Bible, let alone the whole Bible.
Dawn might want to go try to convince the folks at the CDBRA.ca site how benign and rare congenital rubella infections were.
"The Canadian Deafblind and Rubella Association is committed to assisting all persons who are deafblind to achieve, with Intervention, the best quality of life."
http://www.cdbra.ca/show.do?p=rubellaNews
Prenatal rubella infections can cause autism and mental retardation. When that was discovered, it was one thing that started people thinking that maybe autism wasn't caused by "refrigerator mothers" as the charlatan Bettleheim was telling them.
Another interesting thing is that they found that CRS kids with autism could improve with age so that they weren't so impaired. And that without a GFCF diet or chelation, if you can imagine! Stella Chess was the researcher who got famous for finding autism in CRS cases. Well, she may have been famous otherwise, but she's known for the autism/rubella thing, too.
Doc, you're forgetting John Scudamore.
I don't think you've seen "drcee" much, but if anything he makes Scudamore look halfway sane.
Nobody, and I mean nobody has found the limits of netkookery, and it's not for trying.
Actually, it is you D.C. Sessions who played the "fool" very well today. Thanks for the stats.
"It has become very apparent Natalie that you've never even read the first book of the Bible, let alone the whole Bible."
And yet more parallels to Cocksnack. Remember when Bronze Dog pointed out some very obvious contradictions in Genesis and Cocksnack explained it away as "you just don't understand the Bible?"
I've lost track of the actual post. Anyone?
Laser Potato stated: "Yeah, polio is just a bowl of cherries, ain't it Dawn?
http://wehelpwhathurts.homestead.com/iron_lung_ward_op_650x546.jpg"
Actually, Laser Potato, was this picture taken while the manufacturer was "studying the effects of the vaccine" or was the picture taken after mass vaccination?
Another Canadian dropping in to say "thanks".
Natalie said:
"I've asked you directly for numerous sources to back up specific claims of yours in the dozen or so threads you are currently screaming into. Which ones did you provide?"
I've been following these threads and waiting too.....
Thanks, HCN & Dave, for clarifying what CRS is. Yikes.
sterility, eh? anyone else see a little survival of the fittest going on here? the parents may have passed on their own genes somehow, but apparently have drained the gene pool from the next generation.
shame that it has to affect greater society.
Now comes the talk about "knowing gods word better than you do".
Truly, 100%, certifiably delusional.
Stop wasting time with her/him/it. Don't you all recognize the minion of the devil?
Okay, I call bull. This is over the top, even for Dawn. Either she is off her meds, or someone is trolling under her name.
To the IP logs, Orac!
"Actually, Laser Potato, was this picture taken while the manufacturer was "studying the effects of the vaccine" or was the picture taken after mass vaccination?"
WOW! YOU LOSE!!! A quick trip to Wikipedia reveals...
[The machine was invented by Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw, of the Harvard School of Public Health, originally for treatment of coal gas poisoning.
*** But it found its most famous use in the mid-1900s when victims of poliomyelitis (more commonly known as polio), stricken with paralysis (including of the diaphragm, the cone shaped muscle at the bottom of the rib-cage whose action controls intrathoracic pressure), became unable to breathe, and were placed in these steel chambers to survive.***]
(emphasis added by me)
Any /real/ questions?
Oh yes, and...
[Entire hospital wards were filled with rows of iron lungs at the height of the polio outbreaks of the 1940s and 50s. With the success of the worldwide polio vaccination programs which have virtually eradicated new cases of the disease, and the advent of modern ventilators that control breathing via the direct intubation of the airway, the use of the iron lung has sharply declined.]
The iron lung became less and less necessary /because/ of the polio vaccine, in other words.
*waits for Dawn to deflate like a sad balloon*
Dawn,
I'm one of the older inhabitants of this world, so I remember the polio epidemics of the late 1940s and early 1950s. And I remember my friend Buzz who contracted polio and had withered legs all his life. I also remember the polio epidemics stopping in this country after the polio vaccine became available, and the parents who praised Jonas Salk, for good reason. And, no, I don't work for BigPharma.
Ah yes, here's the post I was talking about.
http://rockstarramblings.blogspot.com/2007/01/doggerel-51-threatened.ht…
"I have a feeling this is going to turn into the series premiere of Star Trek: DS9: We're going to have to explain simple concepts like "before" and "after" to an alien mentality."
So a supposed "hardcopy" that Dawn claims to have access to, but is mysteriously unwilling or unable to share with anybody else is in conflict with the statistics from the rubella epidemic during the same period which were widely reported in the medical literature (including "hard copy"). Of course, any rational person would conclude that the "hardcopy" is simply in error, or possibly even fraudulent (or Dawn is simply misunderstanding it, which from what we've seen is quite plausible).
Dean chide me with "HCN, I find your allusions that some medical condition influences her thought processes disgusting, regardless of how I feel about her point of view."
If you read some of her earlier posts you will find out that she is essentially blaming vaccines even though she had a very serious medical condition. What I suggested was a way of explaining her behavior. She did have preemclampsia, and that does lead to serious complications. She claims the rubella vaccine she had when she had preemclampsia caused hearing loss. That sounds like zebra hooves to me, but high blood pressure is more like horse hooves in regards to hearing loss.
I disgust you, so be it. She disgusts me, making me a target of some of her very special vitriol. More recently claiming that my son's genetic heart condition was caused by vaccines.
We have all suggested that she find better places to get information, go back to school, and have painstakingly explained over and over and over again the logic lapses in her thinking.
Several have suggested she get help elsewhere, implying a mental health clinic. Especially with her more recent posts.
Dawn, I imagine the reason the reported cases were so low in 66-68 is the fact that at the time it was not a reported disease? You often see odd changes in reported cases of various diseases when reporting standards change.
You also suggest vaccines somehow cause disease, yet rubella cases indisputably have plummeted and CRS certainly at the very least has not increased. We have not had another year with tens of thousands of killed or crippled babies. That sounds good to me.
Dawn said:
"The anti-vax shall take the East Coast because their stronger immune systems can handle the cold better than you guys can."
I was going to make a comment about how even this was a misguided statement--most infectious diseases and their vectors (such as mosquitoes) survive best in warm, moist climates. It is only due to the tendency of people to crowd indoors during the winter months that the common cold is more frequent during inclement weather.
However, I skimmed by the bit about how all disease is caused by sin and came to the conclusion that such logical thinking would have about the same effect as pissing into the ocean would on the sea level.
Cliff stated: "Dawn, I imagine the reason the reported cases were so low in 66-68 is the fact that at the time it was not a reported disease? You often see odd changes in reported cases of various diseases when reporting standards change".
So, how is the following explained? Please someone tell me because I am dying to know what your sound reasoning is.
Number of cases of CRS reported by CDC over the years
1964-1965 20,000!!!
1966 - 11
1967 - 10
1968 - 14
1969 - 31 **Vaccine introduced during this year (#'s rise)
1970 - 77
1971 - 68
1972 - 42
1973 - 35
1974 - 45
1975 - 30
1976 - 30
1977 - 23
1978 - 30
1979 - 62
1980 - 50
1981 - 19
1982 - 7
1983 - 22
1984 - 5
1985 - 0
1986 - 14
What were the figures from 1986 - on??
Like I stated earlier, the vaccine might have lowered the number of rubella cases, it didn't do a thing for the number of CRS cases according to the CDC.
So, now we have to worry about constantly revaccinating these poor women over and over and over. Does it make any sense??
This leads me to question what other vaccines were introduced during the time that the CRS cases spiked.
N.B., another person that has never read the Bible either. Actually, the world was perfect until Adam and Eve sinned. That was when disease was introduced.
Just a quick shout-out to the Gobbo family. Round of applause! I hope young Gobbo thrives at university.
Dawn what has being superstitious have to do with anything? What are you going to bring up next? Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny? This is a science blog, please stick to provable facts. If you have scientific evidence please present it or link to journals. It you are only about beliefs, go to church. Beliefs are not science. They are like opinions, like assholes, everyone has one, but without proof it does not make them right.
Where the hell do Dawn's figures actually come from? Wheres the link?
"Natalie stated: "When I have left my decidely-not-related-to-pharmaceuticals job and returned home, I will find the series of threads and refresh your memory. It will also be a nice illustration of your behavior for Clydicus".
Dawn's response:"Natalie, does your boss know that you are on the computer all day while he/she is paying you to work??? OR, is blogging, playing pro-vaccine parent all day/responding to news articles involving vaccines specifically your job?? Which is it?"
Well couple questions for you Dawn:
1. Do you have an occupation besides being a bible thumping, anti-vax queen? How is it that YOU have so much time to post your nonsense, do the research, come up with the "hard copy" (of which we're all still waiting, is your scanner broke)?
2. While your fighting this "good" fight, where is your affected child? How do you have all this time to devote to this fight, and still care for your affected child adequately? My affected child is very high on the spectrum, and I don't have all that time and Im on vacation. Do you prioritize spreading your lunacy about your belief, rather than caring for your own child?
3. Enough with the crap already, where's the hard copy????? You stated early that you wouldn't waste your time because you thought people would say you doctored the data.........or is it cause you dont have it, never had it, or need the stalling time to "create" said document?
Your fall back when your up against the wall is always your religion, and it's people like you who are an embarrassment to anyone's faith; youre a delusional zealot, and you cop out everytime you've worked yourself into a corner.
SCIENCE lady, this is a SCIENCE blog! Your faith be so strong, why the hell are you on here (and that *evil* wizard machine known as a computer) complaining about anything? Isn't science all wizardry, and us just satan's followers?
