One of the biggest examples of either self-delusion or lying that emanates from the anti-vaccine movement is the oh-so-pious and indignant denials that inevitably follow from its members and leaders whenever someone like me has the temerity to point out that they are, in fact, anti-vaccine. The disingenuously angry denials usually take a form something like this, "I'm not anti-vaccine; I'm pro-safe vaccine." (This is Jenny McCarthy's favorite variant of this gambit). Another variant is for anti-vaccine activists to claim that they aren't anti-vaccine at all; they're just "concerned" that children are getting too many vaccines. What belies their claims, which are seemingly reasonable on the surface to the uninitiated, is what happens if you try to pin them down on just what, exactly, it would take to convince them that vaccines are safe as administered. A good way to approach this is to try to ask them to tell you specifically exactly what it would take to convince them to vaccinate their next child. What evidence would convince them? What you'll almost inevitably find, if you push them, is that the answer to that question is: Nothing! Nothing will convince them. Ever!
The reason I bring up this topic is the impending arrival of the yearly autism quackfest known as AutismOne. As far as gatherings of the anti-vaccine movement and all manner of autism quacks goes, AutismOne is the 900 lb gorilla; everybody who's anybody in the anti-vaccine and autism quackery world will be there, with Jenny McCarthy giving the keynote, as she has for the last couple of years and the disgraced anti-vaccine "scientist" Andrew Wakefield being a featured speaker. This year, apparently three days not being enough, the quackfest has expanded to a full week. As if that weren't bad enough, on Wednesday, May 26, there will be a rally in Grant Park, an "American rally for personal rights." Perusing the website, you'll rapidly find out that the manifesto of the rally is about vaccines:
We believe in the rights to life, liberty, and personal security for ourselves and our children.We demand the universal human rights standard of informed consent for all medical interventions. Compulsory vaccination cannot be legally and morally justified.
We affirm the sanctity of personal space, the right to be left alone, and the freedom to make personal health care decisions guided by the professionals of our choosing.
We invite all people, families and organizations committed to protecting these fundamental rights to stand with us in downtown Chicago on May 26, 2010 at our inaugural rally, and to work with us after the event to support grassroots advocacy, education, and leadership in defense of our personal - individual, parental, legal, moral, religious, civil, and human - rights.
Is it a coincidence that this rally is occurring smack dab in the middle of AutismOne? Of course not! The happy band of anti-vaccine loons at Age of Autism are pimping this rally, but get a load of who's going to be the keynote speaker there! Come on, guess! Oh, all right, I'll tell you:
If you wanted yet more evidence that the "pro-safe vaccine" movement is really the anti-vaccine movement, here it is. But, wait, I hear. It's an entirely legitimate issue about how much power the government should have to require that children be vaccinated and under what circumstances, but the whole "personal rights" bit is a smokescreen to hide the true nature of the rally: Anti-vaccine to the core. In reality, this "personal freedom" angle is very much the intellectual offspring (I think I just choked on the word "intellectual" in this context) of the "health freedom" movement. As I've said more times than I can remember, "health freedom" in reality is nothing more than the freedom of quacks to ply their trade on their marks without any pesky interference from laws, regulation, or the government. "Vaccine freedom" is little different at its core. It's also profoundly deceptive in that parents already have the freedom to decline vaccines. The only real enforcement point of our vaccination policy is admittance to public schools, virtually all of which require children to be up to date on their vaccines before they can attend. Even with that leverage, in nearly every state, there are mechanisms within the law to claim exemptions from vaccination requirements based on religion or even personal philosophy, the latter of which can be something as simple as saying that the parent has some sort of "philosophical objection" to vaccines. In other words, this is a rally for a right that parents in nearly every state already have.
So why bother? Perhaps some of the literature on the website can tell us. First, let's take a look at the organizations that are participating in the rally. The participants include a veritable who's who of anti-vaccine cranks, including Age of Autism, Ginger Taylor, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Generation Rescue, the Holistic Moms Network, Medical Voices, Mike Adams, TACA, the Australian Vaccination Network, and many others.
Then there are what appears to be the organizers of the rally. First, there's Louise Kuo Habakus, who's described as:
...a board-certified health practitioner specializing in homotoxicology and integrative nutrition. A former senior corporate executive for Putnam Investments and The Prudential Insurance Company of America, Louise received dual degrees from Stanford University. From mainstream corporate America to mainstream parenthood, Louise's world changed when her children showed damage from vaccines. Louise confronted orthodoxy, found answers, and recovered her children. Louise lectures widely on the subjects of wellness, prevention and vaccination choices.
In other words, she's an practitioner of dubious "alternative" medicine and a die hard believer in the vaccine-autism myth. If you have any doubt just how anti-vaccine Habakus is, consider this. She was named Age of Autism's Person of the Year for 2009. Also, her website is chock full of links to anti-vaccine sites filled with pseudoscience, misinformation, and lies. Finally, here she is speaking to a "vaccine choice" rally in Albany, NY:
Then there are Mary Holland and Robert J. Krakow, both attorneys and members of the Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy, while Krakow runs a law office that advertises its services for parents who want compensation for vaccine injury. He's also appeared on Lisa Jo Rudy's site telling parents how to bring legal action in Vaccine Court and has been described by anti-vaccine leaders David Kirby and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as "a leading attorney for vaccine damaged children." In particular, Krakow seems quite interested in pursuing claims over Gardasil.
Finally, there's Mia Nitchun, who appears to buy into the myth that vaccines cause autism, and Ginger Taylor, who not only buys into the myth but actively promotes it, attacking anyone who tells her that science does not support her belief that vaccines cause autism and spews anti-vaccine propaganda hither and yon on her blog. The anti-vaccine team is rounded out.
Next, let's take a look at some of the speakers. Andrew Wakefield, of course, needs no introduction. He's the British "researcher" who in 1998 published the now infamous study that not only launched a thousand autism quacks but sparked a major scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine that, even now, 12 years later, has not yet abated. Only just this year is Wakefield finally starting to suffer the consequences of his pseudoscience. It's not for nothing that, more than any single man, Wakefield deserves the blame for the resurgence of measles in the U.K. to endemic levels again. Jenny McCarthy has a long way to go to match his peerless inadvertent promotion of infectious disease and suffering.
Then there's Michael Belkin, a man who suffered the loss of his daughter to sudden infant death syndrome and attributes it to the hepatitis B vaccine. As sad as this loss is (no parent should have to lose a child, whatever the reason), he has used it to become an anti-vaccine activist whose testimony even appears on Whale. to. Joining Mr. Belkin are Habakus and a coterie of lawyers, all of whom appear to be involved in litigation over vaccines and one of whom, James S. Turner, is described as the "nation's leading natural health freedom advocate for over 40 years." He was particularly incensed at John McCain's ill-fated attempt to tighten up the regulation of dietary supplements. Finally, there's Boyd Haley, who most recently rose to "prominence" by selling an industrial chelator as a "supplement" with which to treat autism. What more needs to be said?
Finally, let's take a look at the suggested slogans for rally signs. I've selected a few out of the 100 or so slogans there. There's lots of "freedom" rhetoric, but there are also some signs that can only be described as pure anti-vaccine:
- 1% US Kids Autistic But Fully Vaccinated
- Adults Die From Vaccine Reactions, Too
- CDC Trades Infectious Disease For CHRONIC - Allergies, Autism, ADHD, Asthma, Diabetes...
- Doctors! Shame On You
- Doctors! You Took An Oath
- Greedy Pharma Calling The Shots
- H1N1 Was a TARP For Pharma
- I Refuse Forced Vaccines
- I Trust My Nurse. Why Don't You?
- If My Child Is Harmed, You Won't Pay
- I'm More Afraid Of The Vaccine Than The Flu
- My Child Was Murdered By Vaccines
- No Vaccine Liability! Total Immunity If Vaccine Kills You
- Schools Are Overrun With Vax-Injured Children
- Stop Experimenting On Our Kids
- The Ouch Isn't What Hurts
- The Right To Be Left Alone
- Too Many Shots
- Too Many Sick Kids
- Why Does Our Government Want Us Vaccinated So Bad?
