Vaccination & epidemic
 

With the withdrawal of 10 of the 13 original supporters from the original Lancet paper that kicked off the anti-vaccination craze (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9500320) and the revelation that Andrew Wakefield falsified his results linking vaccination to autism, it would seem as if the anti-vaccination lunatics (http://www.generationrescue.org/) would back off at least a little on their dangerous allegations that vaccines harm more than they save. Instead, it seems as if they've redoubled their efforts.

In discussing the vaccination issue with people who have chosen not to vaccinate their children, I find that a typical reaction to my pro-vaccination opinion is to assume that I simply haven't read enough. Naturally, given my specific interests in the fields of biochemistry and epidemiology, the opposite is true; if anything, I've read too much. I have watched my children, worried, after each vaccination, and breathed a sigh of relief when none of the many well-documented complications arose. None of those well-documented complications happen to be long-term mental deficiency or autism, but that's not stopping the anti-vaccination ignorant from promoting their potentially disastrous propaganda, nor is it stopping the resurgence of formerly eradicated and dangerous diseases like mumps, measles, and rubella. Even tuburculosis and the horrible crippling disease of polio, formerly considered extinct, is on the rise.

Why, in this day of new and increasingly dangerous epidemics such as AIDS and SARS, are we allowing idiots to disarm our bottom-line defenses against diseases we defeated decades ago? This is sheer insanity.

A.) There was not a "revelation" that Dr. Wakefield falsified his results--there was a single accusation that he had done so, and he is currently suing said accuser.

B.) If you actually look at the original study, it was in no way intended to demonize vaccines in and of themselves.

The digestive disorders were correlated with the autism symptoms, and the MMR vaccine (specifically the live measles part of it) may or may not have contributed to worsening the underlying digestive disorders. No one has ever implicated the polio vaccine in anything, and people who go whole-hog and choose not to get it are overzealous. The reality is, vaccinating and not vaccinating both have side effects. It is a little unfair to expect the parents of a child who has been harmed by a vaccine to rationally accept that it is better that their own child be harmed rather than some other child dying of the disease. There's no comparison. Either it's your child or it's not, and if it is your child, everything changes.

A) According to an investigation by the Times, the allegations look to be confirmable: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle5683671.ece

B) I said "the original Lancet paper that kicked off the anti-vaccination craze", not "the original Lancet paper that was intended to demonize vaccines". Either way, the vast majority of the researchers involved have withdrawn support from the paper, and I think that bears strong consideration.

The rest of your post contains interesting observations similar to those I alluded to in my own post.

Except we do not agree on this part:

unless you are hinging your statementon the fact that it is "undocumented" by large, double-blind controlled studies. There are scores of studies showing that measles causes digestive damage, and an exponentially-growing body of evidence that digestive disorders can result in autistic symptoms. It's not hard to make the connection between the two. Like any extremists, the total anti-vaccine people could be less widespread if only the medical community would honestly examine the issue and admit that there are significant risks to vaccination, though they may still be less than the risk of an unvaccinated population. By railing against them and calling them "ignorant" or "idiots," you only strengthen their position with moderates who have doubts that vaccines are "totally safe," as most doctors still gamely insist.

Regarding the Wakefield study:

My son's pediatrician told me that she had "absolutely no concerns about autism" less than a week before he was diagnosed by a trained professional. Pardon my jaded cynicism, but GPs don't know squat, and the vast majority of parents of autistic children realize this very quickly, and stop bothering with normal pediatricians altogether. My son's GP records don't show 90% of his symptoms, despite the fact that I'd been reporting them for months, because the doctor didn't consider them noteworthy. I know this, because I requested all his medical records as part of his treatment. And again, the fact that symptoms of autism were noted before the MMR shot does not mean the MMR shot did not worsen them. Thirdly, my son's gastroenterologist reported that his gut was "normal," i.e. he did not have celiac disease. This, despite a lifetime of chronic diarrhea. It would seem the only "evidence" that things were falsified is that he found ailments no one else had identified.

Brian Deer, the Times reporter is the SOURCE of the allegations ffs... sorry I don't trust him to accurately investigate the bullshit he made up in the first place.