Go away, your annoying, and a liar, and your the only one that doesn't see that.
Year_1986_1987_1988_1989_1990_1991_1992_1993
Cases_551__306__225__396_1125_1401__160__192
CRS____14____5____6____3___11___47___11____5
Ok, Dawn, now I really have to step in. When you start trying to bring God and Jeebus into this argument, where it really has no place, you effectively confirm to everyone just how serious they need to take you. If there truly was a kind and benevolent God, then what happened to my son, and to other children like my son, would never have happened.
Just so everyone knows, I have vaccinated all of my children. My 2 oldest both had reactions, one kind of bad and one very very bad, and my youngest was vaccinated on a slower schedule. I understand the danger of vaccine-preventable diseases (though, I think that the media explosion on the Measles "outbreak" was entirely overdone and blown way out of proportion), which is why I vaccinated them. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that it only takes one extremist to give a movement a bad name. And Dawn, I'm really sad to say this because I understand some of where you're coming from, you are doing a bang-up job of proving what an extremist you are. These guys here will never believe you; not because they are incapable of changing their minds, but because you have lost all credibility with them and they won't believe you if you tell them the sky is blue. It's time to just admit that they won't follow your logic and won't be swayed in their opinions by you. I'm not trying to be cruel to you, I'm just trying to point out that it's time to stop.
I've read the Bible. The whole thing. More than once. In multiple translations. I've even translated portions of it from the original language myself.
And I think your understanding of the Bible appears to be about as childish, superficial, and simple-minded as your understanding of medicine. And the ridiculous arrogance you're exuding in regard to both topics seems to stem entirely from your complete inability to understand them.
SICK OF DAWN, PLEASE MOVE ON stated: "Go away, your annoying, and a liar, and your the only one that doesn't see that".
I'm sorry SICK OF DAWN, but you spelled "your" wrong twice. In the context that you are using, it is "you're".
Bobalot stated: "Where the hell do Dawn's figures actually come from? Wheres the link"?
Actually Bobalot, that would raise red flags for me too. Apparently, the CRS cases are not available online for the years 1966, 1967, and 1968. My evidence also shows that the CDC never even began recording CRS/Rubella cases until 1966 either. So, this figure of 20,000 is highly questionable also. However if it is in fact true that there were that many cases during 1964-1965, what caused the drop? It sure as heck wasn't the vaccine according to the CDC.
The "true" figures are only available by hard copy MMWR October 25, 1996. Apparently, the CDC is pulling another "fast one". Unfortunately, many people on this board are falling for it too.
Thank you D.C. Sessions for those figures. What caused the spike again? Was there a vaccine introduced in 1991??
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00039679.htm Table 10
Hmmm, gullible someone is.
I have found that if you ignore the trolls and do not continue to feed them they will starve for attention, eventually to wander to new pastures.
The incidence of mumps, measles and other preventable diseases is definitely of concern regardless of where it is occurring and how many contract it. Therefore, as someone who is dating a Canuck, I wish to extend my "thanks" as well.
No child should have to experience mumps, chickenpox or the measles.
I did. It wasn't pleasant.
Dawn is quite bluntly, incapable of introspection. She's stating that vaccines caused more damage than the actual diseases, and doesn't seem to realize that the conspiracy she believes in is: a) would be blindingly obvious, if the vaccines really did that much damage, everyone would notice, and b) populated by several different factions, each of which is purely self-interested and would have sold each other out long ago.
Dawn said "Thank you D.C. Sessions for those figures. What caused the spike again? Was there a vaccine introduced in 1991??"
There was a reduction in MMR uptake that resulted in a spike of measles, mumps and rubella between 1987 and 1992. Over 120 Americans died from measles, a handful died from mumps, about a dozen died from rubella, and several dozen kids had CRS.
This has been mentioned before to you, why did you forget about that surge of those diseases about 20 years ago?
Anyway, specific to rubella the CDC Pink Book Chapter on Rubella says "A moderate resurgence of rubella occurred in 1990-1991, primarily due to outbreaks in California (1990) and among the Amish in Pennsylvania (1991)."
The mumps resurgence is also interesting, because it showed that the vaccine did fail and one dose of MMR was not enough (from the Pink Book Chapter on mumps): "In 1986 and 1987, there was a relative resurgence of mumps, which peaked in 1987, when 12,848 cases were reported. The highest incidence of mumps during the resurgence was among older school-age and college-age youth (10-19 years of age), who were born before routine mumps vaccination was recommended. Mumps incidence in this period correlated with the absence of comprehensive state requirements for mumps immunization. Several mumps outbreaks among highly vaccinated school populations were reported, indicating that high coverage with a single dose of mumps vaccine did not always prevent disease transmission, probably because of vaccine failure."
and then for measles: "From 1989 through 1991, a dramatic increase in cases occurred. During these 3 years a total of 55,622 cases were reported (18,193 in 1989; 27,786 in 1990; 9,643 in 1991).....A total of 123 measles-associated deaths were reported (death-to-case ratio of 2.2 per 1,000 cases). Forty-nine percent of deaths were among children younger than 5 years of age. Ninety percent of fatal cases occurred among persons with no history of vaccination. Sixty-four deaths were reported in 1990, the largest annual number of deaths from measles since 1971."
Just to let you know what could happen as we start to repeat history.
Oh forgive me Dawn, I made a context error, something, you should FULLY understand..........and comprehension, and mathematical ability, and, forgive me, I digress; Im becoming like you! Hey, while were getting all chummy like here, and you want us to better understand your side of things, would you happen to be the same Dawn over at hapihealth? Please, give us readers more insight into who you really are so maybe you'll seem less like a lunatic, and more like a rational human being............or not.
Measles outbreak in San Diego, spring 2008. The index case was an unvaccinated child aged 7, who acquired the disease in Switzerland (evidently some cantons have low vaccination rates). An ill infant traveled to Hawaii; fortunately there was not a further outbreak there, as far as I know.
I don't think anyone has made the allegation here, but it has appeared elsewhere: the "illegal immigrants" are bringing measles to the United States. Not so.
Measles January-July 2008
Mumps -- the April 10 2008 issue had an article on Recent Resurgenhttp://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/578828ce of Mumps in the United States, with further comment at Medscape. :
I wonder if rubella is already circulating. According to the Mayo Clinic:
If protection against mumps wanes, might protection against rubella wane also? And if there's a rubella outbreak, and women of child-bearing age have lost immunity, might we see a resurgence of congenital rubella syndrome? That indeed would be a tragedy.
Would I encourage my [adult] children to have booster shots against MMR and other communicable diseases? I already have. My daughter went off to college in 2007, and she did have the pertussis/tetanus booster (I don't know which -- she's over 18, after all), as well as the Meningococcal vaccine (MCV4) and the Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine series .
Isn't the Dawn at hapihealth Dawn Winkler? She is written up here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/09/more_on_dawn_winkler.php
This Dawn is known by others as one that lives in New Hampshire, completely different person. She actually makes Dawn Winkler sound cogent.
You all could learn something from slashdot.
They have a word for people like Dawn : a Troll.
you don't feed trolls. you ignore them.
That said, I have looked at the stats from the links on this site and it is clear that the vaccine has had a huge effect on the # of rubella cases. And it has clearly reduced the # of CRS cases and the # of deaths related to rubella. Now, i'm going to be really really generous and try to find a kernel of truth in the nonsense that Dawn is spouting. Most years, did not have very high levels of CRS. In fact, the # of deaths+CRS from rubella rarely goes above 100 per year. So one might ask, is it really worth vaccinating everyone to save 100 people per year? If you happen to win the shit lottery and end up with a deafblind kid , you are probably going to say "why didn't we vaccinate!!"
Now, has there been any harm from vaccination programs? Certainly there are side effects. But the evidence indicates that it does more good than harm. There is NO evidence that vaccination leads to autism. There is also no evidence (AFAIK) that vaccination leads to 'super-viruses'. The inappropriate use of anti-biotics does, but anti-biotics and vaccines work in totally different ways.
Dawn is a troll. Anyone who tells you to read the bible to understand disease is clearly not going to contribute meaningfully to the discussion.
creds: i have a science phd.
GrayFalcon stated: "Dawn is quite bluntly, incapable of introspection. She's stating that vaccines caused more damage than the actual diseases, and doesn't seem to realize that the conspiracy she believes in is: a) would be blindingly obvious, if the vaccines really did that much damage, everyone would notice, and b) populated by several different factions, each of which is purely self-interested and would have sold each other out long ago".
Oh really Gray Falcon? Actually there is no recognizable system to record such vaccine-induced tragedies. AND why would anyone sell the other out? The CDC washes the FDA's back. The FDA washes the CDC's back. The FDA and CDC wash the AAP's back. NIH washes the CDC's, FDA's and AAP's back. And the list goes on and on and on. The real icing on the cake is that doctors receive "rewards" for prescriptions and "punishment" for withholding vaccines (the threat of possible lawsuits from angry anti-vax parents). Didn't you ever hear the term, "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours?"
It is simply genius.
You wouldn't need a system to detect what Dawn is describing. If the documented effects of diseases, anybody would have as likely noticed it as the sky suddenly turning a uniform shade of green. From what I've seen of conspiracy theorists, they believe that the average human is so stupid and gullible that they could be convinced rusty nails were a food source if "the government" said so. Of course, such a race would have been driven to extinction very quickly.
Also, I've seen corporations and government agencies in action. The idea of getting multiple corporations to work together on something is special kind of laughable.
