Remember Helen Ratajczak?
A few months ago, CBS News' resident anti-vaccine reporter Sharyl Attkisson was promoting Ratajczak's incompetent "analysis" of evidence that she views as implicating vaccines in the pathogenesis of autism entitled Theoretical aspects of autism: causes--A Review (which is available in all its misinforming glory here). I applied some not-so-Respectful Insolence to the idiocy contained within Ratajczak's article. One aspect of the article that I mentioned was how Ratajczak claimed that DNA from "aborted fetal tissue" in vaccines correlated with the rise of autism. The claim was, of course, utter nonsense, a rank lie promoted by the fundamentalist Christian wing of the anti-vaccine movement, and I've dealt with it before. Sometimes, that wing even goes so far as to publish its own crappy studies.
Which brings us to Joe Mercola.
The other day, Joe Mercola published on his very own wretched hive of scum and quackery an article entitled One of the Most Inexcusable Vaccine Revelations of All... In it, Mercola takes what Ratajczak wrote and turns up the stupid to 11 and beyond.
He begins by using the tried-and-true (or tried-and-not-so-true) health freedom method of invoking "informed" consent, or (as I've described it before) "misinformed consent":
If you are struggling to recall how you could have missed this important fact when signing your vaccine consent form, it wasn't your error--because it wasn't disclosed on any consent form. Most people are unaware that human cell cultures derived from aborted human fetuses have been used extensively in vaccine production for decades. And vaccine makers are happy that most of the public has remained ignorant of this fact, as awareness of it could blow up in their faces.Setting aside, for the moment, unknown long-term health consequences of DNA contamination and religious beliefs about use of aborted fetal tissues--the ethics of nondisclosure are reprehensible. Drug companies and vaccine policy-makers should not be allowed to decide whether or not to share this information with you. This is information you should have received PRIOR to making a choice about whether or not to vaccinate.
As I pointed out before when deconstructing Ratajczak's article, the whole bit about human DNA from fetal tissues in vaccines being a cause of anything is utter nonsense. Ratajczak claimed that the DNA from these "fetal cells" somehow got into brain cells, underwent homologous recombination, and then altered the cells to be sufficiently different from self to be recognized as "non-self." As I pointed out before, I have a lot of experience working with human, mouse, and rat DNA. I know how difficult it is to get naked DNA into cells and to get it to make the protein for which it codes. Moreover, unless you're using lentiviral vectors or some other retroviral delivery advice, the DNA will not be detectably incorporated into the DNA of the muscle cells. Its gene expression is extranuclear (outside the nucleus).
I can't resist briefly recapping the implausibility of Dr. Ratajczak's idea that I listed before. To do what Dr. Ratajczak claims, the minute amount of human DNA in a vaccine would have to:
- Find its way to the brain in significant quantities.
- Make it into the neurons in the brain in significant quantities.
- Make it into the nucleus of the neurons in significant quantities.
- Undergo homologous recombination at a detectable level, resulting in either the alteration of a cell surface protein or the expression of a foreign cell surface protein that the immune system can recognize.
- Undergo homologous recombination in many neurons in such a way that results in the neurons having cell surface protein(s) altered sufficiently to be recognized as foreign.
In other words, from a strictly scientific point of view, blaming the DNA from "fetal cells" used to make vaccine is pretty darned implausible. True, it's not, as I'm wont to say, homeopathy-level implausible, but it wouldn't take all that much to get there, given that Ratajczak's view of fetal DNA seems to be not unlike miasmas.
Mercola then goes on:
A recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has led to a question of whether there is a correlation between the abrupt rise in American autism rates with the introduction of fetal cells for use in vaccines (1988). This correlation has prompted researchers to ask the question about how aborted fetal DNA could be causing, or contributing to, the development of autism disorders in children. Thus far, there have been no proposed theories of a mechanism. However, it's a significant correlation that should at least be investigated. If you care about what you put into your body, and into your child's body, and you are outraged by this information, you are not alone.
How can a person be pro-life and NOT object to the use of these vaccines?
I discussed this "study" before. It's an amazing example of torturing the data to fit a preconceived hypothesis. Basically, some "researchers" claim to have found that there were "change points" for the incidence of autism in 1980, 1988, and 1995, when autism incidence increased. What happened in these three years to cause these "change points"? Guess. That's right, it's the vaccines, as it always is for anti-vaccine activists. In 1979, the rubella vaccine was introduced in the U.S.; there's change point number one in 1980. Then, in 1988 the second dose of the MMR vaccine was added; there's change point number two. Then, in 1995, the chickenpox vaccine was introduced, and there you have change point number three. As I described, it's all nonsense, crappy, ideologically driven "science" of the crappiest, most ideologically driven sort. I guess that makes it appropriate for Mercola to be citing.
Mercola then appeals directly to religion:
The impact of the finding that many vaccines are derived from aborted fetal cell lines is potentially enormous, given the great number of people who define themselves as Pro Life. For someone who is Pro Life to discover that a vaccine contains the DNA from aborted fetuses is like a Muslim finding out that a vaccine is derived from pork.
Actually, that line has been tried before, where fundamentalist Muslims have claimed that vaccines are unclean because of gelatin derived from pork. No less a "luminary" of the anti-vaccine movement than David Kirby has tried this ploy. It's nonsense; Muslim authorities in, for example, Britain have out and out said, "In terms of ingredients in vaccines, there are so many things that are probably Haram, but in the absence of an alternative we are allowed to take it for the sake of our health."
Not that this stops Mercola from regurgitating the same attempted fear-mongering with respect to Catholics:
I would anticipate that many of the people who object to use of aborted fetal tissues for scientific research are going to be shocked and outraged when they learn that their children have been secretly injected with vaccines containing DNA, proteins, or related cellular debris from cell cultures derived from aborted human fetuses.
This is not a small portion of the population!
The two largest religious preferences in the U.S. are Catholic and Evangelical, representing 50 percent of the population. And those are not the only two groups who typically share Pro Life views. Given these numbers, you could extrapolate that more than one of every two people receiving vaccines might have opted out of them based on religious beliefs alone, had they been given truthful and complete information about how the vaccines were produced.
The Catholic Church objects to "formal cooperation" with abortion. However, in terms of its vaccine policy, there are more gray areas than mandates.
Actually, as anyone with a modicum of knowledge about cell biology should know, cell lines derived from even an aborted fetus are very, very far removed, hundreds of population doublings given that the cell lines in question were first isolated in the 1960s. When there is no other reliable, practical method to make the vaccines in question, the Catholic Church has supported vaccination, as the link provided by Mercola himself demonstrates:
However, if the latter are exposed to considerable dangers to their health, vaccines with moral problems pertaining to them may also be used on a temporary basis. The moral reason is that the duty to avoid passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is grave inconvenience. Moreover, we find, in such a case, a. proportional reason, in order to accept the use of these vaccines in the presence of the danger of favouring the spread of the pathological agent, due to the lack of vaccination of children. This is particularly true in the case of vaccination against German measles.
In practice, this means that the Church does not discourage vaccination, and indeed most Catholic institutions, such as hospitals and schools, have vaccination policies indistinguishable from those of non-Catholic institutions. A rather interesting discussion of this very issue can be found here, where a parent who wants a religious exemption from having her child vaccinated was shocked to find out that the Catholic school to which she is sending her child refused to let her child attend if she claimed the exemption based on the "Bishop's Diocesan Policy regarding immunizations."
Of course, I highly doubt that Mercola gives a rodent's posterior about religious beliefs. He's anti-vaccine, and he sees anti-abortion religious beliefs as an opportunity to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines, like any good denialist would. That's why, like many of the anti-abortion anti-vaccine sources Mercola cites, he tries his hardest to blur the line between cells that were derived long ago from an aborted fetus and aborted fetal tissue, the false implication being that there is aborted fetal tissue in vaccines.
Fortunately, other than for a relatively small number of Catholics and evangelicals, this tactic doesn't appear to work. Not that that stops anti-vaccine activists like Joe Mercola.
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As usual grasping for straws,racking his obsessed brain for reasons to never admit to his ego and the world he may have been wrong in the past. How about some intellectual honesty, huh?
Julia @1:
What do you mean? Is this a plea to Mercola or Orac?
A bit of irony is that the source of the controversial tissue was a fetus damaged by rubella before the rubella vaccine was available.
For completeness' sake, what are the cells in question and what is their purpose in creating the vaccines?
homologous recombination tinkering... WTF is that?
she's laughable...well, so is the church on most issue's
Interesting question - if one argues that people have a right to complete and truthful information about vaccines, in order to ensure compatibility with their religious beliefs, wouldn't the collateral be that they should also be given complete and truthful information about their religion or church at the same time, in order to make a really informed decision?
Elwoodius, Orac has always said he is open to new evidence and is willing to change his mind and/or correct himself. In fact, on his blog Orac has done so a few times.
Perhaps your post was an attempt at humor, in fact, it would be funny to think that it could be Orac or any of the other scientifically minded who speak here. Why? Because that is what true science is about; investigating and being willing to change when real evidence is truly shown. It is self-correcting over the long run. Whereas, Joe Merc-mind chases after the same tired old stuff that has been proven wrong long long ago.
I've got to admit that my first reaction on reading the quotes was: how on earth could anyone get enough aborted foetuses to make those billions of doses if vaccines come from "cell cultures derived from aborted human fetuses" (the implication being that evil pharmascientists are taking aborted BABIES!!! and using them to make vaccines).
It doesn't even pass the test of "would this really be a reliable and regular source of culture material", the way hen's eggs are for 'flu.
I need a drink, and I haven't even had lunch yet. Antivaxers are really bad for your health.
Wait, so one or more aborted fetuses really were the origin of some of the cell cultures used in vaccines? I"m not morally offended but I admit to feeling a tad repulsed.
Then again I imagine that other ingredients would also make me feel that way. Better to know about them and adopt a scientific attitude than allow disgust to dictate my actions, I suppose.
Mercola:
ORAC:
That's not a good argument. It's an appeal to authority. Muslim authority.
It's perfectly reasonable to religiously abstain from these vaccines for viruses that most likely they will never EVER die from or have any permanent injury, only lifetime immunity.
If they listen to the tin god who says they will most likely die if they don't take the god's sacrifices, well then, that's idolatry.
I DO have to wonder if doctors should be more open about discussing the ingredients in the vaccines- some of the patients aren't Catholic, and might have religious objections.
Seems like a whole mash of fairly inane arguments with no actual evidence or substance (and has Mercola come out against stem cell research? Since some of the stem cell lines did come orginally from aborted fetuses.)
Given the replication series necessary over the years - this would be like charging someone today for murder, based on the actions of their great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, etc. grandfather.
And in Nigeria, one of the remaining Polio hotspots, it was a full-blown conspiracy theory (that the vaccine was manufacturered in Israel to steralize Muslims) that was spread by the religious hierarchy that almost ended the vaccination program in that country - and caused the continued spread of the disease (and set back the eradication campaign by years, if not over a decade).
"Wait, so one or more aborted fetuses really were the origin of some of the cell cultures used in vaccines? I"m not morally offended but I admit to feeling a tad repulsed."
Some of the vaccines use cell lines that originally derived from an aborted fetus. There is no ongoing use of new aborted fetus in vaccine production.
Cell lines derived from aborted fetuses are used extensively, in medical and industrial research and production. Senomyx is a company that produces flavor enhancers and artificial flavors that has recently come under fire from pro-life groups for using cells from such a line. Their customers include big names like PepsiCo.
I should clarify -- Senomyx uses cells from such a line to test their flavors, not IN their flavors.
I wonder if Mercola is also a creationist ?
He seems to have a similar level of dishonesty.
Thanks for the clarification Becky, you had me going there for a second.
As for Augie, corrected it for you
It's perfectly reasonable to religiously abstain from these seat belts for accidents that most likely they will never EVER die from or have any permanent injury
And I can't wait for his rant against the radioactive smoke detectors Big Nuke is making him put into his kids bedrooms.
@ Michael, All vaccine excipients, including cell lines are available on the package inserts of each and every vaccine; this information is also online. If it is that important to the recipient, they can look it up. No organised religion objects to or has any formal policy eschewing vaccines.
Mercola:
By believing in the greater good; by not wanting that child who was aborted in the 1960s to have died in vain; to want to save far more children; in short, by loving LIFE. But Mercola probably knows this. He's not a true believer; he's a charlatan, and he only invokes the pro-life argument in order to pander to his base. He's cultivating an image, nothing more.
SteveHT:
The cells in question are immortal cell lines originally obtained from aborted fetuses. (The cells themselves are not immortal, but they can be replicated endlessly.) If memory serves, there are three different cell lines, from three different babies, which are used in vaccine manufacture. They are also used in a great many more things, including basic research and safety testing of new drugs or ingredients. (Basically, they're a supply of human cells which can be exposed to various substances to find out what happens. That's one form of in vitro testing.) The cells themselves were not harvested from the fetuses; they are distant descendents of the cells which were harvested from those fetuses, who were aborted for medical reasons in the 1960s. Apropos for this discussion, one of the babies was aborted due to maternal rubella, which can cause devastating effects on the baby.
For vaccine manufacture, they're used to manufacture the antigens that will be put into the vaccine. For most viral vaccines (not sure about other pathogens), you need to infect some cells with the virus (or a genetically modified version of it) so that the virus can do what it does and coopt their machinery to churn out more copies of the virus. The cells are then killed, the viruses extracted, and additional work is usually done to attenuate or outright kill the viruses. This crippled or dead viral stock is then put into a vaccine form and injected into a patient so the patient's immune system can see it, believe that it's a live virus, and activate the biologically machinery to form an immunity to it.
What sort of cells can you use to make the original viral stock for producing a vaccine? Well, that depends on the virus. Influenza infects a wide range of animals, and in particular, it infect birds. This is very convenient, because it means they can use fertilized chicken eggs as the growth medium for the virus, and eggs are cheap.
Not all viruses are so handy. Measles, for instance, is unique to humans. It cannot infect anything else. That means that if you want to grow enough of it to make a vaccine, you need human cells. There aren't very many options for that, apart from these old stem cell lines. That is why they're used. But it is not a case of profiting off of abortion. This is more a case of making sure that a child did not die in vain. It's more like tissue or organ donation -- making a death more meaningful so that out of one tragedy can many lives be saved. Given the wide range of uses these cell lines have, I think it's not unreasonable to suggest that, at a very low minimum, tens of thousands of lives have been saved for these three deaths. And they didn't die to produce vaccine. They were already dead; their parents chose to donate the bodies to medical science that some good might come of their terrible tragedy.
And none of these cells wind up in the finished vaccine. Some proteins from them doubtless do (just as chicken albumin winds up in flu vaccine), and yeah, there's an "ew" factor. But it's not like what Mercola and his ilk are claiming.
Tedious logic fail by troll is tedious and full of fail.
Hey! Thanks for posting this Orac. Just yesterday I got in a fight on Facebook over this very Mercola article. Managed to get two awesome posts by searching your site to debunk this idiocy, and then here you go and address Mercola's part of it too! Perfect. I mean, I'm probably going to get unfriended soon because I won't back down, but what the fuck do I need scare mongering idiots hanging around for anyway?
@Augie:
No, the point of universal vaccination is that if herd immunity is not achieved, someone will most likely die, of be seriously harmed, as a result. But I suppose that as long as it is someone else's kid it happens to and not you, then you aren't too concerned, are you?
I must admit to agreeing with a bit of what Mercola says. It is true that many people in the US would want to know this fact. It is also true that many people in the US would probably consider this a reason to avoid vaccination. I think they're out of their gourd, but that doesn't change what they believe.
It's very hard to say that people would want to know this, we KNOW they would want to know this, and yet we don't specifically tell them about it. If that would require manufacturing procedures to be changed to use other cell lines in order to address such irrational objections, so be it. Ideally education would change people's minds, but I doubt that would actually work.
Neither Mercola nor augustine seem familiar with the concept of "Do not bear false witness."
If the cell lines had been derived from miscarried fetuses, would this objection just melt away? Or would the objection simply adapt?
Mercola is obviously appealing to his scientific principle "Once in contact, always in contact." I mean, it must be a scientific principle if you can use your intuition to test and discover that the principle is obviously a true one.
