Picking up one's marbles and going home

(just a reminder that he cannot learn here)

In the face of continued slams against Paul Offit from pD like this:

"Mr. Offit doesn't have good data to support the idea that reduced antigen counts in vaccines are meaningful, there isn't any"

First off, is there is some reason you found it necessary to refer to "Mr Offit" instead of Dr. Offit, seeing as he is a pediatrician (and a professor of vaccinology) and you are referring to a paper he had published in a professional journal? I realize Dr. Offit is a hated figure among antivaxers (of whom you are not one, of course ;) but it doesn't seem like it should be difficult to refer to him by his proper title in this context, especially since you apologized before for crudely insulting his work, and promised to do better.

Secondly (and more importantly) your belief that the number of antigens people are exposed to in vaccines is irrelevant is not supported by the science. It has long been known that it is desirable to develop effective vaccines using as few antigens as possible because high antigen loads may be associated with a higher chance of side effects. Dr. Offit's paper (to which you so strongly object) has a table illustrating this:

ht_p://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/109/1/124/T2.expansion.html

This demonstrates that the number of antigens children are exposed to in routine vaccinations has fallen since 1960 from well over 3,000 to approximately 125 as of 2000. That's a tremendous reduction. The two vaccines most responsible for the 3,000-plus antigen figure in 1960 (smallpox and whole-cell pertussis) were also associated with a considerably higher incidence of side effects than today's vaccines. Modern pertussis vaccine (with a much lower antigen level) is viewed as considerably safer than the old whole-cell vaccine.
Much continuing work on vaccines involves similar developments to reduce antigens, not only for safety but to minimize cost and potential interference between antigens in a multipurpose vaccine.

pD: "Finally, just stating that there might be a problem doesn't mean I'm advocating not vaccinating. I'm not advocating that at all."

So which of the following are you advocating?

1) Continue to vaccinate children against serious infectious diseases using the best available knowledge.

2) Do something different.

If your answer is 2), please specify what that is and how you justify it. If your answer involves vaccinating less and/or delaying vaccines, what science supports that concept? And why would a heightened risk of contracting full-blown disease due to suboptimal vaccination be preferable (in terms of potential immune system damage and other health consequences) to continuing to provide children with full vaccine protection?

Hi Dangerous Bacon -

I thought you wanted me to take my marbles and go home? I was thinking about it, but then you keep asking for more.

First off, is there is some reason you found it necessary to refer to "Mr Offit" instead of Dr. Offit, seeing as he is a pediatrician (and a professor of vaccinology) and you are referring to a paper he had published in a professional journal?

Well, this is the first thing you've said so far that indicates to me that you might actually be in the medical profession, an egotistical obsession of titling. If I refer to you as 'Dr. Dangerous Bacon', will you consider providing citations for any of your arguments? Changing his title doesn't do anything about the ridiculousness of the arguments laid forth in the paper.

It has long been known that it is desirable to develop effective vaccines using as few antigens as possible because high antigen loads may be associated with a higher chance of side effects.

As has become my necessary routine when responding to your claims, citation required.

This demonstrates that the number of antigens children are exposed to in routine vaccinations has fallen since 1960 from well over 3,000 to approximately 125 as of 2000. That's a tremendous reduction.

Hm. Well, according to The Battleaxe, and Lilady and several others on this thread, we are all exposed to millions of antigens. Here is lilady:

Dr. Offit first learned, and I first learned, the definition of "antigen" in biochemistry classes and we learned that humans are exposed to antigens as soon as they are born...millions of them in infancy.

I'm curious, then, why is going from 3000 to 125 defined as a 'tremendous reduction'? I mean, if I'm exposed to, 999,875 other antigens during infancy (assuming, only, a million), why is the reduction from 3000 to 125 'tremendous'? I understand that we've disagreed previously about numbers, with our disagreement on if the flu shot comprised the entire pediatric vaccine schedule or not, but I'm still pretty sure that a million is a bigger number than three thousand. While I understand my attempt at furthering my knowledge set amuses you, I would humbly ask for clarification on if there is a difference between a million and three thousand?

You are in a curious position; if you try to defend the reduction from 3000 to 125 as 'tremendous', it means that vaccine exposure is, in fact, not a 'drop in the bucket' as claimed by so many here. It would mean that the claim by Lilady that infants are exposed to millions of antigens, while technically true, is functionally illiterate in terms of understanding the effects of vaccination.

In any case, thanks for pointing out the table to everyone. It's very informative. By the way, did you notice that the varicella vaccine has more antigens in it than the entire remainder off the vaccine schedule combined? Considering the wealth of 'long known' knowledge you have on antigen counts in vaccines, perhaps you could use the opportunity to explain why this antigen heavy vaccine causes fewer adverse reactions than the DTAP, which has only 5 antigens in it? Shouldn't it produce adverse reactions at a much more frequent rate? My 'What is this all about' on my blog was real, accurate text written by me, I'm trying to learn more. I'm willing to read, so why not give me a citation that could explain this apparent paradox?

I asked Lilady for some data on this, but she has, apparently decided to keep that information to herself.

Also, it occurs to me that after the switch from DTP to DTAP, when we added the varicella vaccine, we more than doubled the antigenic load of the vaccine schedule. Would you consider this a 'tremendous increase' in the antigens in the vaccine schedule?

1) Continue to vaccinate children against serious infectious diseases using the best available knowledge.

I am advocating that our 'best available knowledge' is no longer sufficient based on findings made on the interconnectedness of the immune system and the CNS since the development of the current vaccine schedule. An honest, dispassionate discussion of what can be learned from our existing types of studies should be had. These discussions should leave behind inane arguments that hinge on the number of antigens in a vaccine, the rather difficult to overstate simplicity of thinking that a one year old infant is developmentally equal to a two month infant, and similarly intellectually void notions. We should have the courage to admit that our existing studies are very good at detecting acute changes, and relatively poor at detecting subtle changes. Finally, we should admit that our ignorance far outstrips our knowledge. We can do all of these things while simultaneously celebrating the great good that vaccination has brought to humanity. Vaccines clearly work, but what we do not understand is if they might be doing something else.

- pD

pD:

I'm curious, then, why is going from 3000 to 125 defined as a 'tremendous reduction'?

I suspect that DB simply meant that the reduction is tremendous relative to previous levels of antigens in vaccines, not writ large. That is, (3000-125)/1,000,000 is a fairly small percentage (0.2875%, although the specific percentage isn't relevant here since the million figure is very imprecise), but (3000-125)/3000 is much higher (95.83%).

@pD
Thank you for your excellent summary. Unfortunately several posters here
don't even want to admit there is an adverse event to a vaccine.
I posted "Just to remind everybody what a vaccine reaction looks like" several blogs back- I also posted this question - Why did they choose to give Ian the Hep B shot after being discharged from the NICU with a known history of a prior infection?
Not only did lilady deny an adverse event, she gave a new diagnosis as to
what really happened to Ian. Chris also argued against the fact that the Hep B shot caused any problem.
Here is the link- http://iansvoice.org/default.aspx

pD: "I thought you wanted me to take my marbles and go home?"

Sorry, never said that.

"Changing (Offit's) title doesn't do anything about the ridiculousness of the arguments laid forth in the paper.

It's a matter of civility, which you lay claim to but has been notably absent in this discussion, especially in regard to Dr. Offit. This contempt towards Offit is typical of the sort of antivaxers from which you attempt to dissociate yourself.
There are a number of physicians who regularly post at RI besides myself, none of whom have usernames beginning with "Dr." and don't care to be addressed that way, which a longtime poster like yourself should have noticed by now.

DV: "It has long been known that it is desirable to develop effective vaccines using as few antigens as possible because high antigen loads may be associated with a higher chance of side effects."

pD: "As has become my necessary routine when responding to your claims, citation required."

I regret that it is necessary to provide you with an obvious example, namely pertussis vaccine.

ht_p://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/index.cfm?id=827

C'mon pD, you've got to know this stuff, it's an essential part of at least one of the advanced degrees you plan to award yourself.

"...if I'm exposed to, 999,875 other antigens during infancy (assuming, only, a million), why is the reduction from 3000 to 125 'tremendous'?"

It's a great reduction in terms of vaccines - you know, that dread intervention you obsess about while pooh-poohing the impact of actual infectious disease. I am glad to see, however, that you are beginning to comprehend the concept of daily and lifetime exposure to immune system challenges.

"1) Continue to vaccinate children against serious infectious diseases using the best available knowledge."

Good to hear. I hope you will come to realize that "the best available knowledge" is that obtained through rigorous work by individuals trained and experienced in the appropriate disciplines - as opposed to undocumented speculations by University of Google attendees, including those who plan on awarding themselves advanced degrees to aid in further online pontification.

Lurker:

Chris also argued against the fact that the Hep B shot caused any problem.

Why is it that the only way you can try to make a point is by lying? That abandoned site was discussed in detail and it still does not prove what you wanted to prove. In the end if it went the way you described it would have been a malpractice suit, not the more lenient vaccine court.

I really hate liars.

And it still does not change the fact that you cannot show how vaccines cause autism when there is no real evidence that vaccines are casually associated with autism.

Dangerous Bacon:

Good to hear. I hope you will come to realize that "the best available knowledge" is that obtained through rigorous work by individuals trained and experienced in the appropriate disciplines - as opposed to undocumented speculations by University of Google attendees, including those who plan on awarding themselves advanced degrees to aid in further online pontification.

For those who wish to continue to denigrate Dr. Offit, here is a blurb about him at the CHOP Vaccine Education Center:

Dr. Offit is Chief of Infectious Diseases at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of virology and immunology and was a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Offit has published more than 130 papers in medical and scientific journals.

I believe that beats any University of Google degree.

@Chris-
You really amaze me....
Show evidence of lying please.....

Autism was not mentioned but since you brought it up..it appears there are
subgroups affected by vaccines.

Lurker, the blue letters indicate the link in my comment (I actually use a little thing called HTML to change the link to a word, like this). That is the thread in question, which you have totally mis-characterized. I linked to the vaccine court settlement, and you are told several times by several people the story does not support what you think it does, and you whinge on that the baby should not have been given the vaccine... which would have been a malpractice suit. If you are not lying, then you need to work on your memory problems.

Autism is not mentioned? Excuse me? Did you read this article? It is specifically about "a study that studied the brains of deceased autistic children and compared them to neurotypical controls,"... and pD has been trying for ages to explain how autism is caused by vaccines, even though there is no real evidence that vaccines are associated with autism. For all I know he is trying to explain the large number of neurons in autistic children by some kind of cytokine reaction to vaccines. I stopped reading his screeds ages ago, because with pD it is always going to the vaccines. Please try to keep up.

@ Lurker: Still lying, eh? You again post about a child whose mother kept a diary, complete with pictures, of the short life of her son. Here again, is my original posting, in reply to another one of your postings:

"We are still waiting for your actual citations. Why are you lying about my comment on the other blog. Here is what I stated on November 16th (#319):

"lurker" still has not provided REAL citations about the infants actual medical history, including the induced labor and the infection from meconium aspiration that he was treated for, with antibiotics.

From the pictures on the website it appears he suffered DIC septic shock and major organ failure from bacteremia or from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome from the antibiotics or anti-convulsants he was given.

Posted by: lilady | November 18, 2011 11:25 PM"

Dumb Troll, I've actually seen kids being treating in the hospital for invasive HIB and meningococcal diseases.

@pD:-

I too appreciate your wanting to take a cautious approach to medical interventions. True, there is a lot we do not know about how the immune system functions and its relation (developmentally) to other organ systems.

However, I also believe that unless concrete evidence exists, it isn't justifiable to halt all vaccination or even specific vaccines just because there is a theoretical possibility of risk. Also, if there is concrete evidence of risk, Vaccines have proven to be immensely beneficial and this risk has to be quantified and weighed against the benefits of the vaccine.

Regarding your premise that early activation of the innate immune response may have some impact on the developing nervous system - there exists a theoretical possibility of that being true. But, without concrete evidence, again it is not justifiable to change established protocols. Vaccines are not the only antigens that children are exposed to at an early age. Is there evidence that infants who survive neonatal sepsis or other neonatal infections have a higher risk of developing autism than those who do not?

There are a lot of unanswered questions. Even the theoretical possibility has not been concretely defined. On such flimsy basis we cannot change established protocols. I have not exactly gone through all the studies linked here but one thing struck me while making the last comment that: if the previous studies were comparing vaccinated populations with largely un-vaccinated populations (i.e. if both groups were more or less equally exposed to the antigens, regardless of whether through vaccination or natural infection) then there may not be any significant difference between the two populations in terms of incidence of autism. However, it doesn't rule out that the antigen exposure can not cause autism. That can be established, I believe, only if a study is done comparing vaccinated populations, largely un-vaccinated populations and persons neither vaccinated nor exposed to natural infection (protected by herd immunity, perhaps?). I don't know if any such studies have been done - I haven't gone over all the studies presented by posters here.

Yet, the bottom line is that theoretical possibility and flimsy evidence are no grounds for changing established protocols.

@lilady-
You still haven't answered my question- Why did they give him the Hep B
shot knowing the prior history? He was being discharged from the NICU,
ready to go home. It's all in the history on the link provided.
No infant with a prior infection should be given a Hep B shot. There was a severe reaction to the shot.

There was a severe reaction to the shot.

You have repeatedly failed to demonstrate this. Is there any particular reason you decided to exhume the failure here all of a sudden?

lurker:

Why did they give him the Hep B
shot knowing the prior history?

Again, you are the one bringing that up, so it is up to you to pull up the medical records. We do not have the medical records, since they are not included the link (and much has been removed from that website with its defunct blog and dead links).

You keep saying: "There was a severe reaction to the shot." But you don't realize there is no evidence for that. So unless you have those medical records, I suggest you stop trying to drag up that baby's very short life to make a point.

Please stop hijacking this thread with this off-topic subject. It is morbid how you persevere on it, and refuse to even read the comments in the other thread.

@Chris
I am not hijacking the thread-I am merely showing your and lilady's utter denial
of an adverse event from a vaccine.
I quote lilady- "From the pictures on the website it appears he suffered DIC septic shock and major organ failure from bacteremia or from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome from the antibiotics or anti-convulsants he was given."
My quote-From the pictures on the website it appears he broke out in a rash after getting the Hep B.
Quote from the blog-"Day 8"
"Fact: After receiving the hepatitis B shot these symptoms appeared within hours: platelet count dropped from 248,000 to 131,000, rash appeared, seizure-like posturing noted, irritable and non-stop crying, stopped eating, viral-like symptoms.

You are still lying, going off topic and using a strawman argument. We have not denied there are adverse reactions after vaccines (yes, they exist, but at a much smaller rate than injury from disease). All we did was explain repeatedly that the website you keep dredging up is not proof of a vaccine injury. Here is the discussion again to refresh your memory.

Stop lying.

Stop off topic diversion.

Stop using strawman arguments.

Stop dredging up that abandoned website.

I am not hijacking the thread

OK, where was anybody talking about this before you popped in to simply start repeating yourself?

lilady,

Perhaps the mother omitted the fact that Ian's in utero distress and distress after birth was a result of exposure to maternal GBS (Group B Strep) infection which can lead to septicemia and the cascade of events that was reported in the diary and shown in the the pictures on their website.

Wow, septicemia and the  "The doctor on rotation said he was confident Ian would be discharged that day (Day 2)".

Nice diaper diagnosis there public health nurse.

On a more appropriate thread, lurker, you may show us that vaccines are more dangerous than diseases. But there are some rules of evidence: a peer reviewed paper that details how the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease. No random webpages nor news reports, just real science.

Now those do exist, and have helped to change the vaccine schedule. That is why the smallpox vaccine is not on the pediatric schedule anymore, and why the OPV has been replaced by the IPV. Dr. Offit's book, Deadly Choices, has the story of a father whose son was injured by the OPV. But that father took real action, and helped change the vaccine schedule.

So find that real evidence for the present pediatric vaccine schedule. But do it on a different thread, where it is actually on topic.

Chris

(just a reminder that he cannot learn here)

Is this on of those telepathic puzzles again. You have the floor...let us all know why you think the mumps strain is important ?

Simply stating that there is a difference does not define your point , if there is one.

@Chris- You are a hypocrite. You deny VAERS reports.

Time to divert to an even less coherent yammering point?

Please don't feed delusional, uneducated, disease-promoting troll...it craves attention...and needs "terminal disinfection".

"lurker" needs to stop quoting blogs that state "fact..." and come up with some real information about the vaccine schedule and his "suggestions" to change the schedule, based on citations from peer-reviewed journals. (hint) Dr. Jay Gordon's blog or blogs written by Dr. Sears, Dr. Tenpenny or Dr. Mercola are not reliable. Nor are the Generation Rescue or the NVIC websites reliable.

"lurker" might want to post a comment on the iansvoice.org website which has links to the aforementioned doctors and the aforementioned anti-vax websites. You might also inform Ian's parents that pimping Ian's pictures while in the NICU, to safevaccines2, the producer of an anti-vax video "Are Side Effects Worth It?", is tacky.

Oh, and lurker, if you're going to be on about Ian Gromowski and VAERS, perhaps you'd like to tell everyone what the relevant ID is. (Otherwise, I can do it.)

Here's another example of the CDC using VAERS reports, information from the Vaccine Safety Data Link, the FDA, local and State health department to monitor the safety of vaccines and to change the vaccine schedule

What action did CDC take when cases of intussusception were reported to VAERS?

CDC, in collaboration with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and state and local health departments throughout the United States, conducted two large investigations. One was a multi-state investigation which evaluated whether or not rotavirus vaccine was associated with intussusception. Based on the results of the investigation, CDC estimated that RotaShield® vaccine increased the risk for intussusception by one or two cases of intussusception among each 10,000 infants vaccinated. The other was a similar investigation in children vaccinated at large managed care organizations. When the results of these investigations became available, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) withdrew its recommendation to vaccinate infants with RotaShield® vaccine, and the manufacturer voluntarily withdrew RotaShield® from the market in October 1999. (Source CDC Rotavirus vaccine (Rotashield)and Intususseption)

The "problem" with some VAERS reports is that anti-vax sites urge parents to report minor post vaccine symptoms and serious illnesse that have no plausible links to a particular vaccine or a series of vaccines. I mean seriously, does a child's drowning death or death in a motor vehicle weeks or months after a vaccine was given, warrant a VAERS report?

At one time, VAERS could have been a good tool for tracking down potential adverse reactions to vaccines. Unfortunately, the anti-vax crowd has created so much "background noise" that it is impossible to use the site for its intended purpose.

Based on the results of the investigation, CDC estimated that RotaShield® vaccine increased the risk for intussusception by one or two cases of intussusception among each 10,000 infants vaccinated.

What one should be investigating is not the 1 in 5000 but why a vaccine that is supposed to target a specified disease only has this biological effect.

And Lawrence, it has improved a bit since the failure of many of the vaccine court cases. The lawyers are no longer pimping it has much as they were five or so years ago: Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System Reporting Source: A Possible Source of Bias in Longitudinal Studies.

Lurker, you are also using another strawman argument. I don't think you understand how self-reported surveys are just very poor sources of data, even without the lawyers gumming up the works. I think you need to read this lesson On Using Vaers.

(Note: Lurker can you see the two sets of words in a different color of text? Those are links. When you move your mouse over the blue words the little arrow turns into a little pointing hand, that is when you click the mouse button to switch to the other web page. Do you understand?)

(have comment in moderation)

lurker, what part of the following do you not understand?...

Stop lying.

Stop off topic diversion.

Stop using strawman arguments.

Stop dredging up that abandoned website.

In addition, here is some friendly advice: It is registration time for many community colleges. Go find your nearest community college to sign up for a basic statistics course. That would go a long way to explain why self-selected surveys like VAERS are worthless in their raw form. Also take your time when taking the COMPASS tests. While taking an Adult Basic Literacy class may be helpful in teaching how to read these comments, it will cause you to delay taking the statistics course.

One of the greatest gifts anyone can give is to donate his body to science after death. Such anatomic gifts contribute to the training of medical students, residents, and other medical professionals as well as being used for research that can contribute to the advancement of medical science.

Be afraid of the walking zombies. Be afraid. But it was too late. The poor and helpless newborn was clearly overmatched by the walking zombies. What a waste of a perfectly healthy liver. How do you like it Orac? Minced, sliced or diced? Do you want blood on top or on the side?

ThBot, you posted under the wrong name. Not that your new contribution isn't poetic in a way.

I dunno about Orac, but I'd prefer mine with finely minced Th1Th2 on the side...

Do you have a hypothesis about autism? Have you a self-awarded degree? Come to the Symposium!

I am proud to announce that I will serve as moderator at the first Alternative Symposium on Autism for the Self-Awarded (ASASA). I do not take this responsibility lightly and therefore, I promise- so help me, God - that I will absolutely refrain from any and all criticism of the material or the manner in which it is presented and will enthusiastically establish and maintain the rules of order and strictly enforce time-limits to within a second of your respective lives.

Although the symposium will be virtual, we are limiting participation to the first 10 applicants ( a waiting list will also be compiled should there be drop-outs). And yes, bots are welcome! I shall be wearing the proverbial nice, dark suit while displaying my charm and finely-honed social graces.

Vaccine. 2007 Mar 30;25(14):2742-7. Epub 2006 Jan 31.
A comparative study of the incidence of aseptic meningitis in symptomatic natural mumps patients and monovalent mumps vaccine recipients in Japan.

Am J Epidemiol. 2007 Mar 15;165(6):704-9. Epub 2007 Jan 4.
Risks of convulsion and aseptic meningitis following measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in the United Kingdom.

Vaccine. 2006 Nov 30;24(49-50):7037-45. Epub 2006 Jul 5.
Mumps vaccine virus strains and aseptic meningitis.

J Infect. 2005 Nov;51(4):294-8. Epub 2004 Nov 5.
Comparative efficacy of Rubini, Jeryl-Lynn and Urabe mumps vaccine in an Asian population.

Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2002 Oct;12(4):240-6.
An evaluation of the adverse reaction potential of three measles-mumps-rubella combination vaccines.

Acta Paediatr Jpn. 1996 Jun;38(3):205-11.
Adverse events associated with MMR vaccines in Japan.

Lancet. 1993 Apr 17;341(8851):979-82.
Risk of aseptic meningitis after measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine in UK children.

MEDICINES CONTROL AGENCY TO OBJECT TO IMPORTATION OF UNLICENSED SINGLE URABE STRAIN MUMPS VACCINE

Article from Medscape

Most Pediatricians Accept Alternative Vaccination Schedule
Specifically, more pediatricians were willing to consider ACISs for hepatitis B vaccine (87%), varicella vaccine (76%), and inactivated poliovirus vaccine (74%) than they were for Hib vaccine (36%), DTaP vaccine (39%), and PCV (42%).

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/754419

Be afraid of the walking zombies. Be afraid. But it was too late. The poor and helpless newborn was clearly overmatched by the walking zombies.

CDC, the easiest way; if this child inoculated with, that means the toy looks OK. This on the number mother does, that is. So that was still the rash muscle. You moving the squirrel.