GrayFalcon stated: "Dawn is quite bluntly, incapable of introspection. She's stating that vaccines caused more damage than the actual diseases, and doesn't seem to realize that the conspiracy she believes in is: a) would be blindingly obvious, if the vaccines really did that much damage, everyone would notice, and b) populated by several different factions, each of which is purely self-interested and would have sold each other out long ago".
Oh really Gray Falcon? Actually there is no recognizable system to record such vaccine-induced tragedies. AND why would anyone sell the other out? The CDC washes the FDA's back. The FDA washes the CDC's back. The FDA and CDC wash the AAP's back. NIH washes the CDC's, FDA's and AAP's back. And the list goes on and on and on. The real icing on the cake is that doctors receive "rewards" for prescriptions and "punishment" for withholding vaccines (the threat of possible lawsuits from angry anti-vax parents). Didn't you ever hear the term, "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours?"
Ohhhh...did I mention that the schools receive funding for every FULLY VACCINATED child too? So, the FDA, AAP, CDC, NIH all wash the Dept of Education's back too!! And then there are our trusty politicians who receive money from the drug companies too. AND HHS, whose back is washed by all of the above too....One BIG, HAPPY family!!
It is simply genius.
Dawn,
You have now spent countless hours over the last week responding to multiple threads with empty assertions, rude comments, and, quite frankly, what borders on paranoia.
If you are such a caring mom, let me make a suggestion: Get off of the computer and go spend some time with your kids. Continuing to post here is a lose-lose proposition for you - you're not going to convince anyone here of your position's validity, and you're losing valuable time you could be spending on your real life.
Cheers.
Thanks for the concern E. However, I am just getting started. Didn't someone say, stop feeding the troll? Why then do you still? Why must you and your cronies insist on publishing this nonsense? Get on with your lives, unless this is what you are paid to do!! Stop talking about vaccines period. Maybe then I will go away...kay??
Another Canadian. Thanks Orac. I can't say for sure which church it is, but, this one http://www.thechurchofgod.cc/webelieve.html seems a good candidate.
JohnnyCanuck: Nice job with geography lesson, saved me the time.
You're going to threaten that people on someone else's blog stop talking about a subject YOU don't like? Sorry, dearie, the world doesn't work that way. That's pretty much the height of arrogance.
And, if I were to have "cronies", I'd totally pick HCN, D.C. Sessions, and Gray Falcon. Y'all have been doing some nice work.
E stated: "You're going to threaten that people on someone else's blog stop talking about a subject YOU don't like? Sorry, dearie, the world doesn't work that way. That's pretty much the height of arrogance".
No E. Actually someone else on this blog kindly asked all of you "pro-vax people" to stop feeding me and maybe I'd go away. I never said it originally. Someone else mentioned it and I picked up on it.
Hey, Dawn, it's almost time for school to start up...in some districts it's already started.
As you will recall, I have a child with a learning disability. The start of school always was a lot of work for me, the mom, to make sure that her teachers were up-to-date on her level of functioning, what she'd accomplished over the summer, educating new teachers about the nature of her disability, how it manifested in the classroom, work-arounds she'd found previously successful, and so on.
Now we didn't have the protections of IDEA and ADA -- no IEP, no 504-- because my daughter attended a religious (private) school, so I had to do that all on my own hook. Of course, we chose that particular school because it was "LD-friendly", but still, no formal structures.
How's your older boy doing? He's starting high school this year, isn't he?
Did he get to keep his 504 plan? What remediation / accomnodation steps did you get in place?
Back in February you were talking about your older son's issues with math. What have you done to provide him with remediation/reteaching? The problems you described him having can be remediated, with a good teacher/tutor and a lot of hard work on both sides. Oh, and parental support.
You got a lot of great advice back at SchwabLearning -- what did you try out for him?
And how about your baby? If I recall correctly, the baby was more than five weeks premature, and you had eclampsia to one degree or another, which contributed to his prematurity. I think you've mentioned the baby's in an early intervention program. How's that going? The baby should be about 18 months old now.
As to your previous point Stop talking about vaccines period.
Maybe Orac should shut off comments on this particular post. But you'd just pop back up somewhere else. And nonsense unrefuted --like your nonsense-- grows like mildew.
-sigh- She won't even take friendly advice.
Sorry guys, I tried.
Hi Liz! How are you doing? How's horse jumper doing these days? Is she off to college this fall? I know, I guess you are still sore about me exposing you. Fair enough.
Don't forget to let Trenten's mommy know that vaccines can cause sleep apnea in infants too. Yes, sometimes they do die from their vaccines also. It is called SIDS, I believe. However, these days such a loose term. Apparently, the child can have blood oozing out of all orifices and it would still be called SIDS. Doctors, what do they know anyways?
I had mumps encephalitis at the age of 5 in 1962. I wound up hospitalized for ten days.
As an indication of how sick I was, at that time in my life it normally took 4 adults to give me an injection- 5 if you wanted to draw blood. But I was so utterly trashed by that damned virus that I lay there and let my pediatrician do a lumbar puncture without even a peep of protest.
Another thing I remember from that episode is how terrified my mother was to see me running a high fever and unable to bend my back, and when she saw the STRICT ISOLATION sign on the door of my hospital room and they made her put on a mask and gown to visit me. Based on some other things, like her absoulutely adamantine insistence that I was never to go swimming anywhere except the heavily chlorinated pool at my Uncle Tony's house, I suspect that thoughts of polio were dancing in her mind at the time.
Mumps is not something to wish on any family.
Not gonna happen. Not ever. There may be breaks when I move on to other topics. Some of these breaks may be pretty long if nothing much is going on with regard to vaccines. Indeed, I'd love to take a break from vaccine blogging for a week or two, but too much is going on and vaccines and antivaccinationist loons remain a major theme of this blog. As long as this blog exists and until antivaccinationists stop threatening public health, it will continue to remain a major theme of this blog.
No, if you get too annoying and disruptive and too many of my readers complain to me, you will go away.
I'm dictator here. I happen to be a benevolent and exceedingly tolerant dictator, with such a commitment to free speech that I've only banned one person in the entire three and a half year history of this blog. (And he sometimes manages to post anyway as a sockpuppet, and I still don't stomp on him.) That I have put up with you as long as I have shows just how committed to free speech I am, even obnoxious, stupid, pseudoscientific, and disruptive speech.
But that commitment is not without limit.
Vaccines also cause bloatcock, rectal implosions, ugly, and teh stupid.
So we know Dawn got a triple dose, because she's the stupidest thing I ever read. All she has to do is wave a random piece of paper saying "I have here a list...". Funny how every time she gets pressed for the precise source of her "hard copy" which means she should be able to literally list book, chapter, page number and verse, she changes the subject.
So the only response to anything Dawn says needs to be:
"What's your precise source"
Over and over until she gives it or goes away.
I know, I guess you are still sore about me exposing you. Actually, I thought your delusion that you were "outing" me was funny. How can you expose somebody who blogs under her own name?
I used a pseudonym at SchwabLearning because (a) I wanted to write more openly about the successes and failures our family had had with learning disabilities, and (b) at the time I joined, non-identifiable user names were sort of the social norm.
Of course, since I cross posted some of my essays at Schwab at my blog, and vice-versa, it was pretty flimsy cover.
My daughter's very well, thank you -- about to head back to another year at college, where I predict she'll continue to do very well. Of course, she had a lot of support in 2nd-12th grade from her parents, learning to work around her residual deficits and learning to capitalize on her strengths.
I sure hope that your older son finds success in school, too.
The hypothesis that routine infant vaccinations are somehow causal in SIDS has been falsified (shown not to be true) by several studies in the early 1990s. It is really silly of you to continue to claim that there's a connection, especially with the fall in SIDS death following sleeping positional changes.
Of course, if you could supply some creditable studies that link SIDS and vaccination, I'd have to change my mind.
The bit I don't understand is how you can object to the mumps vaccine on Biblical grounds. Haven't these fundies heard of Deuteronomy 23:1?
"He that is wounded in the stones or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter the congregation of the Lord."
Wouldn't that make a vaccine to prevent orchitis religiously desirable, if not mandatory?
The sad thing about Dawn is, like so many other conspiracy theorists, it appears she desperately wants to be a champion of justice, but doesn't want to go through the troubles one must endure to become one. A true champion would be diligent, searching through all records, finding evidence where it lays. She merely makes accusations without doing basic fact checking. A true champion requires the courage to come forward and reveal the truths to the world. Dawn only declares she has the evidence, but refuses to provide it, hesitating where she should not. A true champion needs the wisdom to recognize when they are in error, and the skill needed to correct it. Dawn won't even admit the slightest mistake.
Ms. Clark, if you're still reading this ridiculous thread... you said that Stella Chess is famous, but she doesn't have a Wikipedia article. I may write one; can you suggest any good sources? Googling isn't necessarily the best way to get the best info for an article.
Snout stated: "The bit I don't understand is how you can object to the mumps vaccine on Biblical grounds. Haven't these fundies heard of Deuteronomy 23:1?"
Yes, but for blessings on euncuchs in later times see Isaiah 56:4-5, Acts 8:26-39 **there are very important verses in those passages too about look to the Lord and not "man".
Do you honestly think that God is going to condone vaccines when there are innocent victims slaughtered in the process of protecting the herd? Give me a break. That is just warped.