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Also incorrect. The anti-vaccination craze had been around for a long, long time prior to Wakefield's paper. There has been vaccine controversy for as long as there have been vaccines. Have you not heard of the swine flu/Guillian Barre, DTP vs. DTaP, thimerosal fiascos etc.? Yeah - it's the people that bitch about the unsafe vaccines that get that made safer - for those who choose to use them.

You didn't click on the links, did you?

How else would I know it was a Brian Deer article? But no, I didn't click on the "anti-vaccination lunatics" link because, well, duh.

I didn't need to click on it, because I've already been there before. Large portions of that site are dedicated to treating and curing existing autism cases, in which they believe vaccines are only a part of the equation. But like I said, you keep bringing people over to your side by belittling groups who have a more moderate view than you'd like to believe they do. Let me know how that works out for you.

Since I'm sure you've read your own link, I'd be interested in what you think about their large-scale study involving rates of neurological disorders among vaccinated and non-vaccinated children. Do you think they faked the data? Do you think there's something else that explains the correlation?

Reading this I wonder why those 991 children weren't vaccinated? I was under the impression they had to be vaccinated to attend school. If that's true then they must be home schooled, and I wonder what other differences there are in family lifestyle?

They say you have to be vaccinated to attend school, but usually you just have to jump through a dozen hoops and go through a bunch of bureaucratic red tape to file for an official exemption. Each state is different, and I don't know what the specific rules are in California and Oregon, where this study was done--but this is the information form for Texas, for example.

I agree that this is proper action but do you think that an honest examination would have such a great affect since scientific journals and media are not heavily read by the general public?

Most people read articles from journalists who have an agenda. Sadly, if the medical community did do this honest examination, the journalistic reporting probably won't at the same level, especially if extremists are the only ones giving input to this issue.

There are exemption options for every kid in every state. Home schoolers have the same vaccination requirements as any other kid.

Yes, because I also think an honest examination would force them to conclude that the current vaccination schedule is too aggressive, and that certain specific vaccinations carry extra risks and should be performed with even more caution; and in the long term view, I think it would also open the research path of trying to identify those kids who are genetically at risk. The PR danger is that they have to be sure to do this all in one fell swoop, because as soon as they actually admit there's a problem, vaccination rates are going to plummet until they can convince everyone they've got it figured out again. The best way to do it would be the same way they removed Thimerosal: "Okay, okay, look, we know there's absolutely no risk, but fine, if you insist, we'll take it out. Happy now?"

I don't have anything further to add to this discussion because I can't intelligently discuss any topic with people who refuse to do any additional reading because they think they already know all the available material, have made up their minds, closed them, and thrown away the key.

"There is no need for me to click on the links or read the studies, or the withdrawals, because I already know everything".

I heartily recommend reading actual medical studies and not third-party interpretations of those studies wherever possible, because when you read the interpretations you're absorbing someone else's opinion, not forming your own.

Nice troll.

What do you think about Evan Harris' allegations against Wakefield? What do you think about the resurgence of measles? What do you think about the fact that Wakefield is more or less entirely irrelevant to the fact that not vaccinating kills or harms more children than vaccinating does?

This is your only reaction to being asked to think for yourself? :lol:

By an troll, yes.

I have always felt, instinctively, and please, don't jump all over me for that, I am not a medic, I have no reason or desire to become an expert; but I always felt, that it seems an awful risk to throw so much at a youngster's immune system in one fell swoop.

Whether it was the vaccinations that sent my baby eczema mental or not, it occurred within a couple of days of the first lot and then stayed like that for 15 years, before calming down some. Given the immuno connection with eczema, and a bunch of other conditions of a similar nature, I am inclined to think, instinctively that it may have been connected. It's very difficult to show a clear path of causality in a lot of these conditions. But we have higher than ever, and rising, levels of such conditions.

I think there is a case to be made for giving vaccinations at a higher age, and one at a time. I don't know about over there. But over here we put our children into the social scene of playgroup/nursery/school, at a very young age. Personally, I think we should be holding off an extra year (or two) before sending them into the fray, and then perhaps we don't have to vaccinate so quickly?

Oh, yes, clearly all my posts here over the course of the last several months, especially my poetry and the personal information I've shared, reveal me to be a troll.

