We told them this would happen.
We told them that it was only a matter of time before a childhood disease that had nearly been eliminated from the US would come roaring back if they failed to vaccinate their children. And that’s precisely what has happened. Measles has come roaring back, but not simply because a child incubating measles visited Disneyland.
Twenty years ago, if the same child had visited Disneyland, the measles would have stopped with him or her. Everyone else was protected — not because everyone was vaccinated — but because of herd immunity. When a high enough proportion of the population is vaccinated, the disease simply can’t spread because the odds of one unvaccinated person coming in contact with another are very low.
Of course, we told them that. We patiently explained herd immunity, debunked claims of an association between vaccines and autism, demolished accusations of “toxins” in vaccines, but they didn’t listen. Why? Because we thought the problem was that anti-vax parents didn’t understand science. That’s undoubtedly true, but the anti-vax movement is NOT about science and never was.
The anti-vax movement has never been about children, and it hasn’t really been about vaccines. It’s about privileged parents and how they wish to view themselves.
1. Privilege
Nothing screams “privilege” louder than ostentatiously refusing something that those less privileged wish to have.
Each and every anti-vax parent is privileged in having easy and inexpensive access to life saving vaccines. It is the sine qua non of the anti-vax movement. In a world where the underprivileged may trudge miles to the nearest clinic, desperate to save their babies from infectious scourges, nothing communicates the unbelievable wealth, ease and selfishness of modern American life like refusing the very same vaccines.
2. Unreflective defiance of authority
There are countless societal ills that stem from the fact that previous generations were raised to unreflective acceptance of authority. It’s not hard to argue that unflective acceptance of authority, whether that authority is the government or industry, is a bad thing. BUT that doesn’t make the converse true. Unreflective defiance is really no different from unreflective acceptance. Oftentimes, the government, or industry, is right about a particular set of claims.
Experts in a particular topic, such as vaccines, really are experts. They really know things that the lay public does not. Moreover, it is not common to get a tremendous consensus among experts from different fields. Experts in immunology, pediatrics, public health and just about everything else you can think of have weighed in on the side of vaccines. Experts in immunology, pediatrics and public health give vaccines to their OWN children, rendering claims that they are engaged in a conspiracy to hide the dangers of vaccines to be nothing short of ludicrous.
Unfortunately, most anti-vax parents consider defiance of authority to be a source of pride, whether that defiance is objectively beneficial or not.
3. The need to feel “empowered”
This is what is comes down to for most anti-vax parents: it’s a source of self-esteem for them. In their minds, they have “educated” themselves. How do they know they are “educated”? Because they’ve chosen to disregard experts (who appear to them as authority figures) in favor of quacks and charlatans, whom they admire for their own defiance of authority. The combination of self-education and defiance of authority is viewed by anti-vax parents as an empowering form of rugged individualism, marking out their own superiority from those pathetic “sheeple” who aren’t self-educated and who follow authority.
Where does that leave us?
First, it explains why efforts to educate anti-vax parents about the science of immunology has been such a spectacular failure. It is not, and has never been, about the science.
Second, it suggests how we must change our approach. Simply put, we have to hit anti-vax parents where they live: in their unmerited sense of superiority.
How? By pointing out to them, and critiquing, their own motivations.
Anti-vax parents are anxious to see themselves in a positive light. They would almost certainly be horrified to find that others regard them as so incredibly privileged that they can’t even see their own privilege.
We need to highlight the fact that unreflective defiance is just the flip side of unreflective acceptance. There’s nothing praiseworthy about it. Only teenagers think that refusing to do what authority figures recommend marks them as independent. Adults know that doing the exact opposite of what authority figures recommend is a sign of immaturity, not deliberation, and certainly not education.
Finally, we need to emphasize to parents that parenting is not about them and their feelings. It’s about their children and THEIR health and well being. It’s one thing to decline to follow a medical recommendation. Most of us do that all the time. It’s another thing entirely to join groups defined by defiance, buy their products, and preach to others about your superiority in defying medical recommendations. That’s a sign of the need to bolster their own self-esteem, not their “education.”
We have to confront anti-vax parents where they live — in their egos. When refusing to vaccinate your children is widely viewed as selfish, irresponsible, and the hallmark of being UNeducated, anti-vax advocacy will lose its appeal.
I have had to remove a substantial portion of the comments because the 2000+ comments were crashing the page, and intermittently crashing the entire site.
Add to the above Bias Confirmation.
Probably a good point. I hadn’t thought of it from that angle, either, only that these were people that needed a quick course in the science. It does make sense that the privileged (awkward word choice, yes, but it makes the point) think they don’t need the vaccines that the great unwashed do. But just wait until one of their precious offspring GETS measles and GETS encephalitis as a complication. Then the now-useless college fund will be used up in a year on 24/7 nursing care for the now hopelessly brain damaged unvaccinated offspring. But the regrets will last forever.
A good article but sadly contaminated by the overused “privilege” insult, a real red flag indicative of a certain political sub-culture.
Privilege is a thing that exists. Everyone has varying degrees of it, and since we are all variously privileged or disadvantaged on lots and lots of axes it’s not really insulting to point out that privilege exists. It’s just a fact.
Axes of privilege in the US include being white, male, Christian, straight, cisgender, young-to-middle-age, able-bodied, mentally healthy, and upper middle class or higher socioeconomic status. Axes of disadvantage include being a person of color, female, non-Christian, transgender or genderfluid or genderqueer, very young or very old, disabled, mentally ill, and working class or lower socioeconomic status. Privilege is subtle- it’s things like being deferred to more automatically, not being followed in stores, presumed to be telling the truth, given more benefit of the doubt, not interrupted in business meetings, having your story and your viewpoint considered the “neutral” viewpoint. It’s not having to spend your life worried about the police coming after you for no good reason. It’s not having to spend your life worried about sexual assault. It’s having your crazy ideas that harm people validated as “freedom” while other people’s crazy ideas that harm people are rejected. It’s having your acts of violence handwaved as aberrations while others’ acts of violence are taken to smear their group as a whole (example: a Muslim shooting up a military base is called Islamist terrorism, but a Christian bombing an abortion clinic is not called Christian terrorism).
And yes, in case you’re wondering, I have a whole fuckload of privilege and only a few axes of disadvantage. I’m white, upper middle class, mostly straight, well-educated, able-bodied, have no mental illnesses, cisgender, and right in the winning age range (25-50). I’m female and I’m not Christian, so that can suck sometimes, but overall I’m benefiting a lot from a society that assumes I’m valuable and that my ideas are worth listening to, not because my ideas are necessarily awesome, but because of my demographic characteristics. Assuming that your picture is an accurate one and based on the content of your post, I’m going to say it’s highly likely you have almost no disadvantages at all. You have no idea what it’s like to be not-like-you, you have no idea the subtle privileges you get every single day of your life. Maybe you should listen to people who try to tell you that not everyone lives your life, instead of saying “well I don’t deal with it therefore it’s not real”. The privilege to ignore the suffering of others … that’s a big one you seem to have. People who are disadvantaged don’t get to ignore their disadvantages.
How is it insulting to describe someone who lives in the most affluent society in the history of the world, ‘privileged’? You might feel awkward about your privilege, or it might not fit in with a particular persecution motif you identify with, but simply in practical terms it is not inaccurate.
It would be nice if we could remember that there are more than two sides to any conversation. We’d all be a lot better off if we could be understanding enough of the other to move out of our “camps” long enough to find a common ground and move forward on this issue in a conscious way. Berating others is not usually a successful approach to having a conversation. The only people nodding their heads in agreement with you are people that already agreed with you. If we really want to see change then we need to let go of our emotional motivations and move forward with objective compassion and creativity.
Well, there can be two sides to a conversation, but as someone recently pointed out, the truth isn’t necessarily in the middle. Vaccines have saved millions of lives. They are A Good Thing. To say anything else is to misunderstand facts.
Perhaps if compassion is your thing you might like to think about who really needs it.
How about people who are too young or too sick to be protected by vaccination, and who rely on herd immunity-are they worthy of compassion?
Those who would be left dead and permanently injured by VPIs currently avoided by vaccines-are they worthy enough for you?
How about those whose parents care more about their own fears, egos and beliefs based on self serving nonsense on the internet, than their children’s health?
People in countries that can’t afford vaccination and who lose family members to VPIs every year.
Surprisingly often people come here to ‘educate’ Dr T and stay as they learn they can criticise without being blocked, and that the information that is out there from reputable sources is far more accurate and responsible than the nonsense coming from any one or all of the dozens or hundreds of anti-vaxxers pouring out their fear and rage.
You won’t be blocked. If you forget the ‘compassion’ you claim to be pushing, and resort to insult, you’ll be heard. Have a look down the thread if you haven’t done so already and see people trying to engage with Rosanna, MCH and whoever the other anti-vaxxers du jour are, and only bailing out when the ‘yes, but’ gets too much. You’ll see the paranoia of the current anti-vax lot: it is particularly unattractive to my way of thinking, but there seems to be a personality disorder for every taste and budget displayed in the anti comments across the site.
I would love to feel the compassion that anti-vaccine parents have for my 4 month old premature baby (vaccinated according to his age), too young to receive the MMR shot.
Respectfully, they don’t get herd immunity — because anti-vaxxers are bad at math and make illogical decisions. Their decisions are based on subjective “feelings”, emotion and selfishness.
This is about mothers who cannot do math. Yes, mothers — not fathers.
So lets get to it: the embarrassing and profoundly disturbing part of all of this. The large majority of anti-vaxxers are women. This problem is to be laid directly at their feet.
That’s because when it comes to child care – women carry the keys to THAT magic kingdom. If men were the majority of anti-vaxxers, this wouldn’t be remotely as bad. For the most part, it’s women take the kids to the doctor’s office and sign them up for school and deal with these issues in North America. If men were 80% of the anti-vaxxers, there would have been a HELLUVA lot more kids vaccinated because women would have done it anyway and seen to the healthcare of those kids.
That’s the way our society works, rightly or wrongly. So when mothers don’t buy in, as a society, we’re **screwed**.
This is about Mothers who can’t do math, but are very adept at “self-education” and “empowerment”.
It is infuriating and my patience for this insanity is entirely at an end.