I'm trying to get my head around the idea that this Dawn person thinks polio wasn't much of a disease. I'm old enough to have had school friends stricken with polio, old enough to remember the teror of parents when several cases cropped up in my area, old enough to remember being given, in school, the first pink liquid soaked into a sugar cube vaccine. I'm old enough to have suffered through chicken pox, rubella, measles and scarlet fever, and still have scars from the CP. I still know people who recovered fairly well from polio as children, and now they are getting old, the effects are catching up with them again.
Polio is a hideous disease, and the vaccines almost stopped it dead. Dawn, I hope no child whose parents your words may have persuaded to avoid vaccines ends up permanently damaged or dead because of you. And if they do, I hope those foolish parents, after blaming themselves, remember who else is to blame. You.
Ah, to be awash in the warm, clear eddies of psychotic delusion. I imagine it must be like floating in the Red Sea, except that the sky fluoresces with colours undreamed of by mere humans, and the music of the spheres throbs and sighs all about.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/155/5/689
Hi Vasha,
That's the one I found. Maybe she's more famous to me than to most people, but she's mentioned in "Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism" by Richard Grinker, in the context of the shift from thinking of autism as a psychiatric/Freudian thing.
The above link is a short history about her from the American Journal of Psychiatry.
She's sort of an "old friend" in my mind because I found her stuff on pubmed ages ago when I started looking into the claims made by the whacko antivaxers.
Bee,
95% of the people exposed to polio will not exhibit any symptoms (natural polio, not the vaccine) - even under epic conditions.
5% experience MILD symptoms
Paralysis occurs in roughly 1 out of every 1,000 people who contract the disease.
Many researchers believe that the small percentage of people who develop paralytic polio may be anatomically susceptible to the disease. The rest of the population may be immune to the germ.
Cases of polio not only climbed after the vaccine was introduced), but climbed again after Diptheria and Pertussis Vaccines were introduced also. Many outbreaks among the vaccinated were recorded throughout history too. Researcher also believe that by vaccinating, you may be increasing your chance of getting polio too (The New England Journal of Medicine published their own study showing this in 1995).
Sources (just a few):
Physician's Desk Reference, 55th edition page 778
Burnet, M., et al The Natural History of Infectious Disease page 16
Neustaedter, R. The Vaccine Guide pp 107-108
Moskowitz, Richard, MD "Immunizations: The Other Side" Mothering (Spring 1984), page 36
Do you honestly think that God is going to condone vaccines when there are innocent victims slaughtered in the process of protecting the herd? Give me a break. That is just warped.
Intriguing. I assume it's only a matter of time before God rains Holy Fire upon bicycles.
Hey, look, I've discovered how to quote-mine random interwebs net-sites too!
Bow before my superior rhetorical fury!
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.
General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.
So Dawn is basing her argument on the strength of data taken from "a HARD copy of MMWR dated October 25, 1996", which comes from the CDC who she says "can lie, withhold important figures, AND change statistics".
To quote Captain Yossarian: "Whoo.... That's some catch, that Catch-22."
Ex-drone: Maybe it's just a glitch in the Matrix?
W'oh.
Ex-drone stated: "So Dawn is basing her argument on the strength of data taken from "a HARD copy of MMWR dated October 25, 1996", which comes from the CDC who she says "can lie, withhold important figures, AND change statistics".
Ex-drone, that is exactly why I refuse to scan it. I'll put it on you to check it out. If I were in your shoes, I would want to prove that this "Dawn chick" is a certifiable nut-case and would be looking for a hard copy just to prove her wrong.
Hey Dawn,
I want to make sure that my hard copy is the same as yours. Again I will ask, on what page will I find that information on?
Thanks
And another thing,
"Locate a HARD copy of MMWR dated October 25, 1996 which clearly outlines reported CRS cases from 1966-1980 in a graph version. Apparently, the "online version" is missing those three very important years - 1966-1968."
It's funny how CRS is only talked about once in the whole report. There's a mention in a table detailing cumulative CRS cases for the year 1996 up to Oct. 16. There's no graph of CRS cases for any years. You tell us to do our "homework" perhaps you should stop cutting and pasting from websites and blindly citing lies from pro-disease books written by journalists.
That's all right, Dawn -- the CDC website has a copy so you don't need to.
Once again, Dawn fails to understand the concept of "burden of proof". I have yet to see a trial where the prosecution claims to have physically hold a piece of evidence, but then tells the defense that they have to present it.
Correction to previous comment: I have yet see a trial where the prosecution claims to have a piece of evidence that will make their case, refuse to submit it, and expect it to have an effect anyway.
Not a trial in a just system, anyway.
I'm only 3 hours from Vancouver.
And I catch EVERY DAMN GERM that comes near me. Thanks, antiscience wingnuts, for the mumps. Will you be paying for the fallout?
Before your time. You can get an idea from the movie, "Good Night and Good Luck."
"Locate a HARD copy of MMWR dated October 25, 1996 which clearly outlines reported CRS cases from 1966-1980 in a graph version. Apparently, the "online version" is missing those three very important years - 1966-1968."
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm4542.pdf
It does not even discuss CRS, the main article is on Haemophilus influenzae Type b Disease between the years 1987 and 1995. Rubella, and CRS are only mentioned as statistics for the cumulative statistics ending the previous week of October 1996. A search for incidence of 1966 and 1980 used in the document brings up nothing. A check shows there are graphs on Hib, relative self reported health by race, and relative increase and decrease of selected reportable diseases in four week periods between 15 months (both in the mid 1990s). No graphs on CRS.
This does have lots of interesting articles:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/index96.html ... but nothing like Dawn described.
I think I can safely say that she has never laid eyes on this "hard copy" and is only regurgitating the stuff she reads on Yahoo groups with participants like the math illiterate homeopath Sheri Nakken.
Not only am I Canadian, but I live in Chilliwack, where the outbreak "started". Fortunately I'm vaccinated, and now so are all the nurses in the area.
Everyone here knows who the unnamed religious group is - there's a rather large following of strict Mennonites.
There is not necessarily a specific Mennonite church which could be blamed. Not all members are as strict as the others, even within the same churches (I remember once being told by a Mennonite elder something to the effect of, "we don't watch television, but I see an awful lot of members' houses with satellite dishes"). Point being: a loss of business to the farms of those Mennonites who fall under a blanket accusation could result in a libel case against the paper, or against the government.
That said, the Mennonites here do seem largely shielded from criticism... though the Jehovah's Witnesses do not (they are not against vaccination as an organization, but many members personally are).
Dawn, you seem to be obsessed by the numbers of CRS cases seen in the late sixties, and point to an absence of 3 years reports from later online CDC information as proof they are liars. Yet DC Sessions has agreed with these numbers, having indeed found an online link, which he gave. So the stats are available, as you acknowledge.
What is unclear is why you think the low numbers of cases of CRS following a massive rubella epidemic in 1964-5 should be in any way odd. Yes, this was before rubella vaccine, but it was following a huge epidemic, after which there would be precious few remaining susceptible individuals around for the subsequent few years who would be susceptible. And again there is the issue of herd immunity, which being naturally quite high in the few years following a massive epidemic, would be protective for those any who were still susceptible.
Whatever the numbers in the late 60s, it in no way diminishes the scale of the CRS problem witnessed earlier that decade, and the reality of this is undeniable.
As to the scale of the 1964-5 epidemic and the subsequent CRS problem, one NY City Pediatrics Professor who was at the sharp end of the problem states there were up to 40 thousand babies estimated to be affected. Does his vast experience count for nothing, or is he part of the conspiracy?
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/330/7500/1132#108656
Dawn wrote:
I do not think anyone has to prove you are a certifiable nut-case as you done that on your own very well.
I remember Dawn making a comment that the disease is being caused by the vaccine. If that is the case, why are all the outbreaks that we are now seeing from unvaccinated people and it is mostly the unvaccinated getting struck down.
Dawn, that is weak. You are dodging the request for support of your assertion. It is your burden of proof to support your position. It is not our duty to do your work.
Your acrobatics to avoid this are telling.
Dawn: "...if you read the Bible you surely know what brought about disease in the first place....sin. "
So why did your god deliberately choose to kill and maim innocent babies for no other reason than that a woman ate a piece of fruit?
I mean, if you cannot define the scientific process by which being naughty created deadly viruses, bacteria and parasites, then you are clearly stating that your god purposefully chose to hurt babies.
That's not a god I would worship even if it did exist.
Not sure how I missed this.
Dawn, do you deny germ theory as well?
Dawn, among various tasks at my job are sitting on hold several times a day. When I have to do that my boss really doesn't care what I read on the internet, as I'm stuck on the phone.
Anyway, I promised you an example of your reversing course on studies. In this comment: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/07/dr_jay_gordon_pediatrician_to…
you reference a study indexed on PubMed, but in this comment:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/jenny_needs_me_again.php#comm…
some weeks later, you ask everyone to forget about studies published in PubMed. You also failed to acknowledge that PubMed is an index, not a journal, and thus doesn't publish anything.
Polio... CRS... Mumps... What will be the next? Diphtheria with 5% mortality? And why? Because the group of fanatics believe that playing Russian roulette can prove their faith.
I am not from Canada, and I'm not even native English-speaker. I live in former Soviet Union. 5000 were killed by only diphtheria in mid 1990s. Why? Because in 1980s the concern about thiomersal reached Soviet Union, and found very fertile ground: Chernobyl disaster and knowledge, that government tried to keep it in secret. People, even doctors(!), soon "realized" harm of vaccination, and that... all developed countries do not vaccinations! All in the USSR is wrong, reactors explode, and vaccines destroy immunity. False vaccination records, dominance of antivax position in media... Can you just imagine it?