Mercola is an entrepreneur who would like to expand his business selling supplements and services: he gives himself away citing "Catholic and Evangelical, representing 50% of the population". If only he could ingratiate himself with such a large group by catering to their Pro Life position ( I realise that not all members of these denominations are Pro Life) which is held by many Conservatives in his area of the US.
Mercola, as his site well documents, has a history of presenting his spiritual side in his practice in stark contrast to those soul-less, materialistic, data-driven SBM doctors we all know and love. However, as Quackwatch shows ( Mercola/ FDA; recent additions, 2011- see photos) he sure has pretty fancy digs for a non-materialistic guy.
Playing the spiritual card - and being politically opportunistic- are *au courant* in the world of web woo-meisters who like Mercola, are assiduously building up their own personal "wretched hives of scum and quackery", a/k/a NaturalNews and the ProgressiveRadioNetwork. These alternative media outlets present "news" and "information" ( in print, audio, and video) slanted in a manner that ultimately benefits sales: Adams speaks directly to Tea Party-ing sentiment when he decries governmental interference with "health freedom" while Null, who endeavors to inveigle both sides of the political spectrum, walks the trickier path by simlutaneously kowtowing to libertarian views ( "Health Freedom or Die!") as well as the progressive ( "Be Ahead of the Curve!")- he calls it ( with typical creativity and panache) " Progressive Libertarianism".
Perhaps I'm too much of a material girl myself- watching CNBC, studying reports on investments, intrigued by statistical analyses- but I jadedly suspect that the spirituality and the political posturing by these guys all is reducible to what benefits the bottom line of their buisnesses. Guess I'm a reductionalist. Woo hoo.
Even the Vatican ist not amused using cells derived from abortions to produce viral vaccines.
But Ratzinger (now pope) claimed that vaccines have benefits and therefore the moral arguments have to stand behind- but in the future new vaccines should not be derived from human fetal cells derived from abortion.
Details here
http://www.immunize.org/concerns/vaticandocument.htm
so the position is clear: immunize !
@ Sastra: Sure, by contagion! So if Mercola also believes in homeopathy, he would fulfill both of Frazer's forms of sympathetic magi... I mean *sympathetic _scientific priciples_*. I never though I could apply "The Golden Bough" in real life.
DLC @15
I am sure he is one when there is money in it for him.
There is an element of creationism/ID in most alt-med since much of it is based on a belief that nature/the universe was designed for us and cares about us ie. herbs were designed for our health. Flora brand herbal products have the slogan "For every disease we know God allows a herb to grow." Alt Med is a religion.
Give you an infinite supply of point-seeking missiles and you'd still contrive to miss the point, wouldn't you, augie? The elusive point being that it is unreasonable to cite your religion in support of a position when the authorities of your own religion publicly support the opposite position.
If Orac said: "Vaccines are good, because Muslim authorities in Britain have stated that their health benefits outweigh our concerns over their halal status" (if that's the right way of putting it, I'm not an expert on Muslim dietary law), that would be an invalid appeal to authority.
But if some British Muslim who also happened to be anti-vaccine said: "I refuse to vaccinate, because vaccines are not halal"
And Orac said: "But Muslim authorities in your own country have stated that the health benefits of vaccines outweigh such concerns, therefore a good British Muslim should vaccinate"
that would be a perfectly reasonable objection, because the objector has implicitly accepted religious authority by appealing to religion in the first place.
Exactly the same as if person A had said "I object to X because I am a Catholic" and person B had said "But the Pope publicly supports X." Person B is not appealing to the Pope as arbiter of whether X is good or bad. Indeed, person B has said nothing about the goodness of X. The point is that Catholicism is not a valid reason for objecting to something that the Pope himself supports.
More here on the cell cultures used to produce vaccines. The two major cell lines cited were originally obtained following legal abortions in the 1960s. In neither case were abortions obtained for the purpose of vaccine research or manufacture. Vaccination itself has prevented many abortions:
"...the RA27/3 rubella vaccine (made using one of the cell lines developed from a fetus) has prevented many thousands of spontaneous and induced abortions by protecting pregnant women from infection...The Vatican Academy also noted that âthe parents who did not accept the vaccination of their own children become responsible for the malformations [due to rubella infection] in question.â
So the moral question here is a bit more complicated than Mercola is letting on.
I doubt Mercola's disingenuous appeal has much effect on Catholics. A small percentage of anti-abortion activists may feel differently. One wonders if they are also busily collecting information on all the drugs they will have to abstain from since they were developed using these fetal cell lines.
Beamup, I agree with you. Science mom talked about being able to read the package insert but that seems a bit of a cop out. For a lot of people it could be quite upsetting to feel "blindsided " by this news. I know for one of the shots I had the kids in for, I was concerned about the culture the vaccine was being grown in- something about bovine serum when spongioform (brain wasting disease) was bad in England.
The second link in the last paragraph of Orac's original post is to an organization doing just that: http://www.soundchoice.org
They seem awfully focused on vaccines to near-exclusion of other uses of fetal cell lines, for some strange reason.
Just another example of SBMers not in favor of informed consent.
"Trust your government folks! Just get your damn vaccines!"
Augustine, if you can't engage us like a rational adult, please leave.
Jen -- there is also the point that the package insert is not typically readily available. This is true of nearly all meds administered by a medical professional, and it's not for any nefarious reasons; it's because they're opening the package and then bringing the contents to you. If you were administering it to yourself, you'd see the package insert. But you don't see the package insert, for the same reason you don't see the package itself.
They do give you informational leaflets, which are helpful, but have a different purpose. They're to tell you what the purpose of the shot is, what adverse reactions to watch out for, who to call and when if things don't seem right, and what contraindications exist. They don't usually include an ingredient listing, except for a list of things people might be allergic to.
I'm not sure it would really be helpful to give everyone the insert. I enjoy reading that kind of stuff (I'm a dweeb, what can I say) but it's information overload for most people. I am an advocate of making information available, though, especially ingredients (though I'm more concerned about it in the context of restaurant food). I think a more accessible-to-the-layperson ingredient list should be made available at the doctor's office, with a list of resources for more information online.
@Jen
Blindsided? Really? Would those same parents feel blindsided by their precious children getting whooping cough or measles?
First you have to pay attention, a difficulty in today's world. Then you have to understand the implications of the information presented. That is especially difficult when the likes of Mercola spout lies and twist truth beyond recognition. Mercola (Null, Adams and others) have found a rich and lucrative vein of stupidity, ignorance and fear which they leverage for their own benefit.
Informed consent depends strongly on the intelligence (or gullibility) of the consentee.
The amount of human DNA in a vaccine is tiny, really, really tiny. For example, a pin head weighs more than 12,000 times as much as the amount of human DNA in a vial of Meruvax II rubella vaccine. I just wanted to add a little perspective.
(A pin head weighs about 2.5 milligrams. There is 200 nanograms of single and double stranded human DNA in a vial of Merumax II 200 nanograms = 0.2 micrograms = 0.0002 milligrams 2.5 / 0.0002 = 12,500)
That's not a good argument. It's an appeal to authority. Muslim authority.
In the context of discussing the demands laid upon one by one's choice of religious authorities, if there is an alternative to appealing to authority then I would like to hear it.
Calli- yes, I see your point, going through the package insert with patients could be very tedious, but perhaps it could be some part of the well baby visits to also include this kind of information/discussion besides the informational pamphlets about specific diseases. It might at least be worth thinking about this as so many parents obviously question vaccine safety and since there really are quite a lot of vaccinations on the recommended schedule now.
@Jen: I know this is pointless, but I'll try anyway:
Do you have a citation for this opinion? Maybe you can opine on a percentage of parents make up "so many"?
So, they'd rather have had those foetuses aborted in vain, tossed in the trash, than to make cell lines with a plethora of life-saving and life-enhancing medical uses.
I wonder if some of the rancor from the religious would die down if you showed them a flask of cells. They're just cells, suspended in medium or glomming to the bottom. I wonder if they have this sci-fi mental image of eternally perpetuated little proto-humans floating in goo...
Comment inexplicably caught in moderation. Some perspective: a pin head weighs more than 12,000 times as much as the human DNA in a vial of rubella vaccine.
@Krebiozen
You have to wonder if they'd be just as freaked out over a blood transfusion and all that scary DNA recombining inside their precious snowflake. You never hear about the burial of the survivors of blood transfusions, now do you?
Typical, "Science Mom said this so I'm going to be contrary" response from Jen. It's not a cop-out by any stretch. If vaccine excipients are that important to a parent, they have the information easily available; it's not the physician's job to intuit what left-field concern a parent may have. Just because you wish to make more of an issue than you should, doesn't mean that the medical profession should be on board.
It is amazing that you seem to be able to find what information suits you on the interwebz but suddenly become blindingly computer-illiterate when you wish to create some faux indignation, e.g. cell cultures. No one is blind-sided who doesn't want to be.
JayK, that is an incredibly intriguing thought. Would the people who object to aborted fetal cells in their vaccines (and if there's a list somewhere of medications containing or developed with same, we need it posthaste!) be equally loath to get blood or tissue from one kind of sinner or another? Would they suffer in a burn unit rather than get skin grafts from a morally incompatible donor? Would they be willing to wait, in case of a medical emergency, for blood that has been certified free of premarital sex/history of abortion/atheism/democratic voter registration/etc.? I mean, really, if you're going to stand on principle, you should be consistent.
Rabies vaccine is made with aborted fetal cells...so morally upstanding pro-life/anti-vaxxers should refuse a rabies shot if they are bitten by a wild animal, right?
But did you take the Homologous Recombinaltion Tiniker into account? I bet you did not! Ha!
Alison, I have to disagree strongly that all the things you're grouping together are so similar that they must either all be rejected or all be accepted in order to avoid inconsistency. Â Whether or not you yourself are religious, certainly you must have heard of the principle "hate the sin, but love the sinner"? Â Your examples do not observe that crucial distinction.
Let me be frank about this, first: I think Mercola is full of horsecrap.  He may pretend that he's concerned about whether people are getting the information they need in order to observe their religious beliefs - but I'm certain that if he ever realized the reasons why people with certain religious beliefs should vaccinate (such as it being a way to help the weak and vulnerable who would suffer in an outbreak!) he'd do his best to suppress that information.  In fact, I think he comes perilously close to violating the commandment about taking the Lord's name in vain, which actually has little to do with yelling "Jesus Christ!" when you drop a hammer on your toes and more to do with people who think things like "I don't want people to vaccinate" and say things like "God doesn't want you to vaccinate."
But if you do belong to a denomination that regards abortion as a sin (and there are of course many of them) then a medical treatment using cells from an aborted fetus is not merely something associated with a sinner, it is itself the fruit of the sin.  A sinner is a person who does many things, some of which may be very good and some of which may be very bad; it would be against the principles of most modern religions to reject everything ever done by a sinner because then a sinner could do no good works to atone for their sins.  But the fruit of a sin is something that is in existence, or in its current hands, because something bad was done.  It's hardly unreasonable to regard that differently.  A reformed mugger could donate his time to a charitable cause without giving anyone cause for hesitation; if he starts donating the personal effects of people he robbed, it's a different story.
Of course, there's far more to the issue than just "does the treatment come from the fruit of a sin?"  The fact that the sin in this case (for those who believe it is one) was not committed for the fruit comes into play, as does the fact that especially when "the treatment" in question is vaccination, not taking it could constitute a serious sin of omission.  It's just not as simple as "if you are leery of a treatment that came from fetal cells originally, you should also be leery of blood donated by atheists" either.
In related news, check out this anti-vaccine agitprop from Free Republic.
It's basically a window into the hive-mind of RI's anti-vax trolls.
(The link isn't to FR; it goes to a site that compiles the worst of FR threads.)
@Krebiozen:
Any idea how many base pairs that is?
@ Matthew Cline, it depends upon the amount of ds and ssDNA present. If it is all dsDNA, then the number of bps is ~1.8*10^14
Julia @7
Thanks for the clarification. Your post @1:
didn't refer to who 'he' was.
Knowing now you meant Mercola, it makes sense to me.
FTR I think he's a crank, too.
Gray Falcon seems to have lost the concept of idolatry. Do you know what that means Gray? He worships man's own mind, yet he claims another master. Such hypocrisy. The SBM atheist mocks you with tolerance.
You have issues, Falcon. Serious issues.
Reading yet another atheist blog from an SBM linker on here I can't help but wonder how many are socialist democrats yet they support capitalist PHARMA.
Hypocrisy thy name in politics is Scientism. Scientism Based Medicine (SBM).
socialist democrats yet they support capitalist PHARMA.
This socialist democrat supports medicine that works. The question of ensuring equitable, affordable access to it is a separate issue, and I generally don't agree with the drug industry's stance on it. However, my response to this political dispute is not "zOMG vaccines R poisoN!!1eleven," because I'm neither stupid nor a sociopath.
It's really not that complicated, once you actually think about it.
(Full disclosure: I accept the science on AGW, but occasionally drive a car.)
Well, to those folks made squeamish by the origin of these cells: just what source of human cells would be acceptable to you?
It always astounds me the twists and turns the anti-vax people will go to to have a study 'prove' their point that vaccines are bad. I had someone on another forum last week point at the latest twin study and say oh, environment is shown to have more of an impact then originally thought and of course since to an anti-vax person environment means vaccines, they forget the grander, more expansive meaning which is EVERYTHING AROUND THE CHILD BEFORE AND IMMEDIATELY after birth. So they hear this and start spreading it around, new twins study proves vaccines cause autism.
BTW Orac, I'd love you to put this latest study into better words (I feel they used concordance way too often, hehe) and maybe point out the environmental equations they are referring to? Just a thought.
Augustine, why do you even come here? Nobody really wants to read anything you have to say and you obviously don't like anyone here or what they have to say so perhaps you should do everyone, including yourself, a favor and just go away.
Back in the days I've met Ms Ratajczak. She was doing autism research and for all I knew was doing good job. She really cared about autistic children and I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, her research might be one of the stepping stones to actually finding the etiology.
Sigh.
To think, how bad it turned out.
That's what pisses me to no end in all that autism-vaccines humbug - that all the resources, money and researchers work flows into pointless and useless bullshit like that instead of actually helping autistic kids and adults. Great, now I'm depressed.
Antaeus Feldspar@48:
Thank you for saying what I wanted to say, only much better.
I'm guessing that Augustine, despite his name, is not a Catholic. If he was, he'd know that abortion for medical reasons (mother's life in danger; foetus has serious medical problems; etc.) is permitted by the Catholic Church. The abortions from which the cell cultures are derived occurred in the 1960's, which places them before Roe vs. Wade. Commenter Bob @3 pointed out that one of the foetuses was damaged by Rubella. I don't think many Catholics would be overly concerned. I'm not.
@Matthew Cline,
The entire human genome contains approximately 3 billion base pairs and weighs 6-7 pg. As 200 ng is 200,000 pg, it is the equivalent of approximately 31,000 human genomes, or about 100 trillion base pairs. This is close to Science Mom's estimation. The ratio of single to double stranded DNA in the rubella vaccine is approximately 4:1, and single stranded DNA doesn't have base pairs, obviously, but the estimate gives an idea of how much DNA we are talking about.
That makes it sound like a lot, but bear in mind that a drop of water contains around 1 billion trillion molecules (according to my rough calculations).
According to the reference I gave at #37 the average size of the double stranded DNA fragments in rubella vaccine is 210 base pairs. These are very small fragments of DNA when you consider there are 220 million base pairs in human chromosome 1.
"Wait, so one or more aborted fetuses really were the origin of some of the cell cultures used in vaccines? I"m not morally offended but I admit to feeling a tad repulsed."
I'm having trouble understanding where the repulsion factor really comes from. Abortions happen every day - thousands of them. They have happened for hundreds of years. They happen whether or not they are legal and whether of not they are safe. Women who have abortions come from a wide range of age groups and from all social and economic groups. The need for abortions will not go away.
So, just once or twice all this sadness has lead to a very important and very positive result. Something that has truly benefited all of us. I think we should feel gratitude for the distressed woman who donated her fetus for research and for all the skilled workers who have allowed the cell lines to continue.