It is time for sweeping and coercive legislation, with mandatory vaccination administered through the school system without ANY warnings. No opting out for ANY reason. That kid gets the needle no matter what. Because we are not asking sweetheart — this time, we’re telling. And “no” isn’t on the menu.
The End.
um.. no..
Big fan of vaccinations, but no. Medical reasons are still reasons.. Most vaccinations are done for the under 6s, and I’d be livid if someone vaccinated my kid without my consent (and without input from her immunologists).
Other parents should definitely be encouraged to speak up more, but women are definitely not the only ones in the anti-vax hole.
Your dissenting vote on this issue is duly noted — and should be duly ignored. The fact that you’d be livid is no longer my concern.
I am entirely in support of coercive legislation that will do this no matter how livid that would make you. I no longer care about irrational dissent on this issue.
Some people have legitimate medical conditions that compromise their immune systems and prevent them from being vaccinated. This is why herd immunity is so important. This is why we care that other people are vaccinated because they’re hurting the people who can’t be and not just themselves.
You know how to tell the difference between an antivaxxer versus someone who has a legitimate medical contraindication?
The first one runs around telling everyone else how bad vaccines are. The second one says, “I talked to my doctor and I can’t have this shot, so please, other people get it!”
Not necessarily. You can acknowledge that vaccines are generally life-saving but still hold legitimate concerns about the timing and especially numbers which are foisted on a child during a time when their brain is much more vulnerable to toxic insult than that of an adult. You can also hold concerns which ARE supported by peer-reviewed research that autism is an autoimmune condition, which, if true, means you cannot rule out anything designed to act or trigger the child’s immune system. We need to have a sensible discussion about this. Unfortunately all we get are articles like the one above.
The only thing driving the lack of uptake in vaccines or the demand for alternative schedules is the fact that “science” has still not come up with an adequate explanation or any action at all to halt the rise in the incidence of neurodevelopmental and autoimmune conditions. By far the biggest factor in a parent deciding not to vaccinate is an observed reaction to vaccines in a sibling of the unvaccinated or close relative or family friend. Not a crackpot website, or accessing medical sites they don’t understand. Family experience. Time and again I’ve said it—if you want people to have confidence in yoru medical system, find out what the hell has caused the jump to one kid in 45. Because it’s clear that the biggest issue we’re facing is not a pandemic of infectious disease (which is a problem) but the far more immediate concern that between 2-5% of millennials are becoming mentally disabled. And before you say ‘better than death’, a autistic child is more likely to die at an earlier again and suffer, as they age, a battery of physical and mental health problems. Suicide for autistics is also higher. It’s a devastating condition. When you observe a family gon through this—your sister, your cousin, your neighbour—and you see the State doing nothing to determine the cause and put a stop to it, then in your mind doing something, anything, to protect your kid from that future is your primary motivator. So rather than pouring resources and energy into bullying parents in this position, pour the energy into tackling the worst public health crisis we’ve ever faced. Get of your butts, do some experiments, and rule out NOTHING until you are sure you’ve determined the ACTUAL causes of autistic regression.
Coming first to the issue of sexism—as a feminist I would say this absolutely rife in the debate. Women are frequently portrayed as backward, emotional, or irrational (very very old tropes when describing women in medicine see Women Under the Knife and the medical anthropology of Sheila Kitzinger “Ourselves as Mothers” is a good place to start.) Numerous studies have shown gender bias in medicine where women’s pain or observation about their bodies or their children’s are routinely ignored or accorded less weight than men’s.
Examination of the memes and cartoons released by the Vaccine Advocate camp frequently portray women, and especially mothers, as irrational and ignorant. The presented face of “Anti-Vaxxers” in these pro-vax memes is a female one. In text memes, the use of feminine pronouns and reference to “brainwashed mothers” (but not fathers) abound. These cartoons and memes also show very violent images. I recently collected cartoons from the pro-vax camp that showed a woman having a fit when when she was presented with facts from a male doctor (subtext, your female brain overloads when presented with information) and one especially violent image where a doctor — again a man — is stabbing a syringe into a woman’s brain. The level of violence in these images is astounding.
http://quietmike.org/2015/01/29/punch-anti-vaxxers-face-facts/#prettyPhoto/0/
In this image we see a graphic depiction of a violation of a woman’s bodily autonomy. If you don’t see anything wrong with this image, then I truly pity you, but maybe you should just not talk to or about women on the internet.
None of that is scientific evidence. If you want to participate in the discussion you must post peer reviewed scientific studies THAT YOU HAVE READ, not nonsense spoon fed to you by quacks.
I don’t see any peer reviewed research pointing to the “privilege” argument. The original poster wrote this: “Each and every anti-vax parent is privileged in having easy and inexpensive access to life saving vaccines. It is the sine qua non of the anti-vax movement. In a world where the underprivileged may trudge miles to the nearest clinic, desperate to save their babies from infectious scourges, nothing communicates the unbelievable wealth, ease and selfishness of modern American life like refusing the very same vaccines…” Obviously this seemingly outrageous statement will be backed up with quality peer reviewed social science research. Otherwise it looks awfully like bigoted hate speech to me. Until such time as you point peer reviewed social science research pointing to non-vaccinating parents as acting from a sense of privilege and entitlement then no, I don’t think I need to post any papers at all. However, if you want a run-down of the studies that have been done on Autism and autoimmunity since 1947, you can go here, to this paper published in 2011 by the Journal of Immunotoxicology. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/1547691X.2010.545086
I have read the paper in full. The literature review (the scientist who wrote the paper was a senior scientist in the pharmaceutical industry and published this on her retirement—her career was spotless and she is highly respect, as this journal)— points to an emerging theory that regressive autism is a neuroimmune condition caused by autoimmunity, and that vaccines may play a role, and cannot be ruled out at this stage until we know for SURE what is causing regressive autism.
If you’ve read the paper in full, quote the relevant passage AND tell us what the preponderance of the literature on that particular issue shows.
You do understand that a single scientific paper isn’t proof, right?
Amy, do you know what a literature review is? I just did. If you had actually read my post… I’ll restate it here…
However, if you want a run-down of the studies that have been done on Autism and autoimmunity since 1947, you can go here, to this paper published in 2011 by the Journal of Immunotoxicology. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi…
I have read the paper in full. The literature review (the scientist who wrote the paper was a senior scientist in the pharmaceutical industry and published this on her retirement—her career was spotless and she is highly respect, as this journal)— points to an emerging theory that regressive autism is a neuroimmune condition caused by autoimmunity, and that vaccines may play a role, and cannot be ruled out at this stage until we know for SURE what is causing regressive autism.
When you go and read that literature review, then we can talk. I’ll wait.
And while I’m waiting, you can find me the peer reviewed social science research that supports the argument the original poster made. 🙂 We wouldn’t want to be hypocrites now, would we?
I’m not interested in a literature review. I’m interested in a discussion of the relevant scientific papers and the context of the preponderance of the evidence. The crap you’re spewing may convince the gullible (such as yourself apparently), but it isn’t going to convince anyone with actual scientific training.
Try again.
I do have scientific training. So let me try again. A literature review is a run down, a study of ALL the available literature on a particular topic. IF you had the scientific training and the medical degree you claim, you would know this.
Since you haven’t clicked on the link and not read the paper (this is why I rarely post them because you lot never seem to read them) I’ll explain what the review contains.
The scientist reviewed every single study done into the causes of autism from 1947 onwards, drawing only on reputable medical research databases like pubmed.
Here’s the abstract:
Abstract
Autism, a member of the pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs), has been increasing dramatically since its description by Leo Kanner in 1943. First estimated to occur in 4 to 5 per 10,000 children, the incidence of autism is now 1 per 110 in the United States, and 1 per 64 in the United Kingdom, with similar incidences throughout the world. Searching information from 1943 to the present in PubMed and Ovid Medline databases, this review summarizes results that correlate the timing of changes in incidence with environmental changes. Autism could result from more than one cause, with different manifestations in different individuals that share common symptoms. Documented causes of autism include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis following vaccination. Therefore, autism is the result of genetic defects and/or inflammation of the brain. The inflammation could be caused by a defective placenta, immature blood-brain barrier, the immune response of the mother to infection while pregnant, a premature birth, encephalitis in the child after birth, or a toxic environment.
Keywords:: Autism, autism spectrum disorder, pervasive developmental disorder,
I pulled the entire paper off ATHENS, my university library.
Now, you’ve just called me names and accused me of spewing crap.
I’ll ask you again. The original poster made some statements about social science — the reasons why parents refuse vaccines. He stated that the reasons stemmed from a sense of entitlement. He did not back a SINGLE one of those statements up with peer reviewed social science research. Where is it? I’ve met your request for papers.
Are you going to meet mine. or just accuse me and slur me as ‘gullible’ and ‘spewing crap’? As if name-calling, Dr Tuetur, was substituted for a discussion?
The abstract is not enough and one paper doesn’t tell us anything. Your scientific training is woefully lacking if you don’t understand that.
You’ve made an extraordinary claim, that vaccines cause autism, so you need to provide extraordinary evidence. You haven’t done that; you keep regurgitating crap fabricated by quacks.
Try again.
What you are doing, Amy, is something called Gaslighting or strawmanning. I do not need to “Try Again.” What is that you think I’m trying to do? By the way, it’s obvious from your response that you don’t have that medical degree you claim.
You have no way of knowing what my actual position on vaccination is. You dont know whether I’m pro-vaccine, but want more research into autism to allay parents fears, or a middle-of-the-roader, who wants a modified schedule, or an out and out anti-vaxx nutjob who believes the lizard men are upon us because Jesus is coming back in a spaceship to save us from the midichlorians in our blood. But what you are doing is setting up an ever shifting set of requirements for participation in this discussion. it’s fascinating to watch.
Incidentally, more information on how gaslighting works can be found here:
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1995-25157-001
Again, you’ll have to use that medical degree you apparently have to access the library. Sorry about that. You can also try wikipedia which has a really good article on gaslighting and mental abuse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Let’s look at what you’ve done. You ask me to site a paper I’ve read. I cite one, and ask you to please provide the peer reviewed evidence to support the statements made in the original post. You ignore the fact I’ve asked you for that three times but continue to restate why I haven’t met your requirements, which shift every time I do. You go from site a paper to QUOTE a paper. Then you say “No, not THAT paper, THAT paper doesnt count. Cite another.”