And the situation did not improve. Enter, for example, "vaccines" (English word!) in google.
Wow! Homeoint.org and Dr. Kotok, who only knows how to save humankind:"Ðа деле же абÑолÑÑно вÑе, без какиÑ-либо иÑклÑÑений, пÑививки -- ÑÑо гÑбиÑели пÑиÑодного иммÑниÑеÑа и Ñемена непÑедÑказÑемÑÑ "вÑÑодов" -- бÑдÑÑÐ¸Ñ Ð¾Ð¿Ð°ÑнÑÑ Ð±Ð¾Ð»ÐµÐ·Ð½ÐµÐ¹, коÑоÑÑе вÑаÑи наоÑÑез оÑказÑваÑÑÑÑ ÑÑиÑаÑÑ ÑвÑзаннÑми Ñ Ð¿Ñививками." - "In practice, all, with no one exception, vaccines are killers of natural immunity and seeds of unpredictable (Kotok, of course, can predict) sprouts - future dangerous diseases, which doctors reject to link to vaccination."
So, dear canadians, if you do not want to get in this trouble with antivac destructors, you should not repeat mistakes of former Soviet Union health care authorities. You should ensure dominance of pro-vaccination opinions in media, and you should introduce threashold for maximum allowed non-vaccinated pupils in school, students of university, and so on.
HCN - "math illiterate homeopath" is redundant :)
How depressing. There are many devout Christian groups who believe this way, but I consider it a severe misreading of the Bible.
The ancient Hebrews held that illness was punishment for some sort of misdeed. So if you got sick, then you must've done something to deserve it. They were very family oriented, and so they felt it was just to punish the children for the misdeeds of the parents -- the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children, to the seventh generation. It seems abhorrent to us today, but to them it was reasonable, and evidence that God was not capricious. They didn't want to worship a God who allowed good people to get sick. They'd rather worship a God who allowed bad people to be punished for their misdeeds, because it meant that God was only allowing people to suffer because they deserved it, or, in certain specific cases, because that suffering would buy their descendants something great. That made sense, even if it was brutal in a way, and it gave them hope because it meant that if they were good enough, they could be prosperous.
Then, during the Roman occupation of Judea, this one guy started speaking up about how messed up that was, and how it wasn't what God intended. People were supposed to be kind to the sick, not shun them. Sickness wasn't a result of sin. It was just something that happened. Furthermore, everybody sins, so nobody had the right to judge anybody else for sinning. (No mortal, anyway.) The guy even hung out with sinners and people with awful physical afflictions, even though those people were pariahs. I wish more of these fundamentalists would listen to him. They might have heard of him. His name was Jesus, and his followers became convinced that he was the Messiah. Turned into a religion.
Seriously, the connection of illness to sin is one of the most damaging myths that our species has held on to. It's very popular, and very insidious. If you believe in the Devil, it's just the sort of thing he'd whisper in your ear. You can hear it in the condemnation of Jesus curing lepers; you can hear it in the new age charlatans saying that you can enjoy perfect health if you just live according to their precepts. It divides us, and it obscures the truth. And it deeply depresses me that so many people who profess to be Christian still believe it.
It is very interesting for me: Who are the main antivaccinationists in Canada? In CIS they are, mainly, homeopaths (with their very original view of causes of diseases), and proponents of "natural" childbirth (for whom all invented after 1700 is evil). They say: vaccines cause cancer, autoimmune diseases, while natural diseases... prevent it! Why? Because they are natural! Because all natural is good, and all chemistry is evil. And the best prevention of tetanus is, of course, Ledum 30C.
Polio? Only 0.1% mortality, normal childhood disease.
Diphtheria? If you are vaccinated... you may be diagnosed to late! It is better for you to suffer classic form and, consequently, be diagnosed correctly, they say. Mad scientists!
HCN -- re: Dawn, "She claims the rubella vaccine she had when she had preemclampsia caused hearing loss."
Seriously, what? Why on earth does anyone even accept this statement of hers even as it stands? If she was suffering preeclampsia, then she didn't get a rubella vaccine. No-one who wanted to avoid a serious malpractice lawsuit would ever give a pregnant woman the rubella vaccine; pregnancy is a contraindication for that vaccine on every bit of paper and documentation ever printed for it.
I find it more likely that the scenario itself is an invention, or to be kind, perhaps she misremembers and is conflating events which happened at different times.
Luna_the_cat said "No-one who wanted to avoid a serious malpractice lawsuit would ever give a pregnant woman the rubella vaccine; pregnancy is a contraindication for that vaccine on every bit of paper and documentation ever printed for it."
I only ever had a blood test for rubella at when I was first pregnant (over twenty years ago), I had no idea. So I looked it up, and this is what the the CDC Pink Book on rubella says: "Women known to be pregnant or attempting to become pregnant should not receive rubella vaccine. Although there is no evidence that rubella vaccine virus causes fetal damage (see next section), pregnancy should be avoided for 4 weeks (28 days) after rubella or MMR vaccination."
WOW! The editors at AoA decided to post my personal information on their boards. Apparently, they are out to expose me...as a person making profits from vaccines...since I am a scientist working for a biotech company (that is not involved in vaccines).
Anybody know how they would be able to get that info from me without me divulging it to them?
RJ, I don't know how they did that.
But since they are posted on Google News, you can send a complaint to Google about them. For some reason Google thinks they are a "news source".
That's standard operating procedure for those morons. They're obsessed with "outing" anonymous bloggers and commenters and won't hesitate to do it if they get the opportunity. I've been on the receiving end before, beginning nearly three years ago (the first time an antivaccinationist "outed" me. Heck, I've been "honored" by having J.B. Handley himself do it. He seems to think it would somehow intimidate me or shut me up. If anything, it made me angry; you may notice that of late I've adopted a much more take-no-prisoners approach with antivaccinationists, although all these stories about the resurgence of vaccine-preventable disease have played a much bigger role in the hardening of my attitude than Handley's childish rant.
In wondering why they are so obsessed with anonymous bloggers, I've come to the conclusion that it's the paranoid conspiracy-mongering at the heart of their beliefs. They honestly believe that anyone they can't identify must be a pharma plant sent to wreak havoc among the Brave and Bold Antivaccine Autism Warriors and can't imagine that there might be any other reason for someone to comment or blog under a pseudonym. The first reason, I suspect, is because they argue from (misplaced) authority, not science. They're way too impressed by fancy-sounding credentials, which is why they fawn over Mark Geier, Boyd Haley, etc. Consequently they're obsessed with who is making the argument rather than whether the argument itself is sound, based on science, evidence, and reason. Second, it's because if they know who someone is they can dismiss that person if he or she doesn't have adequate "authority" in their eyes (seemingly either having an autistic child herself or being a scientist). (In my specific case, they couldn't believe I was who I said I was, a surgeon with an MD/PhD and an active researcher. I was quite amused when they were forced to accept that I am indeed exactly what I've claimed all along.)
Finally, if they know who a blogger or commenter is, they can try to attack, smear, and harass that person. This latter reason, I suspect, is probably the most important. A secondary "benefit" for antivaccinationists is that they can get the "outing" to show up on Google searches of that person. It's worked before. A couple of years ago, there was a blogger who wrote a provaccine blog that they outed and intimidated into shutting his blog down. For some pseudonymous bloggers, having their real name trumpeted is nothing more than naked retribution for having displeased the antivaccination loons.
My one question would be whether you made the mistake of posting from your work computer at AoA. They will look at your IP address, and that's how they might have figured out where you worked. From there a little digging based on your comment history at my blog and others (assuming this "Mark character" frequents the same blogs) might have been all it took.
It is well known that cranks in general, and AoA in particular, exhibit utter disregard for people's privacy. It's a way to intimidate and at the same time a potential means to attack the messenger.
RJ, Did you ever post on their forum from a work PC? Did you ever click on a link on a PC that isn't kept up to date on security fixes?
Remember this is a group of people that depend on subversion, deception and censorship to get their message across. It's impossible to argue the case on scientific merits so they have to resort to cheap tricks and circular logic. If you can't win, cheat - it's their motto!
It's all good though, the more they scream and raise their profile, the more it will work against them. Already you see doctors offices, private schools and insurance companies making policy adjustments. While they were willing to let a few crazies get away with not vaxing, every article in the paper just brings it more and more to the forefront. The more they shout, the more scrutiny will be placed on their message.
Just likely homeopathic medicine. Those practitioners want people to use it, but they learn a while back that they don't it to become too popular. Because that means they will start having to live up to the same FDA standards as "Big Pharma". And they know they can't survive that. Effective and safe is a high standard, and even higher if you believe what the anti-vaxers say it should be.
The local parent forums keep a list of "anti-vax friendly" doctors that won't give them too hard of a time. Lately the list has been getting smaller and smaller since they are changing their policies. That list will be a very unwelcome place to be if there is a local outburst of measles or mumps. No doctor wants their practice to be listed in THAT newspaper article.
To be honest, I thought RJ's response to one of my posts was quite respectful and informative. I actually thanked him for his response.
I would love to hear his further thoughts to a post I made. RJ, if you've had a chance to glance over it, I'd love to hear your musings on the matter.
Peace!
Gosh. AoA wants everything out in the open?
Will they post questions to J.B. Handley about the mercury content of the foods his company Genisoy produces and markets? Being made on earth, it has mercury. Having been tested, we know approximately how much is in his yummy fudge-bars (or whatever they are called).