@Antaeus Feldspar: I wasn't talking about the religious aspect, for once. One of the arguments used against fetal cells in vaccines is that the foreign DNA "might" be able to move beyond the blood/brain barrier and (insert random medical conspiracy theory). The religious angle at least has an appeal to religious logic, but the DNA/blood/brain thing fails, at least due to the limited number of base strands available in vaccines. But when you're talking a transfusion, well then you're talking about replacing a significant amount of a person, or something. Sorry I wasn't more explicit, I meant to indicate a shifting of goal posts.
Remarkably, the answer is YES. They WOULD prefer they be thrown in the trash.
A few years ago, there was a bill passed by congress that would have allowed federal funding for stem cell research on cells obtained from IVF embryos that parents choose to provide instead of throwing them out. IOW, parents would be _allowed_ to make their unwanted embryos from IVF available for stem cell research instead of just throwing them away. The bill passed handily by both houses of congress, but not handily enough because it was vetoed by Pres Bush, and the house of representatives could not override it.
In other words, if parents have extra embryos that they do not need and want to get rid of, which they are allowed to do, they MUST throw them in the garbage.
I remember that veto, and I remember some ridiculous setup Bush had where he had some kids sitting around on a podium as he made a speech where he said something to the effect of 'these kids are not spare parts.' It was a yell-at-the-TV moment for me.
I'm not convinced that people who objected knew what the bill was about. I think it was spun as being 'generate embryos just for research' or even 'abort for research.'
(I'm no fan of IVF, given overpopulation and so many parentless kids who would love to be adopted, but that's another debate. If it's going on, we should at least use the cast-offs for good.)
Why wrongly assume that the Vatican speaks for all Christians when it comes to aborted fetal cell lines?
We answer to God not the Pope so i could not care less what the Catholic Church says when it comes to the sick and depraved ingredients in vaccines.
@Fred: so you would rather those aborted fetuses from the 1960s for cripe's sake (which, by the way, was before Roe v. Wade, therefore these abortions were done for medical reasons and women had to jump through a LOT of hoops to get them) had gone to waste rather than save thousands of lives over the past 50 years? So out of the evil (in your mind), NO good can come? Right. Remind me not to ask you about YOUR ethics. Because obviously, if you were hiding Jews during WWII, you would tell the Gestapo they were there if asked, because lying is a sin also.
@66:
That you, Rev. Phelps?
Fred, why do you think it is better to not vaccinate for rubella than to use the vaccine? Do you want us to relive the days of hundreds of stillbirths and babies being born with disability due to Congenital Rubella Syndrome?
What kind of Christian are you that you don't care of the results of not preventing rubella?
Do you want us to relive the days of hundreds of stillbirths and babies being born with disability due to Congenital Rubella Syndrome?
Yea, he probably would. That attitude I've seen before - do what God says, and bad things won't happen (all of the babies that died before the vaccine were part of God's Plan). And if his baby in particular dies of rubella, it's a test of faith. Really, you can't lose. (Unfortunately, everyone else does.)
That attitude has been partially rebooted as The Secret.
It's nice to hear that Chris is vigorously promoting her usual infection-promoting agenda.
Roadstergal,
How about the 783,936 iatrogenic deaths every year caused by your Church of Modern Medicine? It must be your God's divine plan too, eh?
As 'deaths' are defined in Th1Th2's world as 'the structural beams supporting the floors in traditional Tudor mansions' and '783,936' means 'those little bits on the ends of shoelaces' to her, I can't say I have any opinion on it at all.
Can't argue with Science, they use metaphors. No wonder SBM is in Escape Mode.
In related news:
Today ( @ AoA), Kent Heckenlively goes absolutely biblical : characterising the vaccine debacle as a battle between good and evil (*a la* Stephen King's, "The Stand"), he cites "Dark forces which in the past have destroyed the careers of those who have found clues to the afflictions of our children" and "wicked people keep our children from getting better". Speaking about "evildoers", he opens the bible- at random -to Psalm 94**. "I know why they fear us so much": he obviously believes that God is on their side.
I know they don't like us but isn't this a bit overboard even for KH? The comments are somewhat... extravagant- "smiting" and all..
** Isn't that the one that inspired Luther to write "A Mighty Fortress"? Wait, I'm an atheist how do I know that? Calli, Gray Falcon?
Troll1/Troll2:
Hahahahahaha... we discuss real science, not your Bizarro form from your native Htrae.
So you even realize you are actually comic relief?
Isn't it obvious that Th1Th2 and augustine post here to make Orac's opponents look stupid? Why else would Orac let them post here? Unless augustine/Th1Th2 can convince me that Orac is honest and open-minded enough to allow people who oppose him to openly post here, there is no alternative but to conclude that they are Orac's shills.
Chris,
Real science? You don't even know how to count past three!
So Troll1/Troll2 how many shots is one influenza vaccine? Is it one or three? Are you counting H1N1, H3N2 and influenza B combined as one illness?
Anyway, the point of the other vaccines that have multiple strains went over your head completely. You wouldn't recognize real science through your self imposed delusions. Either get help for your mental illness, or actually sit down and learn the real science.
JayK, I'm sorry. I probably should have edited what I quoted from Alison, to make more clear that I was addressing her words from the message where she was addressing you.
I totally agree with you that medical fears about fetal DNA in vaccines are rather ridiculous.
Isn't it obvious that Th1Th2 and augustine post here to make Orac's opponents look stupid? Why else would Orac let them post here? Unless augustine/Th1Th2 can convince me that Orac is honest and open-minded enough to allow people who oppose him to openly post here, there is no alternative but to conclude that they are Orac's shills.
Chris,
Well obviously, it's just one shot hence one vaccine which corresponds to influenzae virus, the etiologic agent of flu in humans. H1N1 and H3N2 are the serotypes of influenza A while influenza B, like influenza A, is a genus of influenza virus. So no, I don't count them as separate vaccines, since all of them would cause the flu.
This is quite different from MMR and DTaP which you are so terribly confused of. You counted each of them as a single vaccine like MMR = 1 vaccine and DTaP = 1 vaccine, which is very, very wrong.
You can only talk of multiple strains if you are dealing with a particular species from which those strains were derived. Obviously MMR and DTaP not only have multiple strains but have six different species from six different infectious diseases, hence, each shot comprises of three vaccines. You wouldn't get it because you couldn't count past three.
How about PCV7 versus PCV13, how many vaccines do you think are there in each shot?
Learn how to count first, seriously.
You are an idiot. Because by your thinking all of the herpesviruses, including varicella, are the same thing. The antigen counting meme is pointless due to the sheer number of ones a person encounters from birth. A concept that has confused since you first showed up at SBM.
The problem is that you do not understand we can educate the body's immune system to mount a defense without the consequences of the worst of the full blown diseases. You still have not presented any real science to support your delusions.
Get help.
It's a timesaver. It's a lot easier than sending commenters here to see the stupidity of the anti-vaccine movement.
Th1Th2, you have been known to grossly misquote people's comments and then argue the warped version of their comments as if they were the originals. Why should we debate you when you clearly have no interest in honest discussion?
Chris,
Haha. I can see your frustration for being so ignorant on basic taxonomy. Which other diseases are you comparing the varicella too? Anybody with a brain stem knows that you were counting each strain as one vaccine. No wonder you became a zealot believer of Paul Offit's infamous 100,000 vaccines.
No not education but infection and you're a promoter, not a teacher.
Obviously, Gray did not get to read post #589 from that link.
Gray,
See Chris' comment on SBM and tell me if I have misquoted her. Just like she said.
Troll1/Troll2: For anyone who cares to review your commenting history at Science-Based Medicine or here at Respectful Insolence, it is established beyond reasonable doubt that you are incapable of honestly and reliably engaging anyone else on the subject of vaccines, or indeed, on the subject of medicine in general (as compared to, say, the ugh troll, who is probably just unwilling to do so).
You look particularly bad compared to, say, the good faith disagreement expressed by Antaeus Feldspar to Alison upthread.
It seems clear that you cannot argue a point without resorting to pullng numbers out of thin air (or from sources who pull them from their nether regions), making up peculiar and personally idiosyncratic definitions for words which no one else shares, failing to back up assertions which are diametrically opposed to common knowledge, and setting up armies of strawmen to beat the stuffing out of.
Watching others beat their heads against the brick wall of your ignorance and mendacity is painful, and reading the drivel you spew in such massive quantities is more agonizing still.
I believe I can speak for many of the other commenters here when I suggest that you kindly piss off.
Th1Th2, I read #589 from that post, it included you saying: "My point is that you have depicted measles infection as an automatic death penalty when it's not." Nobody said or implied anything of the sort. Do you even understand the concept of honesty?
Gray Falcon:
Or opening her mind and actually learning. The DTaP, MMR and influenza vaccine for three different flu viruses are one vaccine each.
And we vaccinate for rubella because we do not want to repeat the tens of thousands of CRS tragedies of the early 1960s rubella epidemic.
Gray,
Oh really? Let's hear what those minions are saying. Oh BTW, it's from the link you just gave and I quote ad verbatim.
Some honesty.
Th1Th2,
Saying "We don't want to die of a preventable disease" is not the same as saying that everyone who gets said disease will die from it.
You have built up a Statue of Liberty sized strawman, you are blatantly misrepresenting what was said, and you have no idea how much we are smirking at your stupidity.
Troll1/Troll2, you are a delusional manipulative liar. You redefine vocabulary, use selective quoting and even ignore basic virology to suit your needs.
We really don't care what you think, because you don't really think. Your mind is welded shut and it is not even connected to reality.
Get help.
(I won't be back until next Monday, have fun!)
@Christian Cynic
The trolls' postings here remind me of a quote from Voltaire.
I think it was, "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."
Chris,
Oh the stupidity. The MMR is not one vaccine but a combination of *sigh* measles vaccine, mumps vaccine and rubella vaccine. Three entirely different and unrelated disease-causing microorganisms, hence three different infectious diseases. Three different pathogenic species, not strains. Ditto for DTaP. The flu vaccine, on the other hand, is one vaccine made specifically for influenza only and contains three different viral strains of the same disease-causing microorganism, which, of course, is the influenza virus. It's a shame you terribly failed in understanding the basic definition of a vaccine.
There would be no CRS without the causative agent. But remember, you're the provider and you are giving them the risk especially the pregnant women.
Julian,
No, you're the one who's stupid for not reading the entire post made by the original poster. Here it is:
Clearly, the poster does not want to die from a vaccine-preventable disease. So it was not a strawman. You only made the poster look stupid too for disavowing of what was said.
Thingy, that's me you're quoting. I was trying to get you to acknowledge that a one-in-a-million risk (at the absolute most, and quite probably no risk at all) of undesirable consequences is a very, very, very,âthere aren't enough electrons in the universe to print the required number of "verys"âvery good tradeoff to prevent one chance in a hundred of serious consequences to a preventable diseaseâsuch consequences including pneumonia, blindness, and DEATH!
Your absolute incomprehension of numbers, or that one number can be larger than another is quite frankly exasperating. Answer one question, you boneheaded freak: Is 1,000,000 a larger number than 100?
Th1Th2,
To reiterate, Saying "We don't want to die of a preventable disease" is not the same as saying that everyone who gets said disease will die from it. Please learn the difference between "might happen", and "will happen".
The internet is such a silly place and this little corner has more than its fair share of silliness
To all the Trolls, thanks for the lulz. You do realize that's why you are here don't you ;)
Mentally healthy adults will never be able to conduct a serious conversation with Thingy until she gets the help of dedicated mental health professionals. We are talking about the risk/benefit ratios of the various options that exist in the real world, and she will always be talking about the delusional option she believes exists called "due diligence" which, unlike anything in the real world, has a risk of 0%. We're never going to believe in this imaginary option her mental illness tells her exists, and she is not going to stop believing in it and start dealing with reality until her underlying mental illness is treated.
I feel slightly sorry for Thingy; mental illness is an awful thing to deal with. But it doesn't excuse everything, and whether or not her mental illness is what causes her to falsely misrepresent someone saying "protection against wild-type infections is good" as someone saying "catching wild-type infections is good," it's not acceptable behavior for mature adults.
Please don't engage Th1/Th2. We are all well aware of the blatant dishonesty and sheer ignorance of science she displays. I enjoy glossing over her warped bids for attention when they go unanswered.
Rev,
Of course, 1,000,000 is a larger number than 100 but you've forgotten than smart people do not play the game of death therefore 100 is also greater than 0 so we choose 0. Now go bark somewhere else.
Antaeus,
Again, you're not paying attention. That is clearly not the point. Go and read #88. It's about that you, like the original poster has said, don't want to die from a vaccine-preventable disease.
Julian,
Death "will" happen in 1:100, do you agree? And besides you're also supporting my original contention as to why you and the rest of vaccine apologists always tend to put the cart before the horse, such as the automatic 1:100 death sentence takes precedence over having the rash, cough, missing out school and work. Go and read #88.
Nothing that Thingy said at #88 on this post, #589 on the post previously referenced, or anything Thingy could say, could make it acceptable that she took a statement that recommended protecting against wild-type infections and mutilated it to pretend it recommended catching wild-type infections. End of story. It doesn't matter how wrong you think someone's beliefs are, it doesn't grant you the right to lie about what those beliefs are.
In other words, given a choice of 1,000,000 or 100, Thingy chooses 1,000,000. 0 is not available as a choice at this time. However, if everyone were to choose 100, 0 would become available in just a few years for many (but not all) diseases, like what happened with rinderpest and smallpox.
Antaeus,
Just a reiteration. In fairness, the original poster neither implied nor I meant to say that "wild-type infections is a damn good idea," Like I said, I have included wild-type infections in the quote ad verbatim to make my contention clear that the original poster indeed does "not want to die of a preventable disease" caused by a "wild-type infection". Don't make me wrong. Neither natural infection nor inoculation is a good idea.
Antaeus,
Talk about dishonesty. There's no such thing like "protecting" in the original post. You just made that up. On the contrary, the original poster even recommended the rest of getting "infected" with the vaccine because they don't want to die of a vaccine-preventable disease.
Kevin,
Oh I see. So you're forcing me to play the Russian Roulette---the vaccinator's game of death. What if I refuse? Will I be dead for not playing it? Or are you going to shoot me in the back for opting out? What are you going to do now?
Go ahead and play your game. I'm not crazy. How fortunate are the unvaccinated and uninfected.
So long as you eat, breathe, and drink, you're playing the game. So unless you choose to starve, dehydrate, or suffocate yourself, you are unable to refuse to play. The only way out of the game of life is death.
It's a pretty sick joke for Thingy to pay lip service to fairness now; it's also a lie, since this is a verbatim quote from her comments on the earlier post:
Thingy tries to excuse herself by pointing to her belief that wild-type viruses and vaccine viruses have no significant difference between them, but it's no excuse; her beliefs do not give her the right to misrepresent other people's beliefs.
Antaeus,
Haha. How far more can you go with your deliberate ignorance? You merely posted one quotation from one poster ignoring the other poster's remark immediately following that which are BOTH the central jist of my contention. Here is the original post:
Not only that you got lost in the wilderness, you also moved the goalpost by creating another issue as a result of your misunderstandings (bolded part above). I have to answer nonetheless:
In fairness, you are right. It's not an excuse. It's a basic fact and you are damn too ignorant about it. But then again, I'm not making excuses whatsoever. Some people are not just smart.
Once again, Th1Th2 answers an accusation of misquotation with misquotation. The immune system may not differentiate between the wild-type virus and the vaccine version, but that does not mean they are identical in every way.
Kevin,
Haha. Another terrible analogy as usual. Eating, breathing and drinking are man's physiological need. It is not a game, like playing the Russian Roulette, where if I refused to eat, breathe and drink I would still live to see another day. And besides what's so physiological about the Russian Roulette that you are forcing me to engage in anyway?
Exactly the way you play the game of Russian Roulette. Nobody will leave the room alive.
So don't be surprise if there are smart people (the unvaccinated and uninfected) who wouldn't just engage to such fatal game.
Th1Th2, why do you lie and quotemine? And just when you posted the full sentence before. It's not as if we don't have a mouse wheel.