Or is that how you always dismiss people who expect a higher level of intellectual integrity in debate?

I agree with parts of this... and that's how I handled my kids' vaccinations. At a higher age, and one at a time. There are clear risks, and known ways to minimize them.

However, "thinking instinctively" that a vaccine caused your child's eczema is a sort of magical thinking.

If there is a directly chartable correlation between specific vaccinations and increasing rates of eczema, it makes sense to suspect that the vaccinations are at fault... that's one aspect of science. But it's a long step from "These vaccines have the potential side effect of causing eczema so we should be aware and cautious about giving them in combination or at too early an age" to "These vaccines have the potential side effect of causing eczema so we should stop using them and put our children, and others, at risk of contracting some horrific diseases with far greater potential for severe harm".

That's my sole point. Thanks to the anti-vaccination mob, kids are getting measles again, and mumps. And POLIO, for fuck sake! Polio! WTF.

It's pretty screwed-up.

Whether it was the vaccinations that sent my baby eczema mental or not, it occurred within a couple of days of the first lot

When my first dog went into seizure, it was the day after his heartworm pill. My ex went online, googled seizures and heartworm pills, and found a lot of concerned dog owners finding their dogs having seizures within 48 hours of taking heartworm pills.

Of course; because dogs with the most concerned owners give their dogs heartworm pills once a month, so if they go into seizure there's a 1/15 chance it was 48 hours after a pill. The seizure was actually due to a brain tumor, as it is most of the time, but explain that to the overly-concerned owner who has just found 5 other overly concerned owners.

So that's exactly it Dana, the causality is hard to get to, partly because self-selecting overly-concerned owners can now create their own troubling evidence...

...BUT as well as, perhaps, to find new hypotheses to test with diligent home science, as performed so excellently by Clod.

Of course if they are not so diligent they may wind up treating their children as labs for BAD science...

So what you're saying is, you chose to delay the vaccination schedule that is clearly and strongly urged by the American Academy of Pediatrics? Exactly as the generationrescue.com people say you should? Sounds like you're fighting against the wrong people, Tiki. You keep referring to some mythical "anti-vaccination mob," except by your own admission, you acted exactly like 90% of them do.

Nope, with the full cooperation of my pediatrician, I delayed vaccination to the recommended upper age limits, and spaced them out so they weren't getting hit by round after round of vaccinations all at once. I didn't exceed the recommended upper age limits for each given vaccination, but I wouldn't, in most cases, find it unreasonable for parents to do so on an individual basis if they were basing their choices on known risk/benefit factors. It is not uncommon for some vaccines to be delayed for medical or developmental reasons.

The anti-vaccine people that I refer to in my OP are against vaccinating their children at all. They don't do it. I'm not talking about delaying vaccinations or spacing them out, I'm talking about not doing it at all. There are significant and growing numbers of them.

That's why measles, mumps, rubella, and polio are making a comeback. Unfortunately, they put a lot of people at risk in addition to the children whose parents chose not to vaccinate them.

Perhaps the "people" you refer to don't, but the link you gave (www.generationrescue.com,) identifying them as "the anti-vaccination lunatics" says the following:

It seems rather evident that you didn't click on your links, Tiki...

Turns out we're all on the same side. Nobody wants a measles comeback, nobody wants another child to develop autism, everyone wants to space out vaccines better... It is fun to tweak each other with magical thinking comments, but we don't progress without challenges to received wisdom. The present vaccines are good enough for the life or death throw-down we are in and they have bought us time, but now that something equally horrific to a minority of children has asserted itself free inquiry is not to be opposed under the guise of science. After all, those children could be the canarys in the coal mine. Once upon a time, flushing our shit directly into the Susquehanna was vastly superior to having a city full of out-houses but thankfully we kept looking for a superior solution.

A troll is as a troll does, in 1 thread or all of them. You can write all the poetry you want, but you started this thread off with name calling, then moved on to ignoring post content, making snarky, meaningless, pointless remarks, and then threw in some hyperbole. Oh but now you want some intelligent debate.

Yeah, I'm not impressed.

This is absolutely true, but at the same time... is it the bogeyman that some make it out to be? I don't know. It's certainly worth looking into.