And my favorite: "There Are No Safe Vaccines."
As much as I miss Chicago at times, having lived there for three years in the late 1990s, I'm glad that I won't be there the week leading up to Memorial Day. I might actually be tempted to wander down to Grant Park on the 26th. I doubt I'd actually say anything much. I'm not stupid. I could picture the reaction of what will probably be a few hundred rabid anti-vaccine loons if they were to learn that Orac was in their midst, and enough of the AoA crowd has seen enough photos of me to know what I look like.
My temptation to do something that not only might lead my brain to suffer massive neuronal apoptosis from flaming waves of stupid but could also potentially lead to physical harm aside, the fact that this anti-vaccine rally is occuring the very week that many the luminaries of the anti-vaccine movement will be in Chicago is definitely no coincidence. It was clearly planned, and the reason is obvious. The "health freedom" movement (i.e., freedom for quacks movement) has always had a strong anti-vaccine component to it that goes far beyond a simple political debate over individual rights to make medical decisions versus a societal interest in preventing the spread of harmful or even deadly vaccine-preventable diseases, and virtually every hard core activist subscribing to the scientifically discredited notion that vaccines cause autism is, his or her self-deluded or disingenuous denials notwithstanding, anti-vaccine to the core. No matter how much the leaders of and foot soldiers in the anti-vaccine movement deny that they are "anti-vaccine" or claim that they are in reality "anti-toxin in vaccines" or "pro-safe vaccine," in the end to them it comes down to the vaccines and nothing but the vaccines. No amount of scientific evidence will ever sway them that vaccines are safe. Unfortunately, it's incredibly difficult for someone to reason himself out of a belief he did not come to through reason.
What was that again about Andrew Wakefield and J.B. Handley swearing to high heaven that they aren't anti-vaccine?
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I'm glad Orac won't be there.
You might be trampled under the jackboots of the Holistic Moms Network, and we can't afford such a loss. :(
"We believe in the rights to life, liberty, and personal security for ourselves and our children.
We demand the universal human rights standard of informed consent for all medical interventions. Compulsory vaccination cannot be legally and morally justified."
That's the one that always really bugs me. The suggestions that vaccination is somehow compulsory. As you said above, parents can easily get exemptions to avoid the vaccination requirements of school. But even if they could not get a vaccination exemption, they certainly still have a choice. They could not vaccinate their child and not send them to public school and either homeschool or send them to private school (although I'm sure many private schools require vaccination).
Some alternative slogan suggestions:
* Adults Die From Diseases, Too
* AoA Trades Immunity for Disease
* Greedy Lawyers Calling The Shots
* I Refuse Forced Quarantines
* My Child Was Murdered By Measles (Pertussis, etc.)
* Stop Experimenting On Our Kids - Give Us Untested Products Only!
* The Ouch Isn't What Hurts, It's The Broken Ribs From Pertussis
* Quarantine - The Right To Be Left Alone
* Too Many Shots - Need More Combos
* Too Many Sick Kids - Vaccinate!
* There Are No Safe Vaccines, Only Safe Diseases
I have to say I think that among the more hilarious aspects of the whole thing is Andrew Wakefield speaking at a meeting about law and advocacy.
This is a man who has lost, or caused to be lost, every legal, judicial or quasi-judicial hearing he has ever, to my knowledge, been involved in. Going back to his complaints to the UK's General Medical Council about other doctors, through his dismissal from the Royal Free after he refused to carry out research on MMR, the MMR multiparty litigation in Britain, his three "gagging writ" libel actions against me, three US omnibus vaccine court hearings, his own 197-day GMC case and his dismissal from Thoughtful House after complaints to the Texas Medical Board, he has consistently failed.
More importantly, he has shamefully caused thousands of parents to be ensnared in utterly hopeless litigation based on his made-up-for-money theories.
I suppose there might be an argument for any listeners taking careful notes and doing the opposite, but I doubt whether his contribution will be taken in that spirit.
Mr. Deer, could you elaborate on the bolded portion? I was under the impression that it was simply a strategic move by Jane Johnson in light of all the very negative publicity Wakefield had recently received.
You didnt mention my personal favorite dingle-berry: Judy 'The Bartender' Mikovits is speaking on how "XMRV+VACCINES=AUTISMWARBLEGARBLE!"
But she is sooooo not a kook. **WINK!!**
We want measles
We want mumps
Rubella, pertussis,
Diphtheria rates to jump!
We want those illnesses
And childhood mortality
That is the point
Of our Grant park rally!
--------------------------------
Yes, this is sarcasm.
Apparently, if we had a new easily transmitted and fairly deadly emerger (coming soon near you with probability approaching 1) that was so scary that we passed laws that failure to vaccinate brought on sanctions, that this would be taken by some people as very strong evidence that one should not get the vaccine.
Archangl508 @ 2:
And the anti-vaxxers damn well know this, because they will happily provide instructions for how to obtain an exemption. "It's compulsory and our rights are being violated! Oh, and here's how the system allows you to not get it. And informed consent is violated! See, I can show you this pamphlet my doctor gave me about the risks and benefits to show you how dangerous it is."
It is a wonder they don't all collapse due to cognitive dissonance.
I am with Dangerous Bacon. You are not allowed to endanger your personal safety. It is against the rules (that I just made up). And you have to listen to me, I am a mother which means I just know.
Maybe instead of "My Child Was Murdered By Measles (Pertussis, etc.)" we could have:
"My Child Was Murdered By Your Child's Measles (Pertussis, etc.)"
And in honor of Sid Offit:
"Only Africans die of infectious diseases, so who cares?"
Mimicking the rhetoric and tactics of the tea partiers:oh, where have I seen that before in the last year or so? Our favorite low-hanging fruit(organic, of course),Null and Adams:these poseurs have used their fame(or is it infamy?)in "natural health" to publicize their political and economic views.It's all about freedom:freedom from taxes(or flat taxes),freedom from governmental intervention in "people's lives"(e.g. vaccines),freedom from governmental oversight in "people's choices"(e.g. insurance reimbursment for any quackery),freedom from responsibility.Interestingly,even in the wake of Null's "accidental" poisoning,both vehemently oppose Waxman's addition to the economic reform bill which would regulate *supplements*(as they did McCain's).These "investigative reporters" "enlighten" their spell-bound audiences with tales of governmental corruption,Wall Street greed,corporate control of politicians,BigPharma's iron grip on America, and the coming economic end-times:getting the people *angry* and scared(and distracted from examining their "educators'" motives and MO).They offer a "way out": follow their lead- live "sustainably" on a homestead(or in Ecuador), be "naturally healthy"(why rely on corrupt doctors and evil pharma?), don't follow the mainstream media- rely on *them*-for products, news, and "literature"! If you peruse their sites,you might be surprized that political/economic topics often get as much page space than "health" issues.Because they fit together hand in glove.
How about: "Stop wasting money on answers; we already know how to spread fear"
Or just quote some of the antivaxers:
Bensmyson: 'I have my own science'
Jenny: 'it's going to take some diseases coming back'
Hi folks-
This is slightly off target, but I thought people would be interested in the attached link:
http://aidwatchers.com/2010/05/a-warning-from-tajikistan/
The link reports an observation that there is a polio outbreak in Tajikstan where the vaccination rate, about 82%, is supposed to be large enough to provide herd immunity. One possible cause for the outbreak is that the health care *system* doesn't do its part by taking care of the vaccines. There's also a second thrust of the article which calls into question (I think) the idea of "disease eradication". I wasnt' aware that this is a strategy in any formal/semi-formal way and would be interested in people's perspectives on the ideas...Again, sorry if it's too off-topic. I've loved lurking here for a while. I live pretty close to Grant Park and am really dreading the visit mentioned here by the nuts. With nice weather, anything going on in Grant Park gets lots of publicity around here...
Hey, Orac, I have a tee shirt you could wear if you ever go to their rallies. It reads, "I got my flu shot and all I got was this lousy shirt (no flu, no autism, nothing)."