There's enough mercury in those bars so that the cumulative exposure to a pregnant woman who eats one every day is higher than from flu shots.
Has Genisoy made any effort to reduce the amount of mercury in their foods? Are they even monitoring it? Are they contemplating warning labels to pregnant women? I would love for AoA to address these issues, in the light of full disclosure.
Heck, I'd like them to discuss the arsenic content of their rice bran product. Recent stories indicate that rice bran has a high level of arsenic.
Is Genisoy, led by the able J.B. going to look into that? Will they post labels on their product "We test for arsenic, and it's low enough that we think it's safe for your kids"?
I'd really like to know what Mr. Handley is doing (or not doing) on these issues. One would think that they are of high concern to the membership of Generation Rescue, being as they involve feeding toxic heavy metals to humans.
I'd love to see them post these questions and Mr. Handley's responses.
AoA started their "Fall offensive" early in trying to smear Dr. Offit's name, but it didn't work. People are going to buy Offit's book. Libraries are going to buy his book and the world is going to see all the filthy laundry of the AoA crowd exposed in broad daylight.
All they have now is the desperation of rabid rats cornered in a closet faced with angry crowd wielding brooms. The rats should start eating each other alive any day now and they'll probably start outing the dirty bits they know about each other. And blaming each other for being the real cause of their downfall.
On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 1:54 PM, R.J. Bates wrote:
Kim,
I'm not sure if "Mark" is one of your editors, but I don't think posting ones personal information on your discussion boards falls within the code of conduct for your site, AoA.
On the board titled The Autism Sneetches: Vaxed Vs. Unvaxed posted on August 27th, Mark posted this:
We give RJ credit for following the rules much of the time. He seems touchy, though, on this question of transparency about his financial and career interests. As a service to our readers, here are the facts on RJ's position folks.
R.J. Bates, M.S.,M.B.A.
Associate Scientist
Inflammation Research
Experimental Therapeutics Group
XXX, XXX, LLC
And here's some information on XXX. They sell thalidomide and Ritalin. they're actively involved in research on adjuvants for cancer vaccines.
Is this appropriate? Is this a practice that your organization condones or is willing to tolerate for posters of dissenting opinions.
I in no way asked, or was asked by AoA to have that personal information provided for the public.
I would like it removed and, if possible, and explanation why it was posted in the first place.
Thank you,
R.J. Bates
Here is the response from Kim Stagliano:
Hello, RJ. Mark is an editor and moderator. We have several moderators, each of whom have full autonomy in how they moderate and comment to readers.
Thank you,
Kim
Craig,
Thak you very much! I have enjoyed our discussions and your comments have really affected my perceptions on the topic. You've provided an incredible amount of insight through the eyes of a loving, caring father, as well as ask many really, really good questions. I thank you for that.
And I wish I could get my response to "monica". She had some really good questions and I think my contribution to the discussion would have added to her understanding (from an exclusively scientific perspective). But of course, it was never posted, as with many answers to questions you've posted in the past.
Well, it just goes to show who those people really are. Free speech was flushed away at AoA a while ago. Now, it's on to personal attacks. I wonder if the Huffington Post knows who they are dealing with. Perhaps this is a reason why Olmstead is no longer part of UPI.
So sad.
Free speech never prevailed at AoA. Comments were ruthlessly moderated and dissenting opinions purged right from the beginning.
On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 1:54 PM, R.J. Bates wrote:
Kim,
I'm not sure if "Mark" is one of your editors, but I don't think posting ones personal information on your discussion boards falls within the code of conduct for your site, AoA.
On the board titled The Autism Sneetches: Vaxed Vs. Unvaxed posted on August 27th, Mark posted this:
We give RJ credit for following the rules much of the time. He seems touchy, though, on this question of transparency about his financial and career interests. As a service to our readers, here are the facts on RJ's position folks.
R.J. Bates, M.S.,M.B.A.
Associate Scientist
Inflammation Research
Experimental Therapeutics Group
XXX, XXX, LLC
And here's some information on XXX. They sell XXX and XXX. they're actively involved in research on adjuvants for cancer vaccines.
Is this appropriate? Is this a practice that your organization condones or is willing to tolerate for posters of dissenting opinions.
I in no way asked, or was asked by AoA to have that personal information provided for the public.
I would like it removed and, if possible, and explanation why it was posted in the first place.
Thank you,
R.J. Bates
Hello, RJ. Mark is an editor and moderator. We have several moderators, each of whom have full autonomy in how they moderate and comment to readers.
Thank you,
Kim
As a side note, the company I work for has nothing to do with vaccines or adjuvants. An independent academic research group suggested in an abstract that since one of our compounds (used for the treatment of some cancers) also increases immune responses, it might be useful as an adjuvant in a future cancer vaccine. This is their "smoking gun" that I am reaping wind-fall profits from my heavy investment in vaccine sales.
What a joke.
Orac said:
"My one question would be whether you made the mistake of posting from your work computer at AoA. They will look at your IP address, and that's how they might have figured out where you worked. From there a little digging based on your comment history at my blog and others (assuming this "Mark character" frequents the same blogs) might have been all it took."
"mark" must have gotten it from Kim Stagliano since I wrote to her several years ago after reading one of her "pieces". And when i mean several years ago, I'm talking a long time ago! Mark is one of the editors.
Orac, did a posting of mine get stuck in the filter? (I think the triple ex's I included might have triggered it)?
What a disingenuous dodge--exactly what I would expect from Kim, actually. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if she is the one who, seeing your comment, passed off your e-mail to "Mark" and left him to do her dirty work. It wouldn't surprise me at all.
I'd respond: Why isn't Mark's full name given? Apparently it's OK for Mark to "out" others, but the hypocritic hides behind just his first name. Unless, of course, it's Mark Blaxill, which wouldn't surprise me.
As for why your comment was held up, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the triple you know what repeated twice. (Even my comments get held up, and I'm too lazy to want to have to retrieve my own comment out of the spam filter.)
As a local who lives smack dab in the center of the mumps outbreak and has a particular interest in the topic I can fill in a few gaps on this subject. Just a note some of my details are about 10 days old from before the outbreak hit the news. I posted a link to the first media report on this outbreak in the comments here about a week ago. Coincidentally, I was getting my baby vaccinated at the time and the nurse who gave him his shot was also on the team dealing with the outbreak so I got some decent information at the time.
The outbreak, as noted previously, initially broke out in a Mennonite community up the valley. The outbreak was derived from an earlier outbreak in a similar community in Alberta. An infected member came for a visit and brought the mumps along for the visit.
Contrary to suggestions made by others on this comment thread, as far as the regional health nurse who was tracking the outbreak knew all the infected individuals, at that time of our conversation, were unvaccinated and a surprising number were adults.
The vaccination rate in the valley is relatively low (in some places less than 75% vaccinated due to the large number of individuals who don't vaccinate for moral/religious reasons) and the infection has now spread outside of the original cohort into the larger communities to the west (Abbotsford, Langley and Surrey). With the start of school next week the lieklihood of a larger spread is quite high.
On another front, as the parents of a young son (who only just got his second round of shots) we will not let our son spend time in unvaccinated company. I, sadly, am old enough so that I didn't get the double dose as a child. My wife, who is a teacher, is quite concerned about the spread and wants to get a list of all vaccinated children in her class. Our daycare, meanwhile, won't take unvaccinated kids.
As a local who lives smack dab in the centre of the mumps outbreak and has a particular interest in the topic I can fill in a few gaps on this subject. Just a note some of my details are about 10 days old, from before the outbreak hit the news. I posted a link to the first media report on this outbreak in the comments here about a week ago. I was getting my baby vaccinated at the time and the nurse who gave him his shot was also on the team dealing with the outbreak, so I got some decent information at the time.
The outbreak, as noted previously, initially broke out in a Mennonite community up the valley. The outbreak was derived from an earlier outbreak in a similar community in Alberta. An infected member came for a visit and brought the mumps along for the visit. Contrary to suggestions made by others on this comment thread, as far as the regional health nurse, who was tracking the outbreak, knew all the infected individuals, at that time of our conversation, were unvaccinated and a surprising number were adults.
The vaccination rate in the valley is relatively low (in some places less than 75% vaccinated due to the large number of individuals who don't vaccinate for moral/religious reasons) and the infection has now spread outside of the original cohort into the larger communities to the west (Abbotsford, Langley and Surrey). With the start of school next week the likelihood of a larger expansion is quite high.
As the parents of a young son (who only just got his second round of shots) we will not let our son spend time in unvaccinated company. Our daycare requires vaccination, she won't take unvaccinated kids. I am old enough so that I didn't get the double dose as a child. My wife, who is a teacher, is quite concerned about the spread and wants to get a list of all vaccinated children in her class, to ensure she doesn't bring it home either. On the whole not a happy situation.
Orac, I am Canadian. Since diseases do not recognize the 49th parallel I would not be offended if you "thanked" these morons.
I just wanted to clear up one very important misconception Luna_the_Cat had. She seems to think that I received a rubella vaccine while pregnant. Where she got that from, I don't know. I was suffering from severe preeclampsia, had my baby delivered via C-Section because of the Severe PE, and was administered a rubella vaccine 2 days after delivery. I then suffered from a so-called relapse with my PE (total BS) and was rushed back to the hospital. I suffered from partial hearing loss from that vaccine also.
Furthermore, many of you are quite amused because you seem to think that you have one "over on me" regarding the Rubella/CRS stats.