In fact this is classic gaslighting and very typical of what parents face when they enter discussions like this. Gaslighting, as you know, is a form of mental abuse,. which is also apparent from the tone of the original article which contains no substantive or verifiable evidence at all.
The vagueness of your attack is also an indication you’re not interested in serious discussion. You’ve called me gullible but have not said which parts of my statements you think are mistaken. You’ve accused me of listening to “quacks” despite the only scientist I quoted being Helen V. Ratajczak who worked in the pharmaceutical industry for decades and is highly respected in her field and widely published in peer-review journals. Perhaps they only become “quacks” when they come up with findings or informed scientific opinion that challenge your world view? The only journal I’ve quoted is one of the top scientific journals.
Because you’re now clutching at those strawman straws, you revert to type: slurs, which have no place in rational debate or in science. Which you would know, were you a real scientist.
Try again.
Except the research has been done, and it’s exceedingly clear that vaccines don’t cause autism. Millions of children have been examined, and not one whiff of a connection has been found. But to satisfy people like you, uncountable amounts of money and man-hours that could be going into better therapies, better detection, and better understanding of autism are being endlessly diverted into the same already answered question over and over again. ALL THREE of those positions are anti-vaccine, so it doesn’t matter one whit which, if any, of them you hold. They’re all wrong, and all for the same reasons.
Okay Nick, I’ll bite.
What causes autism?
Actually WTF?
“We need research into the causes of autism so that parents will know exactly what causes autism so they can take up the vaccine schedule in confidence”
is an ANTI VAX position?”
*shakes head*
Sweet baby Medicorian Jesus. The delusions are worse than I thought. I did read you right?
And FYI, if scientists are still asking questions on the causes of autism and theorising its an autoimmune condition and theorising that vaccines can sometimes cause autoimmunity…then the questions are very much open. That’s why it’s science. We just have new questions. No real answers, Nick, until you can tell us what causes autism.
Which scientists are theorising that vaccines may be causing an autoimmune condition which in turn may be causing autism? You keep saying “scientists” but are you talking about a consensus theory or a few people still looking for a way to tie vaccines to autism?
We do not need to know what causes X to be able to rule out some potential causes. Are you equally as concerned that electrical fields or gmo foods or new cleaning products or sleeping on one’s back or eating peaches in pregnancy or any of a million other possible causes have not been ruled out as we do not know the cause of autism? Of course not. Your claim that we cannot rule anything out without knowing the cause for certain only applies to vaccines.
“NO real answers, Nick, until you can tell us what causes autism.”
Genetics, sometimes inheritable, sometimes de novo. Oh and CRS. Plus other things. Vaccines aren’t one of them.
But “until you know the answer, you don’t know the non-answer” is bullshit. I mislaid my keys the other day – the first place I checked is my shelf. Not there. I hadn’t found them yet but I knew they weren’t on my shelf.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a6ff64a557628bde93e329b94bce27f5356c21e363a6b0e7130d15bdb9c4e4a2.jpg
Not science. Please present actual scientific evidence.
https://www.aap.org/en-us/Documents/immunization_vaccine_studies.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2275444
http://www.jpeds.com/content/JPEDSDeStefano
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17928818
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22184954
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa071434
http://www.diet-studies.com/open/Andrews2004.pdf
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197365
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17168158
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=1239
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(98)24018-9/fulltext
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10376617
http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/reports/2004/immunization-safety-review-vaccines-and-autism.aspx
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2013/autism-risk-unrelated-to-total-vaccine-exposure-in-early-childhood.shtml
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/793.short
http://nationalacademies.org/HMD/Reports/2013/The-Childhood-Immunization-Schedule-and-Safety.aspx
http://nationalacademies.org/HMD/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effects-of-Vaccines-Evidence-and-Causality.aspx
We don’t need to know exactly what causes autism to rule out vaccines as a potential cause. Which has been done.
Wrong, and so wrong because IF autism (or autisms) are immune conditions you CANNOT rule out things that act on the immune system. Broad brush studies make no account of epigenetics — an emerging field — so really, what you are saying is ‘we just need to accept taht its the autism fairy’ and shut down all scientific enquiry. Unless we have a full understanding of autism as a possible immune condition, you can’t rule out anything that acts on the immune system as a potential cause, and in fact that was the conclusion of the literature review I just posted which looked at all the studies, not just a select few.
She writes:
With a wide variety of theoretical causes and known
comorbidities, autism is very complex. It is imperative to identify biomarkers that are expressed differently in autistic patients. Because many autistic individuals have comorbidities, such as epilepsy or mental retardation, many biomarkers will overlap autism and the other disorders. However, the
quantitation of the biomarker may be different in the two. Measurement of the biomarkers will provide a means of an objective diagnosis of autism and perhaps aid in definition of the comorbidities as well…
These data confirm those of Perry et al. (2001).
Retinoid receptors in the brain are also involved in autism:
there is a disconnect between G-alpha protein and retinoid
receptors caused by the pertussis toxin found in the DPT vaccine
in genetically at-risk children (Megson, 2000).
A defect of cholesterol biosynthesis was found to cause
the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS) (Tint et al., 1994).
SLOS manifests some anatomical abnormalities reminiscent
of those often seen in autism: hypoplasia of the corpus callosum,
the cerebellum, and particularly, the vermis (Kelley and
Hennekam, 2000). In autism, the developing macrocephaly
contrasts with the microcephaly in SLOS present from birth
and persisting into later life. Clinical data show that SLOS is
associated with autism (comorbidity) (Lord et al., 1994), and
suggest that cholesterol supplementation ameliorates autistic
subjects’ behavioral symptoms (Tierney et al., 2001).
The issue is far from closed, but thats because a fact in science is provisional only for as long as there is no new information.
What you’re saying is “we should stop looking for ynew information.”
That is inherently anti-science and anti-inquiry.
Epigenetics? Jeeeezus.
“if scientists are still asking questions on the causes of autism and theorising its an autoimmune condition and theorising that vaccines can sometimes cause autoimmunity…then the questions are very much open. That’s why it’s science. ”
Actually what you have there is the opposite of science – it’s a logical fallacy:
“The search for new knowledge never ends, and there is almost no end to the amount of information that one may wish to have in a risk-related decision. Since the premise of the delay argument (“If we wait we will know more about X”) is true on all stages of a decision process, this argument can almost always be used to prevent risk-reducing actions. Therefore, from the viewpoint of risk reduction, the delay fallacy is one of the most dangerous fallacies of risk. ”
http://www.pantaneto.co.uk/issue36/hansson.htm
I’ve just explained why scientists are not ruling out vaccines. They act on the immune system, and autism may have an autoimmune cause. Vaccine havent been ruled out, and they won’t be ruled out. There will always be discussion on this until the causes of autism are known. If you have a problem with that, then you need to write to every university department researching autoimmunity and tell them “you mustn’t look at vaccines. They’ve been ruled out.” Good luck with that one.
I think I might call the logical fallacy you’ve just demonstrated the “Autism Fairy” Fallacy … hmmm….
What caused my child’s autism?
It wasnt vaccines!
But, what caused my child’s autism?
We don’t know, maybe the Autism Fairy, but it wasnt vaccines.
But my kid had this seizure right after the vac—
Anecdotal! La la la la la I’m not listening to you! It wasnt! For f*cksake STOP ASKING QUESTIONS. It was the autism fairy, dy’hear me!
Have you any idea how ridiculous you sound to intelligent, literate, often scientiically literate parents who know for an absolute certainty that the autism fairy doesn’t exist. Every effect has a cause. Until you find out what the cause is, you cannot rule out anything we do with a child in infancy or pre-birth.
I suppose there is a slight probability that the Autism Fairy exists, like there might be a probability that Unicorns or pixies do. But really, isn’t an autoimmune condition more likely—at least theoretically—to be caused by some adverse reaction or imbalance in a child’s immune system? And does it not also follow therefore that anything we do to trigger or stimulate that immune system may play a role?
How is this a logical fallacy?
But maybe we should just accept the Autism Fairy is real?
“I’ve just explained why scientists are not ruling out vaccines.”
Research says…is another fallacy. What scientists save for a handful of quacks are peddling that shit? No one with any credibility left.
“How is this a logical fallacy?” If you are having problems understanding what constitutes higher order logical fallacies(like you clearly are), I suggest going back and taking some basic argumentation and critical thinking skills classes. That should also help with your verbal diarrhea.
Yet the only papers I’ve quoted —at Amy’s request— are drawn from PubMed from respected peer review journals (in this case the Journal of Immunotoxicology and the Journal of Medical Chemistry). Now this really troubles me, and I’ll explain why.
To answer the poster above, I don’t know the motivations of these scientists for doing medical research and publishing in a peer review journal. In order to ascertain their motivations for .being scientists or doing research, we’d have to write to each and every one of them and ask them. So clearly, they are not a ‘handful of quacks’. You have no evidence to support that statement. It is in in fact just a slur. As is the accusation of verbal diarrhea (because my answers are comprehensive) and I strongly suspect that if my answers were short, you would accuse me of being ‘over simplistic’. As requested I’ve quoted passages from those journals. It’s isn’t enough. I’ve posted the abstracts. Still not enough. In fact the ‘detail’ I’ve given you is a lot—but you haven’t given me any detail at all.
Consider what I first said. My hypothesis is that parents are refusing vaccinations because the causes for autism are unknown, and I have suggested that efforts should be better directed at determining the cause to allay fears—so that parents can take up the healthy and safe vaccination programme— in confidence. Nothing short of finding out the environmental causes of autism—be they GMOs, or additives, or vaccines, or the Autism Fairy—will assuage the fears of some parents. I have also stated that the original article is completely spurious and without any foundation. Neither the original poster nor any of you whom I’ve been discussing with all day have offered one single peer reviewed social science study to support the rant above. Now I think I’ve been very accommodating. You’ve given me hoops and I’ve jumped through them, and you don’t really have an answer. The reason why is because few of you, I suspect have any real scientific training and fewer still are actually interested in science. In fact one of you even said “I am not interested in a literature search on this topic.” If you are not at least interested, you shouldn’t even be commentating—respectfully perhaps you should comment on something you’re actually interested in.
Instead, what we see in this discussion is actually a microcosm of what all parents involved in this sort of discussion face.