It was a hit at a party I went to.
DISCLAIMER: Seriously, if you think any of what I just wrote represents anything other than my own opinion, you need help.
It's also profoundly deceptive in that people in America have to pay taxes. The only real enforcement point of our tax policy is earning money
Steve, the World Health Organization is engaged in a campaign to drive polio to complete extinction, just as they did with smallpox.
And the sad thing is they damn near succeeded in 1998. There was only one place in the world where polio was still going around, in the north of Nigeria. The WHO was closing in. And then a snaggle toothed Islamist thug decided vaccination was a Jewish plot (which, well, in the case of polio, it, um, is), and spread some paranoia about it. Polio quickly broke out of Nigeria (thanks to the Muslim Hajj, an excellent vector for spreading disease), and the WHO is back to square one.
But they still hope to do it. And for another disease, guinea worms, they are on the verge of success.
*Guinea Worms - Just a Plane Ride Away
I attended private school my entire life (up until graduate school, but by then they don't check such vax records) and know quite a few peers that did likewise. Parents have a real and substantial choice in deciding whether their kids attend a public school or the plethora of private/religious/home-school/charter options. However, when a parent decides on public school- they must affirm to some basic bylaws to take advantage of the public good. Preventing the transmission of diseases to other children and thereby protecting the public well-being seems to be a very basic, rational proposition. If you feel otherwise, go elsewhere. You do not have the intrinsic right to allow your unvaxed child to spread illness and impede (with disease or the worry thereof) on the rights of other children to attend school.
The vaccine enforcement situation in America is not at all akin to the basic and necessary function of making money in society. You are being intellectually dishonest yet again, Sid.
Orac does not seem to be well informed about the side-effects that vaccines can have.
Aluminiumhydroxide injected in mice at doses that are similiar to the one in the current vaccines for babies, does cause behavioural abnormalities and neurological damage.
The proof can be found here:
Aluminum hydroxide injections lead to motor deficits and motor neuron degeneration.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19740540
Doses as low as 300mcg/kg cause brain damage and behavioural abnormalities. This dose can be easily reached with the current vaccine schedule.
The proof is there.
Therein lies the problem, Nick. You assume that anti-vaxxers are rational. Instead, they are lying, selfish loons.
Look at Cousin Squid here. Aside from his racism, he has made it clear that he intends to sponge off the sacrifice of others and provide nothing in return. He counts on us to vaccinate our children and provide a herd immunity so that he doesn't have to put HIS kids at risk. So he thinks vaccines are too risky, but expects others to accept that risk in order to keep the incidence of disease at bay.
Jay Elmo Gordon clearly believes the same thing, but hasn't been as explicit about it. In his case, it is more of letting the common masses take all the risk to protect his Beverly Hills clients, who pay in cash.
There is plenty of case law from the Supreme Court whereby vaccination is not a matter of individual rights. It is a matter of the rights of the rest of society. These cases go back to before "big pharma", by the way. I would be incredibly interested in a question about this to the newest SCOTUS nominee.
DISCLAIMER: The opinion expressed in this comment is my own and no one else's. To think otherwise would be to acknowledge that Sid Offit, if that is his real name (the coward), has any credence in anything he writes.
DOUBLE DISCLAIMER: The opinion that Sid Offit is a coward is also my own, and it is based on solid evidence of his anonymous commenting. Some of us have solid brass ones to stand up to public scrutiny of our beliefs. Sid does not.
@Rene Najera - that t-shirt slogan is FANTASTIC. Where did you get that? Brilliant.
MESSAGE BEGINS
Fear not my Shills and Minions . . .
Everything is going exactly according to our evil plans. All of the antiVax, antiPharma crowd will be in one place, at one time. This confluence of disobedience shall only make our nefarious task that much easier. Unbeknownst to the vexing antivaxxers, Obsidian 4 will be hovering over their heads in full stealth mode.
When our recently upgraded Sid Offit 2.1 and Ginger 4.2 replicant drones give the signal from their vantage point among the fretting throngs, we shall release our new Quantum Fluctuating AviVax Mk. I NanObama⢠Injector Drones into the crowd. In seconds they will all receive a full-lifetime recommended vaccine schedule in one microscopic prick. And speaking of microscopic pricks, it shall please us greatly to see Andrew Wakefield's eyes dim as the NanObamas turn him into our obedient, America-hating, science-loving, socialist servant.
Good times my minions. Good times.
MESSAGE ENDS
Lord Draconis Zeneca, VC, iH7L
PharmaCOM Orbital HQ
0010101101001
P.S. Cindy reminds me to tell you that tickets for the PharmaCOM Orbital talent show are selling out fast. You won't want to miss my rendition of Rogers and Hammerstein's charming "Getting to Know You", with all the hatchlings singing back up. We sing it in English first, then in Glaxxonese, where the transliteration of the title is "Sizing You Up in Preparation for Feasting on Your Soft Innards".
@Tim Ellis: I came up with it on my own. So, uh, copyright 2010 Rene Najera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Arch508 and Callie: your oversimplification and naivite about vaccine exemptions is interesting and shows your bias. In many cases parents are very much hamstrung with the vaccine requirements.
A few suitable placards for some public spirited folk, with unwell looking kids in tow, to display in Grant Park:
Get enough of them in there, and see how long the rally lasts.
I was so hoping that polio would be the second disease eradicated, but it does look as though guinea worms will go the way of the dodo first. As long as they both go, and soon, the order is probably not important. Terrible things, both of them. (For those not familiar with guinea worms, google them at your own peril, and preferably not while eating. Like many parasitic worms, they are the stuff of nightmares.)
Basically, it all comes down to disrupting the life cycle of the pathogen. Viruses and parasites offer the simplest options for this, as they die or can't breed without a host. Guinea worms and polio are both dependent on humans, and this means that if you can find a way of keeping all the humans from getting infected long enough for all surviving pathogens to expire*, the cycle will be broken and the pathogen, unable to produce another generation, will be extinct.
*Adult worms will die of age, eggs will eventually perish, and viruses degrade with time and exposure to the elements, some quite quickly.
@Rene Najera - it's excellent, I highly approve!
C'mon mula, everybody knows it's squalene in vaccines that caused Gulf War syndrome. Or some other vaccine "toxin". It's gotta be the vaccines! Never mind the theories about pesticides/depleted uranium/anti-nerve agent drugs or other postulated etiologic agents, it's gotta be the vaccines!
If all you've got is a rusty hammer, everything looks like a nail.
A warning though - anyone persisting on blaming vaccines will piss off Betty Martini, who's pushing the idea that aspartame is the culprit.
WAY off topic, but I've always wondered about bacterial STDs. Assuming that they are only transmitted sexually, then they should be readily eradicated if all infected people got treated before passing it on, right?
It's interesting that they make an argument from ethics. The legal argument is complete nonsense, since there is a legal justification for vaccinations - the law says so.
From an ethical perspective, they are making an argument that the government does not have the right to force them to compromise their autonomy in terms of health decisions. However, since their health decisions directly affect the health status of those people around them, they are vulnerable to the exact same argument. In the same way, you don't have the right to expose me and my child to disease that we would otherwise be safe from.
What they'd have to show is that there is an inalienable human right to divorce themselves from the responsibilities of living in a society. The constitution does not guarantee any such freedoms, since the entire document is predicated on "We the People" as a society rather than several individuals.
Of course, if they were willing to engage in such nuanced thinking, they probably wouldn't be anti-vaccine to begin with, and if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass when it hops.
Glad you're not in exile, Rene.
@mula - 300mcg/kg over what time frame?
@Nick
Parents have a real and substantial choice in deciding whether their kids attend a public school or the plethora of private/religious/home-school/charter options.
This real and substantial choice amounts to an $8,000 fine per year, per unvaccinated child.
-----------------------------------------
However, when a parent decides on public school- they must affirm to some basic bylaws to take advantage of the public good.
First, give me a break with the public good.