Battleaxe's sentence was not
as you keep quoting, but:
to which a proper and honest summary would be more like:
which meaning is quite different.
True, but the infection itself is not as harsh (or not as often as harsh) than with the wild virus, which is the whole freaking point of using a weakened virus.
Oh, never mind. We have been all over this many times before.
Yesterday, a friend drove me around town. I should check if her car isn't a Dolorean. I feel like I'm back in the past.
Here's another quote from the pamphlet that Th1Th2 cites:
So in other words, they aren't identical. That Th1Th2 thinks that pulling out a passage that almost suggests what he/she believes is true while ignoring parts that flatly contradict said claims is an honest debate tactic says much about him or her.
From W. Kevin Vicklund
Th1Th2:
No, not an analogy. The reality of life. Well put Kevin.
And infecting is a virus' physiological need. We are quite good at breathing. We have to, if we want to survive. Do you believe that wild viruses are not good at infecting?
Heliantus,
I have clearly explained that already in #109 and #114 and you're not paying close attention both quotations in the original post.
But I'm not an infection-promoter and I don't play that game. Do you have any problem with that?
Heliantus,
Haha. Terrible analogy indeed. Well, the reality is you don't have a plan to stop eating, breathing and drinking while others have opt-out vaccinating and playing the Russian Roulette and still live to see another day. How do you plan to kill them now?
Just don't give me the gun and force me to play your game of death. Not my physiological need you know. Again, how do you plan to kill them now to meet your need?
You have to remember Thingy thinks an infection is an immune response (even to things that aren't alive), so the vaccine eliciting the same response as the pathogen to her means they both cause the same infection.
Understanding the troll's 'logic' makes my head hurt.
Since Th1Th2 has dragged my name into her idiotic game of misquotation, selective quoting and misrepresentation, I want to repeat the full version of what I wrote on the other thread. This was in reply to her asking how someone with measles knows they have it:
Th1Th2 you are an infection promoter of the worst kind, a promoter of wild viruses and bacteria that would kill and maim thousands if you had your way.
Your bogus "due diligence" method of preventing contagious diseases seems to consist of nothing but covering your mouth and leaving the room if you hear someone sneeze. This would be utterly ineffective in the event of contact with someone with a contagious disease. I wish you would go away and bark up the wrong tree in someone else's forest.
Dude, you started playing this game the second your Da's seed met your Ma's ovula.
(which brings us back to teratogenic diseases, like rubella)
It's not "we" which is forcing you to play Russian roulette. It's life itself.
@Krebiozen
Don't forget that leaving the room if someone sneezes as a tactic doesn't really help if someone with measles left the room two hours or less before you entered; the virus remains in the air in the room and can infect others for up to 2 hrs after the infected person leaves.
@Todd W
I was meaning 'contact' in the very loosest sense of the word, but you are right. Without living in a bubble or otherwise avoiding breathing the same air as the rest of humanity, or relying on herd immunity established by other people getting vaccinated, it is impossible to avoid getting infected.
Krebiozen,
Very typical. A desperate attempt to bear false accusation. If I had it my way, I would have to advise anyone to distance away from any symptomatic individuals regardless. I do not promote the virus, you do.
That's why there are red flags, signs and symptoms to alert you to stay away not engage.
Oh, this ought to be good...
Do tell us what "red flags, signs and symptoms" you can use to stay alert/not engage when you enter a room where no one is present, but where someone who was infected with measles had been up to two hours previously?
Congraulations, with that method (which, by the way, is included in the vaccination plan) you've gone from 1,000,000 to 900,000. How to you plan on getting below 100?
Krebiozen,
Reproduction of healthy offsprings not CRS babies which of course is everyone's desire. Unlike you, they are not playing around with rubella virus. Get that?
Todd W.
Oh that's nothing compared to live measles vaccine virus in every doctor clinics that never leaves the room yet continues to infect naive children everyday for as long as they are being used and until they are discarded. How's that sound?
But measles is at its most contagious for 4 days before any symptoms appear. You can't avoid contagious people who don't have any symptoms, unless you avoid all people.
Where measles is concerned I promote vaccination with the attenuated live virus which causes serious problems in fewer than 1 in a million people. You are promoting the wild virus that causes serious problems or death in at least 1 in a thousand.
I also promote vaccination with dead viruses or viral proteins that were never part of a virus (like hepatitis B vaccine which is made by genetically engineered baker's yeast), and which don't cause infection at all by any scientifically accepted definition of infection.
Telling people they can prevent infection by not getting vaccinated and simply avoid contact with symptomatic people is promoting infection. We know what happens if you rely on such useless methods of infection control.
"There have been over 12,500 cases of measles and at least 6 deaths this year in France, with 444 cases of severe pneumonia and 14 cases of encephalitis."
http://pediatrics.about.com/od/measles/a/measles-outbreak.htm
If only those foolish French people had exercised "due diligence" (that's sarcasm Th1Th2, in case you didn't get it).
@Th1Th2
You didn't answer my question:
Do tell us what "red flags, signs and symptoms" you can use to stay alert/not engage when you enter a room where no one is present, but where someone who was infected with measles had been up to two hours previously?
Based on past form, we can expect an explosion of word salad about squirrels and trees or similar nonsense any minute.
Todd W.
That would be in a hospital or in a clinic where, in fairness, they would have then initiated terminal disinfection of the room. A simple policy procedure. Outside of the hospital and in the community, then I will have to doubt it's measles unless proven otherwise. There are more measles infection happening inside the doctors clinic everyday that are not reported (intentionally) than a measles infection caused by a floating measles virus seen in a fantasy room with no one else around. When was the last you have heard of the latter?
Hold on, let me do a risk-benefit analysis...
Sounds good to me.
BTW, Thingy, while you read this, you were breathing in pathogens that your immune system will have to fight off. Click, click, click...
How fortunate are those who haven't hit the loaded chamber yet.
That was hilarious for the complete lack of honesty, thingy. I suppose you have a citation for the current wave of measles infections disease vectors that you're using to make such an assertion, right? Considering that carriers are infectious for days before showing any negative signs of measles, they are likely to have spread the infection long before they ever went to a doctors' office, right?
Krebiozen,
Ignorant fool. Why did you stop measles communicability during the 4-day pre-rash period when the maximum communicability is up to 4 days after the rash appears? Yes, you can't avoid contagious people who are asymptomatic including the recently vaccinated. That's why MOST infectious diseases are symptomatic to alert you that distance and length of exposure is essential to break the chain of infection. You don't do that during vaccination.
Liar. Isn't it clear that I am both an anti-vax and anti-pox. Neither do I promote vaccine-induced infections nor natural infection. I know you're getting desperate.
I do not promote HbsAg, you do.
Idiot. The shortest distance between the uninfected and the infectious agent is the vaccine, otherwise, you'll have to pay me to get infected somewhere else. But no I don't do that. I'm not crazy.
I'm uninfected, do you want me to go to France?
If people stopped vaccinating, pretty much everyone who isn't immune would get infected which would make that an extremely common occurrence.
No, that's not why symptoms exist. Are you seriously this dense?
You advocate not vaccinating. If people actually listened to you in great numbers, people would die. Far, far more than if vaccination stayed at current levels.
This means you are pro-disease and pro-death. Deal with it.
You still have not answered my question. If you enter a room where an infected person had been up to two hours previously but is no longer there, what "red flags, signs and symptoms" would alert you to stay away? Let's say it's the foyer in an apartment complex, just as an example.
CG,
If people would stopped vaccinating, there will be less infection and life would go on as usual. No big deal.
Tell that to doctors who order strict isolation precaution to a patient with acute symptomatic infection. You and the pox mothers are alike. They love chicken pox symptoms and they love the disease they have a party just for that.
Ouch. Did you hear that Gray Falcon and Julian Frost? I told you it's automatic.
"Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue."
You can insult me as much as you like, it doesn't bother me at all and it doesn't alter the facts. You have repeatedly claimed that vaccination is as bad as infection by the diseases it protects against. You repeatedly claim that people can avoid infection by "due diligence", which anyone with the slightest understanding of how contagion works knows is ridiculous. You are encouraging people to put their lives and the lives of their children at risk. That's infection promotion, and I think it's despicable.
I'm no psychiatrist, but it really does look to me as if you are.
Krebiozen,
Again, you're barking up the wrong tree, hence you will never find the squirrel. The burden of proof is yours but until then you're merely arguing from ignorance.
I think I have made myself very clear regarding my stance against vaccination and natural infection even in SBM.
And the craziness becomes visible for all to see clearly.
In France in 2007 there were around 40 cases of measles. Vaccination rates dropped, just as they are dropping in the USA at the moment. This year in France so far, 11,500 cases of measles, 6 deaths, 444 cases of severe pneumonia and 14 cases of encephalitis. Life didn't go on as usual for those 464 unfortunate people and their families did it?
In many ways the health care system in France is better than it is in the USA. Is there any reason to think things will go any differently in America if people continue to listen to idiots like you, and don't get their children vaccinated?
Hundreds of people with severe pneumonia, encephalitis or dead is no big deal to you? And that's just from measles. Despicable.
As predicted, nonsense about trees and squirrels. I am not the one arguing from ignorance. Are the people who have died or contracted pneumonia or encephalitis in France imaginary? Is there some other reason for the outbreak there than a drop in vaccination rates and a loss of herd immunity?
Th1Th2, you have made your stance very clear, but it is a stance that encourages infection. You say you are against natural infection, but you promote behavior that encourages it.
JayK,
Same with the recently vaccinated, they are contagious for days. Now, are the unvaccinated and uninfected contagious?
@Th1Th2
Liar.
It sounds like a classic tu quoque argument being used by a mentally ill person to deflect attention away from the fact that her "due diligence" strategy does not work.
If you stopped vaccinating, measles would return to being endemic in the US like it is in the UK and other countries.
As the unvaccinated population grows, there would be a massive increase in the number of cases. Measles is one of the most infectious diseases known. It WILL infect practically everyone. Despite what you seem to believe, there isn't a way to magically protect yourself from an extremely infectious airborne virus.
So that will not decrease the number of "infections" at all. Worse, since those aren't the attenuated strain they will be far, far more severe.
And yes, some people would die.
You are clearly a supporter of wild type measles, because its return would be the direct result of your desires.
Krebiozen,
Oh I'm pretty sure the unvaccinated and uninfected didn't cause that since they don't have any evidence of the disease. Therefore, they have 0 risk, 0 complication and 0 measles-related death. So who's harboring the virus? Those people who's playing the game.
If people would listen to you and vaccinate, you are promoting primary measles infection concomitant with risks, complications and death because you're giving them the gun and forcing them to play your game of death.
Life without vaccines is no big deal. Life will still go on. You should be happy for there are unvaccinated children who are not exposed and uninfected. Maybe you need to check, recheck and check all over again on how ignorant doctors should treat a simple, benign and uncomplicated case of measles. You see, iatrogenic death is on the top of the list you know.
Krebiozen,
No. The measles virus is real. The risks, complications and death are real events. That's why I don't play around with the measles virus. Do you any problem with that?
Yes. The lack of due diligence. Herd immunity is a myth. Vaccination, inherently, plays no role in disease prevention.
Antaeus,
By staying away from the pathogen, I have prevented measles infection. No risks, complications and death. Due diligence really works! No sweat.
JayK,
A succinct example of a bias diagnostic screening. No wonder whenever infectious diseases cases are down amidst high vaccination rate, an epidemic would always follow and then the numbers are deliberately reversed. Amazing.
@Th1Th2:
Nope, you're still a liar. If you can't find citeable evidence for your bullshit, go away.
Who to believe? All those microbiologists and epidemiologists, and their thousands of carefully carried out research studies into how contagious diseases spread, and vaccine efficacy, or a lunatic on the internet who believes that dead viruses cause infections? Thank goodness those in charge of public health measures take no notice of infection promoters like Th1Th2.
Here's some useful and accurate information on the subject, courtesy of the CDC. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm
With the exception of smallpox and polio, the available LAV vaccines are not generally contagious (on very rare occasions they can, usually requiring the second person being immuno-compromised). And even in the case of smallpox and polio, the vaccines are considerably less contagious.
I'm sorry, did Thingy really say something as stupid as "herd immunity is a myth"?
Thingie, I thought you were just a bit ignorant. Now I realize you're insane.
Rule 14, everyone. Rule 14.
Krebiozen,
Will the real infection-promoter please stand up. Oh there you are. What did you say again?
Honesty is still the best policy. Just saying.
Still waiting for an answer, thing.
If you enter a room where an infected person had been up to two hours previously but is no longer there, what "red flags, signs and symptoms" would alert you to stay away? Let's say it's the foyer in an apartment complex, just as an example.
Todd W.,
In fairness you warned me, so I'll stay away. Thank you. Doctors don't usually do that during measles virus inoculation. But how did you know it was measles?
I'm sorry, Composer, I'm new here. What's rule 14? Never point out that someone is insane without an actual diagnosis? I simply cannot believe that anyone capable of typing on a computer could make a statement as ignorant, idiotic, and just plain dumb as thingie just made.
Th1Th2's answer sounds like a ten-year-old trying to be clever. Why she thought that was an acceptable answer, I'll probably never know.
The return of Thingy's "due diligence" delusion. Like I said, she's never going to start talking about the real world, she'll just continue talking about this delusional world of hers where the most deadly diseases that millions of years of evolution have produced are polite enough to always give advance warning of their intent to infect so that any potential host can exercise an option to decline.
I find it passingly interesting, though, that she's managed to adopt definite opinions on the subject of herd immunity, clearly without understanding in the least how herd immunity works. Herd immunity is not tied to vaccination. Herd immunity is a mathematical consequence of a sufficient percentage of the population possessing resistance to infection, no matter what the means by which that resistance is conferred. If Thingy's delusional "due diligence" strategy actually protected individuals, a sufficient number of individuals practicing it would create herd immunity.
That's for sure.
A simple, benign and uncomplicated case of measles is no big deal.
A normal cat has four legs.
And before he was dead, Mr de Lapalis was still alive.
Rilke's Granddaughter: I assume he's referring to Rule 14 of the Internet. Anyways, if you stick around, you'll witness Thingy set some real records for stupid things to say. I'm still fond of the time she claimed that if a substance winds up eventually in the human veins, regardless of how it actually got there, it was administered "intravenously."
C'mon people, how can you let someone who says something like this bait you? It's seriously like arguing with the crazy dude on the street corner who's shouting he's made of cheese.
@Science Mom
I'm just doing it for the entertainment value.
Thing, you still have not answered my question. Why is it so hard? Share your wisdom with us. What red flags are there that alert you that the measles virus is still in the air in a room if we do not see anyone who is showing signs of infection because they left the room before we got there? You said to pay attention to the "red flags, signs and symptoms" to alert you to avoid being infected. You agreed that someone who is infected is contagious. So, without any foreknowledge that a contagious person was in the room before you arrived, how do you know to avoid the room? Surely you can share, from your vast, galactic intellect, what to look for so that us poor, benighted souls stand a chance of avoiding infection ourselves. Do stop being so coy.
I'm the same way. I know it's probably wrong to take such sadistic pleasure in batting Thingy and Augie's empty little heads around. I even enjoy baiting the mental defectives we get like Tony or Chuckles who get linked to a post here from somewhere or other and can't figure out that there's more than one thread to a blog.
I don't know why I can find that amusing and yet Isabel's passive-aggressive more-politically-correct-than-thou slavery-apologist "just standing up against anti-white racism" schtick gets me so furiously angry I can't see straight. I probably need professional help.
For some reason, the anti-vaccine people sound amazingly like the anti-nuclear people.
Bwahahahah
Keep it up guys, keep the larfs coming.
Thingy troll is proof there is a silver lining to mental illness.
Humor
Todd W.,
I will have to doubt that it was measles. The burden of proof is yours.
Okay, so your approach to avoiding infection is to walk around with your fingers in your ears going "La la la la la! I don't believe you!"
I might be wrong here, but I don't think that that is a particularly effective way of avoiding infection. Might just be me, but I'm under the impression that viruses and bacteria don't care what you believe.