Again, I would like to point something out to you. Recording of rubella did not even begin until 1966. I find it rather strange that with that said, nowhere, and I do mean NOWHERE online can you find the figures for the CRS cases for the years 1966, 1967, 1968 (though recording began in 1966?). Believe me, I searched for 2 hours last night for something, anything and came up with nada. The vaccine came on the market in 1969. Of course the figures are available online from that point on (1969) to try to make you think that the vaccine actually worked in lowering the number of CRS cases. The CDC has published these figures in a previous MMWR, but apparently has removed them from all weblinks on the internet. Why? Well, because if the number of CRS cases were only 10, 11, and 14 for the three years prior to the vaccine even coming on the market, than why the heck do we even have the rubella vaccine in the first place? That is exactly why that information is not available on the internet. Furthermore, if recording did not even begin until 1966 (stated by the CDC), then there is no way to accurately assess that there were 20,000 cases of CRS in 1964-1965. However, if it is true by some strange chance - it still doesn't explain why the number of cases dropped from 20,000 to 10 in 1 year WITHOUT a vaccine involved.
This is why I am asking anyone even slightly curious to check out the hard copy of the MMWR that I referenced earlier. Pretty crafty on behalf of the CDC. However, I honestly thought that people would be a little curious. The fact that many are not, is all the more proof that some must work for Big Pharma. It is either that, or you will just never admit to being wrong about anything.
http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r050321.htm
I believe this is the fourth repetition. There are none so blind as those who will not see:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00039679.htm Table 10
I'm sorry, I must have missed it on the thread before? Thank you D.C. Sessions for that link. So, what do you make of it? In your opinion, is the Rubella Vaccine pointless after seeing those figures? Do the benefits of this one vaccine outweigh the risks?
Given the risk/benefit ratio is well established, then hells yes. For what it's worth, I speak as someone who has been materially affected by rubella, having been born partially sighted, and only escaping deafness or much, much worse by blind (hah!) chance.
But you should know this by now, if you weren't clinging to your beliefs like a teddy bear.
I am sorry for your sight problem snerd, but it just doesn't make any sense that a country would introduce a rubella vaccine when at the very most - there were only 14 cases of CRS reported before the vaccine came on the market out of 49,371 cases of reported rubella. Yes, it is all about assessing risk/benefit ratio. Every patient is entitled to know about all of the risks associated with every vaccine too. Informed consent is not practiced in this country.
While you were injured as a result of parental rubella, I was injured from the rubella vaccine. You are not willing to see your children suffer the way that you have and I am not willing to have mine suffer the way that I have.
Out of curiosity, why do you think that the vaccine caused your condition, and not the preeclampsia? On another thread, you listed conditions in your children (not all of which are formally diagnosed, according to yourself) and attributed them to vaccines. There was a clear pattern -- in each case, it was something not plausibly attributable to vaccines, something which the doctors involved did not believe was attributable to vaccines, and which you were convinced was due to vaccines.
I'm curious -- just what led you to conclude that vaccines were responsible in each of these cases? I realize you think the doctors are incompetent and/or part of the conspiracy, which explains why you do not believe them. But what actually made you think the vaccine was to blame, and not something else?
I was curious about pre-eclampsia, so I did a bit of searching. According to the Preeclampsia Foundation (preeclampsia.org), it can occur after pregnancy... http://www.preeclampsia.org/FAQ.asp#ten
Merck also says it can occur after pregnancy.
http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec18/ch263/ch263j.html
So being rushed back to the hospital wouldn't be impossible.
Dawn, thank you for your thoughts, but there's nothing to be sorry for really. This was 40 years ago, after all - but we know better now.
I'm interested in hearing how you can reconcile transmitting rubella to a pregnant woman and harming her unborn child, whilst maintaining an I'm-all-right-Jack attitude regarding vaccination yourself? Not harming your child is a priority, but someone's else child is not worth of consideration?
There's cognitive dissonance here that you need to resolve in some way.
Dawn's resolved the cognitive dissonance that actual diseases are harmless, while the vaccines cause real damage. Never mind that if that were true, everybody would have noticed.
She's also decided, it appears, that everybody else is either a liar or has rocks for brains.
Dawn,
You have never once showed us anything that shows 14 cases of CRS prior to the introduction of the vaccine. In fact, you referenced a MMWR that doesn't even have the table that you state is altered. So for the umpteenth time please tell me on what page I can find the original unaltered table. Don't worry, I won't be holding my breath. By the way, the medical library is about a 3 minute walk from my lab.
I think I can work out Dawn's logic in attributing diseases to vaccines.
She's already stated that sin is the ultimate cause of disease; in the fundie Christian theology that she appears to espouse, everybody is basically born sinful and thus subject to disease; therefore attempting to prevent disease with vaccines is subverting God's law; therefore God has arranged things so that vaccines produce the diseases that sinful Mankind is trying to avoid.
Yeah, I know there are holes to be picked in that argument. But Dawn has already demonstrated that she ignore logic holes when it suits her.
And now I'm going to take a headache pill.
Ozzy: D.C. Sessions has already posted a link to the relevant page four times. Some person posting under "DT" pointed out that in the years immediately following a massive epidemic like the one in 1964-1965, there wouldn't be a lot of susceptible people to get the disease and resultant congenital problems. It's been pointed out several times, that the 1964-1965 is the reason that CRS was identified in the first place. Does she listen? Of course not.
My experience with diseases that are now vaccine preventable:
I had rubella as a kid, oddly at at time when measles was going around our school. It's been verified; I had an antibody titer done a few years later that came up positive.
I also had a go around with chicken pox which kept me out of school for over a week. By comparison with some of the commenters on this thread, I got off lightly. After about four days, I'd pretty much stopped itching and was going stir crazy, but my parents, both MD's preferred to keep me home until the blisters were gone.
Mumps in our family was insane. One of my sisters came down with it, and I have no idea where it came from. That's when I found that my dad had never had it. Since my dad worked at a hospital, and, IIRC, my mom was not in clinical practice at the time, he got the job of obtaining three doses of mumps vaccine in the hopes that it wasn't too late to prevent him, my other sister and me from getting it. Well, it didn't stop him or my other sister from contracting mumps. I never developed the swollen salivary glands, but I did develop some pretty miserable abdominal pain right about the time I would have been expected to show clinical signs. My mom was convinced that I'd developed pancreatic symptoms, but this has never been proven.
Okay, the rubella was clinically mild, but then I was too young for pregnancy to be even a remote possibility. The other two? I wouldn't wish those on anyone.
I did indeed point out that after an epidemic there will be few naturally occuring cases of the disease. This is what happens with all the childhood infections. With rubella there is a 6-10 year cycle between epidemics.
What happens is that herd immunity drops each year as more new susceptible children are added to the population at risk. At some stage, a new epidemic will be triggered when herd immunity fails to avert an outbreak taking hold. Then most of those who are susceptible will get rubella.
This means that natural immunity in the herd is boosted up to protective levels once more. The cycle then recurs.
This is why infection outbreaks occur in cycles, and it differs for different infections. For measles its every 2-3 years, for rubella every 6-10 years, pertussis every 5 years or so, etc etc.
After the major rubella epidemic in 64-5, there were very few susceptible people left unaffected - both children and adults. The "pool" of suceptible women who had never before had rubella was severely reduced. In order to have large numbers of CRS reappearing, there would likely as not need to be a further major rubella epidemic about 15-20 years later, when there might be sufficient numbers of young, unprotected moms handy who could become infected during pregnany.
It is quite obvious that there would be very few CRS cases following the 64-5 epidemic for the reasons above.
Dawn tries to wiggle, desperately looking for any excuse, however flimsy, to deny the reality of
1) the rubella epidemic in 64-5 ("no official figures!", she says, despite rejecting official figures whenever it suits her),
2) the CRS cases resultant from that epidemic (despite numerous publications concerning this being available, and first hand accounts which I quoted in my earlier post)
3) the success of rubella vaccination in averting further epidemics of rubella and therefore cases of CRS since it was introduced.
I was thinking last night about the whole "conspiracy" mindset of the antivaxers like Dawn. The usual refrain is that "big pharma" is buying off the entire medical community. But the problem is, buying off the entire medical community isn't anywhere near enough.
Take me, for example. I'm not a medical doctor, not involved in medicine at all, I don't even know anybody who has a business relationship with pharmaceutical companies (aside from my family doctor, anyway). Never gotten so much as a penny from them. But what I am is a PhD in a hard science (experimental high-energy physics - my dissertation was on searches for proton decay). And while physics isn't medicine, there are quite a few tools in common - statistical significance, confidence intervals, multiple-comparison corrections, etc. are things we use every day.
My particular field is particularly interesting with respect to these issues, because my entire dissertation was focused on questions like "is the rate at which this event occurs in this situation the same or different than the rate at which that event occurs in that situation." You know, the same sort of question as "does vaccination increase the risk of autism." And - surprise, surprise - the same kinds of statistical techniques are used to answer both questions.
So I've got plenty of background to enable me to partially evaluate the science involved. More than enough to recognize many of the antivax claims as being grossly contradictory to the evidence. For example, the egregious lunacy of evaluating the value of rubella vaccinations based on 1966-8 figures only, while ignoring the 1964-5 figures. Unless you have cause to discard it - such as evidence of a major systematic uncertainty affecting only those data points - you have to consider all the data you have.
I guess that must mean I'm part of the conspiracy too. But I'm in no position to be bought off. I wonder how that'll get explained away?
I find it Dawn even funnier, when immediately I thought that even when rubella and crs cases are reported it's only for the living infants.