This Church ICU which happen to be worried about those insane assertion therefore vaccine that, your questions, I'd like I witnessed a newborn. The would order. This whole time.

lurker, appeal to popularity and some authority. Still off topic, and I doubt you actually read it with full comprehension. Now go read my comment that is now out of moderation. Be sure to read the links, you can tell what they are because they are words in a different color.

Ms. Walter, I think that will be an interesting symposium to observer, as I am not awarding myself a degree.

It's not at all clear what "accept" means here, though:

When asked whether they would follow the recommended vaccination schedule if they were to become a new parent themselves in 2010, 96% of pediatricians said yes.

In other words, almost none of the pediatricians surveyed thought that the "alternative" vaccination schedule was actually a good idea. So is this "think it's almost as good" or is it closer to "doctors are tired of arguing with parents, and would rather be sure the kids get at least DTaP and Hib than have the parents walk out altogether"? I don't know, you don't, and the researchers don't. The article states explicitly the study couldn't distinguish between doctors who were comfortable with delayed vaccination and those who felt that a delayed vaccine is at least better than no vaccine at all.

Never mind the limits of surveys, this isn't even "four out of five dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum," it's closer to "four out of five dentists surveyed would like you to at least see a dentist once in a while."

@Chris
Follow your own advice-stop posting off topic.
I will.

Oh, grand. It is back to the rather sticky issue of donating the bodies, especially the brains, of children who have died way too soon.

Lurker, references a small mail survey of practicing pediatricians in Washington State, yet fails to comprehend the comments contained in the link about following the recommended schedule for maximum benefit to the child.

Here is an article from the Seattle Post Intelligencer website about the overall childhood immunization rate in the state of Washington:

Washington has highest vaccine opt-out rate in country
VANESSA H, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Copyright 2011 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By VANESSA HO, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Updated 01:48 p.m., Thursday, June 2, 2011

Washington has the highest rate in the country of students exempted from school-required vaccines, a federal report released Thursday has found.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 6.2 percent of Washington kindergartners had a parent waiver for at least one required vaccine last year.

That rate has more than doubled in the last 10 years. The average national exemption rate was about 2 percent, state officials said. Mississippi and Tennessee had the lowest exemption rates of less than 1 percent, the study found.

Vaccines are a major concern for health officials, who are trying to meet vaccination goals while containing the country's largest measles outbreak in 15 years. Washington is among the states involved, with two recent measles cases in Clark County and one in Kitsap County.

The CDC does not show which state has the lowest overall vaccination coverage. Relying on data from the last school year, it shows that immunization of Washington kindergarteners ranged from 88 percent to 93 percent for required vaccines. They include polio, whooping cough, measles, hepatitis B, and chickenpox.

Those rates fell in the middle of vaccination rates of other states. They also fell below a state and national goal of 95 percent of all kindergarteners to be vaccinated.

Washington has long been known for its big pockets of unvaccinated people, such as in Vashon Island, but the federal report was the first to rank vaccination waiver rates of all states.

"All parents want their kids to have a healthy start," state Secretary of Health Mary Selecky said in a statement Thursday.

"Making sure they have all of their immunizations before going to school is one of the best ways to keep them healthy. Kids who aren't fully immunized aren't fully protected."

Last month, the state began targeting the large number of unvaccinated kids, with a new law requiring parents who want a vaccination waiver to show proof that a health provider gave them information on immunizations.

@Chris

Ditto.

@ Vicki: I have a comment stuck in moderation about the linked mail-in survey of Washington State pediatricians referenced by "lurker".

(I don't think "lurker" will be pleased with your comments...or mine)

@ Th1Th2bot: Thank you again for your excellent translation of the odious Thingy's brain droppings. It still needs "terminal disinfection".

Sorry to continue an off-topic discussion, but I had some unanswered questions - I hope everyone will indulge me for a moment.

lurker (#519):

"Fact: After receiving the hepatitis B shot these symptoms appeared within hours: platelet count dropped from 248,000 to 131,000, rash appeared, seizure-like posturing noted, irritable and non-stop crying, stopped eating, viral-like symptoms."

The hepatitis B vaccine is (since 1990) made from recombinant (in yeast) hepatitis B surface protein (antigen) adsorbed onto aluminium hydroxide. It is incapable of causing an infection, as it contains only one of the many "pieces" needed to contruct an infectious virion.

What I'd like to ask "lurker" is this: how could a subunit protein of a virus, administered to a child who had no previous exposure to this protein, cause the reaction described?

Having done a fair bit of medical microbiology, the description of the child's medical course and the pictures look a lot more like Group B Strep (GBS) than hepatitis B (which could not have come from the vaccine, in any case). Allergic reactions seem highly unlikely, since the child had never before been exposed to hepatitis B.

Group B Strep, back before routine monitoring, when we saw a lot more of it, followed a course similar to that of this poor child. A lot of the cases were in otherwise healthy babies, many of whom had already gone home after delivery before they started to show symptoms. Children with prolonged rupture of membranes and/or respiratory distress from meconium aspiration were especially at risk.

I also notice that "lurker" - and others - make a great deal about the caution against giving the hepatitis B vaccine to children with "moderate or severe acute illness", found in the vaccine package insert. It might be illuminating to read the part after the warning heading (in this case, from Engerix-B):

"To avoid diagnostic confusion between manifestations of an acute illness and possible vaccine adverse effects, vaccination with ENGERIX-B should be postponed in persons with moderate or severe acute febrile illness unless they are at immediate risk of hepatitis B infection (e.g., infants born of HBsAg-positive mothers)."

In other words, the reason to not give the vaccine isn't because it might make an acute illness worse, but that the illness might be confused with a vaccine reaction or vice versa. I hope that puts "lurker" at ease.

Thank you for your indulgence.

Prometheus

Follow your own advice-stop posting off topic.
I will.

So it was a brief derailment simply to emphasize that all you have is mindless repetition? Where's that VAERS ID for your item of expertise?

And to show that he really needs to take an Adult Basic Literacy class. The irony of all of this is that scarcity of brains from dead children is because fewer are dying from actual diseases like measles, diphtheria, tetanus, Hib, etc.

@Chris
The real irony is that with the increase of vaccines in the schedule, there was an increase in autism.

lurker:

there was an increase in autism.

Please read the article on this page. It shows that there is a physical difference in the children, and the paper under discussion says: "Also, prefrontal neuron counts in controls did not vary with age, which is concordant with literature that cortical neurons are generated prenatally, not postnatally."

Now, go to a dictionary and find out the difference between these two words: prenatally, postnatally. There is a difference in those two words that you will perhaps learn in an Adult Basic Literacy class.

It is because the evidence points away from vaccines that Ms. Wright is very upset.

@Chris-
With such a small sample it means nothing. Other studies have shown
differences in brain sizes. See above.

@Chris

Corridors of migrating neurons in the human brain and their decline during infancy (Nature 478, 382-386 (20 October 2011)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7369/full/nature10487.html

Now it is up to you to connect that paper to the one under discussion. Because, you are kind of reaching. I can only see the abstract, and I don't think it means what you want it to mean.

As of yet there is no real evidence that vaccines are casually associated with autism. Using the search box on the upper left part of this page you will find many articles on the lack of that evidence. Often with titles that include "bad day for antivaccinationists."

@Chris,
I see you refuse to further your education and read studies posted that don't
agree with you.
RE: Prenatal development of prefrontal cortex.
"Surprisingly, during this limited window of neurogenesis, not all new neurons in the human subventricular zone are destined for the olfactory bulbâwe describe a major migratory pathway that targets the prefrontal cortex in humans. Together, these findings reveal robust streams of tangentially migrating immature neurons in human early postnatal subventricular zone and cortex. These pathways represent potential targets of neurological injuries affecting neonates."

I see you refuse to further your education and read studies posted that don't agree with you.

Perhaps you'd like to quote some of the actual non-abstract text to demonstrate your study-readin' bona fides. I'd hate to think you were just casting around for abstracts that cause a vague "yum" reaction, reposting them, and pretending to be edumacating people.

@ Chris:
Well, thank you so much for your kind words. There is a flotilla of hypotheses (about autism from the self-degreed) adrift on the waters like so much flotsam and jetsam that I thought someone should just gather them up and put them on display. And why shouldn't that someone be me?

However because I know that first-time theoreticians can often be shy creatures I will probably need to recruit nominations. Do you or any other SB commenters here know of any worthies who fit the bill?

Funny words, lurker, since that is only an abstract and it really does not say what you want it to say. You did not even do what I asked you to do, connect the dots of that entire paper with the one that is discussed on this page.

And I believe that it is you who needs to further your education if you actually think raw VAERS data is relevant.

Well, on this very thread you can see the theories put forth by both lurker, Rachael (introverts?), pD and blackheart (if you can ever figure out what he is saying).

Too bad "Smarter Than You" has disappeared. He has missed his deadline for submitting his research that would definitely show us how vaccines cause autism by over a year. He never did tell us what it was all about.

Oh, and back on subject: about twenty years ago my son's neurologist suggested that the speech/language disability had a very good chance of being related to his fetal development, and not necessarily to his history of seizures.

Neurology is still a very murky subject, and it even boggles real neurologists. Which is why I sincerely doubt that lurker actually understands the abstract of the letter he posted.

Before I leave for a bit, I should post a paragraph from the article above that lurker has refused to read, emphasis added:

And that's exactly why Wright is so upset. This study suggests that, whatever causes autism, it probably happens before birth, not after. If true, that rules out vaccines as a cause. Of course, we already have abundant scientific, clinical, and epidemiological evidence that fails to implicate vaccines as a cause of autism. It's not as though scientists haven't looked, either. Multiple large, well-designed studies have failed to find a correlation between vaccine and autism. As hypotheses go, the vaccine-autism hypothesis is as dead as dead can be, at least as dead as the famous parrot in a famous Monty Python sketch. Truly, it's "pinin' for the fjords."

Let me repeat: you cannot find out how vaccines cause autism, when there is no real evidence that vaccines actually cause autism

And I believe that it is you who needs to further your education if you actually think raw VAERS data is relevant.

Speaking of which, lurker seems to have been too busy pointing at other things to come up with the damning Gromoski VAERS entry. It's 309085.

I don't claim to be competent to intelligently interpret it (and it is truncated at 2029 characters), but at least I'm not so slothful as to allude without even spending the requisite five minutes to actually find the thing.

^ Gromowski

Chris

Multiple large, well-designed studies have failed to find a correlation between vaccine and autism

I'm still trying to find these multiple well designed studies. Couldn't the IoM only find 4 / 22 ?

-----------------------------------------------

Institute of Medicine Review of Vaccines 2011

The following studies were rejected by the Institute of Medicine in investigating MMR and Autism: some on serious methodological grounds others on poor study design / implementation.

âThe committee reviewed 22 studies to evaluate the risk of autism after the administration of MMR vaccine.

Chen et al., 2004 (Fombonne co authored)
Dales et al., 2001 (California paper)
Fombonne and Chakrabarti, 2001 (Fombonne again)
Fombonne et al., 2006 (Fombonne again)
Geier and Geier, 2004 (Thimerosal)
Honda et al., 2005; (* This is the Honda / Rutter paper)
Kaye et al., 2001 (Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance)
Makela et al., 2002 (Finland Study)
Mrozek-Budzyn and Kieltyka, 2008 (Poland)
Steffenburg et al., 2003 (Sweden)
Takahashi et al., 2001 (Japan)
Takahashi et al., 2003 (Japan)

were not considered in the weight of epidemiologic evidence because they provided data from a passive surveillance system lacking an unvaccinated comparison population or an ecological comparison study lacking individual level data.â

DeStefano et al., 2004 (CDC Atlanta)
Richler et al., 2006 (University of Michigan)
Schultz et al., 2008 (Paracetemol)
Taylor et al., 2002 (Brent Taylor , Elizabeth Miller North London)
Uchiyama et al., 2007 (Japan)

Five controlled studies had very serious methodological limitations that precluded their inclusion in this assessment.

Taylor et al. (2002) inadequately described the data analysis used to compare autism compounded by serious bowel problems or regression (cases) with autism free of such problems (controls).

DeStefano et al. (2004) and Uchiyama et al. (2007) did not provide sufficient data on whether autism onset or diagnosis preceded or followed MMR vaccination.

The study by Richler et al. (2006) had the potential for recall bias since the age at autism onset was determined using parental interviews, and their data analysis appeared to ignore pair-matching of cases and controls, which could have biased their findings toward the null.

Schultz (2008) conducted an Internet-based case-control study and excluded many participants due to missing survey data, which increased the potential for selection and information bias.â

The IoM found the following five studies â¦

Taylor et al., 1999 ( Brent Taylor co -authors Farrington, Miller North Thames as above Taylor 2002 rejected)

Farrington et al., 2001 ( co authors Miller, Taylor using data from 1999)

Madsen et al., 2002 ( Denmark)

Mrozek-Budzyn et al., 2010 (Poland rejected see below)

Smeeth et al., 2004 ( Fombonne co author)

----------------------------------

Mrozek-Budzyn et al., 2010

âThis study was rated as having serious limitations because it did not provide information on medical conditions among the controls and relied on medical
record abstraction for immunization dates
and autism diagnosis dates.â IoM

That leaves 4 from 22

-------------------------------------

Taylor et al., 1999 ( Brent Taylor co -authors Farrington, Miller North Thames as above Taylor 2002 rejected)

Farrington et al., 2001 ( co authors Miller, Taylor using data from 1999)

Used the same data so that leaves 3

---------------------------------------------

So in the end after culling you have 3 studies.

* Farrington / Taylor

* Masden

* Smeeth

Not very convincing is it ?

Wow, you are really a complete idiot. And you still don't make any sense.

Measles is still more dangerous than any of the several versions of the MMR. And the evidence is still autism is determined before birth, and really has nothing to do with vaccines.

Well, just to stay back on the topic at hand, I am an organ donor, and if something ever were to happen to me, (which I hope won't come for a long, long time) I definitely would want someone to benefit from the use of my organs, whether it be for the use of donation, or failing that, to be of use in science. It's not like I'd be needing to use them after death anyways.

Sensei Blackheart, I need to notify you that other people are using the phraseology of your comment #565 -- and sometimes even the same style of boldface -- in a flagrant theft of your intellectual property. There's a "John Smith" commenting on a Nature.com thread and on Austisticland.blogspot.com, both on Nov. 4th; and an "Open Opinion", on a Childhealthsafety.wordpress.com thread, way back on September 4th (almost a monthly cycle).

Can't you stop them stealing your words?

"Sensei"? Is this an invitation to play Dharma combat with the former Professor Blowhard?

He is always scrupulous about addressing me with my choice of title so the least I can do is return the courtesy.

Thanks Narad for providing the VAERS report. I think the all caps medical conditions listed in the left column of the report "might" be the symptoms that presented themselves chronologically (birth to death) from the infant's chart.

Note the progression downward of the baby's liver and kidney function tests, the abdominal ascites and the "purpura" as well as the diagnosis of "major organ failure" just prior to death. Cause of death is listed as "Pseudomonal sepsis".

The mother had a history of gestational diabetes as well as being positive for vaginal GBS (Group B Strep) infection which was reported as being treated before the onset of labor.

Here is what I stated two weeks ago when "lurker" linked to the mother's internet diary...based on the pictures of the infant that the mother posted on her blog:

Did you read the parent's "diary" (Ian's Life) on the website? Baby was in trouble before birth, after experiencing aspiration of meconium in utero. Baby was also treated for MAS (Meconium Aspiration Pneumonia) which is treated by antibiotics in the NICU and did not receive the vaccine until he was 7 days old.

So, we have pictures of this infant who most probably had a severe case of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome from one of the antibiotics that he received or possibly an anti-convulsant that he received in the NICU. S-J Syndrome rarely can lead to septic shock and the resulting major organ failure and DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation) that the infant experienced that resulted in his death.

Perhaps the mother omitted the fact that Ian's in utero distress and distress after birth was a result of exposure to maternal GBS (Group B Strep) infection which can lead to septicemia and the cascade of events that was reported in the diary and shown in the the pictures on their website.

Get a life, lurker, real doctors and nurses have treated children and adults with septicemia and septic shock.

Posted by: lilady | November 16, 2011 11:58 AM

@ novalox: Getting back to the subject at hand. My only two children were the recipients and donors of cadaver tissues.

My daughter received a donor anterior cruciate ligament from an 11 year old boy and my son's eyes and heart valves were donated after his death. My daughter, my husband and I have all signed the back of of our driver's licenses for post death organ and tissue donations. I also underwent HLA blood typing as a prospective bone marrow donor and I am listed in the National Bone Marrow registry.

There is a desperate need for organ donations and organs can only be harvested if the donor is brain dead and on life support, and the organs are being perfused.

He is always scrupulous about addressing me with my choice of title so the least I can do is return the courtesy.

Oh, I'm not complaining about that at all.

herr Doktor

Is this a new theme on menstrual cycles or conspiracy theories ? Or another complaint about the lack of use of the Harvard referencing system, which is apparently required for this blog. Chris and I have already covered this previously.

Chris

Measles is still more dangerous than any of the several versions of the MMR.

It is ...there's a great insight. I must admit though that HTMV seems to have been giving it a run for it's money with an estimated 500,000 premature deaths per annum.

Are you of the opinion that no such evidence exists of harm ?

And the evidence is still autism is determined before birth

The latest studies show a 55 to 45 favour for environmental causes.

and really has nothing to do with vaccines.

The fact that we have substantial increases in child mortality clearly associated with vaccinations such as measles (HTMV) and DTap suggest that our knowledge of how vaccines operate is rather limited.

Put together with an increasing evidentiary base that shows immune system physiology in autism then I think it is still quite reasonable grounds to continue to investigate these matters.

Or are you of the opinion that autism pathology and aetiology has been completely elucidated ?

As a postscript to the bizarre revelation that one of the posters here (pD) is planning to award himself multiple advanced degrees in the pursuit of scientific truth about vaccine harmfulness - there is an interesting (and disturbing) article in today's (12/3) Wall St. Journal about "citizen scientists".

The article describes a trend in which small groups of people collect specimens (i.e. blood), get them tested at outside labs for various markers and do "research" on the findings. Or in another example, seven people with high homocysteine levels (favoring an increased risk of heart disease and stroke according to some evidence) went out and bought different vitamin B supplements to test which was best at lowering homocysteine, and posted the results online. The article touched on the obvious problem with drawing conclusions from such small sample sizes. Some of these people are so suspicious of the scientific community that they reject any trappings of mainstream science in conducting their projects (for example, one group turned down their leader's proposal for going through an institutional review board).
Some of these "citizen scientists" are collaborating with (I suppose there's no other way to put this) real scientists on projects and articles, in return for open sharing of data.

I can see this trend growing increasingly popular among the vaccines-cause-autism crowd. Why waste time tearing down all those studies with inconvenient and irritating negative findings, and weaving conspiracy stories about their authors, when you can generate your own pseudo-research and get it published in top-flight journals* like Medical Hypotheses, JPANDS etc.?

*sarcasm intended.

Dangerous Bacon, haven't they also created at least one journal? I am thinking of "Medical Veritas" with the editor who prefixes his name with "Dr." and writes about vaccines, even though his PhD is in Computer Science.

@ Dangerous Bacon:
This has been going on for years in NYC courtesy of Null and others: they do their own "research" with "protocols" in "health support groups"- which treat people with many far flung often serious conditions. Recently this method was advocated for school children and parents at a Newark NJ charter school ( ADHD, diabetes). Results sometimes mentioned at the idoit's eponymous website ( e.g. "Hair Study")

@ Dangerous Bacon: That was a real scientific study they conducted based on cycling on and off a name brand B vitamin and el cheapo generic B vitamins.

Perhaps they want to receive "credit" on scientific papers as their esteemed leader who "owns" the patent on a gene implicated in the PXE genetic disorder...who received an honorary doctorate degree. Of course, there have been many court cases about the owning of single genes and the limitations of developing genetic tests and conducting research by non-patent holders...notably the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes, that are presently being heard in U.S. Courts.

I don't think that pD is looking for valid research, rather he is a collector or meaningless minutiae to validate his pre-conceived notion of vaccines being implicated in autism.

The two faces of Chris

Measles is still more dangerous than any of the several versions of the MMR.

Which is a central premise in my other bit of confusion. If some children are too sensitive to vaccines, why would they fair better with the actual diseases?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Like the current ad art isn't taking up enough of our time, now we have do Th1Th2 as Kool-Aid Man.

@Th1Th2bot Service Center: Make certain you do "terminal disinfection" as you wade into the brain droppings of the Thingy.

I'm sorry, but I simply must know. Th1Th2: Why do you find Chris' question at odds with her other writings? "If some children are too sensitive for vaccines..." is a premise, not an assertion of fact. "...why would they fair better with the actual diseases" is not *her* conclusion. Rather she seems to be saying that given the premise, the conclusion is illogical. Whether you agree or disagree with her, asking this question does not contradict her assertion that "Measles is more dangerous than any of the several versions of the MMR".

@Blackheart
@pD

Thanks for posting those links-incredible information-better than outdated
postings of the regulars.

Th1Th2: Why do you find Chris' question at odds with her other writings?

I doubt that it was getting at any sort of internal contradiction. Janus is a unity; comparisons between vaccines and diseases are Th1Th2-invalid, because these are the realm of the infection promoter and germ denier. Only purity is valid.

Thanks for posting those links-incredible information-better than outdated postings of the regulars.

A little allogrooming: that'll show 'em!.

Niche Geek:

I'm sorry, but I simply must know. Th1Th2: Why do you find Chris' question at odds with her other writings? "If some children are too sensitive for vaccines..." is a premise, not an assertion of fact. "...why would they fair better with the actual diseases" is not *her* conclusion.

One reason to ignore Thingy is her inability to decode basic English sentences. It is obvious that her home planet, Htrae, does not include the words "if" or "why" in the native vocabulary.

DB,

The article describes a trend in which small groups of people collect specimens (i.e. blood), get them tested at outside labs for various markers and do "research" on the findings.

You just reminded me - a couple of years ago I came across a Yahoo Group owned by a self-proclaimed expert on autism with a half-baked biochemical theory and dietary treatment (that included OSR#1 industrial chelator). This "expert" encouraged parents of autistic children to get their children's blood and urine tested and to post the results so she could interpret them (with no training or qualifications in this, of course). Since I spent 25 years working in clinical biochemistry and am very familiar with these kind of results and their interpretation I was curious. I was horrified to see her completely misinterpret the results that were posted, using adult ranges to interpret children's results, and telling their parents they had acidosis and kidney failure based on perfectly normal results, and recommending bizarre dietary restrictions, including a low calcium diet - in growing children!

She claimed that normal alkaline phosphatase results were elevated - children have much higher results than adults because they are growing. She interpreted a raised BUN/creatinine ratio due to a low creatinine, with a low normal BUN as indicating renal failure, and a normal blood bicarbonate towards the bottom of the range as indicating renal tubular acidosis. Normal results at the top or bottom end of the normal range were interpreted as abnormal. I could go on. I tried to post this to her Group, but she censored me, and though I wrote to her privately explaining how horribly wrong she was, it didn't stop her. I wasn't sure who to report this to, if anyone, and quit in disgust. She's probably still at it.