At any rate, in our hypothetical situation, you walk into a room (anywhere...elevator, lobby, bus, dorm, etc.) in which someone who did have measles (we're assuming that it is confirmed, for the purposes of this thought experiment) had been up to two hours before you arrived. They are not there when you get there, and you have no knowledge that there was ever an infected person in that space. To avoid being exposed to the virus, you actually do not look for any red flags but instead waltz in, firm in your faith that there is no measles present. Does that about sum up your position? Is this what you recommend others do, as well? Merely disbelieve?
The lengths to which the moron will go to avoid answering a direct question are highly amusing. Obviously Thing knows that the answer is "none" but admitting that would be admitting to the stupidity of its entire position.
Antaeus,
Ouch. Are you aware you're being disloyal to vaccine apologists just for saying that? That's not a good way to start the day by showing a clear lack of confidence.
Haha. So how would you confer resistance to infection without breaking or breaching the innate barrier of resistance to infection?
Of course, that will create a community of unexposed and uninfected individuals but unfortunately vaccination is destroying it and turning it into a cesspool of infected people.
What? You insolent fool! You're giving vaccines the credit for infections? How disrespectful.
It is us pathogens who make you sick and even kill you. We maim, we desolate, we're hard to contain or isolate.
Each outbreak is one more warning that you need to get your act together and use the tools at your disposal - the greatest of which are vaccines - to stop us before our time comes... Our time to return you all to the dark ages with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and rampant viruses.
Todd W.,
Case in point. Practice what you believe if that's what you want. Bring a timer and set it to run for two hours before entering any fantasy room of your choice. Do you always do that? What I am recommending others to do is to exercise due diligence and to be smart.
And your "to exercise due diligence and to be smart" amounts to denying that there is any possibility that anyone with measles could ever be in any room you might later enter.
Ah, so before you enter any room, you wait outside until at least two hours has passed since anyone went in? You mean you aren't actually looking for "red flags, signs and symptoms" like you said earlier? You're just waiting for hours before entering any enclosed space and running out if someone that might be infected comes in. Got it.
Seems a pretty paranoid and time consuming way to live one's life, but hey, if it works for you...
Don't just focus on measles - what about someone with the flu on an airplane? Or taking the elevator with someone with a cold? Or just sending your kids to daycare, where they will get exposed to all kinds of germs & definitely bring them home to the rest of the family.
The only way idiot troll's worldview even holds water is if people live in a sterile bubble from the moment they are born.
Please stop feeding the troll.
@Lawrence
Or totally divorcing oneself from society and living like a hermit, but that won't protect you from influenza (unless you also keep away from all birds and pigs) or tetanus or any other disease that has a reservoir other than in humans.
But still, it has been great fun toying with Thing and her deluded vision of reality.
Todd W.,
Hahaha. Because you're too dumb to realize that I have already answered that question that I have to doubt that it will be measles because of your lack of evidence. But instead, you shifted to being obtuse by extrapolating red flags, signs and symptoms to the fantasy "room", the timer clock I used as an example is to verify that you don't really care about who went into that room at an earlier time.
No, I don't use any timer because I don't need to. We only use that in the hospital for terminal disinfection of the room previously occupied by a known infectious patient.
No you're the one who is being paranoid. Again practice what you believe. Where's your timer?
Like I said. Denying that there's any chance anyone with measles could ever be in a room the moron will later enter.
@Beamup
My eyes are all teary from laughing. I think I'm beginning to understand Thingy. If I have it right, she believes that sick, contagious people are only ever found in hospitals and doctors' offices, but never anywhere else. Ergo, in her version of reality, she need never worry about being infected unless she happens by a health care facility. But on the off chance that they are elsewhere, there are, I dunno, giant neon signs or something hovering above them, letting her know that they are contagious.
If I hadn't seen Thingy in action for such a long period of time, I would just chuckle at how good a Poe she's pulled. The sad and sobering part is that she actually believes the drivel dribbling from her fingers.
Lawrence,
Why bother flying, riding the elevator or sending the kids to daycare just to catch a disease? If your intention and goal is to get infected, then why not just go to a cesspool where infectious diseases are highly likely to be found, like in the hospital, some place where there is an epidemic or outbreak or just getting inoculated directly. With these, I don't have to doubt.
Have some due diligence. You know what to do if someone sneezes or coughs in front of you. And don't forget handwashing.
So, according to the "zero risk due diligence" hypothesis, any person whose infection status is unknown can be said to be uninfected with 100% certainty, unless that person is in a healthcare facility.
If this is not true, "zero risk due diligence" is falsified.
Beamup,
No, there is nothing to deny when you present no evidence. As usual, you're just arguing from ignorance.
Kevin,
Or in a chickenpox party.
Th1Th2, do you understand the concept of hypothetical situations? We don't have to prove that there was someone with measles in the hypothetical room, we merely have to prove that situation is possible and likely, and thus the situation we described was possible.
I'm sure she doesn't - accept that is. Nothing exists outside of her warped "understanding" of the world or reality for that matter.
I, for one, have never gone anywhere or interacted with anyone to intentionally get sick. It is a fact of life that this just happens - never had the flu vaccine & gotten the flu plenty of times; had innumerable colds; had Lyme Disease three times now (not fun at all) - so Thingy's notion that you can go through life & avoid all illnesses with a bit of "due-dilligence" is stupid beyond pale.
Ah, until conclusively proving that the moron has actually been in said situation, it cannot be asked what the moron WOULD do IF said situation arose.
How in the world does someone so utterly stupid and insane actually survive? Tell me, would you eat if you were starving? Or do you demand proof that you are in fact starving now prior to answering?
Gray,
That's what I'm saying. You guys are arguing from ignorance. You don't have to prove a thing but you wanted me to deny it. Amazing.
Anymore fairytale stuff?
I've got this image of a remake of Dr. Strangelove, but instead of Russians it's got homeopaths and the Thing takes on the role of Gen. Ripper. Definitely got the insanity and PBF down pat.
You mean like your supernatural ability to detect infectious people?
Now stop ignoring and answer my question, once measles is common again due to vaccination stopping (which is what you advocate), how are you going to protect yourself given that pretty much every single susceptible person will get the disease at some point?
Beamup,
Haha. I guess you have to think and observe first before you demand for a proof. There are customers waiting to be seated. There are food and drinks on the table. Spoon, forks and knives. Servers and waiters are standing by to take orders. I have seen this all the time. Customers must be hungry huh?
Th1Th2, if you actually bothered to observe the real world, you'd learn that measles killed people before the vaccine existed.
CG,
There's nothing extraordinary in keeping your distance from an infectious individual, establishing isolation procedure or proper hygiene.
The most common mode of transmission of measles virus into the body is through inoculation. That is why I have to protect myself. Do you have any problem with that?
If I told you that people got measles through the internet would you go away and never come back?
And if you stop vaccinating, then airborne transmission of the wild type virus will be extremely common, just like before the vaccine. Everyone will get infected at some point, just like the old days.
Currently, you can avoid measles through sheer chance because it is extremely rare. Once it is common, you won't be able to avoid it.
You benefit only as long as other vaccinate.
CG,
No. When people stopped vaccinating, there would be significantly less infection since measles virus uptake will be less as the vaccine, the leading source of infectious measles virus, will be eliminated. Eventually, wild-type infection will be eliminated for as long people will exercise due diligence.
No. I don't have the measles because I exercise due diligence. I do not inoculate in the first place.
I'm not sure how idiot troll gets around that fact, that before the vaccine almost the entire population got the "wild" measles virus (and suffered accordingly from the various side-effects - which are far more common by many magnitudes than the current side-effects of the vaccine).
They obviously were not duly diligent. Apparently, every single other person in history is an incompetent idiot who can't instantly identify people who have (even asymptomatic) infections, as well as any place such infected people have recently been. Yet people today aren't and therefore diseases will be avoided successfully now.
Complete and utter bullshit.
Why has no airborne disease every been eliminated in this manner? It does not work.
People are infectious before they show symptoms. Pathogens persist in the environment long after the person is gone.
Unless you live in a bubble, you will get these diseases eventually.
There's a reason measles was considered a childhood disease, everyone got it fairly early in their life because it was incredibly infectious.
You clearly have no understanding of how disease is actually transmitted.
By idiot troll's logic, diseases shouldn't even exist today - obviously in the thousands of years before vaccines existed, it would have been plenty of time for all known pathogens to just die out, right?
Wow - what utter insanity.
If MMR vaccination rates don't increase in the US, things will inevitably go the same way as in France and the rest of Europe. Numbers in the US this year are about the same as they were in France 3 years ago. In the US, as in France, it is clusters of unvaccinated people with "philosophical" objections to vaccination that are the problem. There have been 118 cases in the US up to the end of May this year and 89% of them were unvaccinated. At this rate we can expect tens of thousands of cases in the US in the next few years, with hundreds of cases of pneumonia, encephalitis and inevitably some deaths.
It is obvious to everyone (even, I suspect, Th1Th2) that "due diligence" will be utterly useless in the face of large scale outbreaks of disease. I find it very frustrating that a disease that is so easily and safely preventable is making a comeback, and that unless something changes more people will suffer and die unnecessarily.
So Thingy is exercising "due diligence", presumably walking around in a sealed suit of some kind and breathing air out of a SCUBA tank or something...my question is: How does she know that nobody who passed anywhere near the area where her SCUBA tank was filled for a few hours beforehand had an asymptomatic measles infection? I say "asymptomatic" because I'm sure nobody with a visible rash ever walks anywhere near a diving shop!
Maybe Th1Th2 believes that a small furry rodent strapped to your face filters out viruses. That would explain that weird stuff about squirrels.
JohnV,
How exactly do you do that? Download the virus? Share the virus P2P? Torrent, .iso, .rar or what? Press Cancel or Ctrl-Alt-Del to stop? No wonder you're wearing N95s.
Folks! Folks! I applaud your attempts at convincing the troll that I am far more infectious than he can possibly imagine. But you know what I am seeing? I am seeing people trying to mud wrestle a pig. You all are getting dirty, and Th1Th2 is enjoying it.
Don't feed the troll.
And instead of answering a question, it avoids them by harping on a joke.
Lawrence,
Before the vaccine, the wild-type measles virus monopolized the disease. There was no competition for there were no secondary sources. Since the introduction of the vaccine, the trend had dramatically reversed. Not only the measles virus uptake has increased four times, the vaccine, hitherto, has become the leading source of the measles virus and the leading cause of primary measles infection.
So what have you prevented thus far?
CG,
I thought #198 was a joke.
Don't tell me you're also the Virus. You must be the real troll, you're protean.
Word Salad - what you wrote makes no sense (not that anything you write makes any sense at all to a rational human being).
Since your definitions of just about everything differ from what the rest of the world considers the proper use and definition of the language, your posts are meaningless & irrevelant to any discussion.
But, in this case - since nearly 100% of the population was exposed to Measles before the vaccine & suffered both the actual disease itself (meaning the real symptoms) and the normal rate of side effects (1 in 5 to 1 in 100 for the various afflictions, including blindness and pnuemonia - and 1 in 1000 for deaths) - compared to today, where nearly 100% of the vaccinated do not suffer the normal intensity of the disease (or any outward symptoms at all) and suffer side effects in the range of 1 in 1 mil for any serious complications, your logic does not hold any water whatsoever.
If no one vaccinated, there is no reason to believe that measles prevelance would not return to its pre-vaccine levels of infection - where nearly 100% of the population would once again be exposed & suffer the magnitude higher rates of both direct effects of debilitation and death, plus the side-effects of blindness, pneumonia, etc - which may be more survivable today, but no less severe.
Again, since your definitions are uniquely your own & have no basis in any kind of reality, this will fly completely over your head & be ignored. But it is a blast to laugh at your complete inanity.
CG,
Because the goal of vaccination is NOT disease prevention.
That's why there is terminal disinfection procedure in the hospital.
14 known infectious diseases with 36 deliberate exposures in a span of only two years after birth, they sure are not in a hurry, are they?
I just said. The most common mode of disease transmission is through direct inoculation.
Idiot Troll - CG asked why no airborne diseases had been eliminated by your methods (and also in the pre-vaccine era) - by your own admission, diseases should just die out, right? So why didn't they in the past?
Infectious areas only exist in hospitals? How does one "terminally" disinfect public places?
Lawrence,
First off, I did not exist in the pre-vaccine era (there were less smart people those days but there were oppositions). Secondly, a disease cannot be eliminated if disease transmission lies in the hands of the provider and the promoter hence my answer in #215.
I get it now! Th1Th2 is a solipsist!
And what about in a restaurant?
What if the person in the table next to you is infected with measles and not yet showing symptoms?
Or the person who sat there before you?
Or the person making your food?
How do you protect yourself in these scenarios?
You will somehow manage to evade the question since it is a hypothetical and you'll go back to your talking point about deliberate infections.
Lawrence,
That's the problem your leader didn't teach you how it is done instead they taught all of you how to get the virus easily and directly through injection. Don't ask, don't doubt, no sweat.
In the USA? About half a million cases of clinical measles, thousands of cases of otitis media, thousands of cases of pneumonia, hundreds of cases of encephalitis and hundreds of deaths each and every year.
CG,
Kindly read #192.
Once again, idiot troll simply refuses to answer questions - like how does one "terminally" disinfect a public place, like a library or restaurant or even a school?
And your post in #215 isn't an answer - at least not a coherent one. You said that diseases would die out if vaccines were discontinued, so following that logic, in the pre-vaccine era, all diseases should have died out.
Please explain the inconsistency with reality.
Krebiozen,
With 11 and a half million more cases of subclinical measles caused by the vaccine every year intentionally not reported because of bias diagnostic screening "amidst thousands of cases of otitis media, thousands of cases of pneumonia, hundreds of cases of encephalitis and hundreds of deaths each and every year".
Again, what have you prevented?
Yeah, ignore all of the cases of blindess, pneumonia, encephalitis & deaths that don't now occur....good going there.
If only you had been around to advise me on how to avoid measles back in the 60s when I caught it. It's too late for my children too, but at least you can tell me how my future grandchildren can avoid getting measles without vaccination.
Should I tell them to leave the classroom immediately any child sneezes or coughs? What do I tell their teacher? How does that work on the school bus? Or will they have to be home schooled and never have any contact other children at all? Won't that mean they will turn out like Augustine? What about if they go on vacation on a plane and someone near them starts sneezing? "Stop the plane I want to get off!"?
Please explain, I'm one of those "less smart people" who don't understand how this works.
Which means my prediction was completely accurate. You can't answer the question so you avoid it.
"No, I don't use any timer because I don't need to. We only use that in the hospital for terminal disinfection of the room previously occupied by a known infectious patient." (Thingy at #182 above)
That statement infers that Thingy actually works in a hospital...what a joke. Terminal disinfection of a hospital room takes place after the patient is discharged from the hospital and before another patient is assigned to the hospital room. There are completely different isolation protocols put in place when a suspect case of measles may have contaminated a hospital, clinic or doctor's waiting room or examination room and it involves "a timer" that Thingy never uses.
Thingy is not qualified to work within the health care setting in even the most menial categories; uneducated and unlicensed. The closest Thingy ever gets to the health care professions is possibly his/her/its collection of scrubs that he/she/it wears in a variety of colors.
Thingy doesn't even qualify as a troll...dumbest category.
Lwarence,
Then find the meaning of terminal disinfection and see where it applies.
Read #200 and don't put the cart before the horse. Before the vaccines, there was natural infection. We have only one source of infection at that time. Since the introduction of vaccines, you have created another source of infection hence diseases progressed.
Which is why there are SOOOOO many deaths from measles, smallpox, polio, Hib, ect. these days....
Nope, still stupid, inane & completely without rational thought - good luck with that idiot troll.
CG,
You're just repeating the same crap they have asked me before and you're not paying close attention. I have answered that a couple of times and I will say it again that I will have to doubt it was measles. Do you have any problem with that?
Your prediction that you're dyslexic is completely accurate and there is clear evidence.
Thingy still fixated on "terminal disinfection" for respiratory-borne diseases, eh?