Second parents donât really decide on public school since:
·Theyâre likely already paying for school through their taxes
·Theyâre forced to send their child to some type of school â unless they choose home school which can deprive children of important socialization opportunities
·They donât have much choice in the way of private school because of a competitor that offers its services for free. Therefore in many cases your limited to either a religious school or to a school in a distant neighborhood
·Forced, mostly public âeducationâ creates an environment in which a childâs education must conform relatively closely to a mostly useless government model of primary and secondary education in order to enter college or obtain employment
If the government wasnât involved it would be perfectly legitimate for a school to construct its own rules regarding admission
But, due to distortions created by the governmentâs presence in âeducationâ, it cannot be said that anything like a free choice, in regards to education, exists. The government basically puts you between a rock and a hard place by creating a world that pushes you into public school then demands you vaccinate to attend
------------------------------------------
Preventing the transmission of diseases to other children and thereby protecting the public well-being seems to be a very basic, rational proposition.
Schools should be allowed to bar sick individuals, and parents have a responsibility to keep sick children away from others. But using forced vaccination to achieve your goals is inherently immoral since it violates the individual liberty of those who donât want your vaccine
------------------------------------------
If you feel otherwise, go elsewhere.
Again, give me a break
------------------------------------------
You do not have the intrinsic right to allow your unvaxed child to spread illness and impede (with disease or the worry thereof) on the rights of other children to attend school.
My unvaxed child doesnât have an illness
PS
Are teachers required to receive mandatory flu vaccinations each year so as not to âendangerâ their students?
@dangerous bacon
The linked article is available for free on pubmed central. It's worth a read. It shows some level of change via histology (I'm not up on my histology tho so I have to take their word for what some of it means) and some behavioral tests. For at least one of those experiments I'm not nearly as moved by the data as they are.
@lan
They were modeling the injections after the anthrax vaccination given out during the first gulf war. As such, they were subcutaneous injections, so it's already a little different from childhood vaccination. It is also worth noting that the aluminum amounts the mice got were, relative to animal size, about 150% of what the humans got.
I'm much too lazy to look up the anthrax vaccination schedule but here's what they used for the mice in the paper:
In Experiment 1, we performed two injections of a suspension of aluminum hydroxide of (50 μg/kg) in a total volume of 200 μL sterile PBS (0.9%) spaced 2 weeks apart. The mice in this experiment would therefore have received 100 μg/kg versus a probable 68 μg/kg in humans. In Experiment 2, mice received six injections for a total of 300 μg/kg aluminum hydroxide over 2 weeks. Controls in both studies were injected with 200 μL PBS.
@mula, this is hardly proof and Shaw tried to trot this out as such with a previous study with Pietrik et al. But, when you actually read the study, their methods, results and interpretations thereof, fall apart.
@jen, no, Callie's assessment was spot-on. If parents live in a state that has no or stringent religious exemptions, they can move, homeschool or private school. So, how are any parents 'hamstrung'?
Because they aren't allowed to impose their dangerous kids on the rest of society just because they want to!
Sheesh.
@Pablo
Look at Cousin Squid here. Aside from his racism, he has made it clear that he intends to sponge off the sacrifice of others and provide nothing in return.
Sacrifice? What sacrifice? According to the CDC:
Vaccines are very safe. Today, the United States has the safest, most effective vaccine supply in history
Anyway,Pablo continues...
"He counts on us to vaccinate our children and provide a herd immunity so that he doesn't have to put HIS kids at risk"
Iâm not counting on anything. I just donât fear the mumps, measles, etcetera
-----------------------
@Rene
There is plenty of case law from the Supreme Court whereby vaccination is not a matter of individual rights.
Yes Rene you are right the court is always right
See
Wickard v. Filburn
Plessy v. Ferguson
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Korematsu v. United States
------------------
It is a matter of the rights of the rest of society.
Society doesnât have rights, people do
------------------------------
The opinion that Sid Offit is a coward is also my own, and it is based on solid evidence of his anonymous commenting. Some of us have solid brass ones to stand up to public scrutiny of our beliefs. Sid does not.
Do you really think the host of this blog is a robot broadcasting from deep within federation space?
PS
The court decides law not morality.
Here's a site that discusses the lengthy record of safety of aluminum-containing adjuvants in vaccines. Among the interesting data they cite is that due to aluminum's ubiquitous nature in the environment, human breast milk contains 40 micrograms of aluminum per liter, and infant formula 225 micrograms per liter.
Obviously we should ban breast-feeding. We've got the proof!
Also, here's a Cochrane review that found no association between aluminum-containing adjuvants and health problems (apart from vaccine site irritation).
On the subject of T-shirts, here's one to wear to the antivax rally (when Wakefield is speaking). And a bunch of us could wear these while applauding at inappropriate moments.
By the way, if this comment does not appear immediately, it must be due to shenanigans by antivaxers, not anything related to a spam filter that detects multiple links.
@Sid
I wish people would stop throwing the word "immoral" around when they mean "inconvenient". Ethics is a real field, and to say that because you don't like it makes it immoral is a gross distortion of the facts.
Your stated philosophy is that things that violate an individual's freedoms are inherently immoral, since individual liberty is somehow a moral absolute. Here are some other things that are "immoral" by your definition:
- Speed Limits
- Jail for convicted criminals
- Locks on doors
- Self-defence
- Any kind of government and/or legislation
Society exists always at the expense of individual freedoms. I can function in society because I am not free to do certain things, like murder my neighbour and rape his daughter. We are perfectly willing to accept infringement of our personal freedoms and to call them "moral."
Please note here that I am not saying that all things done for the good of society are moral (slavery, for example, is immoral even though society as a whole may benefit), but your standard of "violating individual liberty" is completely bogus. You wouldn't like a society where everyone has complete individual liberty.
Ian @32
How can you demonstrate that a person has "inappropriately" exposed you to disease? The person that allegedly exposed you, would likely also have a beef with the person who made them ill...and the person that exposed them...and the person that exposed them...and the person that exposed them. If somewhere along this interesting line of infectors someone has been vaccinated, then what? Can you also adequately demonstrate that simply being vaccinated would have prevented that person from spreading disease? Why has your vaccination status escaped scrutiny.... why didn't your vaccine work and prevent you from also spreading disease?
Rene @15
MUCH better disclaimer;)
Sid @16
What?
i find anti-vaxxers lack of science disturbing.
@Sid
All of the court decisions you mention were eventually reversed. There are plenty of decisions that continue to uphold the good of the many outweigh the right of the one. Over and over again. Stare decisis, I think they call it. And, yes, society has rights. It's called a societal covenant. It's just that those rights emanate from the individuals. Want to live in my town, go to my school? Good. Get vaccinated and keep us all healthy.
The disclaimers are the result of your and your colleagues' attempts to get me fired.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions and responses in this comment are my own, not those of some unseen and all-knowing group that sits high atop Public Health's Mount Olympus and determines whether I professionally live or die.
I felt a great disturbance in science based medicine, as if millions of anti-vaxxers suddenly cried out "no vaccinations!!!" and were suddenly contagious. I fear some terrible disease will happen.
@ Science Mom. It seems you didn't read the study carefully.
The average weight of a child when multiple vaccines are given is not more than 5kg. If you do the math and make weight adjusted calculations it turns out that babies can easily get as much as 300 μg/kg with the current US vaccine schedule. 100μg/kg already caused neurological damage.
Their is also no reason to believe that an intramuscular injection of AI would be much safer.
I would really appreciate if you point out any flaws but what you provided isn't really much relevant and also erroneous reasoning. Did you actually read the full paper?
@Ian
Regarding individual liberty, something called the "harm principal" should assuage you're fears of homicidal maniacs terrorizing the populace. You'll note however that it's the "harm", and not "affect" principal.
@cynic
Are you asking how I can establish that a given individual has exposed me to disease? As you note, that's quite a difficult undertaking. However, one could start, as so many epidemiologists do, by tracking the source of the disease to the point where it entered the population of which I am a member, that's a start.