The idea of "citizen scientists" probably appeals to the Wall St. Journal as an end-around on issues where the Journal editorially has lambasted researchers - notably regarding climate change and the use of Avastin for breast cancer.

The Journal has almost comically lashed out at "consensus science" in favor of iconoclasts, treading close to the Galileo Gambit. I suspect they'd welcome a group of "citizen scientists" uploading a collection of temperature readings to the Internet to disprove the consensus on warming, or having breast cancer patients report their symptoms on Avastin as proof of its efficacy.

The idea of recruiting breast cancer patients for studies to determine if there actually is a subgroup that might benefit from Avastin is a good idea of course. Getting a dozen patients together to do their own study published in a third-rate journal without proper peer review and using it to pressure the FDA, not so much.

pD, I still say you're confusing two different arguments and the rebuttals to them.

Argument A: The volume of antigens contained in the current vaccine schedule are enough to overwhelm an infant's immune system and cause permanent health problems.

Argument B: The specific antigens contained in the current vaccine schedule have qualities that provoke an infant's immune system to overreact and cause permanent health problems.

Now, I think we are in agreement that a comparison of the volume of antigens in the vaccine schedule to the volume of antigens encountered in everyday life pretty much demolishes Argument A. So let's forget Argument A.

Where we part ways after that, first, is that you claim to see vaccine defenders regularly presenting the comparison of antigen volumes as a rebuttal to Argument B. Frankly, I think that if this happens, it's due to miscommunication: the vaccine questioner doesn't express themselves as clearly as they think they're doing, and the vaccine defender thinks they're hearing Argument A, where the vaccine questioner meant to present Argument B.

But let's address Argument B. Is comparison of antigen volumes a meaningful rebuttal to Argument B? No. Is there any meaningful rebuttal of Argument B that's as simple as volume comparison? No. Is there evidence suggesting Argument B could be true? Well, if particular vaccine antigens regularly provoke fevers from the immune system, that certainly suggests that vaccine antigens could provoke strong and harmful immune reactions. So ... does that make Argument B a strong argument, that should dominate our discourse on vaccines?

No, for several reasons. First of all, in its stated form, Argument B is not falsifiable. Unfalsifiable arguments often look like they're very strong, when what they really are is too vague or open-ended to be meaningful. There's no way to absolutely rule out any immune system overreaction that could possibly be triggered by vaccine antigens, but the same argument could be applied to bloodletting - we can't absolutely rule out the idea that it might have some benefit - witchcraft - we can't absolutely rule out that there are some ills which befall us because we've been given the evil eye - and so on and so on.

Second, even if we limit the discussion to more falsifiable forms of Argument B, such as "Vaccine antigens can cause the immune system to overreact and cause autism," the burden of proof is still on those who believe such a thing does happen to provide evidence for it. There might once have been a time when the burden of proof was on the other side - but it was met when the epidemiology studies came in, showing no relation between vaccination and increased rates of autism. The burden of proof is on those who support forms of Argument B.

Third, Argument B is often made as part of what we might call Argument B2: "Vaccine antigens might cause immune system overreactions and health problems; therefore we shouldn't vaccinate." The unstated premise missing from this argument is "the danger from immune system overreactions to vaccine antigens is worse than the danger from the antigens encountered out in the wild." Not only is the burden of proof firmly on anyone who would argue that, but it's a very high burden of proof to meet, because we know how dangerous these diseases are in the wild. You might prove that a particular vaccine antigen will give every child who receives it a fever, each and every time, and yet that might still be a far, far better fate than the results of catching that disease from the wild, which might bring not just fevers but blindness, deafness or paralysis.

The idea of "citizen scientists" probably appeals to the Wall St. Journal as an end-around on issues where the Journal editorially has lambasted researchers

It seems to be a regular feature of the Murdoch press. I think it started in Australia a while ago when the editors of the Melbourne Age decided to promote a couple of "citizen historians" and the new version of Australian history they had invented (in which genocide against the Aborigine population never happened). Actual historians were not impressed but the Age dismissed them as a closed-shop trade guild trying to quell competition.
Rightwing politicians picked up on this revised history as more congenial than the old fact-based version, and the whole pick-your-own-experts ethos has been mainstreamed now.

Left wing / Right Wing Clinton / Bush

Even so called "good intentions" have ended in Genocide ....

500,000 Child Deaths

http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/102/32796.html

That's an interesting figure 500,000.

Surely no one could argue against investigating and alleviating these types of mortality figures

Antaeus: "Well, if particular vaccine antigens regularly provoke fevers from the immune system, that certainly suggests that vaccine antigens could provoke strong and harmful immune reactions."

A defect in this type of argument (and I realize Antaeus is paraphrasing pD) is that it assumes that the existence of even a mild side effect of vaccines that can be traced to the immune system, means that we should be suspicious that major derangements of the immune system occur due to vaccines and are damaging health, even when there is no good evidence that the disease in question is caused by immune dysfunction (i.e. autism). In this way pD and Michael Dochniak are arguing in a similar fashion. pD thinks that vaccine-induced fever is an argument for a vaccine-autism connection; Dochniak believes the existence of latex allergies which could conceivably be linked to vaccines is an argument for a vaccine-autism connection. Similar arguments, both fallacious. One could point out that aspirin can have various side effects; aspirin modulates the immune system (through prostaglandin synthesis); some researchers think Alzheimer's disease has an immune/autoimmune etiology - ergo, we should be very very suspicious that aspirin use causes Alzheimer's disease and do lots of research into that angle*.

Weirdly, we have antivaxers who claim that vaccines cause problems through immune system overstimulation, while at the same time there are antivaxers who claim that vaccines cause harm because they result in immune system understimulation, resulting in asthma and other chronic diseases. I suppose this isn't really a conflict, as long we we recognize that it's gotta be the vaccines one way or another.

*there are conflicting studies on whether regular aspirin use may decrease the risk of Alzheimer's, but knowing the immune angle we probably should spend a lot more research dough to determine whether it causes the disease, even if that lessens the money available to study more rational and promising avenues of research.

Weirdly, we have antivaxers who claim that vaccines cause problems through immune system overstimulation, while at the same time there are antivaxers who claim that vaccines cause harm because they result in immune system understimulation, resulting in asthma and other chronic diseases. I suppose this isn't really a conflict, as long we we recognize that it's gotta be the vaccines one way or another.

Have you met the militant intactivists?

Well, if particular vaccine antigens regularly provoke fevers from the immune system, that certainly suggests that vaccine antigens could provoke strong and harmful immune reactions.

A defect in this type of argument (and I realize Antaeus is paraphrasing pD) is that it assumes that the existence of even a mild side effect of vaccines that can be traced to the immune system, means that we should be suspicious that major derangements of the immune system occur due to vaccines and are damaging health, even when there is no good evidence that the disease in question is caused by immune dysfunction (i.e. autism).

I'm sorry, DB, but I think you're mistaking me agreeing with some of pD's beliefs, for me paraphrasing pD.

The fact is that vaccines are supposed to have a profound effect upon the immune system - a benign effect, but still profound.  If we had just arrived from Mars and an Earth scientist had explained to us only the principle on which vaccines work, and shared with us none of the accumulated data of what the actual results are when vaccines are administered in a general population - it would be a reasonable thing to accept that one possible outcome of vaccine administration might be provoking a reaction from the immune system that's too strong.* It would only seem more reasonable if we learned that they can provoke a reaction from the immune system such as fever that causes great discomfort, even if it rarely has permanent sequelae.

But as I've said before about antivax and other wooish beliefs, they often confuse opening the door to a possibility with sailing right through that door.  It's not inherently unreasonable to suppose vaccine antigens might be triggering health problems; it is wholly unreasonable to assert it without even an attempt to meet the burden of proof that such a thing is happening!  Trying to name it as a cause of autism is especially unreasonable, since there is no known link between immune system and autism and numerous epidemiological studies looking for a link between vaccination and autism failed to find any correlation.

* I'm referring of course to the proposition that this is happening on any sort of systematic basis, as opposed to in rare cases.

Perhaps this might help: trying find out how vaccines cause autism when there is not evidence that vaccines and autism are casually connected, is like trying to find out how owning a television causes drowning.

Antaeus: "I'm sorry, DB, but I think you're mistaking me agreeing with some of pD's beliefs, for me paraphrasing pD.

The fact is that vaccines are supposed to have a profound effect upon the immune system - a benign effect, but still profound."

I don't believe vaccines are supposed to (or have) a "profound effect" on the immune system; unless you define "profound" as "getting the immune system to do its usual job for you, without the attendant risks of full-blown infectious disease".

And I'm still not sure how citing any vaccine side effect related to immune stimulation, however minor, supports the concept of subtle but major derangements producing diseases that are not known to have an immune basis. But at least I think we agree on that point.

Hi Antaeus Feldspar -

I've gotten pretty bored with this discussion, but there are a few things here that are so wildly at odds with the data that it is difficult to believe they are still being stated or believed. It's no wonder you think my ideas are unreasonable, you are completely unaware about the highly robust immunological findings in autism!

Trying to name it as a cause of autism is especially unreasonable, since there is no known link between immune system and autism

This is a difficult to believe it is still being made, childlishly simple to prove as false, statement. I mean, I know that Orac does all that he can to try to ignore this inconvenient data set, but seriously, where in the hell did you get this idea? Where?

Do you know there are no less than eight post mortem studies showing signs of an ongoing immune reaction in the brains of people with autism? Now, not all of the below carry the same weight as a news release from a university, but a great number of them are available in full online to see how they stack up.

Transcriptomic analysis of autistic brain reveals convergent molecular pathology [Published in Nature]

The genome-wide analysis performed here significantly extends previous findings implicating synaptic dysfunction, as well as microglial and immune dysregulation in ASD by providing an unbiased systematic assessment of transcriptional alterations and their genetic basis. We show that the transcriptome changes observed in ASD brain converge with GWAS data in supporting the genetic basis of synaptic and neuronal signalling dysfunction in ASD, whereas immune changes have a less pronounced genetic component and thus are most likely either secondary phenomena or caused by environmental factors. Because immune molecules and cells such as microglia have a role in synaptic development and function26, we speculate that the observed immune upregulationmay be related to abnormal ongoing plasticity in the ASD brain.

Expression profiling of autism candidate genes during human brain development implicates central immune signaling pathways [Full free paper available online]

Here we report an in silico study of the gene expression profile from ASD-implicated genes in the unaffected developing human brain. By implementing a biologically relevant approach, we identified a subset of highly expressed ASD-candidate genes from which interactome networks were derived. Strikingly, immune signaling through NF?B, Tnf, and Jnk was central to ASD networks at multiple levels of our analysis, and cell-type specific expression suggested gliaâin addition to neuronsâdeserve consideration.

Aberrant NF-KappaB Expression in Autism Spectrum Condition: A Mechanism for Neuroinflammation [Full free paper available online]

In summary, NF-?B is aberrantly expressed in orbitofrontal cortex in patients with ASC, as part of a putative molecular cascade leading to inflammation, especially of resident immune cells in brain regions associated with the behavioral and clinical symptoms of ASC.

IL-6 is increased in the cerebellum of autistic brain and alters neural cell adhesion, migration and synaptic formation [Full version available online]

Our results provide further evidence that aberrant IL-6 may be associated with autism. In addition, our results suggest that the elevated IL-6 in the autistic brain could alter neural cell adhesion, migration and also cause an imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory circuits. Thus, increased IL-6 expression may be partially responsible for the pathogenesis of autism

Elevated immune response in the brain of autistic patients

Conclusion: ASD patients displayed an increased innate and adaptive immune response through the Th1 pathway, suggesting that localized brain inflammation and autoimmune disorder may be involved in the pathogenesis of ASD.

Immune transcriptome alterations in the temporal cortex of subjects with autism [Full version available free online]

Expression profiling of the superior temporal gyrus of six autistic subjects and matched controls revealed increased transcript levels of many immune system-related genes. We also noticed changes in transcripts related to cell communication, differentiation, cell cycle regulation and chaperone systems. Critical expression changes were confirmed by qPCR (BCL6, CHI3L1, CYR61, IFI16, IFITM3, MAP2K3, PTDSR, RFX4, SPP1, RELN, NOTCH2, RIT1, SFN, GADD45B, HSPA6, HSPB8 and SERPINH1). Overall, these expression patterns appear to be more associated with the late recovery phase of autoimmune brain disorders, than with the innate immune response characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases.

Elevation of tumor necrosis factor-alpha in cerebrospinal fluid of autistic children.

Elevation of cerebrospinal fluid levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha was significantly higher (mean = 104.10 pg/mL) than concurrent serum levels (mean = 2.78 pg/mL) in all of the patients studied. The ratio of the cerebrospinal fluid levels to serum levels averaged 53.7:1. This ratio is significantly higher than the elevations reported for other pathological states for which cerebrospinal fluid and serum tumor necrosis factor-alpha levels have been simultaneously measured. This observation may offer a unique insight into central nervous system inflammatory mechanisms that may contribute to the onset of autism and may serve as a potential clinical marker.

Neuroglial activation and neuroinflammation in the brain of patients with autism

. Immunocytochemical studies showed marked activation of microglia and astroglia, and cytokine profiling indicated that macrophage chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1 and tumor growth factor-beta1, derived from neuroglia, were the most prevalent cytokines in brain tissues. CSF showed a unique proinflammatory profile of cytokines, including a marked increase in MCP-1. Our findings indicate that innate neuroimmune reactions play a pathogenic role in an undefined proportion of autistic patients, suggesting that future therapies might involve modifying neuroglial responses in the brain.

And that's just in the CNS! There are probably five times that many from the periphery. If you have, somehow, gotten the idea that "there is no known link between immune system and autism" from a site on the Internet (this one?), I would recommend that you honestly question whether or not the purveyors of that site have the faintest clue, or maybe, the faintest interest in an honest discussion about autism findings.

Usually this is the time that someone starts pathetically bleating 'correlation does not equal causation', which, while technically true, gives us precious little insight into the problem. We dont' know what causes almost any of the cases of autism, but clearly researchers are doing a lot of work to try to find that out, and coincidentally, they just happen to keep on finding immunological abberations in the autism group. And again and again, in their texts, they mention the biological plausibility of a pathogenic role of a state of ongoing neuroinflammation in autism. So while I can't prove that autism disturbances cause autism, I can, easily, prove that such a discussion falls well within the realm of the established literature, and the opposite claim, that "there is no known link between immune system and autism", is so discordant with the reality, it beggars belief.

You might be interested in knowing that similar findings are being reported for lots of neurological disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disease, and depression. It all goes back to the wisdom of Ms. Hebert's statement, we've learned so much about the interactions between the brain and immune system in the past ten years, our existing study methodologies are inadequate.

numerous epidemiological studies looking for a link between vaccination and autism failed to find any correlation

You seem to be unable to discern the difference between:

1) epidemiological studies between thimerosal and vaccination (there is a difference, you know)
2) epidemiological studies between a single vaccine, the MMR, and the act of vacciation. There is a big difference between a one year old infant and a week old, or two month old infant. you know.

Unbelievable.

The fact of the matter is that the animal studies tell us that immune disturbances early in life have the capacity to persistently dysregulate immune function, the neuroimmune environment, and utlimately, behavior.

Peripheral immune challenge with viral mimic during early postnatal period robustly enhances anxiety-like behavior in young adult rats

Inflammatory factors associated with immune challenge during early brain development are now firmly implicated in the etiologies of schizophrenia, autism and mood disorders later in life. In rodent models, maternal injections of inflammagens have been used to induce behavioral, anatomical and biochemical changes in offspring that are congruent with those found in human diseases. Here, we studied whether inflammatory challenge during the early postnatal period can also elicit behavioral alterations in adults. At postnatal day 14, rats were intraperitoneally injected with a viral mimic, polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (PIC). Two months later, these rats displayed remarkably robust and consistent anxiety-like behaviors as evaluated by the open field/defensive-withdrawal test. These results demonstrate that the window of vulnerability to inflammatory challenge in rodents extends into the postnatal period and offers a means to study the early sequelae of events surrounding immune challenge to the developing brain.

- pD

Poor Antaeus. Our resident "I'm not antivaccination, but look at all these studies that show we should be very very very worried about vaccination" literature scholar has left Gish-Gallop hoofmarks all over your silly and probably deceptive suppositions (shared by Orac himself for some strange reason (!!?!?!?).

How can you compete with someone who can reel off a molecular barrage like "BCL6, CHI3L1, CYR61, IFI16, IFITM3, MAP2K3, PTDSR, RFX4, SPP1, RELN, NOTCH2, RIT1, SFN, GADD45B, HSPA6, HSPB8 and SERPINH1"?

Didn't you realize that immune damage in early life is the answer to the etiology of autism? Well of course it isn't, there are numerous competing theories including far more convincing and evidence-based genetic links, but still...

All those papers pD cited, don't you realize how many implicate vaccines? Wait, no they don't, but still...

To quote a once popular comedienne: "It could happen!"

Betcha you don't have a single self-awarded PhD, Antaeus.

pD: "I've gotten pretty bored with this discussion"

This ranks right up there with "I have far more important things to do" as a debate dodge.

While this discussion has not gotten us any closer to establishing the Rampaging Vaccine-Cytokine-Autism Connection, it has at least revealed something about sham civility (accusing those with whom you disagrees of conspiracies to silence you, aiming crude insults at a distinguished figure in vaccinology and referring to critics as "pathetically bleating" about the giant holes in your antivax theory, have a way of stripping off the facade of faux politesse).

Erm, I know I am a bear of very little brain (& most of that is grey fluffy stuff, & no cheap shots from you, Herr Doktor!) - but, why would only exposure to antigens via vaccination cause neurological inflammation? Wouldn't you expect the same from exposure to the millions of other antigens a child is exposed to from the moment of birth?

& stands up to offer afterthought: as the good Herr Doktor has asked previously (& I don't think he's been answered) - why would one take results from a non-social mammal with a small brain & extrapolate those to a highly social mammal with (relative to its body mass) a larger brain???

I'm worried about my cats. They all have poor social skills and no "theory of mind", and they exhibit repetitive grooming behaviour. Was it the vaccinations?

I'm worried about my cats. They all have poor social skills and no "theory of mind", and they exhibit repetitive grooming behaviour.

Surely they know "other." That's halfway to Hegel.

Hi pD,

I have been following the conversation and couldnât help but mention that I was thinking the exact same thing. Itâs a matter of ignorance that is causing such a massive disconnect between what you are trying to get across and the response you are getting. The growing body of literature interrogating the immune connection to autism is literally impossible to miss. You would have to be purposely trying to avoid this research to miss it. Furthermore, ignorance of this is not the only thing that we seem to be observing. There is also a large gap between, say your understanding of various neuroimmulogical mechanisms and Db, Lilady, antaneus, etcâs understanding. I am getting the feeling they donât have the foggiest idea of how the immune system is interconnected to the brain and nervous system and how it is integral in modifying behavior. What you are so eloquently trying to communicate is going right over their heads, for lack of a better phrase. The funniest/saddest part is that they continue to come back for more and then heroically claim victory by putting you down (the black knight comes to mindâ¦)

I want to mention that while reading the comments on your blog post entitled:

âThe Interconnectedness of the Brain, Behavior, and Immunology and the Difficult to Overstate Flaccidity of The Correlation Is Not Causation Argumentâ

I noticed that one of the foremost experts on the link between immune system dysfunction/normal function and autism/behavior (respectively), Paul Patterson, left you an encouraging post. This is a testament to the level of knowledge that you have accrued via your own faculties, bravo sir, a true critical thinker. WRT your self- awarded degrees in various sciences and the backlash that has received, I have one thing to say. Evaluate what pD is saying based on the evidence and data. If you are having a hard time getting over the hump that pD doesnât have any formal training in the sciences then hopefully the fact that an expert in the field says:

âYour topics are amazingly similar to those covered in my book that was just published by MIT Press:â

âAnd your blog and my new book blog also have some key overlaps:â

Lends enough credibility to pDâs argument that you drop the irrational thinking and start learning.

For those positing that there exists no evidence of an immune autism link, please for all of us to witness, pop on over to Paul Pattersons blog and post these thoughts in the same manner that you have here. With the amount of confidence and the pats on each others backs for what is clearly a bad case of arrogance of ignorance, you should have no problem doing this and backing up your position. If you are not up to this task please let us know why you are not (valid excuses only).

Ok, now onto the other argument that always pops up in this forum and others, regarding vaccines and the number of antigens. I think we have to go back to basics and so here is a brief immunology primer:

The first thing is to understand the difference between an antigen and immunogen. All immunogens are antigens, but not all antigens are immunogens. The definition of an immunogen is an antigen that stimulates the innate immune system sufficiently resulting in a memory immune response (adaptive immune system). We are exposed to millions and millions of antigens upon entry into the world and every waking second thereafter. Of course it varies from person to person and his/her particular environment, but the large majority of these antigens are non-immunogenic (do not stimulate immune response), which is good because otherwise we would be dead within a short while from septic shock if all antigens we encountered stimulate the immune response.

Now, here is the big important difference, vaccines only contain immunogens (antigens that stimulate an immune response). They have to stimulate a pro-inflammatory immune response, otherwise they wouldnât work, in other words, there would be no adaptive immune response.
So, with this basic understanding (this is what you learn in first semester immunology at any university)of the difference between the majority of antigens that we encounter on a daily basis and the antigens in a vaccine, the argument that the number of antigens in a vaccine somehow means something falls flat on its face. The fact that a reputable immunologist/vaccinologist would promulgate this misleading idea is perplexing to me. The actual number of distinct antigens that constitute a vaccine formulation has nothing to do with the resultant immune response, what matters is the particular structure of the antigens and how they interact with eachother and host immune landscape (epigenetics, genetics, many other factors) to elicit an immune response.

Technically, one highly immunogenic antigen could elicit a much more robust immune response, than multiple slightly immunogenic antigens. Just counting numbers cannot tell the story, itâs much more complicated.

pD

"The fact of the matter is that the animal studies tell us that immune disturbances early in life have the capacity to persistently dysregulate immune function, the neuroimmune environment, and utlimately, behavior."

This is the complexity of the matter at hand and we have just a small window into this world provided by researchers like Peter Aaby. Where the sequencing of various vaccine and other health initiatives like micronutrients effect immune systems that are currently poorly understood.

@Justin
Bravo, well said!
@pD
Thanks again!

@pD:
The articles that you cite do indeed hint that there is an abnormal immunological activity associated with autism.
But why do you think that "association is not necessarily causation" is a weak argument here?

None of the studies you cite firmly establishes that immunological phenomena cause autism.
Sure, it IS one possibility that autism could be an auto-immune phenomenon.
But the other possibility is that the signalling pathways which appear to be aberrant maybe normally responsible for both, neuro-development as well as immunological signalling. Thus an aberration in these pathways could be responsible for both, aberrant neuro-development as well as aberrant immunological activity. They could be two parallel phenomena, not necessarily cause and effect.

Secondly, assuming that autism is an auto-immune disease why do you think that "vaccine related antigens are responsible" is the only possibility?
It could be one possibility (let's ignore the epidemiological evidence for the time being).
The other possibilities are -
1) Exposure of sequestered CNS antigens leading to an auto-immune response.
2) Emergence of aberrant epitopes on proteins normally exposed to the CNS, leading to an auto-immune response.