We’ve seen unfair demands for them to back every statement up with an academic reference. When they produce an academic reference, astonishing statements are then made to tell that parent why the reference is ‘no good’ and written by a ‘quack’. Actually you don’t say why. You just make the statement over and over. This is actually the fallacy of assertion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion
Unable to get around the fact that you do actually have to prove, or at least offer some evidence that “parents refuse because they are entitled etc” you then try and divert the argument by simplifying it in order to make it easier to refute. This is called a Strawman argument:
“A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent.[1]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
There have been several examples of strawmanning here, but the most glaring one is Amy’s”: “You have stated that vaccines cause autism”.
I hadn’t. I said that parents were turning down the schedule because of fears over safety and because the causes of autism had not been determined.
Other forms of gaslighting were also apparent but it would be tedious to go into them.
It’s also apparent that quite a few of you have no idea what you’re talking about.
The most telling statement is this:
“I’m not interested in a literature review. I’m interested in a discussion of the relevant scientific papers and the context of the preponderance of the evidence.”
Which of course is exactly what a scientific literature review is — a review within a single work examining the entire sweep of studies on a given topic, with a view to formulating a theory or theories based on the preponderance of evidence.
And then of course there are the personal slurs. “gullible” “quack” “alarmist” “verbal diarrhea” “grow a spine” etc etc. This troubles me most of all. At the root of this is a fundamental lack of respect. A lack of empathy, especially. Not one of you have questioned the tone of the above article, nor have you seen it necessary for the author’s sweeping generalisations to be backed up with data. And this brings me to my last point before I go off and do something more productive with my day:
Why is that you feel the need, when talking with someone who holds a different opinion on a given topic, to resort to slurs and gaslighting when you could actually have a productive discussion. I have not called any one of you a name. I have not called you gullible, or said you were stupid for ignoring a stack of papers, or dismissing the authors of those papers as “quacks” when they come up with findings you don’t like. I have met every single one of your questions. Why do you feel the need to resort to slurs?
This speaks to a feature of this debate. Moderate voices are being drowned out in a storm of shouting, sneering. And for the “pro-vax” camp (for want of a better term) that often involves disparaging and abusing their fellow human beings. To the gentleman who told me to grow a spine at that cartoon—offensive to all women—if you don’t see anything wrong with it then I can only shake my head.
If you want parents with doubts to come over to your way of thinking, perhaps starting with basic humanity and respect might be a better way to do it. Of course, I have no actual studies to back that opinion up, it’s just a hunch. 🙂
I’ve seen a lot of drivel from you, but NO SCIENCE.
You haven’t manage to provide quotes from even a SINGLE scientific paper (abstracts don’t count).
You haven’t manage to place any of your citations within the preponderance of scientific evidence.
At this point, you are simply saying the same thing over and over again and I will start deleting your posts and those of anyone else who has posted dozens of pieces of nonsense so far.
Amy, I have quoted at least two journals. Of course abstracts count. Not only did I quote the abstracts, which contain findings, I also posted paragraphs from the papers. Just like you asked. So when you say “you havent posted a single paper” that is in fact an blatent untruth. Gaslighting, often seen in these discussions usually just comes in the form of flat denial. So I am, right now, going to call you out and say you are deliberately lying here. I gave you want you wanted, and now you can’t deal, so now your only option is to deny, gaslight, and slur. In my post above I actually quote directly from the physical journal articles twice. No drivel.
What you’re demonstrating is something called confirmation bias, or ‘seeing what you want to see’ and also cognitive dissonance, because you hold an entrenched believe that vaccines are safe for all children, when in fact the preponderance of evidence, as you put it, indicates they are safe for some children, but in others may cause autoimmunity. If you don’t believe me, just go to Pubmed and type in “vaccines and autoimmunity” or “autism and autoimmunity” and you’ll see how many hits you get. And what I have said is not nonsense, but you have posted a lot of slurs.
Are you actually seriously telling me there is no evidence, whatsoever, in peer reviewed journals, (do the searches, it takes two seconds) that
1. Some ASD might be caused by autoimmunity and
2. Vaccines cause autoimmunity.
If you seriously believe that this is nonsense, then don’t write to me. Go and write to the vaccine court and tell them to stop paying out compensation to families whose children have an autoimmune reactions to vaccines. Go and write to the National Association for Clinical Excellence in the UK (the equivalent of the CDC and VERY pro vaccine) and tell them that their recommendation that autistic children be checked for autoimmunity, issued in 2014. is wrong. While you’re at it, you better write to all of those medical journals as well —peer reviewed and respected— and tell them they are publishing papers by “quacks”.
Since you don’t seem to understand what a scientific literature review is, and don’t seem to understand how scientific research actually works, I don’t think I can help you. And frankly, from the tone of your posts, and your article above, I think you’re twisted up with hatred and contempt. If your bio is true and you are indeed a physician working in obstetrics, that is a very worrying from the perspective of your clinical practice when your patients are women.
Finally, one of your friends here posted (at long last and after me asking six times) for evidence supporting your assertions in the original post. However, that is not a peer reviewed journal article. I’ll reserve judgement until I have read a social science study in a journal as equally respected as the Journal of Immunotoxicology and the Journal of Medical Chemistry.
See my anti-vax challenge. Feel free to take it. Until then, stop whining.
I’m not an anti-vaxxer Amy. Anti-vaxx is just a dehumanising slur that allows you, in your head to ignore, dismiss or abuse parents (usually women). Very very few women are anti-vaccine completely. Asking for a different schedule is not anti-vaccine. By framing it as such, psychologically it allows you to see your intellectual opponents as fully less than human. And I’m not whining. Again, by using dismissive language such as ‘whining’ and ‘grow a spine’ and ‘stop talking drivel’ all you’re doing is hurling personal insult in lieu of a proper discussion. Repeating a slur is no proof (or disproof of anything): it’s just a slur. Nasty name calling. The verbal equivalent of throwing dog-poo at someone you don’t like.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201009/what-is-bigotry
Can I ask why you feel the need to use dehumanising language against people —parents, scientists, editors — who take a different or more complex view from you?
Oh, but you are.
Oh no, you don’t get to talk about dehumanization. Not after your response to being told I’m autistic was “When will the rate be high enough for you to act?!”
No, it allows us to categorize a dumbfuck argument.
“Oh but you are”
See above ‘proof by assertion’ is a fallacy.
Nick, someone who is anti vaccine believes all vaccines are bad and no one should be vaccinated. EVERYONE else is ‘pro’ vaccine, just to differing degrees. Anti vaccine is a slur.
Secondly, while I appreciate you are autistic and this is part of your identity, just as I have dyspraxia (the serious kind) and its part of mine, this does not mean that autism is not for very very many people a debilitating medical condition and serious, heartbreaking disability. Just as my own disability, dyspraxia is a serious, debilitating disability I’ve had to live with and adapt to.
While YOU may be high functioning, vast numbers of children are not. They will never be able to live without constant care and supervision. Services are already at breaking point, at least in the UK. The five fold rise in Autism (and it would appear that it’s still rising) is a major cause for concern, and yes, a public health issue.
I understand fully the argument that someone with autism must be treated as a person, and not as a ‘condition’, and I support that. But not acting to stop the rise in the broad phenotype of autism is irresponsible. It’s a disability. And it is not being “unempathetic” to admit that it IS a disability.
And again, “dumbfuck” is a slur. All I have said is that we need to find out what’s causing the rise in autism, that current theory suggests autism — or at least some forms of it, is a form of autoimmunity, and I’ve provided papers to support that — and that because of that, we can’t rule out vaccines unless we know the causes of autism. The reason why we need to do this is because parents don’t want their child developing autism. Regressive autism is not congenital. You acquire it.
By calling my argument a dumbfuck argument, you are once again using a slur and not actually engaging in discussion.
http://www.skepticalob.com/2016/09/take-the-dr-amy-anti-vax-challenge.html
Amy, I’ve already done as you asked. I’ve posted abstracts, where to find the papers, and relevant paragraphs from those papers. I can post more if you want…but really, you aren’t going to read it and you yourself have said you’re “not interested” in the literature.
The Scientific Consensus is that some forms of autism may be linked to autoimmunity. Evidence of that consensus can be found doing a simple PubMed search, and also by looking and seeing what the CDC and the NHS say. As with all areas of ongoing research, we find out more every day. Again, the PubMed lit search bears it out.
Now, will you post three journal articles from respected peer review social science journals of equal standing to the ones I have cited, supporting your claim above in your original article, or do the rules not apply to you?
If you’ve done it, it should be very easy to put it together in once place on the new thread. I’ll be waiting.
You haven’t posted a single non-hypothetical paper.
You haven’t cited any highest order scientific census source or systematic review like the ones done by ACIP.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/recs/grade/about-grade.html
Individual reviews with hypothetical conclusions or quoting reviews of all theories out there – still no proof of anything.
You claim to have a background in science?
You quoted conclusions from a hypothetical paper. Proof of – nothing.
“As requested I’ve quoted passages from those journals.” Appeal to authority of the journals too?
Just because something is published in a reputable journal does not mean that the hypothetical conclusions of the paper are valid.
Geez, how many more fallacies will you vomit all over this exchange in order to hide the fact that the claim how vaccines cause autism is not valid?
Hey, so nice to see you! I haven’t seen you around for ages. How have you been?
Rough summer, but I’m tough. 😀
Kids are all right, so all is well.
Glad to hear it! Welcome back!
Maybe you need to do a little more learning yourself. A literature review, particularly one covering over 50 years, will always choose to review only some of the research. There will be certain criteria for choosing the papers reviewed.
“Nothing short of finding out the environmental causes of autism—be they GMOs, or additives, or vaccines, or the Autism Fairy—will assuage the fears of some parents. ”
What if there is no environmental cause?
You are so certain there is one, but what evidence do you have that there is one?
Believing anti-vax beliefs are based on a fear of autism ignores the long history of anti-vaxers. It is not a new thing. Anti-vaxers have been around as long as vaccination has, and were there before autism was even described.
It’s none of these.
And you can stop your tone trolling. You’re damn right I don’t respect you. Not after you made me and others like me out to be some poor pitiable rejects who shouldn’t even exist. If you want to talk about respect, start with yourself.