I think the argument that you are trying to make is that one isn't able to say for sure that they wouldn't have gotten sick otherwise, which I suppose is fair. However, the argument falls apart when you bring in the responsibility that members of the population have. It's a liability issue. I'm not a lawyer, but I understand the concept as it relates to ethics.
If company X dumps carcinogens into the water and I get cancer, it's not possible to state to a medical certainty that my cancer was definitely caused by company X, but the argument can be (and is) made that the company has both a social and legal obligation to prevent contamination. Even though I cannot 100% prove that it was because of their chemical rather than random chance, the preponderance of evidence suggests that their dumping increased my risk, and since I can demonstrate harm (I have cancer), they are ethically (and legally, unless they have a great lawyer) liable.
In the same way, while I can't demonstrate that non-vaccinating parents are the ultimate cause of my daughter's pertussis, they had an obligation as members of society to engage in certain reasonable protective measures. Their failure to do so renders them liable. If, however, everyone has been vaccinated and I simply do not respond, or I cannot be vaccinated and get exposed from a foreign vector (a traveller, food-borne contamination, etc.) then that's just shitty luck. The dividing line is whether you have engaged in an action (or failed to live up to a social obligation) that increases my risk far above the rate of random bad luck, and I am harmed as a result.
@cynic
We know that, in general, individuals that are vaccinated have X% greater chance of avoiding infection than those who are not vaccinated. Given that, a person who is vaccinated yet is still infected made a good faith effort to avoid infection and spread of the disease. The same cannot reasonably be said of those who do not vaccinate.
I would grant, though, that a legal argument against someone who did not vaccinate would have a very difficult time in court. An argument of negligence could potentially hold, depending on the circumstances.
@Rene
It's called a societal covenant.
I can make up words too.
------------------------
Wickard v. Filburn was never reversed
@Sid
I'm not concerned about homicidal maniacs. That's because I live in a country that recognizes the principle that some infringement of personal freedom is necessary for the group as a whole to succeed. Taxation is infringing on my personal rights (yours too), but that doesn't make it "immoral", just really friggin' inconvenient, which is what I think you've been meaning to say all along.
Also, I think you mean "effect". And when the "effect" of a given action is "harm", then "they're the same thing".
@Ian
I'm not concerned about homicidal maniacs
Jeez, I don't know where I got that idea.
I can function in society because I am not free to do certain things, like murder my neighbour and rape his daughter.
@Ian
I did mean effect. Thank you. Anyway...
And when the "effect" of a given action is "harm"
What is the harm of not vaccinating exactly?
-----------------
@Rene
Want to live in my town, go to my school? Good. Get vaccinated and keep us all healthy.
When you get a town let me know. I'll come endanger everyone
@mula
The flaw in your reasoning is that you're assuming that 300mcg/kg of aluminum over 18 months is the same as 300mcg/kg of aluminum in two weeks. If you read any decent introduction to toxicology, it will tell you that the dose makes the poison or something to that effect. It would not be safe to inject a baby with 18 months worth of aluminum adjuvant over 2 weeks, you're absolutely correct. However, that's not what's happening.
Also, what does that have to do with autism? Aluminum toxicity doesn't look anything like autism, and autism isn't brain damage.
Dangerous Bacon @ 38
The first site you mention also contains this nice bit of information:
Oh, and Sid @ 46: the word is spelled "principle." You're welcome.
@Sid
Okay, ignoring for a moment that you seem to lack the basic comprehension of what an illustrative point is, if you look at the rest of my comment, you'll see that I answered why I am not afraid of homicidal maniacs. If there were no laws I would be extremely afraid of homicidal maniacs, harm principle or not.
Also, I know that you've had the "what's the harm of not vaccinating" question answered for you a gojillion times. I'm going to pretend that you're not as big an idiot as you like to play on the message boards and, assuming you've been inflicted with some kind of selective amnesia, refer you to this site so you can see a much better answer to that question than I have the ability to give you.
"Arch508 and Callie: your oversimplification and naivite about vaccine exemptions is interesting and shows your bias. In many cases parents are very much hamstrung with the vaccine requirements."
http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state-vaccine-requirements.aspx
I count 18 states with a "Philosophical" exemption and 48 states with a religious exemption.
Also, (anecdote alert) as someone who was (previously) not planning on vaccinating her future children, I've spent much time on anti-vaccine boards and parenting boards (such as MDC) and the only time I got the impression any parent was "hamstrung" over the requirement was when they happened to live in one of the few states that either only has medical exemptions (only WV and MS) or one that didn't have a philosophical exemption and the religious exemption required proof of vaccination being against the person's actual religion. Even in the situations of the stricter religious exemptions, there were almost always ways concocted to get around it (such as: making up your own religion or claiming your religion is something other than what you actually believe).
And as others have pointed out, there is the option of private schools (ones that are anti-vaccine friendly, such as Montessori schools) or homeschooling. Which, usually for financial reasons, aren't always feasible.
@ Ian
Please look up the current vaccine US schedule for babies 2-6 months old.
A child can easily get several vaccines in one month. As much as 7. Most of them do actually contain aluminium salts.
If you combine the alumnium doses of several vaccines that could be given within a 2 week period you can easily reach 300mcg/kg and of course 100mcg/kg in one day.
There is no doubt about this. Feel free to look up the vaccine schedule.
I find this to be compelling evidence and it's quite interesting that you or others are really quick to dismiss the study without having done the simple math.
It is not difficult at all to reach 300mcg in the weeks after the second month after birth. You could in theory even reach the 300mcg/kg in one single day.
Best wishes
Ps. Where did i say that this has anything to do with autism? I can't remember that i made such a statement nor is this mentioned in the study.
@Ian
an outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough) has occurred...
...this has caused cancellations of events such as the local Little League All Star tournament
The Horror. . . The Horror. . .
I believe that it's Waldorf Schools that can be anti-vaccine. This derives from the viewpoint of their founder. Not all of them are, though. AFAIK, Montessori Schools are not anti-vax.
@Sid: Your Momma StagMom figured out who I am and may have even contacted my employers with some salicious tales of how I waste my time debating antivaxers. So why don't you ask her where I live and you drop by for some coffee. I have a killer tuna salad with 57 micrograms of mercury (per can used) you're just going to love. And, what the heck, bring the measles.
DISCLAIMER: Again, just making it clear that these are my opinions, not those of the people on the 13th floor (or the people under the stairs).
A little info on aluminum, vaccines and health effects.
Sid @58
Your comment makes me want to reach through my computer and slap you. I sure hope that none of the kids you are poking fun at had to be hospitalized or worse.
@Sid
Okay, so I guess after comments like that I can stop pretending you aren't an idiot. I really did try. a href = "http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/pertussis_t.htm">Pertussis is fatal. You can go make jokes to the parents of the dead kids, and see how funny they think you are. Personally, I think you're hilarious, but probably not for the reason you'd like.
@mula
This post was about vaccines and autism. You posted a comment about aluminum and brain damage. Stupid me, I thought you were trying to make a point that was relevant to the discussion. Nope, turns out you just happen to have stumbled upon the fact that all babies are exposed to acute aluminum poisoning (despite any evidence of such poisoning) and have been for years (again, evidence not shown), and you decided to tell us about it just 'cause. You should call the President - he'll probably want to know.
*Mutter* Fiddlesticks. That would have looked much more elegant if I hadn't ballsed up my HTML.
@Rene
Sounds good. We'll go to M&J's for some lake trout
@mula
"Feel free to look up the vaccine schedule."
You're making the claim, why don't you provide the numbers with citations?
@Sid: Great! Bring Kim-Kim, JB, and even Andy. We'll have a gay ol' time.
DISCLAIMER: blah, blah, blah... You know the drill.
"I believe that it's Waldorf Schools that can be anti-vaccine. This derives from the viewpoint of their founder. Not all of them are, though. AFAIK, Montessori Schools are not anti-vax."
Ah, sorry bout that. I sometimes get those two mixed up on their vaccination stance since they are both pretty popular among the "crunchy" mommas who tend to be anti-vacc :-)
mula: "Ps. Where did i say that this has anything to do with autism? I can't remember that i made such a statement nor is this mentioned in the study."