There's also the question of why you believe the exposure to the antigens on the pathogenic strains of the disease cannot cause autism but the same antigens when exposed through vaccination cause autism?

Also, your assertion that early activation of the immune system is responsible for aberrant neuro-develpoment: do you have any studies to prove that neonates recovering from neonatal sepsis or other neonatal infections have a greater risk of developing autism than those who have not experienced such antigenic challenge at such a young age?

There are too many unknowns yet and epidemiological data doesn't seem to support your assertions. Just because there exists a theoretical possibility (that too one that is very weak, going by current knowledge and epidemiological evidence) it isn't enough to change established protocols.

Justin,

We are exposed to millions and millions of antigens upon entry into the world and every waking second thereafter. Of course it varies from person to person and his/her particular environment, but the large majority of these antigens are non-immunogenic (do not stimulate immune response), which is good because otherwise we would be dead within a short while from septic shock if all antigens we encountered stimulate the immune response.

Just how many pathogens or other immunogenic proteins are we exposed to daily? How many pathogens is a baby exposed to during its first years? How many are transferred to them by their parents, and other people coughing and sneezing near them, touching them, and their mother sticking possibly contaminated nipples, teats or pacifiers in their mouths?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I would make an educated guess that it is a lot. Potentially pathogenic viruses, such as rhinoviruses, Epstein Barr, HHV-6, Coxsackie B, cytomegalovirus, parvovirus B19 are very common. Potential pathogenic fungi such as candida and aspergillus are ubiquitous. Then there are very common but potentially pathogenic species of bacteria; streptococcus, staphyloccus, E. coli, pseudomonas to name but a few, and before vaccination the common childhood diseases, varicella, measles, rubella, pertussis were also ubiquitous.

We know that people with immunodeficiency are vulnerable to all these diseases - even brewer's yeast has been known to cause infection - so the immune systems of immunocompetent people must surely have at some time developed an adaptive response to these pathogens, presumably when they were first exposed, in childhood. Mustn't they?

If so, is there a qualitative or quantitative difference between the immune response to these pathogens, and that to vaccinations?

A couple of things Justin (and others for whom the answer always has to be "vaccines cause autism!):

Before you can figure out how vaccines cause autism, you must determine if there is an epidemiological relationship. Well, there have been several of those studies done in several countries including Japan, Finland, Denmark, UK and USA... with others in Italy, etc. There does not seem to be a correlation.

And then, you have to ask yourself: If vaccines are only a few antigens of either dead or attenuated pathogens (or just a protein from some other microbe), how can they cause more of a response than the fully alive and active pathogen? How exactly does a protein from a yeast cause more harm than a real active hepatitis b virus? It does not make any sense.

It is seriously like trying to find out how sitting in an easy chair watching television causes drowning.

But for you guys it will always be the vaccines. As discussed with new Orac essay on the anti-vaccine fantasy.

For the rest of us in the real world:

The science has been done, the link between vaccines and autism does not exist. It is a dead link⦠âItâs not pininâ! âItâs passed on! This link is no more! It has ceased to be! Itâs expired and gone to meet its maker! Itâs a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadnât nailed it to the perch itâd be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now âistory! Itâs off the twig! Itâs kicked the bucket, itâs shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedinâ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-LINK!! â (hat-tip to Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch)

Hi T-reg -

The articles that you cite do indeed hint that there is an abnormal immunological activity associated with autism.

We are in complete agreement.

But why do you think that "association is not necessarily causation" is a weak argument here?

Because it is a last ditch effort to misdirect attention after the ridiculous notion that there is no association between immune dysregulation and autism has been discarded. Because of the animal studies that tell us that immune dysfunction in early life can drive behavior differences into adulthood. Because we are learning that a host of neurological disorders, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, and depression also have immune components, and therapies involving immunomodulation are showing efficacy. Because of we don't know what causes autism in almost any case. My position is OK with uncertainty; the opposite position, the one taken by Anteaus, that 'there are no known links between the immune system and autism' cannot withstand these findings. There seems to be an amazingly persistent ability to assign certainty towards the noisiest of science (thimerosal/MMR epidemiology) and great uncertainty towards fine grained knowledge. I don't get it.

Also, because I was a little bored, I only bothered to present data that showed evidence of an ongoing immune response in the CNS. If we look in the periphery, we've got a lot more data points to evaluate, and a bunch of them have a curious profile; namely that as indices of the immune response increase so too, does autism severity.

For example. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor and autism spectrum disorders. found that as circulating levels of MIF increased, so too did the severity of the disease; i.e.,

There were genetic associations between known functional polymorphisms in the promoter for MIF and autism spectrum disorder-related behaviors. Also, probands with autism spectrum disorder exhibited higher circulating MIF levels than did their unaffected siblings, and plasma MIF concentrations correlated with the severity of multiple autism spectrum disorder symptoms.

Now, sure, this could a coincidence, bogus data, or as you say, associated data points. (If asked, I could provide four or five other papers that associated increased innate immune response biomarkers with autism severity.) But, we also have data that indicates that as the ability to attenuate the immune response decreases, autism severity increases.

Decreased transforming growth factor beta1 in autism: a potential link between immune dysregulation and impairment in clinical behavioral outcomes

Children with ASD had significantly lower plasma TGF beta 1 levels compared with typically developing controls (p=0.0017) and compared with children with developmental disabilities other than ASD (p=0.0037), after adjusting for age and gender. In addition, there were significant correlations between psychological measures and TGF beta 1 levels, such that lower TGF beta 1 levels were associated with lower adaptive behaviors and worse behavioral symptoms. The data suggest that immune responses in autism may be inappropriately regulated due to reductions in TGF beta 1

This is a tricky one. We have data that tells us that modifications to either end of the immune resopnse, initiation or regulation, are associated with behavioral severity, but both associations point in the same direction; over overzealous, or under regulated immune response, is associated with worse behavior. If you want to argue for dual purpose, that's fine, but we need to find a mechanism by which we can coincidentally correlate behaviors and both ends of the immune response. While such a thing is possible, the fact that coincidences happen every day doesn't mean that everything is a coincidence.

None of the studies you cite firmly establishes that immunological phenomena cause autism.

OK. But again, the animal studies I present, do show behavioral changes as a result of immune disturbances. There aren't very many studies that firmly establish anything as a cause of autism.

But the other possibility is that the signalling pathways which appear to be aberrant maybe normally responsible for both, neuro-development as well as immunological signalling. Thus an aberration in these pathways could be responsible for both, aberrant neuro-development as well as aberrant immunological activity. They could be two parallel phenomena, not necessarily cause and effect.

I don't believe that an argument hinging on the pleiotropic nature of of cytokines is very damaging to my position; but it is very problematic for the idea that what happens in the immune system doesn't affect the brain, and ultimately, behaviors. These very interactions, immune crosstalk with the brain are very new concepts in a relative sense. If there is an underlying genetic, epigenetic, or environmetnally mediated difference in these pathways before birth, that doesn't mean we can interferre with these pathways further without affecting change.

Secondly, assuming that autism is an auto-immune disease why do you think that "vaccine related antigens are responsible" is the only possibility?

In the first case, I'm not hung up on 'antigens' in vaccines, that's the purvey of some of the other respondents here. I'm curious, where in my postings, as opposed to someone else's paraphrasing, have led you to believe this is my position? I am genuinely curious how you came to this conclusion.\

Secondarily, I would suggest you re-read my response to you in #493, where I addressed this concern specifically:

Sure. Please check out my response to Dangerous Bacon above, in post #383 , where I showed two studies that seemed to indicate increased risk of autism in infants with hospitilizations for infection during the first year, and reports of increased risk for infants with infections during the first month of life.

I'm open to lots of things.

It could be one possibility (let's ignore the epidemiological evidence for the time being).

What epidemiological evidence? As I've stated again and again, the epidemiological data is on:

1) thimerosal
2) the MMR

Nothing else. Just saying there is more data than this doesn't make it so.

Exposure of sequestered CNS antigens leading to an auto-immune response.

OK. But that doesn't explain the repeated studies in animals that tell us the maleability of the immune response can manifest as behaviors.

Emergence of aberrant epitopes on proteins normally exposed to the CNS, leading to an auto-immune response.

I particularly like a lot of the studies on antibodies to fetal brain proteins from the MIND guys in California, where approximately 10% of mothers with autism show reactivity to very specific fetal brain proteins. Immunoglobulin transfer from human mothers positive for antibodies to pregnant rhesus monkeys resulted in extreme behavioral differences in the treatment group offspring. You might find that data of interest. My idea set is not tied to vaccines, or immunology, or away from genes, or anything other than an honest evaluation of what we know and what we don't know.

There's also the question of why you believe the exposure to the antigens on the pathogenic strains of the disease cannot cause autism but the same antigens when exposed through vaccination cause autism?

Please see my response to DB #383, and my response to you at #493 for why this is an inaccurate understanding of my position.

Regarding sepsis, this study speaks somewhat towards your question, though the inclusion of preterm infants is very problematic, as this in off itself is a risk factor for autism and/or developmental delay.

Adverse neurodevelopmental outcome in preterm infants: risk factor profiles for different gestational ages

which found associations between sepsis and developmental delay. The preterm data point is problematic, as this in off itself is a risk factor for autism/developmental delay, but it is better than no data at all.

Just because there exists a theoretical possibility (that too one that is very weak, going by current knowledge and epidemiological evidence) it isn't enough to change established protocols.

I do not believe that I have advocated changing any established protocols, just an honest discussion. See my response to DB on #506 for more on this.

- pD

Hi Krezbiozen -

If so, is there a qualitative or quantitative difference between the immune response to these pathogens, and that to vaccinations?

Great question! One that actually leads me not to be bored. And, coincidentally, one that I've been asking someone, anyone to provide some evidence of. Dangerous Bacon keeps on insisting we have data to this point, but just can't bring himself to post it, for some reason. My continued assertion is that we do not have any information to speak to this (i.e., innate immune response following vaccination in a pediatric cohort), and until we have measurements of the infant immune response to the vaccine schedule, we cannot begin to answer this question. You may be able to find some studies I've been unable to find, but please remember that as shown by Corbett above, the infant immune response is qualitatively different than that of the adult, so we should avoid using adults as proxies for this.

That being said, we do have some good reasons to think that there may be qualitative differences between normal infection, and vaccination immune response. Unfortunately, as we have no measurements in the infant innate immune response post vacciation, what we have left is largely speculative.

Here is a neat study that came out a few months ago that speaks tangentially towards this point:

LPS elicits a much larger and broader inflammatory response than Escherichia coli infection within the hippocampus of neonatal rats (Neuroscience Letters Volume 497, Issue 2, 22 June 2011, Pages 110-115)

An immune challenge during the neonatal period can significantly affect the development of the nervous and immune systems, such that long-term abnormalities in immune function and behavior persist into adulthood. Given that immune activation and individual cytokines have been linked to the etiology of many developmental neuropsychiatric disorders, a complete characterization of the neonatal immune response within the brain is warranted. In this study, rats were treated peripherally on postnatal day (P) 4 with either a live Escherichia coli (E. coli) infection or lipopolysaccharide (LPS), two common models of neonatal immune activation. Inflammatory gene expression was measured within the hippocampus 2 and 24h later. We determined that E. coli and LPS produce very distinct inflammatory profiles within the brain. Infection with E. coli produced a robust, yet relatively IL-1 pathway focused activation of the neonatal immune system within the brain, while LPS produced a very broad and robust immune response within the brain. This analysis also identified common inflammatory genes up-regulated by both E. coli and LPS treatment.

So, what we can see here is that just giving an animal something to provoke an immune resopnse (i.e., LPS), generates a different profile of neuroinflammation than infecting them with e-coli. The authors speak towards what might be driving this in the discussion section.

The differences in the immuneresponse produced by E. coli and LPS may also be due to differences in the concentration of LPS molecules available for recognition by peripheral immune cells and/or CNS microglia.If true,then the differences in gene expression between LPS and E. coli may involvea critical difference in mechanism downstream of antigen presentation.Moreover, E.coli infection may recruit multiple microglial pattern recognition receptors and pathogen-associated molecular patterns involved in phagocytosis and the inflammatory response beyond just LPS and TLR4 alone(e.g.TLR9,CR3,MHCII,andFc (Fcg) immunoglobulin receptors Fcgr1 adFcgr3a) [41]. These questions remain to be explored in further studies.

Clearly, LPS and vaccination are different things, but at the heart, this experiment bears much resemblance to your question; the immune response from a pathogen versus an intentional provocation of the immune system without the pathogenic effects of an organism. In vaccines for bacterial pathogens, we are not including the entire organism, just pieces of it, the pieces we want our immune system to remember. But the immune system is highly conserved evolutionarially, we evolved responding to bacterial organisms, not just specific pieces parts of them. Regulation of the immune response is just as important as turning it on, but this requires a chemical cascade that is still largely mysterious to us. Here the authors speculate that actual infection 'may recruit multiple pattern recognition receptors and pathogen-associated molecular patterns involved in phagocytosis and the inflammatory response beyond LPS and TLR4 alone'. So, while the exact mechanisms as to why there appears to be a qualitative difference in the immune response following LPS or e-coli infection, it does seem clear there is a difference. I'd also like to point out, that in this case, the animals were infected / challenged peripherally, with subcutaneous injections, and subsequent inflammatory responses were observed in the hippocampus. The fact that external immune activation results in CNS immune activation is a relatively new realization.

Secondarily speaking towards your question, you have to remember that vaccines also come with adjuvants to insure the immune resopnse is sufficiently robust to insure protection. The only approved adjuvant in the US is an aluminum salt, alum, and without this alum, vaccines have a decreased success rate (when success is defined as subsequent antibody generation). If we want to believe that there are no qualitative differences between vaccination and infection, we'd need to think that somehow, our bodies immune system has evolved to generate an immunological response to aluminum in the same way that it evolved to respond to e-coli, or pertussis, or any other pathogen. Does that sound like a plausible scenario to you? Of course, if we had any data, it would help us in this discussion. I can't prove that the observations don't exist, but anyone with the desire, and data, could prove that the studies do exist.

We know that people with immunodeficiency are vulnerable to all these diseases - even brewer's yeast has been known to cause infection - so the immune systems of immunocompetent people must surely have at some time developed an adaptive response to these pathogens, presumably when they were first exposed, in childhood.

We should try not to confuse childhood, with infancy. They are very different timeframes, and the animal studies tell us that time dependent effects are an important metric to incorporate.

- pD

Trends Immunol. 2009 Mar;30(3):109-16. Epub 2009 Feb 21.

Linking allergy to autoimmune disease.
Valenta R, Mittermann I, Werfel T, Garn H, Renz H.
Source

Division of Immunopathology, Department of Pathophysiology, Center for Physiology and Pathophysiology, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. rudolf.valenta@meduniwien.ac.at
Abstract

Type I allergy is a classical Th2-driven hypersensitivity disease based on IgE recognition of environmental allergens. Exposure of allergic individuals to exogenous allergens leads to immediate type inflammation caused by degranulation of mast cells via IgE-allergen immune complexes and the release of inflammatory mediators, proteases and pro-inflammatory cytokines.

However, allergic inflammation can occur and persist in the absence of exposure to exogenous allergens and might paradoxically resemble a Th1-mediated chronic inflammatory reaction.

We summarize evidence supporting the view that autoimmune mechanisms might contribute to these processes.

IgE recognition of autoantigens might augment allergic inflammation in the absence of exogenous allergen exposure. Moreover, autoantigens that activate Th1-immune responses could contribute to chronic inflammation in allergy, thus linking allergy to autoimmunity.

pD,
In the absence of any solid evidence that there is a qualitative or quantitative difference between the immune system's response to pathogens and vaccines in humans, this is really just speculation, isn't it? The possibility that our immune systems react differently to single antigens than to a whole organism is intriguing, but that's about it, as far I'm concerned anyway. Evidence of elevated cytokines in autistic brains suggest an ongoing inflammatory process, perhaps an autoimmune response, lasting for years or decades, and I find it hard to see how vaccination could cause this. I enjoy a bit of speculation beyond the data as much as the next person, but it's important not to lose sight of what it is.

You point out that there is data linking immune dysfunction with autism, but there is no evidence, as far as I am aware, that vaccination causes immune dysfunction. The close links between the immune system and the nervous system (which I first became aware of from the other end - psychoneuroimmunology) suggest that the behavioral and immune phenomena associated with autism are likely to have a common cause. Of course it is possible that immune dysfunction plus vaccination can sometimes lead to autism, but that brings us back to a difference in response to pathogens and vaccines. What does vaccination do today that a series of infections with childhood diseases didn't do a few decades ago, assuming that the underlying immune dysfunction existed then?

If we want to believe that there are no qualitative differences between vaccination and infection, we'd need to think that somehow, our bodies immune system has evolved to generate an immunological response to aluminum in the same way that it evolved to respond to e-coli, or pertussis, or any other pathogen. Does that sound like a plausible scenario to you?

Yes, well, sort of. Soil is very rich in aluminum salts, so any wound that is contaminated with soil will have its own aluminum adjuvant added to it. An exaggerated immune response to soil, which contains many potential pathogens, might well bring a survival advantage. Speculation I know, but it is plausible.

Proinflammatory and regulatory cytokine production associated with innate and adaptive immune responses in children with autism spectrum disorders and developmental regression

We determined innate and adaptive immune responses in children with developmental regression and autism spectrum disorders (ASD, N=71), developmentally normal siblings (N=23), and controls (N=17).

With lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a stimulant for innate immunity, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 59/71 (83.1%)

ASD patients produced >2 SD above the control mean (CM) values of TNF-α, IL-1β, and/or IL-6 produced by control PBMCs. ASD PBMCs produced higher levels of proinflammatory/counter-regulatory cytokines without stimuli than controls. With stimulants of phytohemagglutinin (PHA), tetanus, IL-12p70, and IL-18, PBMCs from 47.9% to 60% of ASD patients produced >2 SD above the CM values of TNF-α depending on stimulants.

Our results indicate excessive innate immune responses in a number of ASD children that may be most evident in TNF-α production.

Selected Quotes

"epidemiological data doesn't seem to support your assertions"

Epidemiological data doesn't support any aetiology of vaccine.

"In the absence of any solid evidence that there is a qualitative or quantitative difference between the immune system's response to pathogens and vaccines in humans, this is really just speculation, isn't it?"

Randomized trials show that measles vaccine has strong nonspecific effects. So does DTaP.

Evidence of elevated cytokines in autistic brains suggest an ongoing inflammatory process, perhaps an autoimmune response, lasting for years or decades, and I find it hard to see how vaccination could cause this.

Epigenetics

You point out that there is data linking immune dysfunction with autism, but there is no evidence, as far as I am aware, that vaccination causes immune dysfunction.

"worrying evidence that whole-cell diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine (DTP) may increase mortality from infections other than diphtheria, tetanus, or pertussis in high-mortality areas"

If vaccines are only a few antigens of either dead or attenuated pathogens (or just a protein from some other microbe), how can they cause more of a response than the fully alive and active pathogen?

"When DTP was first introduced into Guinea-Bissau, despite the absence of herd immunity, mortality was 5.1 deaths per 100 person-years among children who did not receive DTP but 11.3 deaths per 100 person-years among children who did receive DTP"

Epidemiological data doesn't support any aetiology of vaccine.

Not relevant to the point for which you are offering it as a response.

Randomized trials show that measles vaccine has strong nonspecific effects. So does DTaP.

If you read carefully (or at all) you might notice that the key word was DIFFERENCE. That there is a response to vaccination, certainly. They wouldn't work otherwise. That does not establish that there is a DIFFERENT response than that to the actual pathogens, much less that said difference is harmful.

Epigenetics

Throwing out a buzzword does not a mechanism make.

As to the other two, [citation needed].

Beamup

Not relevant to the point for which you are offering it as a response.

Not relevant to you but it shows that the use of epidemiology in explaining complex disease processes is of little value particularly as you are having difficulty in defining the disease.

If you read carefully (or at all) you might notice that the key word was DIFFERENCE.

No DIFFERENCE between a child that dies and one that doesn't ? That's a peculiar definition of "difference" you have.

Throwing out a buzzword does not a mechanism make.

Buzzword it is a major field of medical research that is unlocking many disease processes including autism.

Blackheart,

Randomized trials show that measles vaccine has strong nonspecific effects. So does DTaP.

So does measles - it causes immunosuppression in the short term but in the long term also seems to reduce mortality from other causes in those who survive it, in developing countries that is.

Epigenetics

Like Beamup, I find it hard to deduce what you are suggesting. That vaccines somehow cause a permanent change in gene expression that natural infections do not? Any evidence for that at all?

"worrying evidence that whole-cell diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine (DTP) may increase mortality from infections other than diphtheria, tetanus, or pertussis in high-mortality areas"

Have you seen Peter Aaby's latest paper on this? "An early two dose measles vaccination strategy was associated with a non-significant 22% reduction in all cause mortality between 4.5 and 36 months of age in children who had received all doses of DTP vaccine before enrolment." There may (or may not) be something interesting going on here, but I seriously doubt it has any connection to autism, to epigenetics or to permanent immune dysfunction.

Krebiozen

So does measles - it causes immunosuppression in the short term but in the long term also seems to reduce mortality from other causes in those who survive it, in developing countries that is.

You have a point to make ?

Like Beamup, I find it hard to deduce what you are suggesting.

That's no surprise at all.

"NF-κB (nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells) is a protein complex that controls the transcriptionDNA. NF-κB is found in almost all animal cell types and is involved in cellular responses to stimuli such as stress, cytokines, free radicals, ultraviolet irradiation, oxidized LDL, and bacterial or viral antigens. of

NF-κB plays a key role in regulating the immune response to infection (kappa light chains are critical components of immunoglobulins). Incorrect regulation of NF-κB has been linked to cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, septic shock, viral infection, and improper immune development. NF-κB has also been implicated in processes of synaptic plasticity and memory.

Known inducers of NF-κB activity are highly variable and include reactive oxygen species (ROS), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), interleukin 1-beta (IL-1β), bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS), isoproterenol, cocaine, and ionizing radiation.[18]

NF-κB is a major transcription factor that regulates genes responsible for both the innate and adaptive immune response.

NF-κB has been demonstrated to have diverse functions in the nervous system including roles in plasticity, learning, and memory.

Because NF-κB controls many genes involved in inflammation, it is not surprising that NF-κB is found to be chronically active in many inflammatory diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, sepsis, gastritis, asthma, among others. It is important to note that the key regulators of NF-κB are associated with elevated mortality, especially from cardiovascular diseases.[51][52] Elevated NF-κB has also been associated with schizophrenia"

Have you seen Peter Aaby's latest paper on this?

2010 paper ...Yes.

There may (or may not) be something interesting going on here

There's a lot of interesting 'stuff' going on here ... this is a complete overturn of 'vaccine speficity' theory.

The unlocking of these types of questions could save millions of more lives through safe and efficacious administration of targetted vaccines.