Why don't you get your GED, take some classes at a community college, then take some basic science classes and if you can pass them, try to get yourself matriculated into community college for more difficult science courses so that you might have minimal qualifications to post here about diseases and vaccine-preventable diseases. Otherwise, you will be treated as the idiot uneducated troll that you are.
You are seriously suggesting that the measles component of MMR is responsible for "thousands of cases of otitis media, thousands of cases of pneumonia, hundreds of cases of encephalitis and hundreds of deaths each and every year"? Any evidence for that at all? Thought not.
Here's some evidence that you are utterly wrong.
lilady,
Oh the ol' nurse is back. Is this another "intradermal" thingy, you know, your infamous "underneath-the-skin" injection? You didn't define terminal disinfection. Care to explain? Do you also terminally disinfect your filthy room?
Give me one example. Please just one.
Which is a reasonable assumption given the current rarity of the disease.
But you advocate not vaccinating. That will make measles return and it will become common again. Your assumption then will be wrong. Everyone will come into contact with the virus. You cannot prevent that.
You just keep avoiding answering any hypothetical questions. Probably because you don't have any real answer.
CG,
In fairness, I have answered that. What next. Fairies are real because I cannot give you any "real" answer. Re-read #192.
The shortest distance between the uninfected and the pathogen is a vaccine and they cannot prevent that. And they are hungry for more. Read #215.
Except for those vaccines that contain only the good, immunogenic bits of the virus or bacteria. But you're all about ignoring things that go against your theory. So don't even bother addressing those "acellular" vaccines.
Thingy, you provided a complete non-answer in 192.
Hypothetical situations don't have to exist. They are hypothetical. Now answer them.
@ Thingy "Give me one example. Please just one."
Here's more than one example for you to peruse:
CDC HICPAC (Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee)
2007 Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Health Care Settings
Thingy, it is a rather voluminous (225 pages) guideline...but with all your many credentials and your education background and experiences working in the health care field, you should be able to "blow through" it in record time.
(Dumbest troll ever)
Rubeola,
What's so good about those bits and pieces when they are also the most virulent parts of the pathogen.
Haha. Dumb. Acellular vaccines contain endotoxins.
lilady,
Hey senile nurse. This is how you have defined terminal disinfection and I quote ad verbatim
Now, do you consider this as part of the 2007 Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Health Care Settings?
Yes or no.
CG,
I will have to doubt that they exist. And that has been my answer for the umpteenth time. Happy now?
Which according to you is sufficient to cause an infection, but only if it's from a pathogenic organism.
However, E. coli K12 LPS can't cause an infection because it's not a pathogen, despite the fact it is actually the most potent activator of TLR4.
Everyone should know that is how Thingy's mind works.
That's like saying that bullets are the deadliest part of guns. But you still need the gun to shoot them, numnuts.
The bits and pieces are not virulent without the... you guessed it... effing pathogen. The bits and pieces do squat by themselves. They're just proteins or sugars. Nothing more.
Jesus, you're dense.
@ Thingy: you brought up "terminal disinfection" at # 182 above regarding measles transmission in a hospital setting:
"No, I don't use any timer because I don't need to. We only use that in the hospital for terminal disinfection of the room previously occupied by a known infectious patient."
I cannot believe that you are so dumb as to simple precautions implemented in health care settings when dealing with a suspect measles case exposure.
Why not read the advisory issued recently by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene:
June 8, 2011 ALERT # 9 Increase in Measles Cases and Hospital Exposure
Note that the recommendations are to isolate the patient and to close off any examination room that the suspect patient used for at least TWO hours. Dumb troll, it is a respiratory-borne disease spread via droplet route. Terminal disinfection does not apply here. You might also read the entire ALERT #9 issued by NYC to see that cases of actual (natural) measles exposed 1600 people to measles and that each unimmunized exposed person including babies too young to have received measles vaccine, were prophylaxed with immune globulin.
I'm sure the Commissioner of the NYC Department of Health would be interested in your "unique" talents and views based on your vast educational and clinical background in immunology and infection control to revise the recommendations issued by the Health Department; why not email the Commissioner and do let us know how that all works out for you.
(Dumber than the Dumbest Troll, Ever)
CG,
Duh.
I can't wait for the medical crooks and the media to sensationalize cliche things like "A new medical discovery in vaccines....blah blah.... A novel strain of...blah..blah...A rare but deadly...blah...blah...There's a new vaccine against...blah...blah... and how vaccines save lives ...blah..blah...blah
Luckily we have you, don't we - all blah, blah, blah, blah....makes for good entertainment, playing what's its reality look like today with the idiot troll.
I've had my fill.
Th1Th2, how do you know you're right? Do you have any evidence? Do you simply believe that if you have an idea, it must be right? Do you ever check to make sure you're right, or do you simply assume you are infallible? Are you aware that as a human, you must be capable of error?
lilady,
Another of the "duh-hello-WTH" in the life of lilady. Can't you read?
I know your eyes are failing you and you're too damn lazy and slow but let others do the job for you. Don't just close the door for two hours. That is gross negligence.
See? Thingy thinks molecules have intent.
The most potent endotoxin that exists is completely harmless because it's from a harmless bacteria.
And the identical endotoxin from a pathogenic strain can cause infections because it's from a pathogen.
Th1Th2, at no point did lilady say environmental measures weren't involved. Do you believe that isolation and environmental measures are mutually exclusive, that one only can do one or the other? Are you aware that's about as nonsensical as thinking one can only wear pants or a shirt, but not both?
Rubeola,
Oh look at this. Analogies to the rescue! And as always, an epic fail. (Hint: That's why vaccinators need syringes to shoot them, duh)
Tetanospasmin alone causes tetanus and could paralyze the host without the bacterium. They did it in rats. Want to try?
@ Dumber than Dumb Troll Thingy: You're good for a couple of laughs now and then when we want to have some fun.
I have implemented "terminal disinfection" of my computer monitor every time I read one of your dumber than dumb troll postings. Let us know how your unique talents have worked for you when you email the Commissioner of the NYS Department of Health and Mental Hygiene...we are waiting with bated breath.
(Dumber than Dumber than Dumb Troll)
@ Gray Falcon: Thingy has been so totally busted for the uneducated and lack of job experience in the health care setting, dumber than dumb troll that he/she/it is.
Notice how Thingy always changes the subject, re-invents and re-interprets other postings and goes off on tangents whenever he/she/it finds itself boxed in...typical troll-like behaviors. And, I am still not convinced that Thingy is not part of a troll tag team with the Ugh Troll.
Yup, I picture the Thingy cave dweller as part of the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum Tag Team Troll Act.
Gray,
She vehemently denies terminal disinfection plays an important part in infection control of airborne diseases like measles. According to her, simply closing the door for two hours is enough.
@Gray Falcon
Most of this weird alternate reality comes from whale.to, I'm pretty sure. I have browsed there (and felt soiled afterwards) and I came across some very familiar sounding BS.
whale.to + a pathological fear of infection = Th1Th2
Better to risk death than to be deliberately "infected" with an attenuated virus or a dead virus, or even an inert piece of protein made by baker's yeast.
Th1Th2, whatever would you do if the rest of us didn't get vaccinated and provide you with a relatively pathogen-free environment?
@ Krebiozen: Thingy dwells in a bat cave and should start marketing the bat guano that he/she/it stores there as a "terminal disinfecting" chemical. Why not ask Thingy in what health care field he/she/it practices in...and how he/she/it gets past the pre-employment requirement for full immunization against vaccine-preventable diseases as well as yearly seasonal flu immunizations...for continued employment in a clinical setting?
I'm still "terminally disinfecting" my computer monitor after reading Thingy's latest posting and Thingy shouldn't limit his/her/its email to the NYC Commissioner of Public Health. I'm sure the megalomaniac Thingy would want to spread the bat guano around to every State's health department and share those communications with us.
The most common mode of disease transmission is through direct inoculation.
IIRC the commonest infectious disease is Hepatitis B. Then there are malaria, dengue fever, and a whole lot of others. All, apparently, transmitted most commonly through direct inoculation. I learn so much at RI.
@ Herr Doktor Bimler: How about rabies, babesiosis, Ehrlichiois West Nile Virus, Y. pestis, plague, cat-scratch fever and a plethora of other vector-borne or zoonotic diseases? Thingy uses "direct inoculation" to describe his/her/its unique "theories" of disease transmission of vaccine-preventable diseases...dumber than dumb troll "theories".
Thingy is so boring. Oh sure, every now and then she squats out a howler like infectious diseases having all evolved to give their potential hosts plenty of warning and plenty of opportunity to avoid infection - Nature, Emily Post-like in tooth and claw!
But mostly it's just the same boring, sad, delusional fallacies. Her reliance on the ignoratio elenchi fallacy in particular makes the prospect of trying to coax some logic out of her a futile task. Whenever she encounters a question that her mental illness doesn't like the answer to, she simply invents a question that no one asked and answers that instead. "How do I avoid catching measles when someone with wild-type measles has made a public area that I'm about to enter an infectious area, with no visible signs that it is now infectious? (Oh crap; my 'due diligence' can't do anything about that. If that happens, I'm screwed - and I'm so terrified at the thought of something being beyond my control like that, I can't deal with it in any other way but denial.) Ha ha ha ha! I don't go anywhere near inoculating needles, that's how I protect myself from the vaccine-type virus!" "No one asked you about the vaccine-type virus, Thingy. We asked about the wild-type virus." "Well, all I have to do is not go near you and I'm safe; you're the foremost distributor of the vaccine-type virus so if I stay away from you, I won't catch the vaccine-type virus!" "No one asked you about the vaccine-type virus, Thingy. We asked about -" "Let me answer your question about just how bad I think the vaccine-type virus is!!"
There are trolls who are worth replying to, because it can be educational to show exactly where their superficially plausible arguments fall apart when looked at squarely. But Thingy's arguments are not the result of a misunderstanding that can be illuminated and corrected; they're the result of a paranoia so fierce she'd rather turn the entire rest of reality on its head rather than admit that her "due diligence" strategy can't give her the 100% protection she craves literally beyond reason. Sadly, there's really no lesson to learn here besides "get to a mental health professional before, not after, you've broken your contact with reality."
lilady,
Ouch. Oh please I beg you to self-impose Rule 14 STAT.
(P.S. Don't forget to close the door.)
lilady,
Now I will have to doubt that you really own a computer.
If I remember correctly, the advantage of vaccines is that the virus inside is 1)inert, and 2) cannot be transmitted from person to person. True? (Not to mention, you don't see that many people becoming deaf or blind from the vaccines.)
Jeez, I've only had one college-level biology course, and I just can't understand the conclusions that some of the commentors here reach. So it's better to have one's children risk death, blindness or deafness than to give them a few harmless jabs?
Who is ORAC? Quite simple a mouth piece for Big Pharma, what other sane person would be on the internet defending, vaccines as if they are the very origins of life? it is the one that profits the most that hurts the most when toxic vaccines are are in question, which is all the time lately, just imagine a few years from now when the anti dangerous vaccine movement picks up more steam, what things will be like for the Big Pharma and its defenders. With the internet, vaccines are being exposed at a accelerated pace, and there will be no more hiding in the vast vaccine toxic wasteland.
Who is joejoe?
A shill for Bigpharma. Who else would denounce a wonder of fucking scientific medicine but someone who would stand to gain from all of the countless treatments for diseases that could be prevented by vaccines.
@ Politicalguineapig
Not exactly, a number of vaccines are using live-attenuated viruses (measles, rubella, rabbies, some forms of flu vaccines like flumist...). In these cases, the viruses are not inert, but alive. However, their infectiousness has been strongly diminished.
In some rare cases, they are able to be transmitted to another person. That's notably the case for the oral polio vaccine.
In even more rare cases, the live virus will manage to revert back to the wild-type form, causing a full-blown infection and being much more transmissible. Again, the oral polio vaccine is infamous for this. A regular posted a link to an article about this in the thread about From Deep in the Heart of Sin City.
But despite this, yes, people receiving the attenuated virus are much less likely to display the usual signs of infection, and even less to suffer from it. This has been discussed at length on previous threads, notably for measles: this illness generally results in death in 0.1% to 5% of cases (if you include encephalitis- and pneumonia-related deaths), while the measles vaccine has a 1 / million serious side effect rate (not just death).
Seriously. Thingie is a Poe. No one, truly no one who could operate a computer could be this stupid.
Thanks, Heliantus. I'm a rank amatur compared to you guys, so I wasn't too sure of my facts. I didn't know that the oral vaccine could be transmitted person to person. I guess that's why it went obsolete so quickly.
@ Dumber than Dumb Troll Thingy: Now instead of being fixated on "terminal disinfection"...which by the way is part of "Standard Precautions" (blood and body fluid precautions) you now state that "Standard Precautions" are sufficient to prevent transmission of measles in a health care setting. Dumb Troll did you ever hear of "Transmission Based Precautions", among them "Contact Precautions" and "Airborne Precautions"?
(hint) Measles is transmitted by droplet nuclei and "Airborne Precautions" are implemented by hospital staff for suspect and confirmed cases of measles. Obviously, you didn't read the CDC Guidelines that I provided to you...or perhaps they were too difficult for you to understand.
And Thingy, don't let the door hit you on your Troll posterior on the way out.
Thingy's affect has changed considerably just in this thread. She used to come off as just completely spaced out, in her own little dream world, emitting meaningless word salad and smiling happily. Notice now she's becoming increasingly exasperated. She won't even repeat her previous imbecilitiesâshe just refers back to them, saying: "Read 192" or "Read 215" as mantras. We do, and they're totally content-free, but they make her feel less uneasy, as if they dealt with the reality she refuses to accept.
I guarantee that before you guys started taking her to school, she had no idea how long the measles virus hung around in the air where infected people had been, or how long they were infectious before any symptoms appeared. She thought she could distinguish "poxy" people from good, clean, uninfected people with pure bodily fluids, like herâand all she had to do was "shun" them.
She also thought that measles was a trivial childhood ailment, because that's what it was treated as on documentaries like Leave it to Beaver, her sources of historical knowledge. She had no idea of the rate of serious complications or death that prevailed in the "everybody got it" era. Now she's scared to death; she knows her movement is on track to make measles endemic again; that means she's going to catch them, and she can't deal with it.
She's angry now; she's going to become increasingly angry and incoherent, and then either go away where her nose can't be rubbed in the facts or go through some kind of Starfart meltdown right before our eyes. It's hoping for the latter that keeps me reading her idiotic tripe. I know it's wrong to make fun of the mentally ill, but it's a type of mental illness that's doing untold harm right now, and anyway, if she's going to implode right here on RI, I'd hate to miss it.
@Politicalguineapig
Well, it's a bit more complex with something like the oral polio vaccine. Of all vaccines, OPV is one of the few that is as close to 100% effective as you can get. In locations where polio is widespread and where vaccine delivery is difficult, OPV works quite well. Immunize one household member with it, and there's a good chance that other household contacts will be exposed to the vaccine strain, as well, thereby also gaining immunity. The risk, though, is that it reverts to a virulent form and, instead of just granting immunity, actually causes a full-blown infection.
In the U.S., once polio was mostly eliminated, the risks of OPV outweighed the benefits, and the switch was made to the slightly less effective but far safer (no risk of polio from the vaccine) inactivated polio vaccine.
This is becoming an issue in some of the few countries where polio can still be found. Vaccination rates are not quite high enough, giving the vaccine strain ample opportunity to mutate to virulence. There's a lot of discussion around whether to make the switch to one of the IPVs, but since they are less effective, there is concern that they will not be able to wipe out polio (IIRC, there are 3 or 4 IPV versions, one containing 3 polio serotypes and then versions that only containing 1 serotype each).
lilady,
Now here's the mirror of the past.
Now I will have to doubt that you know the definition of Standard Precaution (Hint: Neither terminal disinfection nor TBP is part of Standard Precaution) In fact, only a few hospital rooms are negative pressure isolation rooms and you're the only dumb nurse who wears N95 all the time.
I know how the measles is spread and I also know that there exist an incompetent and lazy nurse named lilady who would just close off the door for two hours after the measles-infected patient has left the room.