Not science. Please provide scientific evidence.
http://www.upworthy.com/16-years-ago-a-doctor-published-a-study-it-was-completely-made-up-and-it-made-us-all-sicker
Science cannot rule out vaccines. Even the British NHS qualifies it’s statement with “there is CURRENTLY no evidence…” this statement isn’t actually true, but even with this — and you cant get more pro vax than the NHS, ythey still qualify it.
Vaccines, in addition to material from viruses, also contain substances that are designed to stimulate the child’s immune system. That means that the stimulation does not come from the viruses alone. In the case of many vaccines, that is either human DNA — found in 23 of the vaccines — and/or Aluminium salts. Al is of course also a neurotoxin. This from a journal of MEdical Chemistry:
A paper published in the Journal Current Medical Chemistry in 2011 stated that:
“Aluminum is an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin and the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant. Despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants, medical science’s understanding about their mechanisms of action is still remarkably poor. There is also a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted. Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences.”
The source for this is Shaw et al 2011 Current Medicinal Chemistry, 2011, 18, 2630-2637 “http://www.meerwetenoverfreek.nl/images/stories/Tomljenovic_Shaw-CMC-published.pdf
Again, another peer-reviewed journal.
In the case of human DNA in vaccines, even a GCSE biology student can tell you about immune reactions in the human body to foreign human tissue — that’s the reason why organs get rejected. Introduce DNA though, and you have the potential for the body attacking itself (and for that you can read the literature review I posted before).
With respect to the studies, much depends how they are designed, what research questions are asked, and how the stats are managed. In the Scandavian studies children were switched between unvaccinated and vaccinated cohorts on a flimsy pretext, skewing the results. In the case of the 20054 CDC study, results on epigentics (the incidence for black boys after the MMR) appears to have been scrubbed from the data sets (scientific fraud) and in the case of studies done where one group was given a placebo and the other the vaccine, both sets were injected with Al, which was present in the placebo. IN other words, the only tested the virus, not the adjuvants. Again, from Shaw et al.
“The issue of vaccine safety thus becomes even more pertinent given that, to the best of our knowledge, no adequate clinical studies have been conducted to establish the safety of concomitant administration of two experimentally-established neurotoxins, aluminum and mercury, the latter in the form of ethyl mercury (thimerosal) in infants and children. Since these molecules negatively affect many of the same biochemical processes and enzymes implicated in the etiology of autism, the potential for a synergistic toxic action is plausible [31, 47]. Additionally, for the purpose of evaluating safety and efficacy, vaccine clinical trials often use an aluminium-containing placebo, either containing the same or greater amount of aluminum as the test vaccine [48-51]. Without exception, these trials report a comparable rate of adverse reactions between the placebo and the vaccine group (for example, 63.7% vs 65.3% of systemic events and 1.7% vs 1.8% of serious adverse events respectively [51]).”
his of course does not mean necessarily that vaccines “cause” autism, but more needs to be done to look at how the immune system reacts with vaccines and what the potential outcomes are. Until such time as we can say “autism is definately not an immune condition” (and I think we can safely say now that at least some forms of it ARE) we can’t rule out vaccines. I’d love to, but we can’t.
The question really becomes this: do we delay vaccination until we have more information? Or is the greater good served by mass vaccination and hope that not too many children develop autoimmunity?
The problem of course is that autism (potentially) is not the only form of autoimmunity. Asthma rates have risen exponentially, as have dangerous food allergies which kill hundreds a year.
Every scientific conclusion could fairly be written with the word currently in it, because science is open to new evidence changing things. There is also CURRENTLY no evidence that fluffy pink unicorns are dancing on rainbows in my living room.
You need a better living room, then.
Not science. Still have no scientific evidence, huh?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/12/08/and-global-warming-is-caused-by-the-decr/
Nick, sorry, I’m not going to take Science Blogs over PubMed.
Not science. Please provide actual science.
Autism is an autoimmune disorder now? When did that happen?
Sounds like grasping at straws.
If A causes B, there will be a positive correlation in the data between the two. If there isn’t a correlation at all, it causation is not on the table.
There is no correlation at all between vaccinations and autism.
Not science. Why can’t you provide any science?
Do you have ONE paper showing that parents worried about, say, mercury in vaccines started getting vaccinations when the mercury was removed? Or did they all find some other excuse as to why their precious little snowflake was too pure to be soiled by the same medical procedure that poor kids get?
Lovely language there. I’m sorry, this is relevant to the discussion how? I asked for social sciecne papers on actual studies of the reasons why parents refuse vaccines, rather than just bigoted suposition. After all, if you’re asking me to jump through hoops by backing everything I say up with a paper and full academic referencing, then its only fair you should do the same. The original statement included THIS:
“This is what is comes down to for most anti-vax parents: it’s a source of self-esteem for them. In their minds, they have “educated” themselves. How do they know they are “educated”? Because they’ve chosen to disregard experts (who appear to them as authority figures) in favor of quacks and charlatans, whom they admire for their own defiance of authority. The combination of self-education and defiance of authority is viewed by anti-vax parents as an empowering form of rugged individualism, marking out their own superiority from those pathetic “sheeple” who aren’t self-educated and who follow authority.”
The OP made this assertion without offering a stitch of evidence beyond his/her own bigotry to back this up. It’s a rant, and a nasty one at that. I’ve asked for the peer reviewed social sciecne reseach.
If the above is true, rather than MY assertion that parents are not vaccinating out of genuine concerns and unanswered questions about the causes of autism, then where is it?
Not science. Where’s your scientific evidence.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a middle-roader or not. “The pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true” Okrent’s law.
https://karenvaxblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/vaccinating-your-child-look-for-evidence-not-middle-ground/
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e53e10ec95cec122a3a70f45ec44cea0a874b0a2fcf2932692272e171ffa6a19.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29caa8b67460692ece417e17b1c050466879eb42ebcff7f3720d50b0722c9212.jpg
http://justthevax.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/75-studies-that-show-no-link-between.html
My country has over 99% coverage with our MANDATORY childhood vaccination schedule. The autism rates in my country are 1/5 of those in USA, with the rest of the region scoring even lower than that (these countries also have mandatory childhood vaccination schedules and highest uptakes).
The reason is simple – the rate at which autism is diagnosed in my region is directly dependent on the fact that a high functioning autistic child will never even get a referral for assessment or be offered any intervention within the health or education system.
Fun fact: Finland has recommended childhood vaccination schedule and over 95% coverage. They’ve also seen an explosion in autism rates recently despite the fact that vaccine coverage has remained unchanged.
It’s almost like vaccines don’t cause autism and maybe changing autism definitions changed how many people are diagnosed.
https://www.aap.org/en-us/Documents/immunization_vaccine_studies.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2275444
http://www.jpeds.com/content/JPEDSDeStefano
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17928818
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22184954
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa071434
http://www.diet-studies.com/open/Andrews2004.pdf
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197365
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17168158
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=1239
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(98)24018-9/fulltext
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10376617
http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/reports/2004/immunization-safety-review-vaccines-and-autism.aspx
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2013/autism-risk-unrelated-to-total-vaccine-exposure-in-early-childhood.shtml
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/793.short
http://nationalacademies.org/HMD/Reports/2013/The-Childhood-Immunization-Schedule-and-Safety.aspx
http://nationalacademies.org/HMD/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effects-of-Vaccines-Evidence-and-Causality.aspx
So, your abstract does not actually indicate any problem with vaccines. In fact, it claims that inflammation resulting from a viral illness could cause autism, in which case vaccinating against viral illnesses would decrease rates of autism.
I cannot access the entire paper, but the straight up claim of dramatic increase in autism incidence is at best iffy, as the current definition is far from the original by Kanner and there is now increased surveillance as well. It does make me doubt the remaining claims in the paper.
Your link is broken.
“I don’t see any peer reviewed research pointing to the “privilege” argument.”
Let me help you with that: https://gendersociety.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/neoliberal-mothering-and-vaccine-refusal/
Those concerns can only be legitimate until you have been shown the vast amounts of data that the schedule is safe. At which point you can either relinquish them or descend into woo.
So, let’s see this research.
When will the rates climb to a high enough level to act. It’s at 1 in 45 now. Will there be action when its 1 in 30? 1 in 20? 1 in 10? 1 in 5? 1 in 2. And its interesting you should bring up empathy. There is none in the leading article, and none in the post. The climbing autism rates are a public health disaster. Perhaps you should spend more time talking to parents who have to fight for every scrap of meager state care to develop that empathy. Or listen to how many of those carers are contemplating suicide. I could be wrong, and perhaps this discussion will prove me wrong, but I have seen not one scrap of empathy for parents of severely autistic children from writers like the original poster, or you.
You haven’t presented any scientific evidence for your claims.
I’ll give you one warning, this is not a road you want to go down with me. I am autistic, and don’t take kindly to this brand of condescending, alarmist bullshit.
Why are you even paying any attention to him? Why encourage him? We all know he has no idea what he is talking about.
We won’t be able to reason him out of a position he didn’t reason himself into.
A few reasons. Firstly, and chiefly because I have a combative streak that gives me difficulty in resisting an argument. Secondly, since their first post started out with a façade or reasonability, I don’t want to leave it unrefuted lest someone reading it get the idea that they might be on to something. And lastly, the discomfort from my ear infection is making me cranky, and it’s better I take it out on some deserving schmuck that the people around me.
You could eviscerate him in an argument; he’s just not smart enough to understand that.
I know, but it sure make me feel better.
For the same reason I argue with him, maybe? Debunking his nonsense for the lurkers.
“Last I saw, the rate was 1 in 68, same as ever.”
http://www.livescience.com/52790-autism-spectrum-disorder-prevalence-us-2014.html
However any jump to this level — and according to the British Medical Journal there has been a five-fold increase— cannot be put down to better diagnoses alone. So even the 1 in 68 is not “the same as ever”.
“Becoming?”
Generally the word we used when your child is fine, and then is not fine. Congenital defects are present at birth. These children develop normally. Then something happens (we still don’t know what) and then they are not fine. Becoming. “Are” would imply that the condition is there from birth and there are no evironmental factors involved.
This, from the NHS website:
“Some researchers believe that a person born with a genetic vulnerability to ASD only develops the condition if they’re exposed to a specific environmental trigger.”
and
“The exact cause of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is currently unknown.