Keep in mind that (in the US) we do not vaccinate for typhus, typhoid, TB, and one of the biggest pre-vaccine era killers: scarlet fever. Yet, their prevalence decreased right along with the diseases we do vaccinate for.

The measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, and as the CDC points out, it reduced measles deaths from about 400-500 per year to 1 or 2 - although there were epidemic years in 1970-72, 1976-78, and 1989-91.

According to the Vital Statistics of the United States, in the 63 years prior to the measles vaccination introduction, death rates declined from 13.3 per 100,00 to 0.2 per 100,000.

Sounds like you're feeling defensive. That's your issue, not mine.

I posted that link for the reference to Jenny McCarthy.

I fail to understand that comment. Jenny McCarthy founded the organization. It's her website. She's an airhead, but she's an airhead that supports vaccinating--on a less aggressive schedule, and with fewer toxins in the vaccinations--just like she says on her website.

...yet.

Jinx's last statistic seems pretty remarkable so I looked it up and she was right. The stat is hard to understand because overall deaths per 100,000 went down by about half in the same time period. Of course death is not the only negative to catching a major viral infection... you could have lifelong consequences, brain damage etc.

But overall it seems like societal hygiene is an excellent preventative for many diseases, so WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS, YOU DIRTY HIPPIES. That goes for you white trash barefoot uneducated crackers as well. And double for you Euro punters, because we all know you filthy buggars'll pee right in the middle of the street and not change out your underwear for a week.

So, so, do people think that autism is one possibility if the body finds it has a strong immune system, and isn't fighting anything because we're so ultra-clean nowadays, that the body starts to fight nutrients and/or useful enzymes? And stuff?

No soap fer me, thanks! Time to go sit in the goat crap for Francescas 10:30 feeding. I feel better already.

Cool, how about these?

Pertussis decline 1900-1949(year vaccine introduced) 12.2 per 100,000 to 0.5.
Diptheria decline 1900-1949(year vaccine introduced) 40.3 per 100,000 to 0.4.
Typhoid decline 1900-1949 32 per 100,000 to <1.
Scarlet fever decline 1900-1949 10 per 100,000 to <1.

The problem is that the risk always becomes unacceptable when it's your kid that gets hurt, regardless of the side. I have a friend whose 5-month-old baby caught Pertussis, just before she would have gotten her immunization at her 6-month checkup. She had to be hospitalized for two weeks, and there was a period where the doctors were warning the parents that there was a very real chance she might not make it. My friend now believes, not surprisingly, that the DTaP shot ought to be given to babies even earlier.

There are more cases of whooping cough being reported among small children recently. It has been attributed to less people immunizing their children.

There are more cases of stupid shit being posted on internet forums recently. It has been attributed to more stupid people having computers.

My point was that it is not always so easy to make a direct chartable correlation between specific anything and eczema. We don't know anywhere near enough about the condition. So...if there is anecdotal evidence that a condition, which is connected to the immune system, becomes more severe in some babies, after they've been immunized, maybe this is a link worth looking at more closely. That said, the difficulty they've had in identifying any single cause or relationship beyond the loosely grouped immuno and allergic definitions they currently have, suggests that this is not such an easy thing to do. That doesn't mean those causes and relationships don't exist.

The submit without questioning crowd has been running out their own airhead as well. I'd like to think the saftey and effectiveness of vaccinations were based on solid research rather than financial interests but then you see mandated chicken pox vaccines and you start to doubt. Jinx's numbers are pretty damning.

Actually, that doesn't make sense. In most cases the children who got the whooping cough were not deliberately unvaccinated, they were younger than the vaccine schedule would have them immunized. In my friend's case, there's no question that she got the disease from her mother. Except her mother was vaccinated as a child, just like we all were. Her mother got the disease because, as doctors will freely admit, a vaccine doesn't give you lifelong immunity like having the disease does. It wears off. It is the millions of adults walking around who are now susceptible to the disease again because their childhood vaccines have worn off, rather than the handful of unvaccinated children. There's been a big push in this country--for over three years, at least, because I got all the handouts when my first one was born--for new parents to re-immunize themselves against whooping cough, so they won't pass it to their baby. We've set ourselves up to need lifelong "booster shots."

