Vaccination & epidemic

[jinx]

Do some searching and you'll find me making your exact same arguments as recently as a year and a half ago right here on this board.

Did you think I was crazy? It doesn't really matter (and maybe you still do, lol) I'm just curious, in a self-absorbed kinda way....

[Clodfobble]

Not crazy, just wrong. Foolishly misguided by people whose overriding philosophy was really just anti-government. I figured you were cherry-picking flawed studies that proved your point, while holding as rock-solid the assumption that my federal studies couldn't be flawed because they were done by proper scientists using proper scientific methods. When your studies did look really convincing, then I fell back on the safety net of "well of course there are dangers, everyone knows that, but the risks are tiny and the benefits outweigh them." I don't honestly remember you getting into the autism/vaccine connection specifically, more just warning of the problems with a lot of marketed drugs, which I've always agreed with. In my head, drugs for profit were one thing, and scientific studies were another, and never could one be used to influence the other.

[monster]

Originally Posted by glatt

the lifetime risk for a woman dying of cervical cancer is one in 500.
the lifetime risk for a woman dying from the HPV vaccine is one in 145,000.

what is the risk dying from cc after you've had the vaccine?

[glatt]

Originally Posted by monster

what is the risk dying from cc after you've had the vaccine?

I think it's too soon to tell, but the vaccine only eliminates some of the causes of the cancer.

[jinx]

Thanks clod, I appreciate the perspective.

[Undertoad]

Clod, maybe a leading question... based on your new understanding, if you yourself got, say, H1N1, would you think differently about the treatments that you were prescribed?

[monster]

Originally Posted by glatt

I think it's too soon to tell, but the vaccine only eliminates some of the causes of the cancer.

So it may be that it's no use at all. it could be that eliminating those causes leaves room for other causes to step in. We don't know. Or it could be that the women who die from cervical cancer die from the type caused by non HPV factors.

It's not as clear cut a decision as those stats would suggest is all I'm saying.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by monster

It's not as clear cut a decision as those stats would suggest is all I'm saying.

Not to mention the fact that it's 100% irrelevant until the girl is sexually active or about to be. It's not a now-or-never proposition; one can always get it later.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Clod, maybe a leading question... based on your new understanding, if you yourself got, say, H1N1, would you think differently about the treatments that you were prescribed?

It's a hard hypothetical to examine, because I feel pretty certain that I'd never know it even if I did get H1N1. The vast majority of cases display basic flu symptoms, and then they get better. I don't go to the doctor when I have mild illness, so I'd never have the chance to get tested. But if I were one of the rare ones who spiked a high fever, or developed breathing complications, and then I went to the hospital and confirmed it... nothing would change for me, because I never got the flu shot before all this happened either. I would definitely be a lot more cautious about being contagious around my kids now than I would have before, but that's a direct result of the fact that they're immuno-compromised (aside from whether a vaccine triggered it or not, their blood tests currently show severe immune dysfunction.) If one of my kids got H1N1, from me or somewhere else, it would be the same situation as if I got it, because I never gave them flu shots before either, so it's not like the events of the past year would have changed anything in that regard. So no, I wouldn't feel like I had somehow made the wrong choice, or anything.

To go ahead and follow the lead, the meat of the issue is of course what I would feel if they got a disease they might have been vaccinated against but weren't. But again, it's not a realistic hypothetical: Minifob got all his shots through age 2, so he's actually just in booster territory from here on out. And the only major one that Minifobette missed out on is Varicella A, or chicken pox. The incidence of severe complications from chicken pox in children is so low, I would honestly probably attribute any severe reaction on her part to the fact that she's already immuno-compromised, not as an indication that she should have been vaccinated after all.

Chicken pox is much more dangerous in adults, of course, so let's say my daughter gets it when she's in her twenties instead. By that time, she will either be recovered from autism, or still basically in my care. If she's recovered, I will have left the decision about whether to get the shot to protect herself late in life up to her, knowing what she knows about her genetics. If she's still in my care, I will have a good idea of what her immune system is currently doing, and can base a later decision on that. I would hope that by that time the increasing public outcry will have led to safer, perhaps airborne vaccines that do not require the use of adjuvants, at which point I would have to completely re-evaluate the safety of the new products.

It's all about the personal risk, not the average risk. I know my specific children cannot handle any kind of assault on their immune system at the moment, so there is basically a 1 out of 1 chance that a shot right now would be detrimental to them. Whatever the chances of severe complications from any actual disease are for them, they are less than that. So if they get the disease, I won't have any regrets because I took the lowest risk I could given where they are right now.

Now, let's say I have another baby, and I keep that child completely unvaccinated at least up until they are 4 or 5 (which I would.) And let's say that child gets a devastating disease they could have been vaccinated for. I would feel terrible, certainly, but given what we know about that child's genetic tendencies, I'd still feel like we took the lowest risk option for that particular child. I think I'd honestly feel worse if I had a friend who chose not to vaccinate their child based on our experience (and we have several--not because we pressed our views on them at all, but because they knew our kids well and they watched the sudden changes in my daughter's health right alongside us) and their kid got sick.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by monster

Or it could be that the women who die from cervical cancer die from the type caused by non HPV factors.