It’s a complex condition and may occur as a result of genetic predisposition (a natural tendency), environmental or unknown factors.”
Bascially, what they mean by an “environmental trigger” is an immune reaction. This is currently teh official advice and infomration given to parents by the National Health Service in the UK. It’s a bit like saying to a parent who asks
“My child was fine, what caused this?”
and responding with
“Er, we don’t know. Maybe the Autism fairy visited?”
Unsurprisingly “autism fairy” type explanations aren’t working. If medical science will not seek a cause for an effect you can scarcely blame parents for researching it themselves.
And yes. Becoming.
There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism and you certainly haven’t presented any.
Try again.
So, the 1 in 45 number comes from a report using a different methodology, not an increase in diagnoses. Which is exactly what your link says, btw, but I take it you didn’t read past the first paragraph. Even so, I’m hesitant to give credence to the number, as it’s based on surveying parents and surveys are fickle things. The 1 in 68 number, on the other hand, is based on medical records, which have a lot more weight to them. But please, show me where the BMJ said there was a fivefold jump.
I’m not interested in your bullshit (or ableism) about how these children were not autistic then suddenly were. Autism is something one is born with, and there is growing evidence that it may be detectable in utero.
Prove it.
“Becoming?”
Generally the word we used when your child is fine, and then is not fine. Congenital defects are present at birth. These children develop normally. Then something happens (we still don’t know what) and then they are not fine. Becoming. “Are” would imply that the condition is there from birth and there are no evironmental factors involved.
This, from the NHS website:
“Some researchers believe that a person born with a genetic vulnerability to ASD only develops the condition if they’re exposed to a specific environmental trigger.”
and
“The exact cause of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is currently unknown.
It’s a complex condition and may occur as a result of genetic predisposition (a natural tendency), environmental or unknown factors.”
Anecdata: My brother, who is 371 days older than me was a bright baby who walked and talked early; somewhere around 9 months according to our parents. Right around the time I was born, he stopped talking and started exhibiting some autistic behaviors. Ergo, by your reasoning, *I* am the cause of his autism, because “he was fine, *something (I was born)* happened, and then he was not fine.
Well, shit fire and save matches! There it is folks! I am apparently the bringer of autism, the Autism Fairy! I just “proved” it with my anecdata! That, and the *obvious* fact that after I was born, the autism diagnosis rate started to increase (I was born in 1968) and has been more prevalent ever since. Sorry, Nick Sanders, corblimeybot, LibrarianSarah, Mr.C and others; I didn’t mean to *turn* you autistic.**
Perhaps, the increase of ASD diagnoses has something to do with the fact that as time has passed and more research and subsequent learning about the autism spectrum has occurred, more people are found to fall somewhere on the spectrum. Medical science is not set in stone; as new tests, diagnostic methods and research reveals new information, things change. Best medical practices change over time as new information comes to light.
**Dry, sarcastic comment
“The level of violence in these images is astounding.”
Oh for heaven’s sake, grow a spine will you. The cartoon shows a doctor trying to give a woman “facts” by injecting them into her brain, but the needle bounces off and the doctor says “She’s immune”.
If you regard that cartoon as exhibiting “astounding” levels of violence, then you haven’t been following the antivaccine propaganda websites, where the daily fare served up are images of babies being assaulted by dozens of syringes, or babies being carved up with knives and eaten by “provaccine” advocates.
” You can acknowledge that vaccines are generally life-saving but still
hold legitimate concerns about the timing and especially numbers which
are foisted on a child during a time when their brain is much more
vulnerable to toxic insult than that of an adult.”
Concerns which have been researched and found to be not a concern.
In regards to the cartoons, I’ve seen anti-vaxers with guns, threatening to shoot people who disagree with them (obviously, the people are actors, but the message is quite clear), hordes of screaming kids being sent to vaccination by police, and as Mike said, all these cartoons of babies surrounded by a dozen or more needles. It’s true anti-vaxers are very afraid of needles.
https://m.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1464381826./1127958953940779/?type=3
Do take a look at the guns.
https://www.google.com/search?q=anti-vaccine+images+with+needles&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjE3ueBrPjOAhVn5YMKHS2GCBAQsAQIHQ&biw=1749&bih=831
Needles and screaming kids.
There’s lots more where those came from.
Not in disagreement with any of that, just the idea that someone might advocate vaccinating little kids at schools without parent’s knowledge.
So how come your patience being at an end is a huge consideration, but KarenJJ’s child’s legitimate medical concerns about her particular child-who I understand is in any event vaccinated-should be ‘duly ignored’?
And, btw, what is your problem with women? I suppose you’d love to fix how the washing up is done as well but since women take most of that on, you just can’t.
I assume it is because women are generally assumed to be responsible for family health, including taking children to the doctor. Annoying and retrograde to be certain, but I’ve run into this a lot as a mother, even from our female pediatrician.
Well, if I’m just being an irrational female then…
You’ve come late to the conversation. There are 2000 comments below here, part of where I talk of my kid’s medical issues and the lengths we had to go to so that she could be fully vaccinated. She has a rare immune system issue and is under the care of some great immunologists.
So definitely – vaccinate your kids, kids like mine need it. But medical issues are still legitimate issues and vaccinating at school without my knowledge and without me being able to get her specialists opinion prior is wrong and yes I’d be livid.
Look, what you say is true. The problem is that the trend of this current situation is statistically reaching a critical stage in some communities on the West Coast of the USA. Herd immunity in some geographic areas has been lost. The canary in that goldmine is not sick — it is *dead*.
If people were acting rationally, then medical opt-outs due to real (not imagined) conditions would be entirely reasonable, sensible and ethical. On this we are both in complete agreement.
The problem is that LARGE SWATHS OF PEOPLE are NOT acting rationally, and **I infer that tendency will not only continue, it will expand**.
In So Cal, there is strong evidence that rational exemptions are dead CERTAIN to be abused so that this trend will NOT easily be reversed without meaningful coercion. If we do not take steps, we lose herd immunity and MORE people would be hurt than if we don’t make rational and otherwise necessary exceptions.
That is very ugly, but *very* necessary, math. I’m prepared to draw that inference, make that calculation, and DO IT. You are not. On this point, we disagree.
We are caught in a real public health dilemma here where you want to believe that we can reason us out of a problem that a very large number of people did not (correctly) reason themselves into. I do not believe in the power of public education to unconvince the convinced. They are not persuadable.
The tendency of anti-vaxxers to abuse an “ethical or medical objection” appears to me to be extremely large. So large, that the public health cost of accommodating that potential for abuse is greater than NOT accommodating it.
That is ugly math; once again, on this point, we disagree.
If your plan will coercively force immunization with a very high degree of compliance, while providing a medically necessary opt-out that will not be abused, I’m okay with that. Indeed, in a medical health system like Canada’s, that is probably achievable, as patients have comparatively little influence over doctors under Canada’s medicare system.
But in a consumer driven medical system like America’s where the patient has a comparatively much higher influence in the physician/patient relationship, the opt-outs will be abused, there for the asking for those with the money to do so, and we are right back in the soup.
In a prisoner’s dilemma, people will be dishonest and act out of self-interest, not altruism.
Coercion with opt-outs for a fee is not coercion at all. However well intentioned, it will not work in the current milieu.
In short, if the problem was that it was poor people who were abusing the system we could fix it with opt-outs;however, when it’s affluent people doing so, we can’t.
So you are against medical exemptions as well.
Nice to see there are uneducated and selfish nutters on the pro-vax side as well.
Honestly- there aren’t so many of us requiring medical exemptions that herd immunity would be largely affected. You don’t need 100% for herd immunity to work.
It has nothing to do with how much influence a patient has over their doctor or the medical system. What you are suggesting, the rounding up of children in schools and vaccinating each and every child without any prior warning or intention to honor valid medical exemptions is insane. It was not done like that even in a communist country during a smallpox outbreak – yes, everyone who medically could had to be vaccinated, if you were in a hot zone and refused the vaccine you were not given the vaccine against your will, you were placed in the quarantine to prevent you from potentially infecting others, and if you tried to break out of the quarantine you were shot because you were breaching martial law which was in place during the epidemic. What you are suggesting is unacceptable, not to mention the sexist arguments you used in its defense.
So what exactly do you need all that herd immunity for after the first few years when your kid is not a baby any more and had all their shots? After all, herd immunity is there to protect those who can’t be protected by vaccines: Mostly young babies, those kids who failed to develop immunity, and those with broken immune systems for one reason or another, which includes people who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons. You’ve just stated that your kids aren’t part of any of the latter group.
Your reasoning is a stinking pile of egocentric bullshit.
“with mandatory vaccination administered through the school system without ANY warnings.”
I live in a country with mandatory childhood vaccinations, of which part is done in schools if the parent agrees in advance in writing and if the kid is deemed fit on the day of the vaccination, and I am ok with it. I would never support what you are suggesting here though, you are suggesting inhuman one-size-fits-all no warnings approach. What if the child has health problems at the moment that the parent knows of but the kid is unable to verbalise it or it is not apparent to the nurses and doctors doing the pre-vaccination check up, or what if they have a chronic condition that warrants a medical waiver but the school or medical records are not up to date and are missing that information?
The CDC itself recommends that I should never receive the pertussis vaccine again after the reaction I had to it the first time, but that’s not good enough for you. You sound just as “educated” on this topic as the anti vax women that you so despise. Maybe drop the charade and admit this is a convenient cover for your general misogyny.
Some people cannot receive vaccinations for medical reasons. The point of herd immunity is to protect those people, not harm them with vaccinations they can’t get for a valid medical reason. Mississippi has only a medical exemption, and hasn’t had a case of measles in over 20 years. Medical reasons-only exemptions work.
Your proposal is ridiculously overreaching. There should be no non-medical exemptions for public school students, but the consequence should be that they are simply not allowed to attend school. Parent feels that strongly about it? Homeschool the kid, and hold the parent liable if they expose someone and kill them.
Or we confront anti-vaxxers where they live: in their egos.
Let’s start with PSAs about how dangerous anti-vax is – just make it as socially unacceptable as drunk driving.
AAP just released policy statement that says pediatricians are perfectly fine to refuse to treat children of antivaxxers.
That’s about as socially unacceptable as they can get.