These numbers are completely irrelevant because Scarlet Fever and Typhoid are both caused by BACTERIUM, not viruses. You cannot vaccinate against bacteria. Bacterial diseases are prevented through better hygiene (on a mass, not individual level) and treated with antibiotics.

Clod, the weakened immunization among adults was not previously considered a large problem because these diseases are largely spread among children, and the idea was that if each successive wave of children were vaccinated, there would be no source from which the adults could contract them. Like we were successful at doing with smallpox, the trajectory for many of these diseases was total eradication, at which point vaccination could be ceased.

Unfortunately, the decline in immunity for adults vaccinated as children compounds the severity of these diseases when there is an outbreak.

You're wrong again Tiki - Diptheria is also caused by bacteria, and there is a vaccine for it.

Her "official" stance sure has changed a lot, then. :lol:

OK, you're right. I was mistaken about being unable to vaccinate against bacteria... certain types can be vaccinated against.

However, the decline of of bacterial diseases that we now understand how to prevent and treat using modern antibiotics still has no bearing on the efficacy of vaccines.

By your logic, the decline in Black Death proves that vaccines are unnecessary, because we don't have a vaccine for Black Death and yet there are very few cases of it. However, the truth is that increased hygiene and ready availability of antibiotics has resolved that issue, and it's unrelated to vaccination.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, but you want to tell me what the "truth" is?
Excuse me while I go think for myself, thanks.

:lol:

Bacterial vaccines:
Anthrax
Brucellosis
Cholera
Diptheria*
Hib*
Meningococcus*
Pertussis*
Plague
Pneumococcal*
Tetanus*
TB (BCG)
Typhoid
Typhus
combo vaccine DTwP/DTaP*

*= on current vaccine schedule in US

I don't think that the fact that I was wrong about bacterial vaccines (which I readily acknowledged a few posts back - I don't have a problem admitting it when I've made a mistake) really invalidates the fact that many bacterial illnesses have diminished because they are easily preventable and treatable with antibiotics. If your argument against vaccines hinges on the availability of bacterial vaccines, you don't have an argument at all.

The Y. Pestis vaccine, by the way, is still experimental and not in common use. I looked it up, because I like looking things up. Nonetheless, plague is not a widespread or common infection, because it has been controlled through hygiene and is easily treatable with antibiotics.

My point is, the fact that many diseases have been controlled through means other than vaccination does not invalidate or minimize the importance of controlling other diseases through vaccination. It doesn't even make any logical sense to argue that it does.

I have pretty much had them all except Brucellosis and Cholera. I will let you know if I get any central or peripheral nervous system disorders.

Military?

Yea. I had all the Anthrax shots before they mandated them in the rest of the military as we were off to some hairy places, but I was one of the lucky ones and never had any problem with them.

Argument? I just posted the a list of bacterial vaccines to clear up the misinformation you posted about them not existing.

Sort of a red herring, don't you think? I had already admitted to being wrong about bacterial vaccines, and it doesn't have much to do with the discussion at hand, which is about whether vaccines prevent disease.

oh....I though the discussion was about who didn't click what link, and who's a lunatic idiot, and who has done all her homework and research so that she can talk down to other people and stuff.

I may have to re read this thread.

It all depends on what you want to see, and what elements you latch onto.

I think both clodfobble and jinx have clearly demonstrated that people make the choices that they make based on the information they have or can acquire. your initial post insults and lumps all non vaccinators together under the label 'lunatics' and 'idiots'. ...and goes on to note that these non vaccinating lunatics typically do you the injustice of assuming that you're undereducated about them. And here you are doing that exact thing. as usual, you're talking out of your ass. you're an inflamatory hypocrite troll. Of course, I'm probably just picking on you because I'm mean.

but hey...you're very creative and artsy and independant....so maybe you're just ahead of your time and misunderstood?

latch onto this

I love how, if you can't actually refute points you disagree with, you simply resort to personal attacks, which you then gleefully drag around from thread to thread pretending you're being "friendly".

You're not especially bright, and it shows. :D

^^^^^See that, LJ? That's a personal attack, against you, a person. Not a general opinion such as "I think people who don't vaccinate are irresponsible idiots who are a threat to society". That's not a personal attack, it's a strongly-worded opinion.