Already 500,000 premature female child deaths have been averted. Licky for us there are advicates like myself and researchers like Aaby that have an unprejudiced look at vaccines.

but I seriously doubt it has any connection to autism, to epigenetics or to permanent immune dysfunction

I suppose it would depend on if you also looked at the current immunological research surrounding autism and couple that with understandings of known gene expresssions (Epigenetics) in autism and how they are work through the signalling pathways such as NFkB.

Aberrant NF-KappaB Expression in Autism Spectrum Condition: A Mechanism for Neuroinflammation 2011

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3098713/

NF-κB is aberrantly expressed in the orbitofrontal cortex as indicated by measurements on post-mortem tissue from ASC patients, and particularly in highly activated microglia. This region is a locus of abnormal function in ASC that underlies the abnormal development of social and cognitive skills (Sabbagh, 2004).

This is the first discovery of its kind that identifies a potential mechanism for neuroinflammation in ASC through increased expression of this pro-inflammatory molecule and the significant involvement of resident immune cells. The connection of this result to changes in intracellular acidity indicates an investigation of pH across the entire brain parenchyma in living patients.

NF-kB: a crucial transcription factor for glial and neuronal cell function

www.cell.com/trends/neurosciences/.../S0166-2236(96)01035-1

NF-kB is one of the best-characterized transcription factors. It is expressed ubiquitously and regulates the expression of many genes, most of which encode proteins that play an important and often determining role in the processes of immunity and inflammation. Apart from its role in these events, evidence has begun to accumulate that NF-kB is involved in brain function, particularly following injury and in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. NF-kB might also be important for viral replication in the CNS. An involvement of NF-kB in neuronal development is suggested from studies that demonstrate its activation in neurones in certain regions of the brain during neurogenesis. Brain-specific activators of NF-kB include glutamate (via both AMPA/KA and NMDA receptors) and neurotrophins, pointing to an involvement in synaptic plasticity. NF-kB can therefore be considered as one of the most important transcription factors characterized in brain to date and it might be as crucial for neuronal and glial cell function as it is for immune cells.

Expression Profiling of Autism Candidate Genes during Human Brain Development Implicates
Central Immune Signaling Pathways

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0024…

By implementing a biologically relevant approach, we identified a subset of highly expressed ASD-candidate genes from which interactome networks were derived. Strikingly, immune signaling through NFκB, Tnf, and Jnk was central to ASD networks at multiple levels of our analysis, and cell-type specific expression suggested gliaâin addition to neuronsâdeserve consideration.

This work provides integrated genomic evidence that ASD-implicated genes may converge on central cytokine signaling pathways.

Shown at Table 3 Gene ontology enrichment of the 32 highly expressed Autism genes revealed four new GO categories representing two significant processesâimmune system regulation and apoptosis

GO: 0002682 Regulation of Immune System Process

GO: 0006915 Apoptosis (cell death)

GO: 0012501 Programmed cell death

GO: 0031347 Regulation of defense response - (Any process that modulates the frequency, rate or extent of a defense response.)

Interestingly, there is also mounting evidence at the cellular and tissue levels that more in depth investigation of an immune component is warranted in ASD [46]. For instance, multiple studies have demonstrated altered cytokine profiles in ASD patients [47], [48], and altered TGF-B concentration in serum and CSF correlates with disease severity [49].

This considerable attention to the immune response in previous ASD research has resulted in two prevailing theories:

1. one suggests exogenous factor(s) stimulate neuro-inflammation during development,

2. while the other postulates autoimmune activation causes ASD pathology

-----------------------------

NF-kB can be activated by exposure of cells to LPS (Lipopolysaccharides) or inflammatory cytokines such as TNF (Tumour Necrosis Factor) or IL-1 (Interleukin-1), growth factors, lymphokines, oxidant-free radicals, inhaled particles, viral infection or expression of certain viral or bacterial gene products, UV irradiation, B or T-Cell activation, and by other physiological and non physiological stimuli.

"The recognition of bacterial and viral products by Toll-like receptors on cells of the innate immune system also results in NF-kB induction, leading to the production of proinflammatory cytokines"

----------------------

Cytokines - Pieces of the Autism Puzzle

http://www.rndsystems.com/cb_detail_objectname_SP02_Cytokines.aspx

A subacute, chronic tetanus infection in the intestinal tract can promote the symptoms of autism as well.9 Tetanus toxins may be transported to the brain through the vagus nerve disrupting the release of neurotransmitters. In addition, maternal/fetal immune interactions may result in autism. Some mothers of autistic children express antibodies that are reactive to both lymphocytes from their autistic children as well as lymphocytes from their husbands.10

In light of the many potential causes, immune system abnormalities and cytokines are repeatedly implicated in ASD (see reference 12 for a review). Detection of elevated IL-2 serum levels in autistic subjects suggests that activation of a T cell subpopulation may be important in autism.

Measles Virus Activates NF-κB and STAT Transcription Factors and Production of IFN-α/β and IL-6 in the Human Lung Epithelial Cell Line A549

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682201911742

NF-κB activation was rapid and it was not inhibited by the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide, suggesting that MV directly activates NF-κB.

In conclusion, the results suggest that MV infection activates transcription factors involved in the initiation of innate immune responses in epithelial cells by two different mechanisms: directly by leading to NF-κB activation and indirectly via IFN-α/β leading to STAT activation.

Associations between SNPs in toll-like receptors and related intracellular signaling molecules and immune responses to measles vaccine: Preliminary results

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2292110/ ( Mayo Clinic / Dr Poland)

Tanabe et al [9] reported that laboratory adapted and vaccine strains of measles virus, including Edmonston, up-regulate the expression of TLR3 in human dendritic cells via enhanced IFN-β secretion. The 500bp region upstream of exon 1 is characterized as a measles virus-responsive segment in the TLR3 gene. This region contains the NF-κB and STAT (family of eukaryotic transcription factors that mediate the response to a large number of cytokines and growth factors) binding sites.

J Virol. 2011 Apr;85(7):3162-71. Epub 2011 Jan 26.
The measles virus V protein binds to p65 (RelA) to suppress NF-kappaB activity.

Measles virus-induced modulation of host-cell gene expression
http://jgv.sgmjournals.org/content/83/5/1157.short

In the present study, a total of 17 genes was found to be upregulated by MV infection.

The Edmonston strain grew better in the PBMC cultures than the wild-type MV, and the Edmonston strain was a stronger inducer of the upregulated host cell genes than the wild-type virus.

The anti-apoptotic B cell lymphoma 3 (Bcl-3) protein and the transcription factor NF-κB p52 subunit were upregulated in infected PBMCs both at the mRNA and at the protein level.

PLoS One. 2008;3(11):e3825. Epub 2008 Nov 27.
Modulation of the NF-kappaB pathway by Bordetella pertussis filamentous hemagglutinin.

These results reveal a complex temporal dynamic, and suggest that despite short term effects to the contrary, longer exposures of host cells to this secreted adhesin may block NF-kappaB activation, and perhaps lead to a compromised immune response to this bacterial pathogen.

Infect Immun. 2001 Apr;69(4):2650-8.
Proinflammatory and proapoptotic activities associated with Bordetella pertussis filamentous hemagglutinin.

Virology. 1999 Jun 20;259(1):74-84.
Involvement of a p53-dependent pathway in rubella virus-induced apoptosis.

The expanding realm of heterologous immunity: friend or foe?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1462-5822.2005.00653.x/full

Polarization of immune responses by vaccination may influence the outcome of future infections. Epidemiologic studies have shown that immunization with live attenuated vaccines that elicit predominantly type 1 immune responses, such as M. bovismeasles vaccine had a non-specific beneficial effect on childhood survival. In contrast, diphtheria-pertussis-toxoid (DPT) vaccine, which primarily elicits type 2 immune responses, had the opposite effect

Heterologous immunity between viruses.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20536568

Immune memory responses to previously encountered pathogens can sometimes alter the immune response to and the course of infection of an unrelated pathogen by a process known as heterologous immunity. This response can lead to enhanced or diminished protective immunity and altered immunopathology.

Here, we discuss the nature of T-cell cross-reactivity and describe matrices of epitopes from different viruses eliciting cross-reactive CD8(+) T-cell responses. We examine the parameters of heterologous immunity mediated by these cross-reactive T cells during viral infections in mice and humans. We show that heterologous immunity can disrupt T-cell memory pools, alter the complexity of the T-cell repertoire, change patterns of T-cell immunodominance, lead to the selection of viral epitope-escape variants, alter the pathogenesis of viral infections, and, by virtue of the private specificity of T-cell repertoires within individuals, contribute to dramatic variations in viral disease.

We propose that heterologous immunity is an important factor in resistance to and variations of human viral infections and that issues of heterologous immunity should be considered in the design of vaccines.

Physiology over epidemiology. I think there are a number of very good reasons to continue the investigation of vaccines / immune system dysfunction and neurodevelopmental and other neurological conditions

Autism May Be Caused By An Immune System Response To A Virus
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/10/981031181106.htm

Brain's Immune System Triggered In Autism
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041117004123.htm

The immune response in autism: a new frontier for autism research
www.jleukbio.org/content/80/1/1.full

Autism: It's Not Just in the Head
discovermagazine.com/2007/apr/autism-it2019s-not-just-in-the-head

Immune Response Offers Possible Insight to Schizophrenia, Autismhttp://psychcentral.com/news/2010/10/20/immune-response-offers-possible…

Transcriptomic analysis of autistic brain reveals convergent molecular pathology

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7351/full/nature10110.html

Our system-level analysis of the ASD brain transcriptome demonstrates the existence of convergent molecular abnormalities in ASD for the first time, providing a molecular neuropathological basis for the disease, whose genetic, epigenetic, or environmental aetiologies can now be directly explored. The genome-wide analysis performed here significantly extends previous findings implicating synaptic dysfunction, as well as microglial and immune dysregulation in ASD by providing an unbiased systematic assessment of transcriptional alterations and their genetic basis.

We show that the transcriptome changes observed in ASD brain converge with GWAS data in supporting the genetic basis of synaptic and neuronal signalling dysfunction in ASD, whereas immune changes have a less pronounced genetic component and thus are most likely either secondary phenomena or caused by environmental factors.

There's still that 88% regression in ASD children to be factored in ?

Seems there is some 'censorship' past comments are not getting through moderation ?

Technical glitches ?

Apologies to Orac ... posts are up.

Krebiozen ...over to you.

"These data suggest that typical regional differences, many of which are observed during fetal development10, are attenuated in frontal and temporal lobe in autism brain, pointing to abnormal developmental patterning as a potential pathophysiological driver in ASD. This is especially interesting in light of a recent anatomical study of five cases with adult autism which demonstrated a reduction in typical ultrastructural differences between three frontal cortical regions in autism11. Together, these independent studies provide both molecular and structural evidence suggesting a relative diminution of cortical regional identity in autism."
From the study you quoted, Blackscum, note the line which states "observed during fetal development". Now I am not qualified to look at the entirety of this article and criticize it, but that part seems to be at odds with what you have said. I also don't see in the abstract any mention of the environment. Perhaps you could point it out.

@ Blackheart:

Best to cut to the chase: anti-vaccination advocates often use research about the "environment" to implicate vaccines whereas much of the research cited is about a *much earlier* environment, the pre-natal one, where neuro-development begins.

For comparison: in schizophrenia, a genetic cause is discussed ( see Schizophrenia.com; causes) as well as environmental ones that include: place and time of birth ( urban and winter are higher risk), infection ( e.g. rubella), pre-natal variables ( what the *mother* experienced prior to giving birth- e.g. bereavement, famine), obstetrical difficulties( time of birth). The relative risks of these variables are illustrated pictorially relative to "family history".

Autism may follow a roughly similar path. There is already data about pre-natal PFC differences/ other physiological measures present at birth ( facial proportions, head size) and very early indicators ( e.g. gaze patterns) in young infants. I expect that there will be more.

Is blacky still here?

Agashem @622 & Denice Walter @623

Processor Blackscum takes the correlation = causation fallacy a step further into the land of the loons by claiming that if B precedes A then A causes B. Presumable faster than light neutrinos are involved in this along with a heaping helping of "quantum".

@ Militant Agnostic:

Right. Those neutrinos are a b-tch! Always were.
Be that as it may. Perhaps he has been meandering around the land of "oceanic feelings"** where one is "at one" with all- I am of course speaking of that font of dreams, visions, and myths: the unconscious mind**. In primary process** thought opposites co-exist,objects transform into each other, words can mean their converse, day is night and black is white, timelessness reigns; time's arrow may point backwards and forwards. At once. Scary place, I don't want to go there.

** read my Freud and Jung.

Denice, that is pretty much a description of Htrae (yes, I admit to reading Superman comics as a kid).

Processor Blackscum takes the correlation = causation fallacy a step further into the land of the loons by claiming that if B precedes A then A causes B. Presumable faster than light neutrinos are involved in this along with a heaping helping of "quantum".

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.

Deinice - would that land of "oceanic feelings" be multilayered?

@ Chris:

We catch a glimpse of what Freud was talking about if we look at *lapses* in rational thought: errors, jokes, symptoms of SMI, thought while intoxicated, dreams, fantasy, art, and literature. Oh, and there are great examples- I am so not a Freudian or Jungian- and don't believe in the unconscious as portrayed- but both F & J had important things to say if you want to understand people. Blackie hinted at his inclination by talking about Mr Joyce.( OMFG, he actually compared me to JJ**! My Irish friends/ cousins will be so jealous).

** Yeah right. But I do take it as a compliment, others may not.

There is some serious denial going on here.
Happy to read Blackheart's links- neuroscience had progressed in research and
more questions have been raised in the past decade about vaccines effects
on the brain. Research along these lines should be continued.

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.

Fantastic!! One of my favourite Tenth Doctor quotes from one of the best episodes. :)

There is some serious denial going on here.

Exactly. The Wakefield fanboys like Blackie cannot seem to get past the fact that he committed fraud. Plus, even without the fraud there was no real evidence in his "research" that any form of the MMR vaccine used in the UK between 1988 and 1997 have any connection to autism or gastrointestinal disorders.

@Chris,
I don't think that's relevant- I don't see him harping on Poul Thorsen's research.

Oh, so you missed all the links he did trying to justify the now retracted Lancet paper? Oh, and what Thorsen research? I see no paper with him as either a first or second author.

You might want to read the article above, it is about research done by Courchesne, and it actually has to do with neuroscience.

#625:

Processor Blackscum takes the correlation = causation fallacy a step further into the land of the loons by claiming that if B precedes A then A causes B. Presumable faster than light neutrinos are involved in this along with a heaping helping of "quantum".

We've already learned from dear Professor Blackheart that certain ASD phenotypes feature reversal of cause/effect temporal sequence: 

15. "If MMR is causally related to either GI disturbances or AUT it should precede their onset."

This is not a logical statement, particularly in regards to what we now know about ASD phenotypes.

@ Militant Agnostic:

Multi-layered, nested, and twirled about like a Mobius ring.

But seriously, this is what you get when you matriculate at the U of Goggle.( Normal higher ed courses provide a systematic over-view and ways of accessing the important questions and history of a subject, as well as surveying meaningful research that will generate additional questions). Instead, they chip away at tiny details while the panoramic view escapes them, remaining out of sight -and out of mind. Read any of the autism hypotheses displayed @ AoA and you'll catch a glimpse of this fractured approach: non-experts guiding novices who teach the un-tutored. Fits right in with Woo-cademic studies.

The black-hearted "Professor" at 618:

Already 500,000 premature female child deaths have been averted. Licky [sic] for us there are advicates [sic] like myself and researchers like Aaby that have an unprejudiced look at vaccines.

I don't know how many times it's been explained to you, in words of one syllable, that this "500,000" figure is an estimate of increased mortality if a less effective vaccine had been used in place of a more effective one? It is NOT a comparison of vaccine vs. no vaccine!

Since you continue FVCK!NG LYING about this over and over and over and over again, why should anyone pay any attention to the mishmash of irrelevant, undigested abstracts of articles you've never read and wouldn't understand if you did? Help me out hereâwhat do you hope to accomplish by these Gish Gallops of irrelevancy? Wakefield is a proven fraud. Douche-niak is an idiot and/or lunatic. Why are you wasting your time defending these punks with these wall-o-text braindumps? Take some Kaopectate and leave us alone.

"Krebiozen ...over to you."
Sorry, been busy. I still don't see anything in the material you have regurgitated that suggests vaccination has a different and more damaging effect on neurodevelopment as compared to exposure to natural pathogens. Considering the quantities of antigens involved and the effects of vaccine preventable diseases as compared to vaccines, you would expect infection to have a far greater effect. All the evidence you have come up with is consistent with the theory that inflammation, elevated cytokines, immune dysfunction and developmental delay in autism, if they are connected, have a common, probably prenatal and largely genetic, cause.

Oh, and pretty much anything stimulates NF-κB so that doesn't support your ideas, unless any stress at all (including sunlight) causes autism which would, of course, include the infections that vaccines prevent.

Do you have any bright ideas for effective vaccines that would not, in your view, cause autism?

Krebiozen

Sorry, been busy.

That's OK we all lead busy lives.

I still don't see anything in the material you have regurgitated that suggests vaccination has a different and more damaging effect on neurodevelopment as compared to exposure to natural pathogens.

Vaccines are specifically designed in the lab to have an immunostimulatory effect greater than natural pathogens.

Considering the quantities of antigens involved and the effects of vaccine preventable diseases as compared to vaccines, you would expect infection to have a far greater effect.

I don't see the reasoning behind this. Once again it is the design of the vaccine to produce an immunostimulatory response that needs to be considered.

All the evidence you have come up with is consistent with the theory that inflammation, elevated cytokines, immune dysfunction and developmental delay in autism, if they are connected, have a common, probably prenatal and largely genetic, cause.

Actually they are consistent with both genetics and environment and are not limited to a prenatal condition. Though one suspects that there are genetic susceptabilities that are indeed in play.

This would then enable us to understand the differing pathology pathways and phenotypes that seem to be emerging in ASD aetiology.

Oh, and pretty much anything stimulates NF-κB so that doesn't support your ideas

It is aberrant expression that is the key - for example.

"NF-κB is aberrantly expressed in the orbitofrontal cortex..." which in turn "This region is a locus of abnormal function in ASC that underlies the abnormal development of social and cognitive skills"

The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

It is your misconception that needs to be cleared up.

"It is NOT a comparison of vaccine vs. no vaccine!"

Correct

I am comparing the implementation of one vaccine against another. Simple as that.

Standard Titre was safe High Titre Measles Vaccines unsafe invoked an unknown mechanism in conjunction with DTaP.

Are vaccines therefore safe ... in some cases ... No

If I wanted to do a vaccine vs. no vaccine I'd show this ...

When DTP was first introduced into Guinea-Bissau, despite the absence of herd immunity, mortality was 5.1 deaths per 100 person-years among children who did not receive DTP but 11.3 deaths per 100 person-years among children who did receive DTP (risk ratio, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.17â3.52

-----------------------------------

But being a safe / efficacious vaccine advocate

I'm not only interested in harm minimisation but also wider positive implications of this type of research.

Calmette-Guérin vaccine (BCG) reduces mortality from infections other than tuberculosis and that measles vaccine reduces mortality from infections other than measles

Particularly the effects of BCG in reducing mortality other than it's targetted disease TB. (45% truly spectacular)

I'm also interested that measles vaccine (MV)of the right type and in the right schedule reduces mortality from other infections. (By as much as 45%)

Apparently saving several million lives per annum by unlocking the implications of this research is not yet on the skeptik radar

I am as always your humble servant. (Though smarter obviously)

Agashem

"observed during fetal development".

Correct

You did realise there are differing pathways involved in ASD aetiology and pathology ? No

You did know that research shows a 55% / 45 % split in favour of environmental factors ? No

You did know that there are differing phenotypes of ASD ? No

I filled in the blanks ...

Johnny

B precedes A then A causes B.

Although a fuller explanation is given here ... post #71
...the simple version seems more appropriate here for obvious reasons...

If you can't define B then you can't have a logical statement.

It ain't rocket science.

15. "If MMR is causally related to either GI disturbances or AUT it should precede their onset."

This is not a logical statement, particularly in regards to what we now know about ASD phenotypes.

B precedes A then A causes B.

[babble]
If you can't define B then you can't have a logical statement.

Hmm, I would have thought the MMR was pretty well defined, really, but then I don't pretend to be a professor.  

LW

There's always time for a new career path, if it isn't the hallowed halls of academia, may I suggest

First Internet Clown School. Academy of Performing Arts in Clowning

Citation

www.clownschool.net/

You are a natural.

When DTP was first introduced into Guinea-Bissau, despite the absence of herd immunity, mortality was 5.1 deaths per 100 person-years among children who did not receive DTP but 11.3 deaths per 100 person-years among children who did receive DTP (risk ratio, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.17â3.52

Interesting. So there must be some 95 reasons why getting unvaccinated is not after all like a "city being burned to the ground". This, despite the absence of the so-called herd immunity in a third world country. I can only imagine Gray's disappointment.

Th1Th2, Chris' offer is #399 also extends to you. Now tell me, where are all the polio victims hiding?

There is disagreement about whether the DTP really does lead to an increase in mortality, or if this is an artefact of the way data is collected. There is also disagreement about the significance of non-specific effects of vaccines.

Much of the evidence for these so-called ânon-specific effectsâ has been accrued in Guinea Bissau, a country whose child health characteristics are far from typical.

The same article concludes:

The hypothesis that non-specific effects may be greater in females and are dependent upon prior infections or vaccines deserves further exploration, by independent groups of scientists, in different settings. Importantly, discussion of these effects should not blind us to the enormous gains in health which have been achieved through our immunisation programmes. Basic immunisation programmes must keep evolving with the times, in terms of the vaccines and services they provide and their precise schedules.

I don't think many people would disagree with that. I certainly would not.

Th1Th2, Chris' offer is #399 also extends to you.

So if there is an evidence that demonstrates a particular vaccine did not save lives, then all Chris has to do is to simply move the goalpost. I see.

Now tell me, where are all the polio victims hiding?

AFP

For those who are wondering, Th1Th2 believes that polio is still around, going around as "AFP", even though the term existed long before the vaccine was developed and is still defined as a symptom of polio. As far as I can tell, Th1Th2 doesn't really understand how "honesty" works.

Please do not feed delusional, disease-promoting, uneducated, health care professional wannabe troll...it needs "terminal disinfection."

Heartless: I note with amusement your various incarnations as pretend barrister, sensei, professor, doctor and real Wakefield apologist. Why doesn't Wakefield return to the U.K. and appeal the decision of the GMC and re-institute his lawsuit against Brian Deer? You really need a new schtick.

Gray Falcon,

For those who are wondering, Th1Th2 believes that polio is still around, going around as "AFP", even though the term existed long before the vaccine was developed and is still defined as a symptom of polio. As far as I can tell, Th1Th2 doesn't really understand how "honesty" works.

There are 91,752 cases of AFP this year alone. More than quadruple the number of paralytic cases in 1952. Do you have a better explanation for there punk?

Please move to Guinea Bissau, and just live on the economy with only enough money to match the average income of the general population. Then tell us if it is comparable to the health standards of the USA and UK.