Well, the link Clodfobble provided in post 416 says Gardasil is "a vaccine that is highly effective in preventing infection with types 16 and 18, two “high-risk” HPVs that cause most (70 percent) cervical cancers."

So it's supposed to be "highly effective" for the viruses that cause 70% of cervical cancers.

The question, as Clodfobble has mentioned elsewhere, is if the women who would be getting the vaccine are also the same women who wouldn't be dying in huge numbers of the cancer because they would be getting regular pap screenings and might not be sleeping around so much.

[Shawnee123]

You know, the whole "cervical cancer as punishment for being a slut" is really tiresome. I've read the same thing in another forum.

You can get aids from one sexual encounter.

I don't care if you slept with one guy or 5000 guys. I bet the perspective on the disease would be different if men were dying in droves. I'm surprised there's even an attempt at a vaccination: why hasn't it gone the way of ovarian cancer, in terms of breakthroughs being made? This makes the vaccine all the more suspicious, imo.

Eradicate Cervical Cancer: never ever have sex ever with anyone...never, ever.

[Undertoad]

That wasn't the lead, and I made a really bad choice of example maladies. Let's say instead that you get Lupus. The doctors prescribe for you a combination of five different drugs: an anti-inflammatory, two corticosteroids, an immunosuppressive, and an anticoagulant. You'll take these as pills. Furthermore they want to begin a round of experimental treatment using monoclonal antibodies. (disclosure: WTF are monoclonal antibodies?)

Is there any difference between what you would say/do next now, as opposed to what you would have said two years ago?

Actually it may not be such a leading question, but like Jinx's question I am just interested in your thoughts on it. Regardless of whether it leads to more conversation.

[Undertoad]

Generation Rescue has taken down its Desiree Jennings page. You won't find it here:

http://generationrescue.org/desiree_jennings.html

It's cached here by Google:

http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&gl=us

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

You know, the whole "cervical cancer as punishment for being a slut" is really tiresome. I've read the same thing in another forum.

I assume you're referring to my comment about sleeping around. I guess I worded it wrong if that's how you took it. I didn't mean it that way. I meant only that each time someone has sex with a new person or a person who has has sex with a new person, they increase their odds of getting the viruses that cause cervical cancer. It's not a blame thing or a punishment thing. It just is.

[Undertoad]

Neurologist/skeptic blogger explains why GR dropped DJ:

Kurtz and Generation Rescue ran into a real patient advocacy group – Rogers Hartmann and dystonia activism. Hartmann runs an independent dystonia charity, lifewithdystonia.com. It was clear to Hartmann (as it was to anyone sufficiently familiar with dystonia) that Jennings did not have dystonia. She called Fox and Stan Kurtz – and then the furious backpedaling began. Until then [local Fox reporter] Coffey had accepted the story at face value, without any journalistic due diligence in evidence. When she learned that perhaps she had been snookered, the panicked calls to Hartmann began.

It was not until after Hartmann became involved, and the e-mails and phone calls of many other dystonia activists putting pressure on Fox, did they do follow up reporting, such as interviewing Dr. Stephen Grill about dystonia and the fact that Jennings does not have it.

It was also due to Hartmann that Generation Rescue was (partially) saved from its own stupidity and zealotry. Stan Kurtz was going full-steam ahead, as if Generation Rescue had the expertise to diagnose and treat vaccine-induced dystonia (an entity never reported in the medical literature). And then (after being contacted by Hartmann and having the truth of the matter explained to them) suddenly and without a word, Generation Rescue backed away from Jennings and took down the web page.

[Shawnee123]

~snip~I meant only that each time someone has sex with a new person or a person who has has sex with a new person, they increase their odds of getting the viruses that cause cervical cancer.

I realize that, and I don't think for a minute that you would think it was punishment. It kind of points back to the subtlety in our language I alluded to in the "man's inhumanity to man, or woman" thread.

And also, you were not the first person I heard saying something like that.

It, to me, is kind of like saying that capital punishment is a deterrent. Do we really think that, with all the risks unprotected sex has always brought about, all of a sudden young women will be thinking, as a whole "no I won't have sex, I might get cervical cancer"?

This is not in keeping with the thread, and I'm sorry, but I do think there is an underlying "if you didn't sleep around so much you wouldn't have gotten cervical cancer" thought process that is just generally accepted. I find that sexist and unacceptable.

So though I know better than to think any of you really feel that way, I took the opportunity to point it out as it has been a recurring theme in other forums where I've read similar subject matter.

I didn't mean to point at you glatt. I know you're one of the good ones. I just seize opportunities to bark.



OK, I'll quit hijacking.