Speaking of things not mentioned in the study, there's the word "proof" that you repeatedly use. The researchers did not use vaccines, work with humans or make definitive conclusions about anything, yet you chose a posting about autism and vaccines to declare that you'd found "proof" of vaccine harm.
Your protestations fail to convince.
@ jen 26
"Arch508 and Callie: your oversimplification and naivite about vaccine exemptions is interesting and shows your bias. In many cases parents are very much hamstrung with the vaccine requirements."
Where was the oversimplification? Perhaps you could back up your opinions with some persuasive arguments.
Is it true, yes or no, that most states allow for exemptions to the vaccine requirements in public school that parents could take advantage of? Perhaps it may take some paperwork, but how does that leave parents "hamstrung"? When you suggest something is compulsory it means that it is obligatory or required, therefore, if there are exemptions, then there are no longer strict requirements and vaccination is no longer compulsory.
Is it also true, yes or no, that even if there are no exemptions, there are certainly other options? Private school and homeschooling are certainly possibilities. They may cost a parent money, but choices come with consequences. If you don't want to accept the risks of living in society like everyone else, why should you get to reap the benefits afforded by society? Public school is good public policy for long-term societal growth, but is not an inalienable right. In fact, in the quoted passage above, the call is:
"We believe in the rights to life, liberty, and personal security for ourselves and our children."
Doesn't say anything about public education. You are free to not vaccinate your child, but that does not mean you are free to reap the benefits of society for that child on the backs of others willing to take risks for the protection of society. Your decision not to vaccinate, but then send your unvaccinated child to public school greatly increases the likelyhood that your child (and by extension you) will infringe on both the life and personal security of other children who attend school with your child.
Jen @ 26:
Seriously? No. All states permit a medical exemption (which means all you have to do is find a sympathetic doctor, such as Jay Gordon) and nearly all permit a religious exemption. Many also allow a philosophical exemption, which is basically just "I don't wanna".
Hamstrung? Not in this country. And you of all people should know this, since your idols are willing and able to counsel parents on the best way to get an exemption.
T. Bruce McNeely @ 59:
You are correct, though note that the term "Montessori" is not protected, so there are Montessori schools that don't actually follow the Montessori Method and which could have pretty much any philosophy whatsoever.
I have a daughter currently enrolled in a true Montessori school. This particular one goes up through the equivalent of grade 8, though I expect to move her for kindergarten. (Her older sister stayed there through kindergarten. I'm going to move the younger one sooner for convenience sake -- it'll be nice having them in the same building for a while.) They require proof of vaccination for all of their students, or a medical exemption.
Sid, you're making the point that homeschooling deprives kids of important socialization chances. On the other hand, parents might not want to have their kids socialize with walking health hazards. Would you be comfortable with voluntary immunizations as long as the immunization status of each kid is made public? That way, each parent can make the informed decision on which contacts to allow or not.
@ JohnV..
That's not difficult.
The vaccine schedule is here:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2010/10_0-6y…
Now look at month 2,4 and 6,
Start with month 2. Up to 6 vaccines are possible.(Most of them contain aluminiumhydroxide)
The PCV vaccine for children contains 125mcg aluminum per dose. The DTaP 625mcg aluminium and the HIB 220mcg alumium.
(You can look this up at the merck, pfizer, glaxosmithkline websites etc. to verify it of you want to)
There could more aluminium containing vaccines be given but i will keep this simple.
You can see that it is not difficult at all to give a babies with 5kg injections with 500mcg aluminium.(100mcg/kg)
Thus potentially harmful levels can be definitely reached and there is compelling evidence that the aluminium levels in childhood vaccines are not safe.
That's just science that is being applied here. Nothing more.
@mula
If your numbers are accurate, this is indeed an interesting finding. The question then becomes what is the extent of harm, if any, that such a hypothetical overexposure could have. It's quite a leap to go from "it is possible to be acutely exposed to 100 mcg/kg of aluminum from vaccines" to "vaccine aluminum causes brain damage."
I disagree with your assertion that this back-of-napkin arithmetic constitutes "compelling evidence" of vaccine harm. I'd have to see some evidence of harm first. That being said, you don't appear to be pulling stuff out of thin air, unless there's something here that I'm missing. Being not intimately familiar with the vaccine frequency, I'd still be curious to learn how often, if ever, kids are exposed to that much aluminum at once, or at least within the span described by the mouse study.
To my mind, Kim Wombles at Countering Age of Autism got it correct this morning:
Go read the whole thing.
Ian
How are you controlling for factors that contribute to the susceptibility of a host to spread disease? (ie. nutrition and / or breastfeeding for the first six months of a child's life when they are most susceptible to disease) Is it fair to say that epidemiologists may overlook a vaccinated person that is not presenting correct symptoms to any given vaccine preventable disease, and possibly choose the incorrect index patient based on vaccination status alone?
Todd W.
What, in your opinion, are circumstances for which negligence would apply and how would you prove it?
@cynic
No, I don't think your characterization is fair. It's stacking suppositions on top of each other like Yertle the Turtle. What would have to be the case is that such "overlooking" would need to occur in several different populations separated by several different time periods, under the purview of several different epidemiological groups. Knowing epidemiology as I do, while it is within the realm of possibility that every time vaccine-preventable illness is traced back to its source in NA it is almost exclusively found to be the result of an unvaccinated person, it is certainly not a reasonable conclusion to draw.
It is definitely not reasonable to conjecture that failure to breast-feed or improper nutrition plays anywhere near the role that failure to develop prior immunity (via vaccination) does. Furthermore, breastfeeding only transfers certain types of immunity (specific imunoglobulins) to a newborn, and this immunity is viable only for a short time. Improper nutrition makes you more likely to develop a fatal response to disease, but immunity protects even the undernourished. Again additionally, non-vaccination status tends to occur among the more wealthy, where undernutrition is less likely.
@cynic
Also, Todd W. used the word 'negligence' where he probably meant 'liability'. These are two different concepts, and I describe how it applies to the issue of vaccine refusal in comment #47.
@ mula
Unfortunately, the evidence that that paper provides regarding neuronal damage and resulting behavioral effects is quite poor. For those who aren't aware, the free article is available here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2819810/?tool=pubmed
At best, the data allows the authors to conclude that there is immune cell (microglia) activation in the CNS due to the alum. This would not be entirely unexpected as alum is meant as an adjuvant, to elicit non-specific activation allowing for a better immune response. If the authors looked for other immune cell types in other organs I would imagine they would find similar activation. For example, Kupffer cells are liver macrophages similar to the macrophages in the brain (microglia) and yet the authors do not seem concerned about the potential for liver damage.
The authors also state that unlike previous research they do not find neuronal loss and therefore fail to recapitulate this earlier work:
"Unlike the Petrik et al. [8] study which showed a loss of ChAT positive motor neurons in the lumbar cord of aluminum hydroxide treated mice, there was no significant difference in ChAT labeling or motor neuron counts in either the cervical or thoracic spinal cord segments (Fig. 1A and B)."
They conviently skip over this in the discussion without acknowledging that their data fails to repeat key points of the previously published work:
"These data add to those previously reported, i.e., the loss of motor and other neurons and the activation of reactive astrocytes."
If you aren't repeating key points, then you can't claim that your data is adding to that work as there are obvious discrepancies between the two studies. They just try some handwaving saying that their data is earlier in the pathological process, without any real evidence to back it up (i.e. histology still pending; perhaps they should have expedited that data set).
In regards to the behavioral data, the authors are missing a key control, making it unlikely that their results are as "profound" as they suggest.
As one can note from figure 4, their first measurement is at week 1. At this point there already appear to be differences between the two groups. However, any behavioral response is highly variable and the proper control would be to have measured both groups PRIOR to injection with alum. Therefore, one could determine if the two groups were equivalent in their behaviors prior to the injection and that the alum actually resulted in an alteration of behavior. It is quite likely that the two groups had different average behavior readouts before getting the injection, especially given that there is little week to week variation in either group. If the neuronal damage was as severe as they suggest, the alum group should be affected over time, but it isn't. Its readouts are consistent over time, with normal random fluctuations. The authors note that there are significant differences, however, without the proper control, that significant difference could have easily existed prior to the injection with alum.