I have to respectfully disagree, and would counter that you’ve just added another bad guess onto the long list of things people get wrong about vaccine critics. It’s also very offensive and condescending to keep putting educated in quotes, like somehow you can educate yourself reading peer-reviewed medical journals, but a parent who is not an MD, but rather a bioengineer or mathematician, lacks the mental capacity to analyze statistical data and draw a sensible conclusion. You don’t really need any medical background to understand herd immunity, if you have the best available numbers it’s a straightforward probability problem. But it’s also a buzzword that is overused by people who don’t actually understand it, and applied in cases where the thresholds for the phenomenon to apply simply haven’t been met.
There is also ego at work on both sides of the argument. Doctors have egos too, and they are not always justified. I didn’t take advice from my GP about vaccines, because I found him ignorant on the subject (I go into this in a little more detail below). But that doesn’t stop him trying to dispense the advice, and his ego prevents open discourse. There is also the ego of the self-proclaimed “pro-vax” people. You know, the ones who fill their Facebook walls with every pro-vaccine pop news article that comes along, captioned with things like “anti-vax idiots, I hope their kids all die”. These kinds of people are the lemmings, the herd if you will. They don’t research anything. Most of them don’t even realize that their own childhood vaccines have long-since lost efficacy, and that they are just as like to be vectors for things like measles or whooping cough as any unvaccinated child. The CDC reports that vaccination rates in adults in the US are drastically low. Majority of self-described “pro-vax” parents are themselves effectively unvaccinated (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6305a4.htm) James Cherry’s 2012 study of whooping cough concluded that even the current schedule for DTaP leaves many “up-to-date” people at risk, as the benefits of the vaccine are lost more quickly that was originally thought (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1209051) It’s not a small scattering of religious exemption parents bringing back whooping cough and measles, it’s the fact that far fewer of us have resistance from vaccines than previously believed, and development of vaccines is not keeping pace with new strains. These are the peer-reviewed conclusions of an MD in the New England Journal of Medicine, not a “quack or charlatan”. In a nutshell, Dr Cherry is saying way more vaccines are needed in everyone for them to work. And I would argue that this isn’t long-term sustainable in terms of the cost of research or manufacture and delivery.
You’re also making some very wrong assumptions about where vaccine critics get their information. I’m critical of how vaccines and antibiotics are being prescribed in the US today, and have refused some of them based on my own risk assessment. But I don’t get my ideas or data from the likes of Jenny McCarthy or Andrew Wakefield as Fox News would have you believe. I read most of the relevant articles on PubMed. I also don’t look to my GP for vaccine advice, because he has demonstrated clearly to me that he’s not up-to-date on the situation; he takes a moment to pretend to acknowledge my concerns, and then gives me a pre-rehearsed speech about why vaccines are so great, and how science conquered Polio, etc… you’ve heard it I’m sure. When I asked him about what exactly is being observed with regards to encephalitis-like swelling reported in some infants who have just had the MMR vaccine, and where this research is at… blank stare, dismissive remarks about “how rare that is”. No actual discussion of SMEI ensued, or any information about how it’s believed to be associated with a spontaneous SCN1A mutation. He’d never even heard of this gene. This is the expert I’m supposed to entrust with potentially life-altering decisions? A guy who’s entire knowledge of the subject is “vaccines are great, mmkay?”
Real critics of vaccines don’t believe they cause widespread autism, understand that the organomercury metabolites of thimerosal have been found to be relatively harmless (as compared with breathing elemental mercury), are not influenced by vague fear-mongering notions like “kids are being injected with too many bad chemicals”. We do however, believe that medical practice in the US is too heavily influenced now by pharmaceutical company lobbying, and that both vaccines and antibiotics are WAY over-prescribed without diligent risk assessment on a case-by-case, patient-by-patient basis, and without concern for the long-term consequences for and cost sustainability of a biochemical arms race against pathogen evolution. Vaccines are not eradicating diseases, Polio is not gone from the planet as many seem to believe, we’re actively suppressing outbreaks in populations that can afford it, in a manner that has ever-increasing costs. Vaccine critics generally also believe that nothing can be injected into a person without some risk, and the risks are there for everyone to read in each vaccine’s fine print. The CDC acknowledges that death is a possible, if very rare, risk of some common vaccinations. Aren’t they a trustworthy resource? Telling people they should just get the vaccine because the risk of dying from side effects is small is a lot like telling someone they should just fly on airplanes because most of them don’t crash. But the fact is, some do crash, and real people die, and the more planes you go on the more likely you are to be one of them. Likewise, people have adverse reactions to all kinds of medications, vaccines included, and that should never be rounded down to zero risk and dismissed, particularly if risk of getting the disease is on the same order of magnitude as the risk of the reaction.
We all want a healthy population, but not all of us agree that the number of vaccines and antibiotics currently prescribed in the US is responsible. I’ve seen kids get vaccines they don’t really need (like Hep C vaccine to infants whose parents are neither infected nor intravenous drug abusers), and I’ve seen doctors prescribe antibiotics “just in case”, where no proper diagnosis of bacterial pathogen was made. We need to educate ourselves and make informed decisions to keep this in check. Checks and balances are important!
Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this and consider it with an open mind, and who didn’t just TL;DR it and then go on to post “anti-vax idiots” somewhere further down this page…
I agree you don’t need a medical background to understand herd immunity: mathematics will do. You can make a good video game from it. But I’m rather bewildered by your conclusions. The largest estimate of annual deaths from vaccines I have found, even on antivax sites, is 11. Measles ran 450, pre vaccine, and then there are polio, diphtheria, and all the others to add on. So, which is more risky: the vaccine, or letting the measles come back?
Now, there is another alternative, and you don’t need an M.D. for it; a semester of econ is enough. That’s free riding on your neighbors’ vaccinations: all of the benefits (until enough of them free ride with you!) and none of the risk. Just from an economics perspective, free-riding arrangements are unstable. They’re solved by side-payments or coercion (no public school for you…).
My experience this month has been that typical antivaxers literally can’t calculate relative risk from observed ratios of vax/unvaxed in the sick cohort and the general population. Someone who can’t do fractions has nothing to contribute to a discussion of anything scientific, including vaccines. And my experience is that antivax web sites that pretend to quantitative literacy are often deceitful—cherry-picking data, fabricating quotations.
” but a parent who is not an MD, but rather a bioengineer or
mathematician, lacks the mental capacity to analyze statistical data and draw a sensible conclusion.”
See, that’s the thing: most antivaxxing parents are neither bioengineers or mathematicians. As far as capacity to interpret data goes here is a nice not-so-flammable example of a parenting issue that is similarly filled with quackityquack: bilingualism.
As “a parent” I do not lack either the capacity or the professional knowledge to read studies on bilingualism or interpret them. I also have extensive first hand experience both professionally working with bilingual language learners and as a parent raising multilingual children. BUT:
I did have to get someone I know who has a Phd in neuropsychology / brain imaging to look at some of the studies on bilingualism for me and summarise a professional opinion, so that I could go and first interpret the studies accurately in that respect, and then bitch based on facts and factual interpretations about just how utterly stupid, uneducated and even potentially damaging the majority of advice and tips on raising bilinguals that can be found on mommy-bilingualism blogs and websites is.
As a parent with good reading comprehension and a bucket full of professional anecdata I would have gotten a highly biased, partial, inadequate interpretation of bilingualism studies at best, and that is what highly educated antivaxxing parents are getting out of reading studies on vaccines unless they are of course experts on vaccines.
Any vaccine side effects except redness and soreness on the injection site is statistically higher with the natural disease than with the vaccine. Some people do get encephalitis due to MMR but it is lower than 1 in ten million compared to 1 in 1000 with measles. We do not say vaccines are totally safe and without side effects. We say that they have less side effects than having the disease, that is why they are approved.
By the way, when you find a vaccine agaisnt hep C, please do tell me. As far as I know only hepatitis B vaccine is available. It is made with just some viral proteins, so the side effects are unfrequent. But it would be great to have a hep C vaccine.
My son is vaccinated agaisnt hep B. At 4 months old he already has got two doses. No side effects so far apart from a little soreness on the injection site, promptly treated with one dose of paracetamol. I thought that it was best for him to be inmune to a disease that he can get easily and causes cancer and liver failure. Even if he is not expected to have sex anytime soon the vaccine has so little side effects in infants that he already got it.
Disqus is having even more comment issues. Some comments are not appearing here but are appearing when I go to the Disqus page for this conversation, some are the other way around, and some are not appearing at all.
It does that a lot.. not sure why that is..
[off topic] Probably memcache. If they kept everything completely in sync, their servers would be overwhelmed. Comment shows up after cache is updated. Of course, do a reload to make sure the issue isn’t your browser’s cache.
OK, thanks for the tip!
That occasionally happens here when comment threads get extremely long. Try refreshing the entire page.
I have, several times.
Hit the nail on the head!!! Thank you, I’ll be sharing this wherever I think it might do some good.
You’re an idiot
So is your face!
If only all the anti-vaxxers were as succinct as you, Disqus would be having a better time.
I hate to break it to to you doctor, but it isn’t Ego that drives the parent, it’s FEAR.
One way to counter fear is to learn. I can understand questioning; of course parents want to be sure they’re doing what’s best for their kids. So if I’m fearful of vaccines, it makes sense for me to learn as much as I can about them–and I am not going to get that from Joe Mercola. I’m going to get it from legitimate experts. Fear does not have to be a permanent deterrent.
What do you believe experiences that fear: the toenail? No, it’s the ego. It’s the sense of self. It’s the “I.” Fear is experienced by the individual and, in reaction to that fear, the self generates defense mechanisms. See the list above? Those are the defenses of the ego.
Fear is natural. You will know fear in your life, as will we all. The thing is, if you’re an egomaniac then you’re going to insist on trying to controlling that fear’s source, never understanding that you’re the thing you fear. You make your fear. It’s not outside of you — it’s you.
There’s a difference in parents not vaccinating due to fear and ignorance and anti-vaccination parents that are against vaccines and have done all this “research” on the internet about how bad vaccines are and how they don’t work and we shouldn’t be giving them to our poor children…
I bet there’s a fair bit of intersection though.
I will freely admit that one of the reasons I vaccinate my children is fear of death or permanent disability from a VPD. Contributing to herd immunity to help protect others’ children is just an extra perk.