Th1Th2, do you have a source for your numbers? You have this tendency to omit any information that disagrees with you/

Th1Th2, do you have a source for your numbers? You have this tendency to omit any information that disagrees with you/

h_ttp://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/en/diseases/poliomyelitis/afpextract.cfm

Updated on: 12-Dec-2011

"There are 91,752 cases of AFP this year alone. More than quadruple the number of paralytic cases in 1952. Do you have a better explanation for there (sic) punk?"

According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative... there are 560 confirmed cases of polio YTD (December 6, 2011).

Please do not feed delusional, disease-promoting, uneducated, health care professional wannabe punk troll...it needs "terminal disinfection."

Chris,

Please move to Guinea Bissau, and just live on the economy with only enough money to match the average income of the general population. Then tell us if it is comparable to the health standards of the USA and UK.

You've committed a serious logical fallacy by moving the goalpost. Thank you, come again.

According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative... there are 560 confirmed cases of polio YTD (December 6, 2011).

So according to ill-lady, 91,752 paralysis YTD are better than 560. Nice.

I read that document: Not every case of AFP turned out to be polio. Of course, for Th1Th2, if something applies to one item a set, it must apply to all of them. She still has yet to understand the flaws in her logic.

Thingy, you don't get to define what constitutes a case of polio. Why don't you write up your definition/differential diagnostic criteria and send it to the CDC and the WHO...I'm certain the scientists and researchers would be very interested in your "germ theory".

#646: "First Internet Clown School. Academy of Performing Arts in Clowning"

Oh, is *that* where you learned it? You are a credit to your alma mater.

I read that document: Not every case of AFP turned out to be polio.

Then show me any incidence rates of AFP before 1955. Any AFP surveillance before 1996? Well? Good luck with that.

Thingy, you don't get to define what constitutes a case of polio.

That's why I have to stick with the original definition of paralytic poliomyelitis as defined by WHO prior to 1955 (no *AFP screening*, no lab studies, diagnosis is made by clinical assessment)

* Geez, they didn't even have a case definition of AFP to define.

"Then show me any incidence rates of AFP before 1955. Any AFP surveillance before 1996? Well? Good luck with that."

Then show me any incidence rates of ***Thingism before 1955. Any ***Thingism surveillance before 1996. Well? Good luck with that.

***Thingism Case Definition: Delusionary, Uneducated, promotes disease, health-care-professional wannabism, trollish behaviors.

-FTFY

Of course, for Th1Th2, if something applies to one item a set, it must apply to all of them. She still has yet to understand the flaws in her logic.

Well the thing is AFP surveillance is virtually nonexistent in the pre-OPV unless you have the evidence on the contrary. You only learned about AFP since 1996 at least that's according to WHO.

Note that Th1Th2 believes that if she pretends the column marked "confirmed polio cases" doesn't exist, we won't notice it there.

Note that Th1Th2 believes that if she pretends the column marked "confirmed polio cases" doesn't exist, we won't notice it there.

1. FYI, the original WHO definition of paralytic poliomyelitis before 1955 did not include confirmation by lab nor stool exam is a must.

2. Poliomyelitis has been redefined several times. Had the current method of diagnosing polio (by exclusion) been applied before the advent of OPV, there would be AFP cases right? Where's the statistics?

3. So just how do you confirm a polio case? Tell me about it.

Also, Th1Th2 thinks she can just make an accusation and we have to prove her wrong.

"So just how do you confirm a polio case? Tell me about it. "

So just how do you confirm a ***Thingism case? Tell me about it.

***Thingism Case Definition: Delusionary, Uneducated, promotes disease, health-care-professional wannabism, trollish behaviors.

-FTFY

Also, Th1Th2 thinks she can just make an accusation and we have to prove her wrong.

Now you're being silly. Isn't it you're the one who claimed that AFP "existed long before the vaccine was developed and is still defined as a symptom of polio."? Where's your evidence? Show me the stats.

So in Thingyland symptom = disease? We already knew that any pollution of one's Precious Bodily Fluids⢠= infection.

So, thingy: One of the symptoms of smallpox is fever. People still get fevers. I guess that means smallpox is still around, it's just been "relabeled", right?

So in Thingyland symptom = disease? We already knew that any pollution of one's Precious Bodily Fluids⢠= infection.

So, thingy: One of the symptoms of smallpox is fever. People still get fevers. I guess that means smallpox is still around, it's just been "relabeled", right?

Sorry, foksâI waited a long time and then refreshed the page. My comment wasn't there and the text was still in the box. That's a first.

So, thingy: One of the symptoms of smallpox is fever. People still get fevers. I guess that means smallpox is still around, it's just been "relabeled", right?

Why it can't be smallpox, you tell me.

Perhaps because the other symptoms of smallpox are missing?

"Why it can't be smallpox, you tell me."

Why it can't be ***Thingism, you tell me

The absence of delusions, having a real education, promoting science-based medicine, actual employment as a real health care provider and rational thought processes is part of the differential diagnosis of Thingism.

-FTFY

Had the current method of diagnosing polio (by exclusion) been applied before the advent of OPV, there would be AFP cases right? Where's the statistics?

Shut up the concept body in the doctors. By live vaccine AFP in Gangta's paradise do you even before an animal, that and with deliberate disinformation; consider yourself from the used when is essential to straw man unless of infection promoting.

@ Th1Th2bot: Thank you again for your superb Thinglish to English translation...remember to always "terminally disinfect" your computer screen.

Thing1Thing2 (#668):

"2. Poliomyelitis has been redefined several times. Had the current method of diagnosing polio (by exclusion) been applied before the advent of OPV, there would be AFP cases right? Where's the statistics?"

I realise that there is no hope of convincing "Th1Th2" of anything, but this statement seemed to suggest a root of the confusion within his/her/its brain.

AFP (acute flaccid paralysis) was and is a "surveillance marker" for polio outbreaks in much the same way that "influenza-like illness" is used as a surveillance marker for influenza.

In a population without widespread immunity to polio, a sudden rise in cases of AFP are most likely to signal a polio outbreak, whereas the same AFP rise in a largely immune population (like the US) is more likely due to one of the other viruses that can cause AFP, such as other picornaviruses (e.g. enteroviruses, echoviruses) and adenoviruses.

I hope that helps some people - I know it won't help "Th1Th2".

Prometheus

There are 91,752 cases of AFP this year alone. More than quadruple the number of paralytic cases in 1952. Do you have a better explanation for there punk?

Let's see. In 2011, there will have been about 92,000 cases of AFP world-wide, not including the United States. In 1952, there were 21,000 cases of paralytic polio, not including the rest of the world. These two numbers can not be meaningfully compared.

@681. Thank you, now I have a perfect reason to ignore Th1Th2. Did she really think that was an honest comparison?

Regarding the differential diagnostic criteria for AFP...

Acute Flaccid Paralysis

Differential Diagnosis: A neuroanatomical approach

1. Muscle (acute myopathies):

- Inflammatory myopathy (polymyositis, dermatomyositis)

- Rhabdomyolysis (extreme exertion, drugs, viral myositis, crush injury etc.)

- Acute alcoholic necrotizing myopathy

- Periodic paralyses (hypokalemic, hyperkalemic)

- Metabolic derangements (hypophosphatemia, hypokalemia, hypermagnesemia)

- Thyroid or steroid myopathy

2. Neuromuscular Junction:

- Myasthenia Gravis

- Botulism

- Tick paralysis

- Other biotoxins (tetradotoxin, ciguatoxin)

- Organophosphate toxicity (can also cause neuropathy)

- Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS)

3. Nerve (acute neuropathies):

- Diphtheria

- Porphyria

- Drugs & Toxins (arsenic, thallium, lead, gold, chemotherapy - cisplatin / vincristine)

- Vasculitis (incl. lupus, polyarteritis)

- Paraneoplastic and Paraproteinemias

- Multifocal motor neuropathy

4. Nerve Roots (acute polyradiculopathies):

- Guillain-Barre Syndrome

- Lyme disease

- Sarcoidosis

- HIV

- other viruses (CMV, VZV, West Nile)

- Cauda equina syndrome (lumbar disc, tumour, etc.)

- Plexus lesions (brachial plexitis, lumbosacral plexopathy)

5. Anterior Horn Cell (motor neuron diseases):

- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - with UMN findings

- Poliomyelitis

- Kennedy's disease (spinobulbar atrophy / androgen receptor gene)

- other spinomuscular atrophies (inherited)

- Anterior spinal artery syndrome (with grey matter infarction)

6. Spinal Cord (corticospinal tract diseases):

- Inflammatory (Transverse myelitis)

- Subacute combined degeneration (B12 deficiency)

- Spinal cord infarction

- other myelopathies (spondylosis, epidural abscess or hematoma)

7. Brain

- Pontine lesions (eg. central pontine myelinolysis, basis pontis infarct or bleed)

- Multifocal lesions (multiple metastases, dissemination encephalomyelitis [ADEM], multiple infarcts or hemorrhages - eg. DIC, TTP, bacterial endocarditis)

(Source: Neurological Medical Pocketbook-2003)

I have a comment stuck in moderation about AFP-differential diagnosis.

See also:

CDC VPD Surveillance Manual 3rd Edition 2002 Chapter 10, Poliomyelitis 10-1

Let's see. In 2011, there will have been about 92,000 cases of AFP world-wide, not including the United States. In 1952, there were 21,000 cases of paralytic polio, not including the rest of the world. These two numbers can not be meaningfully compared.

Oh yeah let's take a look shall we? Oh wait I don't see any incidence rates of AFP since they started recording paralytic poliomyelitis in 1937, do you? The hell with that? So to which are you comparing paralytic poliomyelitis with in 1952 you tell me.

BTW, that 2011 figure is a global total, understood?

The references I cited to differential diagnoses of AFP are in English, not Thinglish.

Delusional, disease-promoting, uneducated, health care professional wannabe troll needs "terminal disinfection."

LOL - troll still can't read!

Thank you, now I have a perfect reason to ignore Th1Th2.

I've long thought that its obvious discomfiture at being ignored was a pretty good reason in and of itself. This rehashing of its AFP script seems merely to be a reboot meant to dilute the memory of its truly mortifying, protracted Dryvax blunder from last week.

AFP (acute flaccid paralysis) was and is a "surveillance marker" for polio outbreaks in much the same way that "influenza-like illness" is used as a surveillance marker for influenza.

AFP surveillance began only in 1996 whereas recorded incidence rates of paralytic poliomyelitis could be traced as far back in 1937. You sure know what you're talking about.

In a population without widespread immunity to polio, a sudden rise in cases of AFP are most likely to signal a polio outbreak, whereas the same AFP rise in a largely immune population (like the US) is more likely due to one of the other viruses that can cause AFP, such as other picornaviruses (e.g. enteroviruses, echoviruses) and adenoviruses.

As I said where did you find AFP cases in the pre-vaccine era? Where's your evidence that there had been such a surveillance before there was OPV?

LOL - troll still can't read!...or write, or think coherently, or get an education, or leave the dole, or get a life-ROTF-LMAO.

This rehashing of its AFP script seems merely to be a reboot meant to dilute the memory of its truly mortifying, protracted Dryvax blunder from last week.

So you're resurrecting Offit's infamous and now deader than dead Children-are-Exposed-to-Fewer-Antigens-in-Vaccines-Today-Than-in-the-Past- gambit huh? When will you ever learn?

"As I said where did you find AFP cases in the pre-vaccine era? Where's your evidence that there had been such a surveillance before there was OPV?"

As I said where did you find delusional cases in the pre-Thingy era? Where's your evidence that there had been such a surveillance before there was Delusional Thingitis?

-FTFY

So you're resurrecting Offit's infamous and now deader than dead Children-are-Exposed-to-Fewer-Antigens-in-Vaccines-Today-Than-in-the-Past- gambit huh? When will you ever learn?

I've explained this concept to you before: I was talking about you, not to you. Mind your place.

I have a comment stuck in moderation about AFP-differential diagnosis.

Great. Now find a single case of AFP before 1955.

"Great. Now find a single case of AFP before 1955."

Great. Now find a single case of Delusional Thingitis before 1955.

FTFY

Great. Now find a single case of AFP before 1955.

There can never be a "case" of AFP, you imbecile, because it's a symptom, not a disease. It was one of the symptoms of polio before the vaccine era and after the vaccine era. It's a symptom of several other diseases as well, and now that polio is almost gone, this particular symptom is very unlikely to be caused by polio.

I really didn't think you'd bite on the smallpox/fever thing. Somebody should be chasing you with a butterfly netâI'm serious.

There can never be a "case" of AFP, you imbecile,

There have been 91,752 cases of AFP so far this year, you moron! Do you think the reason they started AFP surveillance in 1996 is due to other diseases? Just think about it bozo.

@ The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: On the planet Htrae where the inhabitants are delusional, uneducated, have imaginary lives, are earth-germ phobic and where the inhabitants speak Thinglish...symptoms such as fever and AFP...are always endemic infectious diseases.

Time to "terminally disinfect" the Thing.

A pretty good presentation on the polio eradication campaign (along with the definition of AFP survelliance).

http://www.slideshare.net/avinash15/afp-surveillance

It is too bad they missed the benchmarks due to the spreading of false information.

Holy crap, Thingy is well and truly off the sidewalk now.

Should we get it a shammy to wipe the spittle of its screen?

Dumber than Dumb, sh** for brains Troll is running on empty now. Shammy cloths do not work on computer screens...it needs "terminal disinfection."

Anti-vax idiot writes book
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2011/12/hey-kids-want-…

Sane people, take your barf bucket.

Lilady, I love your 'redesigning' of the thing-dong's writing. It is perfection!

@ Thingy: My comment # 683 is out of moderation now...for your perusal. Why not do a Copy & Paste job at Google Translate.com for the English to Thinglish translation...or consult your "Immunology for Idiots" textbook?

@ evilDoug: The author of that children's book is an anti-vax mommy from Australia who "claims" her child died from the cumulative effects of vaccines. On her blog she refers people to the NVIC and whale.to websites

@ Agashem: There are times when the Th1Th2bot needs a rest...it is an honor to sub for the bot.

Krebiozen

There is disagreement about whether the DTP really does lead to an increase in mortality, or if this is an artefact of the way data is collected.

I have no problem that other researchers find the many and varied data sets coming from multiple study areas challenging to the theory of specificity. Thats what good science debate is about.

There is also disagreement about the significance of non-specific effects of vaccines.

In what way ? The very positive effects that could change the very nature of disease mortality and burden in Africa and other developing areas. Or the fact that there are very real negative outcomes on mortality.

Are you really going to pick and choose which data you believe ?

Much of the evidence for these so-called ânon-specific effectsâ has been accrued in Guinea Bissau...

I think this is adequately covered in the original authors reply to the Fine and Elliman (Perspective)

"I presented evidence from 11 randomised trials suggesting that BCG and measles vaccines reduce mortality from diseases other than tuberculosis and measlesâand only two of the 11 trials were performed in Guinea-Bissau."

"The evidence for non-specific effects is therefore very strong indeed, and most of it comes from outside Guinea-Bissau " Shann BMJ

a country whose child health characteristics are far from typical

What child health characteristics do they mean ? How does that relate to the variety of differing vaccines trialled and researched ?

The hypothesis that non-specific effects may be greater in females and are dependent upon prior infections or vaccines deserves further exploration, by independent groups of scientists, in different settings. Importantly, discussion of these effects should not blind us to the enormous gains in health which have been achieved through our immunisation programmes. Basic immunisation programmes must keep evolving with the times, in terms of the vaccines and services they provide and their precise schedules.

I don't think many people would disagree with that. I certainly would not.

There you go ... I knew you'd come around to a common sense legitimate investigation of all aspects of vaccine safety.

Congratulations Krebiozen perhaps you could convince a few more of the minions to also acknowledge the very real positive and unfortunately negative aspects of vaccine administration and safety.

Is it me or has thingy just slipped a notch lower on its mental competence levels? I didn't even think it was possible!

With all due respect, but why are we entertaining it again?

Blackheart,

Are you really going to pick and choose which data you believe ?

Like you do, you mean? No, we should treat data with caution, especially it is contradictory. When trials give opposite results depending on how data is gathered, when there is highly variable mortality in the trials conducted, and when relatively small numbers of subjects are involved you have to be very careful not to jump to conclusions that can have serious effects on people's lives. We need properly controlled studies done by an independent group to find out what is really going on, not just these crossover studies that are vulnerable to all sorts of confounding factors.

Remember, these results are from developing countries with high background mortality. Aaby's group found no effects in areas with low mortality, so even if independently replicated these results do not apply to developed countries like the USA and the UK, and certainly have no direct relevance to discussions about vaccines causing autism.

You are fond of referring to Aaby's claim that withdrawing the high titer measles vaccine saved 500,000 girls' lives. Are you aware that was extrapolated from fewer than 30 actual excess deaths in areas with background mortality that varied from 0% to 23%? The highest mortality was seen in the medium titer group, by the way.

perhaps you could convince a few more of the minions to also acknowledge the very real positive and unfortunately negative aspects of vaccine administration and safety

I don't think anyone here has ever suggested otherwise. The positive aspects of vaccination are regularly mentioned here. I don't think anyone would dispute the possible importance of Aaby's results where vaccine administration in areas of high mortality is concerned.

What some of us keep patiently repeating is that the negative effects of modern vaccines in developed countries are far, far less common than the adverse effects of the diseases they help to prevent. In many cases adverse events due to vaccinations are so rare as to undetectable even in trials with very large numbers of subjects, and we are not even sure they occur at all. As I have pointed out many times, even the Urabe mumps vaccine which was withdrawn because it sometimes caused aseptic meningitis had far less serious effects than mumps itself.

Like other "safer vaccine advocates" you make a lot of noise about the possible negative effects of vaccines, though you have to look to Africa to find anything that remotely supports your case, and you don't have any solutions.

There are two real options:

The first is to carry on with the current schedule, and continue research into vaccination, the immune system, autism and related areas, which is what is actually happening. There are more than 44,000 papers on PubMed with "vaccine" in the title, more than 8000 with "autism" in the title, and nearly 80,000 with "immune" in the title, published this year alone. How much more research do we need?

For many diseases if vaccine coverage is great enough for long enough the diseases can be eliminated globally, and vaccination could eventually be stopped altogether. Wouldn't anyone truly concerned about vaccine safety support a measure that could lead to an end to vaccination for most diseases?

The other option is to stop vaccinating until we have vaccines that are proven to be 100% safe, which is impossible without testing them on very large numbers of people. Stopping vaccination would result in a rapid return of vaccine preventable diseases and a huge increase in child morbidity and mortality. No one wants to see that.

Which of these are advocating?

'!$%s!!! typos - should read:
"especially if it is contradictory" and
"Which of these are you advocating?"

@ Blackheart:

Although I can't speak for the other minions, I absolutely acknowledge that I believe that there are risks associated with vaccines. *However* (and it's a big "however")I don't think that my information about risk is in any way remotely related to what many who - at heart really oppose vaccines and would like to see their usage greatly diminished- are talking about.

They argue( and there are articles with titles that revolve upon this idea)that vaccines are not 100% safe and effective. They speak about extremely rare events, conditions reported to occur around the time of vaccination ( but which could not be feasibly connected in any manner except via imagination- e.g. a girl in the UK gets a jab and dies soon afterward of an undiagnosed cancer or another who dies in a car accident), *or* speak about autism as being a consequence of vaccination ( not supported by data). These ideas are presented in an emotional fashion, often with numerical estimates left out. All of this engenders distrust of vaccines, medical personnel, and governments.

So I acknowledge "risk" and imperfection in vaccines which have many *benefits* that greatly outweigh the possible risks. Opponents of vaccines over-stress the risks and underplay the benefits, thus distorting and slanting the whole story. Now why would anyone do this?

It seems that those who eternally cry, "Conflict of interest!" have COIs of their own: which can be monetary ( selling alt med products, books) or emotional ( seeking out fame or having reasons to think away a child's autism). They won't tell you this: I just did. And -btw-, my own COIs are minuscule in comparison to those of many anti-vaxxers ( my work doesn't involve meds of any sort and I only own Pharma shares through a mutual I inherited).

I see many of those who oppose vaccines *professionally*( as their *metier* or claim to fame) as manipulators of information and people. I feel that those of us who are fortunate enough to have gotten a good education *owe* others our service in this area.

Lawrence,

A pretty good presentation on the polio eradication campaign (along with the definition of AFP survelliance).

Let's a look at some interesting slides, shall we?

33. WHAT IS PULSE POLIO ?
TO IMMUNIZE ALL THE KIDS (younger than) 5YRS NATION WIDE ON A SINGLE DAY IN THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE TIME WITH OPV & THAT THE ENVIRONMENT WILL GET SATURATED WITH THE VACCINE VIRUS SO THAT IT WILL REPLACE THE WILD VIRUS AND THUS INTERUPT THE TRANSMISSION OF WILD VIRUS .

India's AFP case since getting drunk with OPV.

1997 3047
1998 9465
1999 9587
2000 8103
2001 7470
2002 9705
2003 8508
2004 13274
2005 27049
2006 32194
2007 41524
2008 45582
2009 50405
2010 55785
2011 53994

Source: h_ttp://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/en/diseases/poliomyelitis/afpextract.cfm

37. WHY AFP SURVEILLANCE INSTEAD OF POLIO SURVEILLANCE?
SURVEILLANCE OF A POLIO CASE ALONE IS NOT SUFFICIENT BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLEE[sic] TO PRECISELY IDENTIFY ALL CASES OF POLIO CLINICALLY DUE TO CONFUSING AND AMBIGUOUS CLINICAL SIGNS AND VARIABLE CLINICAL KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS OF DOCTOR.
CLINICALLY POLIO IN ACUTE STAGE, IS DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH FROM OTHER CAUSES OF ACUTE ONSET OF FLACCID PARALYSIS.-----

Trans: This is how we were able to hide polio from the public eye.

CLINICALLY POLIO IN ACUTE STAGE, IS DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH FROM OTHER CAUSES OF ACUTE ONSET OF FLACCID PARALYSIS.-----

Seriously, nobody can be this dense. "Other causes" up thereâit's in your own quote! There are plenty of other causes, some of them obviously increasing, as shown by your figures. Polio would be one you could have crossed off, since it should have been eradicated by now. Unfortunately, due to idiots like you, India is one of the places it's hanging on. When someone presents with the SYMPTOM AFP, they have to make damn sure the DISEASE that's causing it isn't polio. It's like talking to a freakin' stump.

It's like talking to a freakin' stump.

I, sir, take offense at this gross calumny against the intellectual capacities of deceased arboreal entities. At least they're smart enough not to use citations that undermine their own arguments.

-- Steve

Trans: This is how we were able to hide polio from the public eye.

This doesn't even make any sense. Take the 2010 data: 83% of the 55785 AFP cases had two stool samples within 14 days, and 97% had some sample for analysis. The breakdown?

Culture positive for poliovirus: 2796
Culture positive for poliovirus and NPEV: 465
NPEV: 14174
No poliovirus or NPEV: 36546

AFP surveillance casts a wider net. The only thing that seems to be conspicuously missing from the public eye is your reading comprehension (*koff*Dryvax*koff*).

Seriously, nobody can be this dense. "Other causes" up thereâit's in your own quote! There are plenty of other causes, some of them obviously increasing, as shown by your figures. Polio would be one you could have crossed off, since it should have been eradicated by now.