Also, the standard error bars quite often overlap in many of the readouts, again bringing into question any actual difference between the groups. Remember that standard error bars are the standard deviation divided by the square root of the number of samples which can often make differences appear significant even if there is a great deal of variation present.
One final point about the behavioral tests. The authors make mention of using the "wire mesh hang" test twice weekly in the methods section, but never show any data. That's kind of fishy. Perhaps that data didn't jive with their other conclusions. The fact that it was done and not presented is certainly concerning in evaluating the overall conclusions of the paper.
So in conclusion, you have a paper that does demonstrate that alum causes immune cell activation in the CNS. However, this is not necessarily a problem, unless the authors also demonstrate that that activation has damaging consequences. This is where the paper, and the authors conclusions, collapse. The behavioral data does not support the conclusions that alum leads to damage, mostly because they are missing a key control. Therefore, one cannot conclude that alum leads to pathological CNS damage causing behavioral changes from this report. Given the poor methodology and missing controls, one can see why it was published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry (not quite Nature or J Exp Med, is it?).
@ mula
Two points I forgot about the behavioral data:
1. The mice used are an outbred strain. Therefore, there is a large amount of genetic variability between mice, as compared to inbred strains which are almost completely genetically identical (yet still display quite a bit of variability). Therefore, the pre-treatment timepoint is even more of a necessity and it is even more possible that the groups started out different rather than became different following injection of alum.
2. In regards to the statistical significance mentioned in the behavioral readouts, my old professor used to say, "There is a big difference between being statistically significant and being biologically relevant."
Hey, I sent my (fully vaccinated) granddaughter to Waldorf school kindergarten just because I love the wooden toys and beeswax crayons, artwork, beautiful classrooms and so on. I wasn't aware of any anti-vax sentiment at the time. I sent my youngest child to Montessori school for a few years and vax was required the same as public school (with the same exemption possibilities). I also homeschooled for a few years and there are plenty of socialization opportunities outside of institutional schooling. We attended home school play groups, sports events, parent-led seminars for groups of kids, and were free to interact and converse with whomever we met in our many field activities to tide pools, forests, museums, factories, bakeries, and much more. He also spent plenty of time with friends who attended public school and picked up algebra and geometry while hanging out with them while they were doing homework (which he didn't have to do and learned it anyway). He took his first test (the PSAT) at age 14 and scored in the 99th percentile and he has lots of friends and gets on well with all age groups, not just his peers. He was never subjected to bullying and speaks and writes Japanese and Spanish in addition to his native English. Not all home schoolers are religious whack jobs.
-------
Somebody, way far back, attributed WHO with the effort to eradicate guinea worm, which may be true, but The Carter Center has made a huge (and often unsung) effort toward the elimination of guinea worm. This has been covered in a documentary of Jimmy Carter (Man From Plains, I believe) and sometimes highlighted on other environmental/health documentaries I have seen on PBS.
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@ archangel
The authors mention that tau protein abnormality could only be observed in the aluminium treated group.
Good to see you back, Rene Najera. :-)
Ian,
You will need to be more specific. If the governing factor is symptomalogy, what is to be made of those showing little or none? And how are you certain that they are not also spreading disease?
It's not conjecture
Dumping carcinogens into a lake and vaccinating are not comparable. It is impossible to prove whether a person that has serological immunity will actually perform (satisfactory immune response) when the real disease is present. Nutrition is undeniably a factor.
First attributed to Pericelsus, the alchemist, some 600-odd years ago.
And then he subsequently went on to prove the point by drinking himself to death at the age of 42 (he, along with many alchemists, became convinced that alcohol was the elixer of life; in a way, it reminds me of when Napolean discovered alcohol in Animal Farm)
I've always considered my daughter at a high risk of infectious diseases, what with traveling all over the world, several times a year. She's vaccinated against just about everything you can get a vaccination for (and non-autistic). It's just occurred to me that nearly 90% of the kids we know at home come from crunchy non-vaccinating families. Oh and one genuine medical exemption, poor little tyke. What do you think will happen if one of my daughter's vaccines fails? Chances are she'll recover, but what about her friends?
This is hardly a unique situation? For one thing schools are full of kids whose dads (usually) just got back from their umpteenth business trip to Asia or Africa of the year. And I knew one woman with unvaccinated kids who was contemplating a family trip to India, for heaven's sakes (to partake of Indian woo).
@cynic
Eek! A PUBMED citation! Of course... all it shows is that breast-fed infants have higher risk than formula-fed infants. It doesn't talk at all about vaccination, or the population attributable risk of breast-feeding vs. vaccines, which is what would be required to refute my point. But still... Eek! You MUST be right! Good thing I can't read...
It is similarly impossible to prove whether a person got sick from lake-water exposure to carcinogens. That's why the analogy fits. And as I said, nutrition is an unlikely suspect since the disease is more prevalent among the non-vaccinated, who are wealthier and consequently better-nourished than average. Good thing YOU can't read...
Your point about being asymptomatic but still contagious is valid. If you can offer any evidence that people who fit that description are the primary cause of the spread of vaccine-preventable illness, I will condede the point. However, since there is no evidence and you're offering what is essentially a non-falsifiable hypothesis (at least in a practicable sense), then our two opinions stand with equal validity. When reason and logic are brought to bear, it makes more sense that populations with no immunity are more likely to spread disease than populations with some immunity. That hypothesis fits the observed facts about the spread of disease, whether vaccine-preventable or not.
@ mula
"The authors mention that tau protein abnormality could only be observed in the aluminium treated group."
Again, I did not state that there were not differences between alum and control. However, it is important that you actually demonstrate that those differences lead to pathology, not just histological changes. There may be a transient increase in that Tau protein abnormality, however, the authors did not examine the kinetics of its production, nor how long the abnormality remained. It is quite possible that the production of the protein abnormality is transient and has no permanent effect. When you combine the lack of understanding of the kinetics of the Tau protein abnormality with the fact that no neuronal damage was observed, one cannot make the conclusion that
The key point would be in demonstrating some lasting effect of this change or, at least, that the abnormality existed for a extended period of time and contributed in some way to neuronal damage and behavioral changes.
Your whole argument against aluminum is based on the conclusions present within this paper (i.e. that the alum injection causes behavioral alterations). As I have demonstrated, the data for observed behavioral effects is not at all persuasive and does not lead to the conclusions that you wish to draw from it. At best, you could argue that further study is needed with better methodological controls in place. But you certainly cannot argue, based on that paper, that alum injection in infants causes neuronal damage at the concentrations that infants are exposed to.
@mula
my daughter weighed over 5 kg @ 2 weeks old. much heavier at 8 weeks. even heavier at 16 weeks. you get my math.
How would she know what a safe vaccine is?
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1901-1939/1904/1904_70
The Hazlehurst appeal from the Omnibus Autism Proceedings just got refused. http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=infco20100513188
My bad, it was the Federal Court of Appeals that ruled.
Thanks Archangl508, you certainly saved me a lot of trouble.
@mula, in addition to Archangl's commentary on the Shaw study, there were other methodological problems. The mice were given 2 injections then another 2 @ 2 weeks. This was 200mcgAl/Kg body weight compared to the human dose of 68mcg/Kg body weight over the same time period. Now granted, it is appropriate to give the mice an accelerated schedule, but they can't justify giving the entire 200mcg/Kg in 2 weeks for what the human equivalent is given over the course of 6 doses in 18 months. A single mouse dose was 194% more than a human dose equivalent!
Their unpublished second experiment was with 300mcg/Kg body weight, which indicates that they are hunting for a dose that will produce neurotoxicity. Which is fine but they have to be very careful with their results interpretation and comparison to human exposure.