That rubella deaths at the foetal stage are probably not reported as child deaths, and that since CRS is so serious for the foetus that survival rates may be low?
Raven,
I know D.C. Sessions has posted that link to the data numerous times. My repeated calls are an attempt to get Dawn to realize her delusional behavior. Dawn insists that the online October 25, 1996 MMWR has been altered and you need a hard copy to see the real numbers. The online report doesn't even address historical CRS cases. Yet she still attempts to claim that you need the original print copy to see the unaltered table of historical CRS cases. I am basically just trying to get Dawn to realize that she is delusional. It's usually the first step in getting people to realize that they need some help.
Well, is it any wonder then that they act like they're in a live version of I Am Legend?
The numbers in the hard copy report came from somewhere, if going back to the source of the numbers, namely the CDC, to get numbers (updated numbers even for extra shock value) isn't sufficient, I'm not sure if any useful argument is being made, as if there is something special about numbers printed on a particular dead tree somewhere.
It's been rather sad to watch Dawn try to grow a conspiracy out of "unreported" or "deleted" statistics, only to see that blow up in her face when they were - in fact - reported and not deleted and available on-line.
Likewise it has been rather pathetic to see how she cannot understand that when a disease or condition - like congential rubella - becomes a reportable disease, the numbers will show a sharp rise. This is reminiscent of the many "autism catastrophizers" who compare the number of autistic children counted in the 1992 IDEA report (the first year autism was a separate category) to the numbers counted in, say, 2002. Imagine the fun if they had chosen the 1991 IDEA report (when there were "zero" autistic children counted) as their "baseline". [hint: division by zero is undefined in mathematics]
For people who are still wondering, the rise in reported cases of congenital rubella that occured after 1969 (the year it was made a reportable disease) has nothing to do with the vaccine and has everything to do with how a large and diffuse system "gears up" to a change in procedure.
What did change after the introduction of the rubella vaccine was that we haven't seen a "spike" of congenital rubella like the 1964-65 epidemic since the vaccine came out. Of course, that could change, if people like Dawn convince parents that vaccination is a bigger risk that the disease.
Something that cannot be said often enough is that even if the risk of the vaccine were greater than the risk of getting the disease and suffering a serious complication - in the present situation (i.e. low disease incidence due to 90+% vaccine uptake) - it's still better to be vaccinated because keeping the vaccine uptake level high is what prevents the disease from having a higher incidence.
In short, vaccination keeps the disease from getting a good foothold in the community. And once a disease like measles, mumps or rubella get established in a community, they tend to become endemic, which means that the unvaccinated will be at serious risk.
Prometheus
Prometheus said:
And the reverse is true: refining the diagnostic criteria can refine a disease out of existence. Back in the mists of antiquity, when I was taking epidemiology, the professor mentioned the sudden decline of malaria in one of the southern states (Mississippi?). It went from 8,000 or so in one year to zero (0) the following year. The cause for this fabulous public health success was that the state decided that in order to be called "malaria" there had to be a blood smear or other examination showing a malaria parasite ... and overnight all the chills and fevers that had been called "malaria" were no longer malaria. People still got sick, but it wasn't counted as malaria.
Skipped down here when Dawn played the God card. At that point nothing else she says matters. One can only feel a degree of pity.
My mother's cousin just died after nearly seventy years spent in institutions. When she was a girl, she developed polio following measles. It drove her mad.
When she was thirteen she tried to stab her mother with a pair of sewing shears. She went blind and lost most of her teeth from banging her head into walls. She was permanently instutionalized (thank the FSM for the National Health Service) shortly afterward.
And she knew that this was what had happened. As she herself said: "I may be mad, but I'm not stupid."
Had there been a vaccine available to her in childhood, imagine the difference in her life. And in her family's.
It's hard to imagine that the anti-vaccination crowd want me to believe that she was better off unvaccinated, especially given their lack of sound evidence.
Worse, they believe that the suffering all of those children who suffer the hideous and life-altering effects of these preventible diseases should be visited on them in the name of alleviating suffering.
Irony, thy name is anti-vax.
I'm sorry to report that anti-vax lunacy such as Dawn's is not confined to your part of the world. Some of you may enjoy the insight provided by the following link. Note the person who claims his/her vaxed children are less bright than their unvaxed siblings (post 507)! http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=261309…
Prometheus stated: "It's been rather sad to watch Dawn try to grow a conspiracy out of "unreported" or "deleted" statistics, only to see that blow up in her face when they were - in fact - reported and not deleted and available on-line".
Actually Prometheus, the information was rather difficult for one to find, wasn't it?
Prometheus stated: "Likewise it has been rather pathetic to see how she cannot understand that when a disease or condition - like congential rubella - becomes a reportable disease, the numbers will show a sharp rise".
Oh really? And you accuse me for moving the goal posts? Tisk, tisk.
Prometheus stated: "For people who are still wondering, the rise in reported cases of congenital rubella that occured after 1969 (the year it was made a reportable disease) has nothing to do with the vaccine and has everything to do with how a large and diffuse system "gears up" to a change in procedure".
Oh really? 1969 huh? That's not what the CDC says. CRS and Rubella became a nationally reportable disease in 1966. The vaccine came out in 1969.
Prometheus stated: "What did change after the introduction of the rubella vaccine was that we haven't seen a "spike" of congenital rubella like the 1964-65 epidemic since the vaccine came out".
Well, if it didn't become a reportable disease until 1966, there is no way to really know for sure if the CDC was telling the truth about the epidemic. After all, it wasn't reportable.
Prometheus stated: "Something that cannot be said often enough is that even if the risk of the vaccine were greater than the risk of getting the disease and suffering a serious complication - in the present situation (i.e. low disease incidence due to 90+% vaccine uptake) - it's still better to be vaccinated because keeping the vaccine uptake level high is what prevents the disease from having a higher incidence".
Um, o.k. Where's the proof?
You know what is really funny? I googled prometheus and came up with these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus
http://www.prometheuslabs.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6_7-nipBMs&
A dedication.
:)
So how long has Jenny McBimbo been a shill for Big Nutriceutical??? How much did they pay her to claim that ThreeLac practically cured her son? Found on the corporate blog-
"With no known cure to this disease, McCarthy embarked on a mission to improve her son's life and health. Her unwavering determination and refusal to settle for a "no cure" diagnosis prompted her to do extensive research that led her to GHT ThreeLac probiotic. On page 200 of her book, McCarthy writes, "This is the stuff that really made Evan excrete yeast and start talking more."
Global Health Trax (GHT) supports the autism community's efforts to raise awareness and advance investigation of the disease's causes.
"We admire and praise the autism community and Jenny McCarthy for their inspiring passion and commitment to find help for this heart-breaking disorder," said Global Health Trax President & CEO Tom Dixson, Co-Founder and former CEO of Petco. "Global Health Trax is proud to know that so many families including Jenny's have chosen GHT nutraceuticals including ThreeLac for their nutritional regimen, and we are honored to help underwrite the fundraising and awareness campaigns of Generation Rescue."...
(Article by GHT Corporate Staff)"
Is Dawn being paid by GHT to bash evidence based medicine so that people will rush to buy ThreeLac to cure autism?
"Actually Prometheus, the information was rather difficult for one to find, wasn't it?"
Actually, prometheus and HCN appear to have had little to no trouble finding information for you.
The information you claim is 'missing' or 'deleted' has been exactly where someone looking for it properly would expect to find it - on the websites and databases of the relevant agencies using the most relevant search terms.
The information is publically and easily accessible, in some cases it was on the next page of documents you linked to, or otherwise very easy to find within the document, often being exactly where a competent reader would look for it.
Even when you have stumbled across relevent information, HCN and others have had to painstakingly point out how badly you have misread the information, including confusing death from disease with mere prevalence.
You're merely incompetent, but unaware of it. No conspiracy needed for that.
Dawn, perhaps you might be able to be more efficient with your research energy, allowing for the time to read more carefully and ask questions about things you may not understand.
Prometheus already provided you a direct link to his/her website. It's in the footer of his/her comment.
Just click on the blue link that reads "Prometheus", it will take you straight there. Really, I'm not joking.
Dawn Said:
How about that. I googled "Dawn" and came up with.....eh, never mind.
Prometheus labs makes gold salts which are supposed to cure autism according to DAN Olmsted and Mady Hornig. Speaking of Mady, you should see the ties she and her boyfriend Ian Lipkin have to big Pharma.
I only made it through 1/2 the above comments and had to stop laughing (at Dawn), being angry (at dawn for assuming everyone who disagrees with her is handicapped; being handicapped physically a causation for stupidity apparently) and being amazed (at Dawn for discovering a new mathematics that makes our old math opposite of reality).
"Dawn and the Cyclic Argument of Unproven and Misinterpreted Stats" - comming to a blog near you!
I googled 'Dawn' and hit "Dawn Star', which is of course another name for 'Lucifer', who is The Devil and the Great Adversary, Prince of Lies.
She's a witch! Burn her!
"They claim their God punishes those who disobey or disbelieve in Him. They have a theory that to use vaccines is to not put their trust in their Lord."
I wonder how they feel about lightning rods?
"I wonder how they feel about lightning rods?"
Or seat belts, or bike helmets, or sunscreen. All tools of the devil, clearly.
Dawn missed a few:
Prometheus Books (http://www.prometheusbooks.com/)
(I'm not associated with this company)
and
The Prometheus Institute (http://www.prometheus.org/)
(I'm not associated with them, either.)
I'm glad to see that she's putting her Google PhD to good use, however.
Prometheus