You do realize, don't you that AFP surveillance is primarily a monitoring tool in identifying cases of paralytic poliomyelitis and NOT for some other diseases? Read,

35. AIM OF AFP SURVEILLANCE
TO DETECT POLIO TRANSMISSION & INTERRUPTION OF TRANSMISSION

And there are three scenarios wherein poliovirus can be transmitted and cause poliomyelitis and therefore can be detected on a population.

1. WT poliovirus
2. OPV
3. VDPV

So it's obviously impossible to for you to just "cross off" poliovirus from the list and to blame something else since India is still highly "saturated" with vaccine poliovirus. If nothing else, India needs a convincing exit strategy plan since poliovirus eradication is impossible when OPV vaccinators become polio promoters themselves.

Unfortunately, due to idiots like you, India is one of the places it's hanging on. When someone presents with the SYMPTOM AFP, they have to make damn sure the DISEASE that's causing it isn't polio. It's like talking to a freakin' stump.

As I said, it's easy to manipulate polio cases when substitution has always been the name of the game.

Narad,

They don't have that screening tool as a requirement to diagnose polio before the vaccine was introduced. In short, they don't look at your nasty stool; they look for paralysis. So mind your stool please.

So it's obviously impossible to for you to just "cross off" poliovirus from the list and to blame something else since India is still highly "saturated" with vaccine poliovirus.

Oh, look, that's broken out as well. Of the 3261 positive cultures for poliovirus in the 2010 AFP surveillance, what do we have?

Wild type 1: 18
Wild type 2: 0
Wild type 3: 23
OPV1: 882
OPV2: 445
OPV3: 1177
OPV mixed: 643
VDPV 1: 0
VDPV 2: 5
VDPV 3: 0
NPEV by PCR: 50
Non-EV: 13
Negative: 5

So, let's see....

If nothing else, India needs a convincing exit strategy plan since poliovirus eradication is impossible when OPV vaccinators become polio promoters themselves.

Now, how many asymptomatic carriers is one likely to have on one's hands for every detected case of paralytic wild-type poliomyelitis? This might just give one a hint as to an "exit strategy."

They don't have that screening tool as a requirement to diagnose polio before the vaccine was introduced.

That's because, for all intents and purposes, "they don't have that screening tool" at all before the vaccine was introduced. So what?

Narad,

That's because, for all intents and purposes, "they don't have that screening tool" at all before the vaccine was introduced. So what?

It's because poliomyelitis is a clinical diagnosis and a straightforward diagnosis. There wasn't any AFP screening before. All these AFP cases this year could have been a diagnostic case of paralytic poliomyelitis back then. Before the Cutter Incident in 1955, the only known causative agent for paralytic poliomyelitis was the transmissible WT poliovirus. But after that horrible incident, stool exam had since been required to detect WT from VT poliovirus. But we know it didn't stop there. Currently, we have three etiologic sources of poliovirus; adding VDPV to the list.

Now you know why they require stool samples- to detect transmission.

The only stool here is what continues to come out of Insane Troll's mouth....

Th1Th2, you realize your pathological hatred of doctors doesn't count as evidence.

Narad,

Oh, look, that's broken out as well. Of the 3261 positive cultures for poliovirus in the 2010 AFP surveillance, what do we have?

Like I said, stool cultures are done to detect transmissibility of the poliovirus, whatever strain that is. It will not rule out infectivity since all who had received OPV essentially have been primarily infected. They don't want the people to know that they've been infected deliberately that's why they never used serologic testing as a preliminary diagnostic tool.

Now, how many asymptomatic carriers is one likely to have on one's hands for every detected case of paralytic wild-type poliomyelitis? This might just give one a hint as to an "exit strategy."

Like ill-lady, you seem to think that 91,752 AFP cases are better than 560 paralytic poliomyelitis. Oh and like India, you too need a better "exit strategy".

Yessss, nassssty stool! All they had to do was stay on the sidewalk!

They don't have that screening tool as a requirement to diagnose polio before the vaccine was introduced.

That's because, for all intents and purposes, "they don't have that screening tool" at all before the vaccine was introduced. So what?

It's because poliomyelitis is a clinical diagnosis and a straightforward diagnosis.

What in G-d's name are you yammering about? This isn't 1955. Polio was a clinical diagnosis because the ability to culture the virus went hand in hand with the development of the vaccine.

Before the Cutter Incident in 1955, the only known causative agent for paralytic poliomyelitis was the transmissible WT poliovirus. But after that horrible incident, stool exam had since been required to detect WT from VT poliovirus.

Did you see the part of the text you quoted with the curly line above a dot? (<--Looks like this.) Try addressing that part. The Cutter Incident isn't even apropos of the "diagnostic substitution" argument that you are apparently having to travel back and forth in time to try to prop up.

Now you know why they require stool samples- to detect transmission.

This diversionary psychohistorical tale doesn't make a whit of difference in any event. You would like to simultaneously downplay polio as having been inflated in the past as a purely clinical diagnosis while also dramatizing it in the present. It's no big deal unless it has something to do with a vaccine. Simple. It would have just gone away if people had only had Th1Th2 around to explain Pure Livin'. Why bother with the song and dance? This is all you have.

"So it's obviously impossible to for you to just "cross off" poliovirus from the list and to blame something else since India is still highly "saturated" with vaccine poliovirus. If nothing else, India needs a convincing exit strategy plan since poliovirus eradication is impossible when OPV vaccinators become polio promoters themselves."

So it's obviously impossible to for you to just "cross off" "INSANITY from the list and to blame something else since "SH** FOR BRAINS TROLL" is still highly "saturated" with "SH**". If nothing else, "RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE" needs a convincing exit strategy plan since "INSANITY" eradication is impossible when "SH** FOR BRAINS TROLL" becomes a polio promoter ITSELF.

-FTFY, SFB TROLL

Like I said, stool cultures are done to detect transmissibility of the poliovirus, whatever strain that is. It will not rule out infectivity since all who had received OPV essentially have been primarily infected. They don't want the people to know that they've been infected deliberately that's why they never used serologic testing as a preliminary diagnostic tool.

Yah. Unfortunately, this paranoiac trip requires that "They" and "the people" from whom this has somehow been kept a big secret for 55 years give a rat's ass about Th1Th2's pureed semantics and purity routine, which is to say, didn't want poliovirus antibodies in the first place.

Like ill-lady, you seem to think that 91,752 AFP cases are better than 560 paralytic poliomyelitis. Oh and like India, you too need a better "exit strategy".

You keep asserting this connection, but you have failed to explain why a cursory examination of the Indian numbers you yourself invoked point to the overwhelming number of AFP cases having, you know, no isolatable poliovirus.

Narad,

What in G-d's name are you yammering about? This isn't 1955. Polio was a clinical diagnosis because the ability to culture the virus went hand in hand with the development of the vaccine.

If this is 1955 and knowing what they know now that there have been 91,752 AFP this year, they'll be up on their a$$ "yammering" for a novel vaccine. It seems though that they were culturing the wrong specimen since 1996 or they have given up looking for the inevitable exit strategy.

Global Total AFP

1996 13857
1997 17365
1998 24664
1999 29924
2000 30625
2001 33519
2002 36832
2003 34915
2004 42511
2005 62434
2006 68519
2007 77395
2008 85404
2009 90227
2010 98788
2011 91752

Source: h_ttp://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/en/diseases/poliomyelitis/afpextract.cfm

Did you see the part of the text you quoted with the curly line above a dot? (< --Looks like this.) Try addressing that part.

This?

CLINICALLY POLIO IN ACUTE STAGE, IS DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH FROM OTHER CAUSES OF ACUTE ONSET OF FLACCID PARALYSIS.-----

I did. And my response to this particular statement is: "This isn't 1955."

The Cutter Incident isn't even apropos of the "diagnostic substitution" argument that you are apparently having to travel back and forth in time to try to prop up.

The Cutter Incident was a revelation of the covert infection-promoting agenda of polio vaccination. If this disaster had not happened, poliomyelitis would still remain a monocausal diagnosis.

This diversionary psychohistorical tale doesn't make a whit of difference in any event. You would like to simultaneously downplay polio as having been inflated in the past as a purely clinical diagnosis while also dramatizing it in the present. It's no big deal unless it has something to do with a vaccine. Simple. It would have just gone away if people had only had Th1Th2 around to explain Pure Livin'. Why bother with the song and dance? This is all you have.

It has everything to do with the poliovirus-containing vaccine. Causation is very well established.

Please do not feed delusional, uneducated, disease promoting. health-care-professional wannabe, sh** for brains troll. It needs "terminal disinfection".

It has everything to do with the poliovirus-containing vaccine. Causation is very well established.

Once again, I commend to you the notion of reading comprehension. Aside from the fact that you appear to have totally failed to grasp seized upon the bit of text that you think is easiest to misinterpret and most amenable to recycling, when it is in fact a characterization of your own position, it's still upon you to demonstrate that AFP that has no isolatable poliovirus of any stripe is somehow due to OPV.

Oh, and...

Did you see the part of the text you quoted with the curly line above a dot? (

This?

CLINICALLY POLIO IN ACUTE STAGE, IS DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH FROM OTHER CAUSES OF ACUTE ONSET OF FLACCID PARALYSIS.-----

No, not "this." Wie sagt man "no loitering allowed"?

Narad,

Yah. Unfortunately, this paranoiac trip requires that "They" and "the people" from whom this has somehow been kept a big secret for 55 years give a rat's ass about Th1Th2's pureed semantics and purity routine, which is to say, didn't want poliovirus antibodies in the first place.

You're terribly misinformed. They are NOT acquiring poliovirus antibodies through vaccination. Vaccine-induced infection always precedes antibody production. You should know; you're an infection promoter.

You keep asserting this connection, but you have failed to explain why a cursory examination of the Indian numbers you yourself invoked point to the overwhelming number of AFP cases having, you know, no isolatable poliovirus.

Stool exam is NOT the GOLD STANDARD in diagnosing poliomyelitis. People don't get paralyzed because they were poliovirus in their feces. That's laughable. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Check their every goddamn tissues, blood and if they died, brain! But why they don't do that? Because they know exactly what to expect.

OK rant over.

"OK rant over." Thingy keeps promising to stay away and then always comes back with another rant. Now it is fixated on its own brain matter..."Stool exam is NOT the GOLD STANDARD in diagnosing poliomyelitis."

Please do not feed delusional, uneducated, disease promoting. health-care-professional wannabe, sh** for brains troll. It needs "terminal disinfection".

Narad,

Once again, I commend to you the notion of reading comprehension. Aside from the fact that you appear to have totally failed to grasp seized upon the bit of text that you think is easiest to misinterpret and most amenable to recycling, when it is in fact a characterization of your own position, it's still upon you to demonstrate that AFP that has no isolatable poliovirus of any stripe is somehow due to OPV.

They are not checking it properly. And that is exactly how it's supposed to be in order for them to conceal the virus and to claim that OPV works. Obviously, they just can't hide paralysis.

You're terribly misinformed. They are NOT acquiring poliovirus antibodies through vaccination. Vaccine-induced infection always precedes antibody production.

Jesus Christ, do I have to tell you what your talking points are now, or do you just need a refresher on what "always" means?

OK rant over.

Promises, promises, Norberg.

"They are not checking it properly. And that is exactly how it's supposed to be in order for them to conceal the virus and to claim that OPV works. Obviously, they just can't hide paralysis".

They are not checking "SFB Thingy Troll" properly. And that is exactly how it's supposed to be in order for "Its Keepers" to conceal the "Delusions" and to claim that "Thingy is Sane". Obviously, they just can't hide "The Insanity".

-FTFY

It is cute that this has finally turned into rank conspiracy theory, if you ask me.

Still boring, stupid and insane, I see.

Still boring, stupid and insane, I see.

Oh, it's progressively getting crazier and crazier. Before, anything defiling your precious bodily fluids was an "infection", but at least she was talking about something connected with an actual infectious agent. Synthetic chemicals resembling parts of the measles virus' capsule was a "measles infection". Insane, but there was some connecting thread.

Now, any instance of paralysis, even if they find some other virus is causing it, is actually polio, because, well, because...well, it just is, dammit! All that polio didn't just disappear! Vaccination couldn't have prevented it! No, it's hiding somewhere! Somebody took those strawberries!

Synthetic chemicals resembling parts of the measles virus' capsule was a "measles infection". Insane, but there was some connecting thread.

The connecting thread is embodied in the babbling about serology. The smoking antibodies, as it were. I wouldn't be surprised if it recognized the "mapping" of this bottomless causal swamp as a promising new direction from which attention might be garnered with free labor.

The Very Reverend,

Synthetic chemicals resembling parts of the measles virus' capsule was a "measles infection".

Insane, but there was some connecting thread.

Uh, I hate to interrupt, but for all the cases of AFP, we had only 1 confirmed case of polio in the whole country.

And, yes, there is an exit strategy to stop OPV (due to the risk of it causing polio, a risk FAR smaller than the risk of WT polio virus causing polio). Once we have no confirmed cases of polio for 5 years, with full OPV coverage, we will be switching over to IPV.

AFP is a useful surveillance method because it doesn't make sense to go and check the excrement of all the 1.2 bn residents (plus the illegal immigrants from our extremely porous border in the east). AFP hints at who may have polio which eventually has to be confirmed.

Also, AFP surveillance is highly sensitive, easy and cost effective to perform. However, it has low specificity and so is not a useful diagnostic tool.

Also, as far as conspiracies are concerned, the politicians in my country are more likely to bottle water in the OPV vials and have it distributed as OPV in order to pocket large parts of the allocated funds.
It's cheaper than buying OPV and so a larger part of the funds would be available for them to pocket. Besides, they don't have to share their profits with some Pharma company as they can easily have some back-alley workshops (or the like) to bottle the water in small vials at a fraction of the cost.

T-reg, thank you for your on-the-spot observations. Perhaps you know: did the campaign to report cases of AFP to try to identify any cases of polio perchance *start* in 1995 and take a while to get properly set up nationwide? I imagine that would take a lot of training of reporters and setting up reporting mechanisms, which would explain the ramp-up in numbers.

@ T-reg: Thank you for the clarification of the situation in India with AFP surveillance as an effective methodology to finally have a polio-free India. It's nice to have a physician from India actually posting here and I love your description of AFP as a "high sensitivity-low specificity" screening tool.

Try to ignore the troll...it is a disease-promoter who in its delusional deranged state, sees conspiracies all over the world. It still needs "terminal disinfection".

Perhaps you know: did the campaign to report cases of AFP to try to identify any cases of polio perchance *start* in 1995 and take a while to get properly set up nationwide? I imagine that would take a lot of training of reporters and setting up reporting mechanisms, which would explain the ramp-up in numbers.

**All polio cases reported before 1997 were confirmed by attending physicians with no standard case definition.

h_ttp://www.who.int/bulletin/archives/78(3)321.pdf

Ouch!

Again, "this wasn't 1955", right Narad?

Th1Th2, what evidence do you have that every single case of AFP is, in fact, polio?

Try to ignore the troll...it is a disease-promoter who in its delusional deranged state, sees conspiracies all over the world. It still needs "terminal disinfection".

Ouch!

Again, "this wasn't 1955", right Narad?

You really seem to be having a lot of trouble answering the question "so what?" You're upset that someone would decide to try to eradicate polio without your input and iron-fisted guidance, that's understood. This is why you're an infection promoter. There's no point being an evasive infection promoter on top of it.

Gray Falcon,

Th1Th2, what evidence do you have that every single case of AFP is, in fact, polio?

Simple. Paralysis.

Narad,

You really seem to be having a lot of trouble answering the question "so what?" You're upset that someone would decide to try to eradicate polio without your input and iron-fisted guidance, that's understood.

They've been doing that S#!++y OPV in India since 1979 and look what they got this year---53,994 paralysis.

This is why you're an infection promoter. There's no point being an evasive infection promoter on top of it.

I don't have the qualification. Sorry but you're barking up the wrong tree.

Treg,

And, yes, there is an exit strategy to stop OPV (due to the risk of it causing polio, a risk FAR smaller than the risk of WT polio virus causing polio). Once we have no confirmed cases of polio for 5 years, with full OPV coverage, we will be switching over to IPV.

Forget it. Your country had simply given up after that embarrassing promise bragging that polio would have been eradicated back in 2000.

They've been doing that S#!++y OPV in India since 1979 and look what they got this year---53,994 paralysis.

The overwhelming number of which have no isolatable poliovirus, remember? The part where you have no evidence whatever for your claim?

And anyway, what quantifiable results have your efforts at Better Disease Eradication through Bubble Living had, other than the obvious mixture of being promptly ignored or heaped with ridicule?

Narad,

The overwhelming number of which have no isolatable poliovirus, remember? The part where you have no evidence whatever for your claim?

The fact is these people were paralyzed and they're ONLY going to check the stool for poliovirus and to discard them if they were unable to excrete the virus? That's it? Do you think poliovirus is solely an enterotropic virus with no neurotropism. Where's your science going forward?

If this happened to be a case of a paralyzed unvaccinated child , you'll be "yammering" on CSF, serum neutralization assay and whatever goddamn tests that are available here on Earth. But why settle on stool?

If this happened to be a case of a paralyzed unvaccinated child , you'll be "yammering" on CSF, serum neutralization assay and whatever goddamn tests that are available here on Earth.

Ah, whatever you say, Carnac.

But why settle on stool?

Do you think it maht mebbe haz ta doo with availability and specificity? Naturally, it's time to demand tens of thousands of lumbar punctures because, goshdurnit, noted expert Th1Th2 says AFP is polio and that's that! Brilliant.

Krebiozen

Like you do, you mean?

How do you mean. My narrative is a lot more balanced than yours.

No, we should treat data with caution, especially it is contradictory.

Hmmm .... that data has been around since 1996 has been replicated in random controlled trial at multiple times and multiple locations. Has been extended to other vaccines and other health initiatives.

I'm unsurprised by your sloth like approach to safety.

Remember, these results are from developing countries with high background mortality.

Yes I think I'm able to recall that fact from the multiple studies and the multiple geographic areas.

Aaby's group found no effects in areas with low mortality

They haven't are you sure ...this what Peter Aaby's group says.

These observations question many assumptions
underlying the current program of interventions
for children in low-income countries. Taking
these observations into consideration in planning
the intervention programs may have major
impact on child survival.

Low income not low mortality.

so even if independently replicated these results do not apply to developed countries like the USA and the UK

Why not ? You need to explain your reasoning there are population cohorts within the United States and the UK that may very well reflect the same factors found in low income populations. This is assuming form your response you understand the mechanism behind the findings of Aaby's research.

certainly have no direct relevance to discussions about vaccines causing autism.

I think research groups such the Patterson Lab at California Institute of Technology may be interested particularly in regards to immune system dysfunction and infection.

You are fond of referring ...

I am fond of using direct robust evidence of harm ... apparently you are not.

I don't think anyone here has ever suggested otherwise.

Here's one skeptik response - Since you continue FVCK!NG LYING about this over and over and over and over again

Very objective , well thought out and balanced. Using all the critical thinking on display.

What some of us keep patiently repeating is that the negative effects of modern vaccines in developed countries are far, far less common than the adverse effects of the diseases they help to prevent.

That's the argument. Then I'm thoroughly underwhelmed especially when you the underlying mechanism is unknown. Therefore effect is unknown and cannot be calculated.

So tell me the cost / benefit ratio you'd like to operate under ?

In many cases adverse events due to vaccinations are so rare as to undetectable even in trials with very large numbers of subjects

That is generally acknowledged through standard research that revolves around the theory of specificity. But vaccine have non specific effects and act differently in regards to gender and in regards to how they are schedules. Where's the evidence that says vaccines have been examined in developed nations that addresses these issues and factors ?

As I have pointed out many times, even the Urabe mumps vaccine which was withdrawn because it sometimes caused aseptic meningitis had far less serious effects than mumps itself.

I think you are beginning to confuse even yourself on what position you are taking.

Like other "safer vaccine advocates"

That's supposed to be a dirty word is it ? Challenging the skeptik POV ?

you make a lot of noise about the possible negative effects of vaccines

Well duh (excuse the language) ... that's the whole point of being an advocate on safety in medicines.

But it was I who pointed the very real positive benefits that could save additional millions of lives .

Didn't see that from 'skeptiks'.

you have to look to Africa to find anything that remotely supports your case

Is that important ? 500,000 lives seems more important .

you don't have any solutions

I don't ...of course I have.

There are two real options:

There are ...you are a very black and white type of thinker.

How much more research do we need?

Focused research - show me the pubmed results for non specific effects of vaccines in the UK population ? Any ?

Sex differentials effects in vaccine efficacy in the US ?

Wouldn't anyone truly concerned about vaccine safety support a measure that could lead to an end to vaccination for most diseases?

That's the theory...I'd like to see the pragmatics and the cost.

You have a plan for the eradication of tetanus ? Differing pertussis strains ? I'm interested.

You've calculated the effect of eliminating one virus and effects on other viruses and systems ?

The other option is to stop vaccinating

So you obviously disagree with those that took HTMV off the shelves ?

You have little to no interest that DTaP has been show to be highly dangerous in developing countries ?

Which of these are advocating?

Neither. Now there's a surprise.

Narad,

Do you think it maht mebbe haz ta doo with availability and specificity?

Only if the brain normally herniates to the bowels, then stool exam has a point.

Naturally, it's time to demand tens of thousands of lumbar punctures because, goshdurnit, noted expert Th1Th2 says AFP is polio and that's that! Brilliant.

If they want to properly diagnose paralytic poliomyelitis then yes since neurotropic viruses such as poliovirus are capable of attacking the CNS thereby causing paralysis.

Simple. Paralysis.

Christopher Reeve had polio? And Stephen Hawking still has it?

Christopher Reeve had polio? And Stephen Hawking still has it?

Good night.

@ dedicated lurker: Hmmm, don't you recall that Aristotle Onassis was misdiagnosed with myasthenia gravis...he really had polio. And, all the people who were paralyzed by West Nile Fever...also had polio.

Thingy has "special connections" with every hospital in the world. It gets to "consult" with every emergency room and it actually performs all the lumber punctures. It also has its own virology and bacteriology labs.

It also has "special dispensation" and exemptions from receiving vaccines, when it sees patients in the neuro ICU or consults with other physicians.

We should feel privileged that this internationally-acclaimed infectious diseases specialist deigns to come to this blog to inform us...and to spread its brain droppings.

Oh..and another point about West Nile Virus. I recall my County health department setting up chicken coops with "sentinel chickens" which we tested for the presence of WNV, when the County was at the epicenter of the WNV outbreak.

I suggest that we build some Thingy coops, cage the troll and test its brain droppings weekly, for the presence of the WNV and for polio virus.

I'm with you Lilady, "thing coop" has a nice ring to it. Also, I guess the 3 year old I was recently involved with had polio rather than spinal muscular atrophy - those silly doctors. Or the 4 year old who had tranverse myelitis must have had polio. Paralysis = polio! Great, now we can stop diagnosing these other issues and just quarantine all these children (and their families, and many of the kids they go to school with and their families and the teachers and their families......)