It's also a shame that they didn't radio-label their aluminium adjuvant since they didn't control for environmental sources of aluminium. They had 2 groups included in their results, PBS (n=10) and AlOH (n=11) but only 5 mice from each group were used for histology with no explanation. I can't find any explanation of blinding, except for microscopy, none for the slide prep, nor any for the objective behavioural tests. That is very problematic.
My daughter only weighed 2.3 kg at 2 months old when she got her "aluminum series" shots (HepB, DTaP, HiB, PCV). Preemies typically get all their shots on-schedule (with the exception of the HepB shot at birth; in my daughter's case they delayed it until the day she was discharged from the NICU).
@ Science Mom
"PBS (n=10) and AlOH (n=11) but only 5 mice from each group were used for histology with no explanation."
I didn't even notice that. Good pickup. Even more of a reason that the data and conclusions drawn from it may not be accurate, especially given that they did statistical analysis. Perhaps the one's thrown out affected the statistics a bit.
@79, 80, 90, and 95 Archangl508,
You are trying to get him to understand the problem of surrogate endpoints. That is a Wikipedia link that gives a bit of an overview. It is difficult to explain, but I keep trying on my blog.
My favorite example is CAST - the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial.* After a heart attack, people with a lot of extra heart beats coming from the wrong place in the heart, die more often than heart attack patients without the extra beats. The drugs do a great job of getting rid of the nasty looking rhythm (the extra heart beats) that occur more often in people who suddenly die. It was presumed that the the bad rhythm caused the bad outcome (death). When the drug was given, the bad rhythm went away. When there was a large enough study to look at survival data, they found that the drugs were killing the patients at 3 to 4 times the rate that the placebo was killing patients.
Since the placebo is unlikely to have been actually killing patients, the drugs were killing patients at 3 to 4 times the rate of not treating the bad rhythm. The bad rhythm is just an indicator of a diseased heart. People with a diseased heart will die more often than people without a diseased heart. This is not exactly brain surgery. Treating the bad rhythm was just making things look better, while the drug was actually increasing the death rate.
People who do not understand the scientific method are easily fooled by treatments that make something look better, such as chelation making lab values look better. What matters is whether a treatment affects a meaningful outcome.
A study that cannot be replicated should probably be referred to as a failure. Another way to name a study that cannot be replicated would be to name it after someone who has demonstrated an uncanny ability to produce these, but never submitted them to the Journal of Irreproducible Results. We should call them Wakefields after everyone's favorite irresponsible, irrepressible, irrational, irreproducible wanna be scientist Andrew Wakefield.
*Mortality and morbidity in patients receiving encainide, flecainide, or placebo. The Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial.
Echt DS, Liebson PR, Mitchell LB, Peters RW, Obias-Manno D, Barker AH, Arensberg D, Baker A, Friedman L, Greene HL, et al.
N Engl J Med. 1991 Mar 21;324(12):781-8.
PMID: 1900101 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
CONCLUSIONS. There was an excess of deaths due to arrhythmia and deaths due to shock after acute recurrent myocardial infarction in patients treated with encainide or flecainide. Nonlethal events, however, were equally distributed between the active-drug and placebo groups. The mechanisms underlying the excess mortality during treatment with encainide or flecainide remain unknown.
Question about quarantine. Having read a lot of fiction from the early and middle parts of the 20th century, I came across lots of references to quarantine for things like chicken pox, measles, whooping cough. I wondered a) how effective it was at limiting the spread of infectious disease and b) if it could be reintroduced nowadays for families who decide not to vaccinate. I can't imagine that would be very popular, though...
@English Rose,
I had chicken pox, measles, whooping cough and a few other diseases (but not polio or Rubella fortunately) in the 1950's. The usual quarantine procedure was to just stay home until you recovered from the disease and were presumed not to be infectious. This helped limit the spread, but wasn't really very effective overall. Partly this is because several of these diseases are infectious before the individual shows recognizable symptoms.
For diseases like polio and TB, the quarantine procedures could be more extensive. The recent American Experience show on polio, the March of Dimes and the Salk vaccine discusses the experiences of several people in one town that was quarantined because of a polio outbreak.
Occasionally, quarantine can be effective if an outbreak is detected early. About a year ago there was a measles outbreak in San Diego that that exposed a dozen or so people. It was limited to a few cases because they quickly identified the infected person(s), chased down all the exposed people and kept them at home until it was clear they did not have the disease. It also cost a fair amount of money to implement.
I was thinking more of quarantine where kids who'd been exposed to someone with infectious diseases was quarantined whether or not they were showing symptoms. So when my friend called me to say another kids at the playdate had chickenpox, I would have had to have put my son into quarantine whether or not he was sick at the time, until a certain time had passed.
@English Rose(99):
Not sure if this is exactly what you were asking about but due to an outbreak of Measels in Vancouver area schools in April, all non-vaccinated public school students were asked to stay home for 21 days, regardless of whether or not they had any symptoms
CBC has the story with more info.
Hey everyone, dumb question. What are the legit and non-legit autism organizations?
I saw something recently that one of the NASCAR races was sponsored by Autism Speaks. Is that a legitimate group, or loons?
It's so hard to keep up with the autism advocacy groups.
@Pablo, Not a dumb question at all because it is very confusing to know who is legitimate and who isn't. For instance, Autism Speaks speaks out of both sides of their collective mouths. They vacillate between 'vaccines cause autism' research and legitimate autism research. The Wrights (founders of Autism Speaks) are notoriously anti-vax and their daughter, Katie is a contributor to AoA.
KWombles of Countering Age of Autism also explored their fund-raising versus research spending and they come up wanting there. So far, Autism Science Foundation gets my support: http://www.autismsciencefoundation.org/ But don't take my word for it and check them out. Joseph and Sullivan on LB/RB would be good sources for this for the U.S. and Kev Leitch of LB/RB and Mike Stanton (Action for Autism Blog) for the UK.
You could also check out the MIND Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders). Autism is just one of several disorders they cover.
Court Denies Motherâs Bid for Religious Exemption to Vaccinations
Posted by admin on April 7, 2010 · Leave a Comment
A woman who claimed she saw "God in everything" and feared immunizing her daughter because it would inject "disease" into her "perfect" and "divine" human form failed to establish religious grounds sufficient for an exemption from New York state's mandatory vaccination rules, a federal judge has ruled.
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Not compulsory at all
Sid:
That sounds like schizophrenia, not religion.
So the anti-vaxxers want complete informed consent, huh?
Here's an idea: how about signs like "unvaccinated child at play" in neighbourhoods, or include vaccination rates for neighbourhoods as part of the information people get when house/apartment shopping? This way they are completely informed as to the type of medical risks that is in the neighbourhood. A possible side-effect of this is that anti-vaxxers will start moving into neighbourhoods together, making nice little pockets of completely unvaccination.
It's not forced quarantine if they choose to live there, right?
Science Mom - The Autism Science Foundation is more where the academic researchers hang out, yes? That would I expect be a lot more legit.
What about others like AutismNow and AutismOne? (I think those are others)
AutismOne is a total anti-vaccine quackfest. In fact, as we get closer to the new, improved, bigger AutismOne, expect at least one or two posts about it right here. :-)
In the meantime, there was the post from the other day:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/05/a_confluence_of_the_anti-vacc…
@104 - The woman was obviously mentally ill - do you think a breatharian parent should be allowed to starve their children?
Militant Agnostic said:
Since it doesn't harm Sid directly, I'm guessing he/she would say: "Yes, the parent has every right to do so".
@JRB (100)
Thanks for the link, very interesting to see that tack being taken (plus it sounded like it might not have been the first time it was done there, either). Imagine how much chaos it would cause if this became a widespread approach, which seems reasonable if/as vaccination rates drop substantially.
@104 Sid,
Talk about intellectually dishonest. Cherry-picking that headline is the epitome.
For anyone who's interested, here's the rest of the article:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202447652557&Court_Denies_Mother…
One of my favorite quotes: "Caviezel admitted that the church where she was ordained had not said anything about immunizing her children during the course she took there." (The Law "exempts children from the requirement whose parents or guardians 'hold genuine and sincere religious beliefs which are contrary' to vaccination.")