Note how Thingy actually recognizes that her own behavior is inadequate but tries to rewrite reality and displace her own flaws onto someone else. Nothing lilady said indicated that any precaution she spoke of was the only precaution she would take. On the contrary, it's been Thingy all along who's been saying "You just have to exercise this magic 'due diligence' and it gives you risk-free protection against measles." I suppose it says something that Thingy can at least recognize the flaws of her own thinking, even if frantic denial keeps her from recognizing it in her own thinking.
Antaeus,
Read #262. She specifically excluded terminal disinfection as an essential part of the recommendation. She denies it, she can't define it, she confuses it with something else, and she never practiced it. Therefore, lilady is a complete troll who also happen to be an ignorant, lazy, negligent and dangerous ol' nurse.
Todd W.,
You sounded more like a salesperson to me. Oh I see because you're an infection-promoter and you provide them with infectious OPV.
Tactic employed to make sure OPV will not be in the position to be the sole cause of paralytic polio when they can always blame the wildtype poliolovirus where available. Nice. Now, let's bring OPV back in the US soil and see what would happen. Anyway, polio is just a plane ride away right?
You do realize that you're also on the side of pox party people whose same rituals are also the one you detest, don't you? Quite a salesperson you are.
It does not take to have a paralysis to suffice a polio diagnosis. The mere fact you're inoculating them with the virus is already the start of an infectious process. OPV does not grant immunity (that's submission to poliovirus, not resistance) instead it makes everyone acquire the infection.
Haha. Ridiculous assumption. Here's a basic fact: The more people gets inoculated with OPV the more of a chance VDPV and VAPP will thrive for the OPV is the only cause of VDPV and the only reason why VDPV still pursues.
Twat1Twat2, shut the fuck up, and piss off somewhere else with your shitty little mind (such as you even have a 'mind'), and splurge your shit over there. You have nothing useful to say, and you have no clue what you're talking about. All you're doing here is showing how stupid people like you are. You're the perfect anti-advertisment for your 'cause' - such as it is one.
You are obviously the waste of what should have been a good wank for your father.
@ Politicalguineapig
I had some training in microbiology, but it's getting dusty, so my facts are a bit fuzzy, too. I am refreshing my knowledge on this site and reading linked articles.
And don't be afraid to ask questions. As my teachers said, there is no such thing as a stupid question (on the other and, there could be dishonest questions and answers, as experienced daily in these threads...).
@ Todd
Yes, I totally agree. I tried to keep my wall of text short, and ended being simplistic.
I should have at least added that person-to-person transmission of the live attenuated virus is not necessarily a bad thing, as it will provide a modicum of vaccination.
I personally liked the passage quoted by Lawrence:
"Since WHO and partners began their attempt to rid the world of polio in 1988, officials have slashed the disease's incidence by more than 99%"
@ Todd W.: I posted in a prior post about tracking polio cases world wide...I believe when another troll "alleged" that there were thousands of VAPP (vaccine acquired paralytic polio) cases.
The way to track "real time" polio cases worldwide is through the:
Polio Global Eradication Initiative
YTD (July 13, 2011) wild polio cases: 252
YTD Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Virus cases (cVDP2): 15
The 15 cVDP2 cases were confirmed in Nigeria (9 cases), Somalia (5 cases) and Afghanistan (1 case).
Scientists, Researchers and Epidemiologist are involved in meetings constantly to monitor the number of cases in endemic areas of the world and the numbers/location of cVDP2 cases to decide when it would be appropriate to stop the use of OPV completely. Reports of those conferences are available on the Polio Global Eradication Initiative website.
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published an interesting article about this goal as we approach the time when the scourge of polio is wiped off the face on the earth, available at:
NEJM Health Policy and Reform-The Polio Endgame (June 15,2011)
Thingy is still around making inane comments and nasty remarks; typical for he/she/it. Notice how he/she/it changes the topic once again to his/her/its expertise on polio. I was hoping "the door" did hit his/her/its posterior on the way out.
(Dumber than Dumb Troll)
What a very strange assertion. Of course OPV grants immunity, very effectively, as Todd wrote. How can you continue spouting this nonsense in the face of such a dramatic reduction in cases of paralytic polio? Only one case in the whole of Asia this year so far!
OPV reverts to wild in about 1 in a million cases, but you make it sound as if it always does. You're like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, refusing to admit you have been defeated in the face of overwhelming evidence.
And do you think everyone who is given OPV has polio for the rest of their lives since they have "submitted to the virus"? I suppose that means I have polio from having the OPV as well as hepatitis B, cholera, typhoid, tetanus and yellow fever (among other diseases) from vaccination. It's astonishing I'm still alive, considering how many life-threatening disease I've been infected with.
lilady:
The kind thing to do is to hope "the door" hits Thingy's head on the way out. Less damage.
@ TBruce: Hmm, perhaps so...but I was thinking about the locus of Thingy's intellect...presently. I suspect the Troll's posterior is where he/she/it pulls the factoids from.
Krebiozen,
It's a fact. There is evidence and you cannot deny something that exist.
Now that's what you call an assertion. You just merely take things at face value. Could you explain how OPV grants immunity against infection without causing infection?
Oh please stop being so dramatic you could win an Oscar. Only less than 0.5% of all poliomyelitis cases leads to paralysis.
Well, it should. Are you doubting the efficacy of OPV in causing secondary transmission? In fact, that's the main goal of OPV administration. Apart from inducing primary poliomyelitis infection to the host, the vaccine-type virus MUST be able to successfully transmit the infection to other susceptible contacts. Oh yeah let's have a polio party baby! Oh BTW, the OPV does NOT revert to wild-type form bozo. Instead, the OPV mutates back to circulation as another monster called VDPV which is genetically different from wild-type poliovirus. Yup instead of just one circulating poliovirus dancing in the wild, you infection-promoting freaks created a dance partner in crime.
Everyone who got inoculated were infected with poliovirus. And the evidence of the disease will remain for the rest of their lives. Sorry to disappoint but you are no longer naive to polio. You've been harassed one to many.
I don't think you can deny the evidence you had received.
It's astonishing infectious diseases are not automatic death sentence as you have portrayed them to be.
"Now that's what you call an assertion. You just merely take things at face value. Could you explain how OPV grants immunity against infection without causing infection?"
We've been over this. But you're too stupid, dishonest and quite frankly, probably tweaking too hard to realize it.
K., it's just Thingy's idiotic refusal to acknowledge that there is a significant difference between actual wild-type infection and the 'infection' that comes from vaccination (the 'infection' that Thingy thinks you can get from dead viruses, or even from second- and third-generation vaccines that have never been in contact with the actual infectious agent.)
To use the familiar seatbelt analogy, it's like Thingy is using the word "collision" to refer to both going through the windshield at high speed during a car crash, and to the slight pressure one feels across the hips when putting a lap-belt in place. To people in touch with basic reality, putting on a lap-belt is what prevents the horrible damage that results from a collision; in the topsy-turvy world of Thingy, though, putting on a seatbelt is "submission to collision, not resistance."
Only less than 0.5% of all poliomyelitis cases leads to paralysis.
This is irrelevant by your very own standards. The question is where the paralytic cases have gone and, if a consequence of vaccination (sorry, "infection"), why your prescription of ritual purity is or would have been a superior option.
I'm not sure whether to find it amusing or simply sad that Thingy would suggest I'd be in favor of bringing OPV back. Apparently she missed the part where I said that in the U.S., due to polio's eradication, the risk of adverse events from OPV outweighs any benefits that might be derived from it.
Then again, reading comprehension was never her strong forté.
You wrote "OPV does not grant immunity", but that's simply not true. Numerous studies have shown that it does, both by measuring antibody titers and by looking at rates of infection by the wild virus after OPV. Getting wild-type polio grants immunity too, assuming you survive it. I would greatly prefer the OPV to polio though.
Where has anyone suggested that it doesn't cause infection? You seem very confused indeed about this. It's an infection so mild that the majority of people don't notice anything but minor symptoms like tiredness or irritability.
You really don't understand that 0.5% of a very large number of people is a large number of people? This reminds me of Father Ted explaining to Father Dougal how far away things look small. There are 4 billion people living in Asia. If only 1% of them was infected with polio, you would expect 200,000 people to suffer paralysis. A small percentage of a big number is a big number, get it?
There were 1,997 cases of paralytic polio reported in 2006, many of them in Asia. A reduction to only one case in the whole of Asia five years later is extraordinary. What's dramatic about stating that? I have been to India and Africa and seen the effects of polio for myself. Anything that reduces the incidence of such a horrible disease can only be a good thing.
It "should" mutate into a virulent form? Whatever do you mean by that? It's a fact that it very rarely does, and unfortunate that it ever does. You seem to think that leaving the wild virus alone to kill and maim is better than a 1 in a million chance of this happening (I think it's actually between 1 in a 500,000 and 1 in 750,000 since we're being pedantic).
OK, it mutates to a form that has the same virulence as the wild-type virus, if you insist on being pedantic. You know perfectly well what I meant.
You make it sound like a beautiful wild creature. It's not.
The only evidence of the disease is that my immune system is primed to produce antibodies if I'm ever exposed to polio in the future. Why would I be disappointed by that? I'm delighted!
I don't know what you mean. I was injected (or sucked on a sugar lump), had no reaction at all, and then went to countries where these diseases are endemic but didn't catch any of them. That's the only evidence I "received".
No one has claimed any of these diseases are an automatic death sentence, as you well know. You can look up the mortality of each of them treated or untreated, if you are interested. According to you I have survived infection with hepatitis B, cholera, typhoid, tetanus, yellow fever, and TB (forgot that earlier), not only without dying, but without experiencing any noticeable symptoms at all, apart from a sore arm.
@ Todd W: Of course it is all too complicated for Thingy...but the Polio Global Eradication Initiative "Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) Cessation, provides some details about the proposed timeline to eliminate the use of OPV worldwide.
Just to clarify there are several categories of OPV diseases:
Vaccine Associated Paralytic Polio (VAPP) when the recipient of the vaccine becomes ill with polio
Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Virus (cVDPV) secondary transmission of the polio virus
Immunodeficiency Related Vacine Derived Polio Virus (iVDPV)
It is debatable if Thingy is over the age of 11, but if Thingy is beyond that age then he/she/it started the polio series of vaccines with OPV, then completed the series with IPV. OPV use in the United States was totally discontinued in 2000.
And, unless Thingy was home/cave-schooled he/she/it received at a minimum DTP, MMR and polio vaccines. Now we know that Thingy never went beyond high school and therefore never had to have "catch-up" immunizations required for higher education.
I suppose Thingy is hoping for more civil unrest and wars in polio-endemic countries...which in fact delayed the worldwide goal of total polio eradication, by the year 2000. What a worthless POS and public health menace this Thingy is.
It is debatable if Thingy is over the age of 11, but if Thingy is beyond that age then he/she/it started the polio series of vaccines with OPV, then completed the series with IPV. OPV use in the United States was totally discontinued in 2000.
It's not a native English speaker. It could well be unimmunized.
More facts for Thingummy to ignore/misunderstand/misrepresent:
http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/simplepage.cfm?ID=1161101367&linkID=19323&c…
Periods of infectivity for some common infections are listed:
* mumps: 3 days before salivary gland swelling to 7 days after
* chicken pox: a few days before the onset of rash develops and not more than six days after first lesions appear (1)
* measles: from the appearance of prodromal symptoms to 4 days after the onset of the rash
* rubella: one week before onset of rash until 4 days after
* whooping cough: one week after exposure until 3 weeks after onset of symptoms (but only 7 days if antibiotics given)
* scarlet fever: 10-21 days after the rash onset (but only five days if penicillin given) (2)
* slapped cheek disease: for up to 14 days before the onset of the rash. A child is no longer infectious once the rash has appeared
Reference:
* (1) Institute for Child Health, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust.
* (2) Health Protection Agency (Accessed 20/12/07): Scarlet Fever
http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/simplepage.cfm?ID=1657798720
The incubation period of a disease refers to the time between contact with a carrier of the disease and development of symptoms. It does not refer to the time to infectivity, which in many instances is much shorter.
The incubation periods of infectious diseases is dealt with under the specific diseases. However, for ease of reference and for exam revision, the following summary details the diseases in the order of vaccination against them:
* diphtheria, 1 to 7 days
* tetanus, 24 hours to 24 days
* pertussis, 7 to 14 days
* polio, 7 to 14 days
* measles, 8 to 14 days, with encephalitis 7 to 10 days after symptoms develop
* mumps, 16 to 21 days
* rubella, 14 to 21 days
* chicken pox, 14 to 21 days, with a cerebellar encephalitis 3 to 4 days after symptoms develop
* fifth disease, 6 to 14 days
The ranges represent the extremes of presentation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subclinical_infection
The following pathogens (together with their symptomatic illnesses) are known to be carried asymptomatically, often in a large percentage of the potential host population:
* Bordetella pertussis (Pertussis or whooping cough)[4]
* Chlamydia pneumoniae[5]
* Chlamydia trachomatis (Chlamydia)[6][7][8]
* Clostridium difficile[9]
* Cyclospora cayetanensis[10]
* dengue virus[11]
* Dientamoeba fragilis[12]
* Entamoeba histolytica[13]
* enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli[14]
* Epstein-Barr virus[15]
* Group A streptococcal infection[16]
* Helicobacter pylori[17]
* Herpes simplex (oral herpes, genital herpes, etc.)[18]
* HIV-1 (AIDS)[19]
* Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires' disease)[20]
* measles viruses[21]
* Mycobacterium leprae (leprosy)[22]
* Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)[23]
* Neisseria gonorrhoeae (gonorrhoea)[6][7]
* Neisseria meningitidis (Meningitis) [24]
* nontyphoidal Salmonella[25]
* noroviruses[26]
* Poliovirus (Poliomyelitis)
* rhinoviruses (Common cold)[27]
* Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (Typhoid fever)[28]
* Staphylococcus aureus[29]
* Streptococcus pneumoniae (Bacterial pneumonia)[30]
* Treponema pallidum (syphilis)[31]
Antaeus,
You sound like a broken record or simply dylexic. When will you ever learn? Read #114. No mouse wheel? No problem.
I'm not even a native English speaker.
Again the seatbelt analogy to the rescue when they can't explain Science thus avoid getting humiliated. Gee whiz. I'm not even a native English speaker. Now if you're going to use the seatbelt analogy then you have to prove that everyone who drives and uses seatbelt must submit themselves to collision (in parallel where OPV recipients were deliberately made to submit to poliovirus), otherwise, you're just recycling old crap all over again and ends in the usual epic failure.
Narad,
Because there are smart people on Earth who happen to choose not to play around with poliovirus. Do you have any problem with that when they opted not to get infected with poliovirus especially with your infection-promoting agenda?
Since the option of "due diligence" which reduces the risk of infection to 0% is nothing but the delusion of a mentally ill person, we have to decide between the options which actually exist in the real world. So far the Thing-troll has not offered any sort of plausible reasoning why "hide your head in the sand and pretend you could never encounter a wild virus" would be a better option than "prime your immune system."
Idiot troll is impossible to deal with - since she lives in a world completely of her own delusion, with definitions that don't jive with the understanding of anyone else on the planet.
Somehow, despite the fact that we live in a world where pathogens are impossible to avoid, she believes that somehow, just by using "common sense" she'd be able to avoid ever being infected with anything.
Avoiding the inconvenient fact that pathogens have evolved over thousands (or perhaps even millions) of years to replicate themselves - meaning infect and continue tthe chain of infection as long as possible. Modern medical science has allowed us the opportunity to avoid the full-fledge and potentially deadly infection from a variety of diseases (measles, mumps, polio, rubella, and of course, Smallpox - which was eradicated due to the WHO effort) - but idiot troll continues to spew its own version of how infection works.
And if idiot troll is so smart - what would she do, if in fact she did come down with an infectious disease?
Not smart enough to come up with a coherent explanation of how to avoid infection, evidently.
The truth is is you leech off other people who vaccinate. Without us you would get infected just like everyone else.
@ Cynthia of Syracuse
Thanks for the lists. I'm gonna copy your post for self-reference, I need a reminder.
@ Antaeus Feldspar
Indeed. Some 160 posts above, when it started to shout "Unlike you, they are not playing around with rubella virus".