Denice Walter

Nice vaccine apologist polemic and diversion but what is needed is some frank self reflection. Pull up a couch...

See I can look at any aspect of vaccination positive / negative and not lose any perspective. I'm fascinated by the science unfolding before us ... here's another example.

A number of case-control studies from high-income countriessuggest that smallpox vaccination protect againstdiverse chronic conditions and cancers.

In a European study of people with malignant melanoma,
smallpox vaccination reduced the risk of developing malignant melanoma and smallpox vaccination improved survival among malignant melanoma patients who had been smallpox-vaccinated several years prior to diagnosis.

Considering these observations and our findings
from Guinea-Bissau, we wanted to study whether smallpox vaccine and BCG also had non-specific effects in a European setting.

Atopy, allergic rhinitis and asthma From an
ecological perspective, the termination of smallpox
vaccination in high-income countries coincided with an increased incidence of asthma.

We examined the occurrence of atopy, allergic rhinitis,
and asthma among Danish women within a
national birth cohort study.

Among the 1960 women for whom sera were available, 552 (28%) were classified as atopic; among the 1927 women
with information on allergic rhinitis and asthma,
263 (14%) had allergic rhinitis, and 165 (9%)
were cases of asthma.

Overall, smallpox vaccination was not associated with risk of atopy or allergic rhinitis compared to unvaccinated women.

However, smallpox vaccination was associated with an OR of asthma of 0.55 (0.30 to 1.00) adjusting for birth cohort, sibship size, age of the womenâs mother at birth, and social class.

Hence, women who had received smallpox vaccination
were less likely to have asthma, an association previously not described (9).

Now that was interesting.

Infectious disease hospitalisations

Through linking of the CSHRR to the Danish registry of hospitalisations we were able to determine
infectious disease hospitalisation (N=765) for the 2039 individuals for whom we had determined vaccination
status.

Preliminary analysis shows that BCG is associated with a lower risk of all-cause infectious disease hospitalization among women and a tendency
towards smallpox-vaccinated subjects having a lower risk of all-cause infectious disease hospitalisation than subjects not vaccinated with these vaccines.

Smallpox-vaccinated subjects were less likely to have skin infections and BCG vaccinated subjects less likely to be hospitalised for sexually transmitted
infections (STI) than unvaccinated individuals.

These observations are being pursued with studies of specific STIs including HIV-1.

The preliminary indications are that BCG protects women against HIV-1 infection (hazard ratio (HR) 0.30 (0.12-0.77)) whereas the effect for smallpox vaccine was smaller (HR=0.81 (0.24-2.73)).

...and so was that. Vaccines so many enigmatic results who'd have thought.

ps apologies about the formatting differing documents

"You have a plan for the eradication of tetanus ?"

Ah, now I understand the reasoning of the aptly-named blackheart. Tetanus cannot be eradicated by vaccination, so therefore no one should be protected against a painful death from it. Death rates from tetanus in Africa are high and they should stay high.

Got it.

@ Agashem: I happen to like chickens which are unaffected by infection with the WNV...and think it would be a good idea to put the humanoid Thingy in a large coop as bait for infected mosquitoes.

Gee, when my son had an episode of post ictal Todd's paralysis 30 years ago and my friend also had post ictal Todd's paralysis 6 weeks ago, they were hospitalized...and Thingy was not consulted. Because Thingy was not "on their cases", their stool wasn't tested, they didn't undergo LPs and were not put in "isolation".

Naturally, it's time to demand tens of thousands of lumbar punctures because, goshdurnit, noted expert Th1Th2 says AFP is polio and that's that! Brilliant.

If they want to properly diagnose paralytic poliomyelitis then yes since neurotropic viruses such as poliovirus are capable of attacking the CNS thereby causing paralysis.

Uh-huh. Let's have some numbers then for (1) CSF cultures showing the presence of poliovirus in the face of a negative stool culture and (2) the other way around.

Blackheart,
You seem to have a social scientist's approach to natural science, and I don't think it does you any favors. In the social sciences this may make you a "deep thinker" but in the natural sciences it means you see connections and patterns where there are none, and habitually speculate far beyond the data. Since you value a "balanced narrative" you may find it useful to read this and this if you want to understand my "sloth like approach to safety".

The issue of non-specific effects of vaccines is complicated in many ways, in terms of data collection, analysis, interpretation, biological mechanism and programmatic implication. It is essential that care is taken at each step of investigations and full details are provided in publications, in order that the scientific and public health communities can interpret critically and respond appropriately.

And:

The study of complex interactions between vaccines and gender involves subdividing cohorts into several groups, some of which may in consequence be small, or contain few deaths. In such circumstances, results can lack robustness owing to observations whose omission or inclusion in the analysis produce widely different results. Analyses should be scrutinized for such observations, their impact assessed, and relevant data on numerators and denominators reported.

Oh, by the way:

Aaby's group found no effects in areas with low mortality

They haven't are you sure ...

I can't find any studies Aaby or anyone else has done that found these effects in an area with low infant mortality. From Aaby's 'Child Mortality Following Standard, Medium or High Titre Measles Immunization in West Africa':

The results from Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Haiti,all with high background child mortality, showed an association between high dose measles vaccines and decreased survival, especially among females, while studies from The Gambia and Mexico, where there was low background infant mortality, displayed no difference in mortality.

Infant mortality in Guinea-Bissau is 126, in Senegal 60, Haiti 70, in The Gambia 80 and in Mexico 22 per 1000 live births. Infant mortality in the USA and UK is 7 and 5 per 1000 live births respectively. Aaby considers areas with infant mortality much higher than the USA and UK as areas with low infant mortality. Yet you stated that:

there are population cohorts within the United States and the UK that may very well reflect the same factors found in low income populations.

There are population cohorts in the USA and UK that have lower income and higher mortality than Gambia and Mexico? Where would those be?

You seem to have a social scientist's approach to natural science

You say science speaks ... show me the evidence that refutes these multiple findings non specific effects , gender differences , scheduling differences .... over multiple geographical areas over multiple times and multiple vaccines.

Since you value a "balanced narrative" you may find it useful to read this and this if you want to understand my "sloth like approach to safety".

Apply all this to vaccine / autism epidemiological studies. Seems you can accept weak evidence there but not robust evidence here ... interesting point of view.

Your positions are always confusing ... why is that ?

The issue of non-specific effects of vaccines is complicated in many ways ...

Yes it is and so are other issues regarding vaccines.But you haven't shown any scientific evidence that refutes these various findings..

The study of complex interactions between vaccines and neurological effect involves subdividing cohorts into several groups, some of which may in consequence be small, or contain few deaths.

In such circumstances, results can lack robustness owing to observations whose omission or inclusion in the analysis produce widely different results. Analyses should be scrutinized for such observations, their impact assessed, and relevant data on numerators and denominators reported.

Differing arguments for differing occasions. Interesting.

I can't find any studies Aaby or anyone else has done that found these effects in an area with low infant mortality.

Low income krebiozen.

Yet you stated that

Yes I did ...

there are population cohorts within the United States and the UK that may very well reflect the same factors found in low income populations.

There are population cohorts in the USA and UK that have lower income and higher mortality

Nice try ... not interested.

There are population cohorts in the USA and UK that have low income and high mortality

Hate to leave a troll the last word. FWIW, reason's greetings to all on RI.....

Why you sleepin' wit ya eyes closed, Th1Th2?

Let's have some numbers then for (1) CSF cultures showing the presence of poliovirus in the face of a negative stool culture and (2) the other way around.

Coochy-coo.

Blackheart,
I forgot about this thread...

You say science speaks ... show me the evidence that refutes these multiple findings non specific effects , gender differences , scheduling differences .... over multiple geographical areas over multiple times and multiple vaccines.

Show me the controlled independent studies that support these multiple findings.

Seems you can accept weak evidence there but not robust evidence here ... interesting point of view.

You are the one providing weak evidence Blackheart, not me, that's the problem.

Your positions are always confusing ... why is that ?

Strange, no one else seems to find my position confusing, yet many people have been left puzzled by yours. I have stated and restated my position in plain English many times. Until Aaby's studies are replicated by other researchers using more robust methodology his results should be treated with caution. Is that clear enough for you?

The issue of non-specific effects of vaccines is complicated in many ways ...

Yes it is and so are other issues regarding vaccines.But you haven't shown any scientific evidence that refutes these various findings..

Science doesn't work like that. You don't believe every piece of research that comes along until it is refuted, you treat results with caution until they have been independently replicated. I have linked above to evidence that the results of the studies on DTP vary wildly depending on how data is collected. I have pointed out the varying mortality and small sample sizes Aaby has used and the unreliability of his methodology. His group wouldn't be the first to be fooled by noisy data or methodological artifacts. There may be something interesting there, or there may not.

Differing arguments for differing occasions. Interesting.

Not at all. When you are looking at very noisy data, with small numbers, as we are in these studies where mortality is high but highly variable, it is difficult to be sure you are looking at a real effect. That is true in any area of science.

I can't find any studies Aaby or anyone else has done that found these effects in an area with low infant mortality.

Low income krebiozen.

That doesn't help. Where are Aaby's studies on low mortality groups that find these effects? I can only find his studies on (relatively) low mortality groups in low income countries that find no such effects. Let me remind you what Aaby found, "studies from The Gambia and Mexico, where there was low background infant mortality, displayed no difference in mortality".

Nice try ... not interested.

You either miss my point or you are being deliberately obtuse. Aaby's studies, that have not been replicated independently with controlled studies, found non-specific effects of vaccines in areas of high mortality, but none at all in areas of low mortality, yet you want to apply these unconfirmed results to populations with much lower mortality. Surely you see the problem with that.

There are population cohorts in the USA and UK that have low income and high mortality

Aaby found no non-specific effects on mortality in The Gambia (infant mortality 80 per 1000) or in Mexico (infant mortality 22 per 1000 live births), no difference in mortality. Please tell me, in which population cohorts in the UK or the USA does infant mortality even approach 22 per 1000, much less 80?

krebiozen

Show me the controlled independent studies that support these multiple findings.

I already have and you know that very well.

Aaby, Bukh et al. 1986; Smedman, Gunnlaugsson et al. 1988; Whittle, Hanlon et al. 1988; Aaby, Hansen et al. 1988; Aaby, Jensen et al. 1988; Aaby and Clements 1989; Aaby, Pedersen et al. 1989; Aaby, Knudsen et al. 1990; Aaby, Samb et al. 1991; Burstrom, Aaby et al. 1992; Burstrom, Aaby et al. 1993; Samb, Aaby et al. 1993; Aaby, Andersen et al. 1993; Aaby, Knudsen et al. 1993; Aaby, Samb et al. 1993; Bennett, Aaby et al. 1994; Jensen, Whittle et al. 1994; Lisse, Aaby et al. 1994; Aaby, Andersen et al. 1994; Aaby, Knudsen et al. 1994; Aaby, Lisse et al. 1994; Aaby, Samb et al. 1994; Burstrom, Aaby et al. 1995; Samb, Aaby et al. 1995; Aaby 1995; Aaby, Samb et al. 1995; Knudsen, Aaby et al. 1996; Shaheen, Aaby et al. 1996; Aaby, Samb et al. 1996; Aaby, Samb et al. 1996; Atabani, Obeid et al. 1997; Benn, Aaby et al. 1997; Bennett, Whittle et al. 1999; Cisse, Aaby et al. 1999; Garly, Martins et al. 1999; Marchant, Goetghebuer et al. 1999; Seng, Samb et al. 1999; Whittle, Aaby et al. 1999; Whittle, Aaby et al. 1999; Aaby, Cisse et al. 1999; Benn, Lisse et al. 2000; Kristensen, Aaby et al. 2000; Shann 2000; Aaby, Shaheen et al. 2000; Garly, Bale et al. 2001; Garly, Bale et al. 2001; Schim van der Loeff, Aaby et al. 2001; Benn, Balde et al. 2002; Fischer, Valentiner-Branth et al. 2002; Ota, Vekemans et al. 2002; Steinsland, Valentiner-Branth et al. 2002; Aaby and Jensen 2002; Aaby, Jensen et al. 2002; Benn, Bale et al. 2003; Fine 2003; Garly, Martins et al. 2003; Garly and Aaby 2003; Steinsland, Valentiner-Branth et al. 2003; Aaby, Bhuiya et al. 2003; Aaby, Garly et al. 2003; Aaby, Jensen et al. 2003; Aaby, Jensen et al. 2003; Aaby, Jensen et al. 2003; Garly, Jensen et al. 2004; Hall 2004; Newport, Goetghebuer et al. 2004; Steinsland, Valentiner-Branth et al. 2004; Steinsland, Valentiner-Branth et al. 2004; Aaby 2004; Aaby, Jensen et al. 2004; Aaby, Jensen et al. 2004; Aaby, Rodrigues et al. 2004; Benn, Martins et al. 2005; Broutin, Mantilla-Beniers et al. 2005; Hull 2005; Nielsen, Eugen-Olsen et al. 2005; Roth, Sodemann et al. 2005; Shann 2005; Veirum, Sodemann et al. 2005; Aaby, Hedegaard et al. 2005; Aaby and Jensen 2005; Aaby, Rodrigues et al. 2005; Fine and Smith 2006; Rodrigues, Fischer et al. 2006; Roth, Garly et al. 2006; Roth, Sodemann et al. 2006; Roth, Stensballe et al. 2006; Aaby, Gustafson et al. 2006; Aaby, Ibrahim et al. 2006; Aaby, Jensen et al. 2006; Aaby, Vessari et al. 2006; Benn, Fisker et al. 2007; Diness, Fisker et al. 2007; Fisker, Lisse et al. 2007; Rodrigues, Schellenberg et al. 2007; Valentiner-Branth, Perch et al. 2007; Aaby, Benn et al. 2007; Aaby, Biai et al. 2007; Aaby, Garly et al. 2007; Benn, Diness et al. 2008; Shea, Benn et al. 2008; Benn, Lund et al. 2009; Benn, Martins et al. 2009; Benn, Rodrigues et al. 2009; Farrington, Firth et al. 2009; Fine, Williams et al. 2009; Stephensen and Livingston 2009; Villumsen, Sorup et al. 2009; Aaby, Martins et al. 2009; Aaby, Ravn et al. 2009; Agergaard, Lemvik et al. 2010; Bawah, Phillips et al. 2010; Benn, Fisker et al. 2010; Diness, Christoffersen et al. 2010; Elliman 2010; Fine and Elliman 2010; Hein-Kristensen, Jørgensen et al. 2010; Sartono, Lisse et al. 2010; Shann 2010; Shann 2010; Shann, Nohynek et al. 2010; Whittle and Aaby 2010; Aaby 2010; Aaby, Martins et al. 2010; Agergaard, Nante et al. 2011; Flanagan, Klein et al. 2011; Aaby and Benn 2011

Yeah yeah I get it ... you have a small statement in one Aaby study back in 1996 that says they found no non-specific effects on mortality in the Gambia or Mexico.

I also get that there are some criticisms of best methodology...which may I say came out on Aaby's side of the argument, though of course I can see skeptiks wishing to pursue random controlled studies where certain individuals are given "placebos" ... but I'm sure it won't get past the ethics boards.

I also get it ...that you don't want to 'lose' another argument. Well get over it.

That doesn't help. Where are Aaby's studies on low mortality groups that find these effects?

Have you not undertaken any independent research yourself .... other than that 1996 study ?

Go check Post #761

A number of case-control studies from high-income countriessuggest that smallpox vaccination protect againstdiverse chronic conditions and cancers.

In a European study of people with malignant melanoma,
smallpox vaccination reduced the risk of developing malignant melanoma and smallpox vaccination improved survival among malignant melanoma patients who had been smallpox-vaccinated several years prior to diagnosis.

Considering these observations and our findings
from Guinea-Bissau, we wanted to study whether smallpox vaccine and BCG also had non-specific effects in a European setting.

Atopy, allergic rhinitis and asthma From an
ecological perspective, the termination of smallpox
vaccination in high-income countries coincided with an increased incidence of asthma.

We examined the occurrence of atopy, allergic rhinitis,
and asthma among Danish women within a
national birth cohort study.

Among the 1960 women for whom sera were available, 552 (28%) were classified as atopic; among the 1927 women
with information on allergic rhinitis and asthma,
263 (14%) had allergic rhinitis, and 165 (9%)
were cases of asthma.

Overall, smallpox vaccination was not associated with risk of atopy or allergic rhinitis compared to unvaccinated women.

However, smallpox vaccination was associated with an OR of asthma of 0.55 (0.30 to 1.00) adjusting for birth cohort, sibship size, age of the womenâs mother at birth, and social class.

Hence, women who had received smallpox vaccination
were less likely to have asthma, an association previously not described (9).

Now that was interesting.

Infectious disease hospitalisations

Through linking of the CSHRR to the Danish registry of hospitalisations we were able to determine
infectious disease hospitalisation (N=765) for the 2039 individuals for whom we had determined vaccination
status.

Preliminary analysis shows that BCG is associated with a lower risk of all-cause infectious disease hospitalization among women and a tendency
towards smallpox-vaccinated subjects having a lower risk of all-cause infectious disease hospitalisation than subjects not vaccinated with these vaccines.

Smallpox-vaccinated subjects were less likely to have skin infections and BCG vaccinated subjects less likely to be hospitalised for sexually transmitted
infections (STI) than unvaccinated individuals.

These observations are being pursued with studies of specific STIs including HIV-1.

The preliminary indications are that BCG protects women against HIV-1 infection (hazard ratio (HR) 0.30 (0.12-0.77)) whereas the effect for smallpox vaccine was smaller (HR=0.81 (0.24-2.73)).

Please tell me, in which population cohorts in the UK or the USA does infant mortality even approach 22 per 1000, much less 80?

I just showed you non specific effects in high income / very low mortality. Wasn't that interesting.

I suppose if I wanted to find a population with high infant mortality in the US / UK I'd be looking at the Indian Nations population , perhaps Traveller communities, migrant populations, infants born with disabilities and infants born with immune system dysfunction / chronic diseases as particularly high risk groups ...

But then it's not all about mortality ... it's also about disease prevention / burden.

Several million lives free from disease burden and hopefully premature death by safe , efficacious use of vaccines that have been researched to align with this new knowledge. Who could argue against that ...

Guess who.

Honestly, there must be a simpler way to make a point. So you are saying, blackscum, that you are against saving millions from premature deaths?
OK :/

Well, he obviously does not understand the difference between countries like the USA and UK compared to countries like Guinea Bissau.

blackheart@770:

Did you really read all those citations?

Or did you just find every Google reference with Aaby's name and vomit it all over the page?

You really should clean up after yourself.

TBruce and other minions

Run out of intellectual arguments ?

Did you really read all those citations?

The more important question is have you ?

Sort of very casual attitude to medical safety and the lives of Africans and other people of the developing world.

But hey ...there's always time for change.

The references are self contained within a Statens Institute / Bandim Health publication that gives an overview of all the research, including criticism.

There's some 42 pages in this Vaccines appendix outlining the various studies / abstracts and notations.

56 pages on measles

13 pages on Vitamin supplementation

43 pages on HIV

In fact a 262 page Annotated Bibliography outlining all the differing aspects of the research taken by this eminent team of researchers

Look it's hard changing your mind set about these types of issues. If you can't ... well you can't.

If you want to make silly , immature responses ...knock yourself out... real science moves on.

Krebiozen

Merry Christmas and all that .. one day I'll buy you a beer. Your responses always made me think and that's the important part.

Hey I am stubborn and all that. But someone's got to challenge the world view. Otherwise how would you know you the truth .

Whatever that is ?

There's a "John Smith" commenting on a Nature.com thread and on Austisticland.blogspot.com, both on Nov. 4th; and an "Open Opinion", on a Childhealthsafety.wordpress.com thread, way back on September 4th (almost a monthly cycle).

And lest there be any doubt, "John Richard Smith" is regurgitating the NF-κB routine in the comments to Mnookin's recen HuffPo article.

@ Narad: John Richard Smith's fixation and comments on the Mnookin blog have been mostly ignored...sort of a collective ho-hum yawn.

"Jened" has been posting there in reply to my comments...and I am handling this troll...rather expeditiously.

Blackheart,

I neglected this thread, sorry about that.

I haven't read all the 120+ citations you listed but I have read some and I have looked through all of them. I can't see any independent studies supporting Aaby's findings of adverse non-specific effects of vaccines. They are mostly by Aaby and/or his team (many of the "et al"s include Aaby) and so are not independent, and some of them argue against Aaby's conclusions. None of Aaby's studies that find adverse non-specific effects are properly controlled, they all suffer from methodological problems of one sort or another. That's the nature of working in developing countries with high mortality, it is difficult, and we should be careful of coming to premature conclusions. I even wonder if it might have been a mistake withdrawing the high titer measles virus, as it is very effective, and the adverse effects associated with it may have been methodological artifacts or related to the timing of subsequent vaccinations, not due to the HTMV itself.

I wasn't suggesting that there are no non-specific effects in developed countries, we were specifically discussing Aaby's findings of an increase in mortality after certain vaccines/vaccine combinations that he only found in areas with high mortality. I'm sure I remember learning about non-specific effects of BCG decades ago so this isn't a new idea and, as we have mentioned before, actual infection also has non-specific effects.

Look it's hard changing your mind set about these types of issues. If you can't ... well you can't.

I don't see how I am supposed to change my mind, based on what you have presented. I agree that non-specific effects of vaccines are interesting and we should continue to study them. I don't think the current evidence justifies abandoning any vaccines or even changing vaccination schedules. You seem very excited about this, and seem to think that something that should be done hasn't been done. What is that exactly, and how would it save millions of lives?

Anyway, you might find this review study interesting Do childhood vaccines have non-specific effects on mortality? It includes a discussion of the methodological problems in this area. In particular I found the discussion of the effects of DTP vaccination on SIDS interesting. Initial studies found that DTP reduced SIDS, but then subsequent studies looking at the timing of DTP in relation to SIDS found no effects, suggesting that earlier results were due to selection bias. This is the sort of methodological problem that makes these kinds of studies so difficult to interpret, and those studies were carried out in developed countries where studies like this are much easier - fewer epidemics, civil wars, migrations of refugees etc.

Of the non-specific effects of measles vaccine, the review concludes, "The data reviewed suggest that measles vaccine delivers its promised reduction in mortality, but there is insufficient evidence to suggest a mortality benefit above that caused by its effect on measles disease and its sequelae". It calls for studies that don't suffer from the methodological limitations I mentioned which I think that would be a good idea. Premature certainty is a dangerous thing.

High titer measles vaccine I meant, not virus, obviously.

Something that struck me while reviewing some of the Aaby reviews: the female mortality was highly variable (.5 to 2.3 relative to normal titre), and the excess mortality was restricted to 2-year-old girls. Infants, 1-year-olds, and 3-year-olds all had the same mortality as normal titre.

W. Kevin Vicklund,
Interesting - what could make 2-year-old girls susceptible, or is this just a random bit of noise? I noticed that the data is extremely noisy, with highly variable mortality from group to group, and the other studies that supported the higher female mortality didn't achieve statistical significance. The WHO abandoned the HTMV on the basis of this, which was probably wise on the precautionary principle, but I do wonder if it was the right decision.