I was tempted to answer something on the following lines, but I gave up.
We are all playing with viruses. Some of us play sparring partners - let's pick a tame virus or even better a mere training dummy (some dead germ bits), and let's see if we can kick it square in the jaws. We have mixed successes, some of us got wounded in the process, but at least the majority of us get some training they can apply for when they encounter the wild germ.
Some others play hide-and-seek. Often, it amounts to "Let's put a towel on our head and hope the virus will decide that, if we cannot see it, it cannot see us".
Krebiozen,
OPV is a vaccine- a pathogenic preparation. It does not contain immunoglobulins. Hence, you're acquiring the infectious poliovirus.
That is just measuring the immune response against the infection that you have acquired either from natural infection or from the vaccine. It just means that an infection has occurred.
More than 99% of polio cases range from asymptomatic to nonparalytic events. Of course, these numbers were derived from the unvaccinated. So how many from the vaccinated were deliberately excluded from the diagnosis? The number will be astronomical.
How about 0% if people would just opt out? What are you going to do now? Spin the cylinder again?
That OPV should cause poliomyelitis. It is a must.
A different creature you guys created.
And neither does a VDPV.
That's not unusual since the immune system would be more quicker and more effective upon re-exposure or re-infection. Like I said, I'm sorry to disappoint but you are no longer naive. You've been breached. I am happy because I still remain uninfected and unexposed while you've already had primary infection with polio. Primed it is.
I could get a sugar cube from the pantry right now but will it work?
I wouldn't be too sure about that.
You've had primary infection with those diseases. Since you claimed that vaccination grants immunity, why don't you re-infect yourself the same manner you received those vaccines. This time with live components.
Antaeus,
"Prime your immune system"--Now I will have to doubt your credibility in immunology when you don't even know what it essentially means. There are only two things that you force the unexposed and uninfected to get "primed"---either go to France or visit a doctor. Sorry, we don't play your game.
Thingy: You need some remediation in both reading comprehension and logic. The statement
does not equal "automatic death sentence" (which is semantically equivalent to saying that death is inevitable). It means that death can occur (and, in larger populations, diseases will cause many deaths even if the mortality rate is reasonably low). Are you denying that death is even a possibility from any vaccine-preventable diseases?
And the second quote you used is saying that since death is a possibility from diseases that can be prevented by vaccines, we should want to avoid those diseases by getting vaccinated for them. The possibility of death can be a motivator to get vaccinated, just as the possibility (not inevitability) of getting thrown from a car is often a motivator to wear a seatbelt.
But I suppose you'll respond by spouting off about how vaccines aren't cars or some asinine objection that the non-certifiable will recognize as idiocy.
Krebiozen,
Ouch. Hold on to that stick Antaeus. Do it later.
I told you it's a myth.
Idiot troll - you are so dense, you make Lead envious.
The Christian Cynic,
Haha. Of course, it is an automatic death sentence more so they have a death category just for vaccines alone called Vaccine-Preventable Death. (from: Vaccine Preventable Deaths and the Global Immunization Vision and Strategy, 2006--2015)
There's no conflict between the statements Thingy quotes. Take an ordinary coin. What are the chances that, if flipped, it would come up heads? 50%, right? It is not, by any means, an automatic means of generating a heads. But flip a great number of coins, and the chances of not getting any heads vanishes fast.
In just the same way, refusing to vaccinate against a deadly disease is not an automatic death sentence for any individual, but when a large number of people have made the decision to leave themselves vulnerable, it only takes the return of the infectious agent and deaths will follow.
Th1Th2,
I don't think you believe half of the BS you spout here. Either that or "you're a loony", to quote Monty Python.
So what? The only consequence is that I can travel to countries where polio still exists with very little fear of catching it. You can't, and you are vulnerable to infection by anyone who gets off a plane with asymptomatic polio and prepares some food you happen to eat.
Nothing I have written conflicts with what Antaeus has written. If no one vaccinated, infectious diseases would soon return to pre-vaccination levels. There would be no herd immunity and you would soon find that "due diligence" is useless in preventing infection.
Claiming that herd immunity is a myth is just childish. Mathematical calculations and epidemiological evidence demonstrate that beyond reasonable doubt. "It's a fact. There is evidence and you cannot deny something that exist."
Thingy will continue to deny, continue to misquote and misinterpret...it is the nature of his/her/its mental illness. He/she/it has got to be the dumbest troll that we have ever encountered on RI. Stick a fork in him/her/it because he/she/it is done.
It's pathetic that Thingy can't distinguish between simple propositions like "herd immunity results from vaccination" (true) and "herd immunity is not tied to vaccination" (also true.) Seriously, how could it be any easier to understand??
The best scientific evidence has failed to identify any method that protects individuals against infectious diseases even nearly as well as vaccination. But if such a method did exist, a sufficient number of people in the population practicing it would create herd immunity!
Thingy is idiotic enough when she tries to deny the massive base of evidence showing that vaccination does confer resistance to infection. But she reaches a whole new plateau of stupidity when she claims that herd immunity is a myth, because if her delusionary "due diligence" strategy actually worked, and a sufficient number of people employed it, it would create herd immunity! It's a mathematical consequence; you don't even need empirical evidence to figure it out! But, Thingy just feels that she has to disagree with everything, so she automatically rejects herd immunity, for the sole reason that the same people who are reality-based enough to recognize the benefits of vaccination also recognize the benefits of herd immunity.
"I'm invincible!" "You're a loony."
I hadn't thought about it like that before, but a little thought reveals it's self-evident. If 99% of the population walked around in air-tight suits with a filtered air breathing apparatus, the remaining 1% would be safe from infection, unless they were all clustered together in a community that believed that air-tight suits cause autism or something.
Thingy's obsession with "Purity of Essence" a la General Jack Ripper leads me to believe that she is either unaware, or due to some psychotic break has managed to shut out of her consciousness, that she's "infected" with innumerable bacteria and viruses already, of any number of types. (Mostly E. coli, of course, but a lot of other kinds as well). Your immune system deals with them as appropriate.
Thingy, here's something to ponderâif you're average, 90% of the cells in your body don't even belong to you! Think about that. You're not only "infected", you're outnumbered. You could get a vaccine against some new "pathogen" every day for the rest of your life and it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket.
Seriously, I've talked to hippy-dippy numbnuts who don't know, and refuse to believe, that there was any such thing as radiation before 1945. Thingy's mindset seems similar to me.
"This time with live components". I was under the impression, from previous threads, that you were denying that vaccines made of dead germs were different from live germs. I actually perfectly remember that you stated many times that dead germs or proteins from pathogens will cause an infection the same way as does the live, wild-type germ.
But here, you seem perfectly aware that you need "live components" to get a potentially harmful infection. Are you in any way consistent with yourself?
Antaeus,
Blasphemy!
Are the unvaccinated and uninfected part of herd immunity? Or do you consider them like parasites who "leech off other people who vaccinate"?
In fact, you even check for it through antibody titers.
First off, I do not associate myself as part of a herd. So how did you get branded? Do you still carry the indelible mark? Seriously, don't get too serious.
Just like I said. It's a myth. There's no Math involved, just your faith---a nonthinking process. You don't even know how to count for goodness sake.
Krebiozen,
Catching what? You've had it already when you were vaccinated. Yeah so what? At least it will leave me a reason to doubt that I will encounter polio by exercising due diligence.
You: "Getting wild-type polio grants immunity too,"
Antaeus: "Herd immunity...a sufficient percentage of the population possessing resistance to infection, no matter what the means by which that resistance is conferred."
You: "If no one vaccinated, infectious diseases would soon return to pre-vaccination levels. There would be no herd immunity.
It sure is a myth. Too many versions it turns into a superstitious belief.
Because there are smart people on Earth who happen to choose not to play around with poliovirus. Do you have any problem with that when they opted not to get infected with poliovirus especially with your infection-promoting agenda?
Let's reexamine that to which this is a putative response:
The only thing that your reply seems to be be able to refer to is the question why your prescription is or would have been better. And your answer is "because there are smart people on Earth"? I believe the term is "nonresponsive," Th1Th2, aside from just the part of skipping the bit about where the paralytic cases have gone.
Heliantus,
No. Your memory is poor. Killed vaccines, unlike live ones, cause non-transmissible infections.
I am very temped to find Thingy and cough in its general direction. Should be interesting.
What. A. Moron.
Seriously, can even Thingy be this stupid? She can't, can she? She must surely realize that the only scenario in which what Krebiozen wrote would be inconsistent with what I wrote is one where "herd immunity" is achieved because the wild-type infection that herd immunity is desired to prevent against has already successfully attacked and afflicted the majority of the population. Yeah, that's a brilliant goal: make sure 80-86% of the population gets wild-type polio, and then herd immunity will start providing protection to the 10-14% who haven't caught it yet! And she has the nerve to call any of us "infection-promoters"?
It's not any less stupid if she had no intention of suggesting that herd immunity brought about by this means was desirable, because then her only purpose in raising the point was to be a nit-picking dick. There is no redeeming value to nit-picking dicks. "We'd better evacuate; there's no way we can guarantee that our houses won't be burned by the wildfire if the wind blows it this way." "Oh yes there is, Mr. Smarty Pants! We can burn down our houses ourselves! That would absolutely guarantee that the wildfire couldn't burn them down! Didn't think of that, did you? But I did! See how much smarter I am than you?" And the nit-picking dick actually does think that they look smarter than the person they 'corrected.' They don't realize that a person who is successfully focusing on the important issues looks a lot smarter than a dolt who is ignoring the important issues to play playground power games.
Narad,
I'm pretty sure my answer did not stop there.
I'm pretty sure my answer did not stop there.
Yes, I figured the remainder, "who happen to choose not to play around with poliovirus," which simply an ornament on the self-reference, would be easily interpolated by anyone who had bothered to get this far.
^ "which is simply"
Antaeus,
"no matter what the means by which that resistance is conferred.", that's what you said about herd immunity. And Krebiozen clearly supports this idea--on how immunity is granted. Do you deny this? Both of you should talk. It's getting obvious.
Let's just say you made a terrible faux pas. I told you it's a myth.
Why the hell is anyone engage the Thingy? She lives in a nether land of her own making. It is paranoid, unable to carry on any cogent conversations and would not know truth from fiction if it smacked it in its face. You all are just feeding into her mental disorders...too numerous to mention. Just stick a fork in the Thingy...it is so burned and way beyond "done". What a waste of time to play with this sick sick troll who is in desperate need of some sort of life outside of the cave...after it has some major therapy and some major anti-psychotic medications.
Can't agree more with lilady@321. Thingy has ceased to be amusing and just keeps going around in circles in a mentally deficient manner. The thing can't even grasp the rudiments of basic science, I can't see the value of arguing with an idiot.
You're right I'm sure Lilady, but I do want to say a bit more about epidemiology, as I find it fascinating. You never know Th1Th2 might learn something, though I doubt it.
If you introduce an infectious disease into a naive population, as happened to Native Americans when Europeans arrived, there is an epidemic. Every person with the disease infects more than one other person, and the number of cases grows exponentially. Eventually enough of the population that has survived has adaptive immunity to the infection so that each person with the infection infects, on average, only one other person. At that point the disease declines and becomes endemic, and the number of cases stabilizes.
If the average number of people an infected person infects drops below one, the disease will eventually die out in that population. That's how smallpox was eradicated, by surveillance, isolation and vaccination which reduced the infection rate low enough that the disease died out globally.
Without vaccination what tends to happen is that because there is a steady supply of non-immune people (aka children) an infection either becomes endemic and mostly affects children (like measles), or there is an epidemic, more and more people are infected until enough people are immune and the disease declines until the number of non-immune people is high enough for another epidemic to begin. That was the pattern for a number of contagious diseases before vaccination. Exactly how this works depends on a number of factors, including the size of the population, how contagious the disease is, how long a person is contagious, birth rate and death rate.
The thing I find really fascinating is that all of this can be accurately modeled mathematically.
It's laughable that someone can deny the existence of something that is so well understood and has so much evidence to support it.
Killjoys ;-)
Sometimes I find it interesting to look at how we know that Th1Th2 is wrong in her bizarre beliefs. I spent a couple of years studying microbiology, immunology, cell biology and genetics, but that was longer ago than I like to remember. I find it useful to look at some of the stuff I learned back then and see how things have developed since. I have a comment in moderation about epidemiology which came from reading about herd immunity thanks to Th1Th2's claim that it is a myth.
Can anyone put together all of thithtwo's ramblings in one document, so we can all have a good laugh?
Why not just give people the right to refuse on the bases that there have been cases where certain vaccines have caused severe adverse effect that were life threatening and health debilitating instead of forcing it down their throats. The drug companies are well protected by certain gov laws in being responsible for the known damages that these vaccines can cause. So why so we be forced to take them when we know what the risks are as they are clearly stated on the package inserts. Those of you who want to take those vaccines and take the risk, that is your choice but do not open your big mouths aganist the people who do not want to take the risk.
Ms. Hamilton, where in the USA are vaccines forced on people? How so? Even in the two states that do not allow religious exemption there are private schools and homeschooling.
Also, yes, vaccines have caused adverse effects. Now please tell us exactly what the specific risks are from the MMR vaccine versus measles, mumps and rubella. Be sure to use real evidence, not random websites, news reports or studies from doctors who have had their license to practice medicine revoked or suspended, and definitely not Mercola nor Ratajczak.
Thank you.
Oh, and do you really own all of Yahoo.com? Because that is a weird URL for your own website.
Myrna, please consider the following little thought experiment:
Suppose the school your kids attend offers a special after-school program, where once a week the kids are driven to a museum, a theatre, a public garden, or other educational opportunity. Â All that's necessary for this program to continue is for enough of the parents to take turns doing the driving for the program; for bureaucratic reasons they can't simply let the same parents drive over and over, but if most of the parents are willing to take a turn, the program can continue.
Now imagine the program encounters serious trouble, because there's suddenly a block of parents who have decided that driving for the program is too risky.  Since several of these parents obviously have no objection to driving themselves to tanning salons or bars, it's inexplicable why they think driving to a museum should stand out in their minds as "risky," but the idea's in their heads and there's no getting it out - and now there's a big risk that the program will have to be stopped, because there aren't enough parents left to take care of the driving.
In such a situation, do you think that the parents who are actually taking their part of the responsibility by driving need to "shut their big mouths" about the parents who have sacrificed their children's program, all because they suddenly perceived "driving to a museum" as a horribly risky activity?
Now consider these two additional factors:
1) There is far less likelihood of injury from getting a vaccine than from driving in a car; if it is silly to turn down all the benefits of driving because it is "too risky," it is even sillier to turn down the benefits of vaccination because of an even lesser risk.
2) The consequence when too many people abdicate their responsibility to vaccinate is worse than the consequence of too many people choosing not to take their turns driving.  No child will die if the after-school program gets cancelled, but every year children do die because the adults around them, who could have provided them protection by seeing to their own vaccinations, didn't.  With the stakes even higher, it is even less defensible to say, "Well, I don't care about the effect it has on you; I am going to shirk this duty in order to avoid a risk that's vanishingly small anyways."
may i recommend Calli Arcale (July 11 2011) and Krebozien (July 18 2011) for simply and intelligently stated posts, the former a nice concise explanation of some of the process involved in making vaccines. I wish we could ignore the folks who are clearly too dense to even think, but they are part of our reality and occasionally will even get elected to offices where thier ideas could prevail. So we gotta be diligent, teach our children well cause if they get to where they call the shots, we are in deep bad smelling stuff. You folks to whom I am referring disparagingly, I am sorry to have to be this way. It's one thing to be skeptical, that's a good thing, it's another to exhibit such total obtuseness as to be scary. I will not engage you here, so don't bother to reply. I have an open mind, but prefer to avoid wasting my time with non-thinkers. Let's both practice "due diligence" and avoid even this remote contact.
I know people who have fallen for Mercola's nonsense, and they use his misinformation to try and beat other people over the head with it. When I disagree with what they are saying, I am accused of being brainwashed by the government. He says jump, they automatically wonder how high, and any website that disagrees with him is government controlled, according to them. Welcome to the new religion......Mercolaism.