Right, tetanus and IPV are for your own personal protection.
Yup! When I had my son vaccinated against measles today, my primary motivation was protecting HIM. Protecting the two younger babies in his daycare who aren’t vaccinated is also important, but I mainly did it for him.
Me too. We are SO selfish…
That’s just a position of privilege. Why are parents afraid of vaccines? Because they can be, because they don’t have to be afraid of diseases. Because of vaccines.
It’s the need to have some drama in their lives, I think. Generally, anti-vaxxers don’t have to worry over things like making the ends meet or dying from a small cut, having ten pregnancies with one kid to show for it and then losing it to the measles, or whatever. Their lives are so bloody privileged and well-organized, with no serious problems, that they’re grasping for drama. And I have to admit that vaccines happily satisfy this demand: scary-looking names of the ingredient, Big Pharma, government enforcing them on those poor children…
I challenge you to find me someone who works 12 hours a day, isn’t sure that she’d be able to pay the rent this month, lives in fear of the kid sneezing because she cannot take sick days, and is sooo scared of them bad vaccines.
Or like “Ben” one of the other commentators said yesterday, the ones who question have the “educations, means and time” to do it… talk about arrogant and egotistical… that’s a statement of privilege to be sure..
My ex. But one of her 3 children is autistic.
Right. I should have clarified. Still. Did she link the changes in her kid (presumably up to weeks after the shot) to autism on her own, or did a well-meaning friend suggested it to her, putting behind all the might of their Google University degree? Perhaps pointing her at Andrew Wakefild “research” waking people up to this supposed link?
Truly sad article. It is extremely inaccurate and poorly written. There are reasons that many parents chose not to vaccinate and it certainly has nothing to do with EGO!!! http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20992083/glaxosmithkline-pay-3-billion-healthcare-fraud-settlement-u?source=rss
That had absolutely nothing to do with vaccines.
General Motors has paid out zillions because of a faulty ignition switch, which they not only made, but which they covered up. By your logic, no one should buy an automobile. We should go back to horse-and-buggy; 19th century transportation meets 19th century public health.
Demonstrating yet again that anti-vax is about privilege:
Where are the Black Anti-vaxxers?
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/where-are-black-anti-vaxxers-measles-debate-n301646
That was the MOST inaccurate article I have ready about Vaccines to date. My daughter is vaccinated (so please don’t attack me!) but, once she was 2, I went back to school to become a holistic practitioner. I learned a lot about vaccination that I had never known. Things that Dr.s and the media don’t tell us. Since it appears the author here is a Dr, perhaps some light can be shed on the ingredients used in vaccines and statistics that show deaths caused by some vaccinations??? Parents ARE educating themselves – that is why they are choosing not to vaccinate. To insinuate that a parent would put their own child’s health in jeopardy because of EGO, is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. Inside vaccinations are monkey kidney cells – yes, from monkeys, and pieces of aborted babies – I couldn’t believe it when I found that out. SO….PRO VAXXERS – who are anti-abortion – are you allowing bits of dead babies to be injected into your child? If I had known that – I wouldn’t have vaxxed. Why don’t they report the ingredients? Why don’t they talk about children who have died after being vaccinated? How many deaths have been reported with this recent outbreak of Measles? I haven’t heard of one – Why don’t these same Doctors who talk so passionately about vaccination talk about the other issues making our children sick? The chemicals, additives and colors put in our children’s food – marketing to children – then we wonder why childhood obesity is on the rise, ADD, ADHD, AUTISM, etc. We all want to protect our kids, but there has to be a safer way – we are not being given all the information and that makes me so sad. Then they call holistic practitioners quacks and charlatans to discredit the truth from really coming out. They are quacks because they uncover information being kept from us? Didn’t one of the co-creators of Gardisil (THhe HPV Vaccine) come out as a whistleblower and state that the vaccine is crap? Interesting how I don’t read any reports on that. The FACTS, not EGO, show that there have been more deaths due to the Measles vaccine in the last 10 years than measles itself – Perhaps the skeptical OB can “educate” all the egotisicals charlatans out there. It’s a scary society that we are living in. I think we should empower ourselves with EDUCATION and our own INFORMED RESEARCH and beware of biased articles, studies and information that only show one side. Any corporation with enough $$$$ can conduct a “study” to determine the results they want reported.
Thank you for proving the point.
I would just appreciate being told the whole truth – don’t we as a society deserve that?
Perhaps you should start with checking your own claims for truth.
I have, Wren – do you have some information that you can share? Trust me, all I want is a safe solution for ALL of our children. We all deserve that – and we deserve to work together to find a solution, instead of attacking people and calling them quacks.
“Injecting bits of dead babies into children” is hardly truthful.
Certain vaccines are created in cell lines that originated from fetuses aborted in the 1960s. Two fetuses in total. The cells used are decended from those fetuses. Those cells are most certainly not injected as a part of the vaccine however. They are used as medium for growing the viruses for the vaccine. If actual human cells, from whatever source, were being injected the immune response would be to that foreign tissue, not the virus.
Not all viruses for vaccines are grown in human cell lines. Others have been grown in cells like monkey kidneys and other types of cell.
This is a simplified explanation and we likely have commenters here who can give a much fuller picture, as could some googling factual scientific information. The truth is far less inflammatory and far less scary than what you presented as FACT.
Thanks Wren!
Wait a minute – I thought you were all educated about vaccines due to your “holistic” learning? So why would what Wren said, which is readily available information, be of any use for you? Why don’t you already know it?
Or is it that your supposed “education” on vaccines is a bunch of bullshit?
You’re welcome.
I would like to know if that information has changed your stance at all. I am not expecting it to make you pro-vaccine all on its own, but will you continue to make claims about “injecting bits of dead babies into children”? Are you willing to consider your other claims potentially being wrong as well?
Help out my memory—isn’t the rubella vaccine from a fetus that was miscarried because of maternal rubella. It’s not like cannibalism here.
Who needs google where there is this? http://vec.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/
The history of cell cultures is very interesting. Particularly the HeLA cell line.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/henrietta-lacks-immortal-cells-6421299/?page=2
“Oh Noes- vaccines inject cells from aborted foetuses!”
Makes it sound like
a) the foetuses were aborted just to get their cells (no)
b) we’re talking about lots of foetuses (no)
c) foetal cells are getting injected into people (no, it’s just a way of growing the viruses needed for vaccination, because viruses have to be grown in living cells)
d) this is in some way an unsafe manufacturing process (no).
But Rosanna, don’t you have some information that you’re choosing not to share? You could help us on the way to finding the solution you so desperately want.
Even when the truth is laid out before you in clear facts and figures you won’t listen to it anyway. Your original post is filled with excessive hyperbole and willful ignorance. Dr Tuteur shouldn’t have to tell you what’s in the vaccines because it’s all readily available on the CDC website along with an internets worth of information around each ingredient. You are using willful ignorance to invoke a superiority stance and it fails with a few clicks of the mouse.
I actually would listen to it. Willful ignorance is when you choose not to see another side to the story. I am actually quite open minded and think there are solutions for everyone, both medical and holistic solutions. Asking questions shows that one is not ignorant. Ignorance is the article listed above. It’s not a trend that has people choosing not to vaccinate their kids. It is legitimate concern and loss of faith in the medical industry. I just wish we as a people would be presented with all the facts. If you don’t realize that we are manipulated constantly by the media and government, then you would be the one who is willfully ignorant. There just has to be a safer way, that’s all.
We have been presented with the facts, and the facts show that vaccines save lives. What do you mean by a safer way? What we have now is the safest it gets. It certainly beats the alternative: letting your child suffer through the actual diseases, which many anti-vaxxers are ignorantly willing to do, rather than prevent that suffering and possible permanent damage and disability with a vaccine. I had all the childhood diseases and my mother said they were horrible. My siblings all had them too and my mom said she was always scared to death one of us was going to die. I was delirious with fever and have small brain lesions consistent with residual encephalitis. And, like everyone else of my generation who had chicken pox, I now have to worry about shingles. Are you willing to accept the very real risk your child could suffer brain damage from measles because you are concerned about the very remote possibility of a reaction from a vaccine? There are no known holistic measures that can ever be as effective as a vaccine.
The whole truth? That your anti-vaccine movement is built on a tissue of lies? That your founding father, Andrew Wakefield, was lying about MMR so as to promote an alternative, rather than actually caring about the kids he supposedly wanted to help? How about the truth that he lost his license due to his malfeasance? Maybe the truth that you anti-vaxxers are a public health hazard?
Tell me, which part of the “truth” are we missing?
Really? Did you learn how vaccines work to protect public health? Please explain how.
If you can’t explain how vaccines work, then you don’t know much about them, do you?
You are the Dr…..you can tell us how vaccines work – clearly you are avoiding the questions I have asked in the response. Why don’t you answer them for us?
Want to stop an anti-vax parent in her tracks? Here’s how:
http://www.skepticalob.com/2015/02/want-to-stop-an-anti-vaccine-parent-in-her-tracks-heres-how.html
By sending another biased article written by yourself? That has no scientific proof attached to it? Tell us what are in the vaccines – tell us whether or not people have died as a result – I am not claiming to be the expert on vaccination – you are the Doctor, so – educate us – what are the ingredients in the vaccines? Interesting how you are still avoiding questions. I would LOVE to be proved incorrect. I wish I never learned what I learned – so please educate the charlatan.
You are claiming to have learnt a lot of interesting and new things about vaccines but you don’t want to share these insights?
Perhaps you can answer three questions:
1. How many Americans died every year of measles before a vaccine was introduced, when no one was vaccinated against measles?
2. How many Americans die every year of measles, now that most Americans are vaccinated against measles?
3. Is the reason that the death rate from measles has gone down by 99.5% (a) because people are vaccinated, or (b) despite people being vaccinated?
If after considering the answers to those three questions you still don’t think that vaccination saves lives, then try answering the same three questions for smallpox.
To answer most of your questions above
Vaccines are not responsible for the reduction in mortality rates in measles
Vitamin A and vitamin C is.. They discovered this before the vaccine was licensed in the 60’s and the mortality rates where almost reduced by 100% by the mid 50’s
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11869601
Thomas, two sentences into the Main Results section of the article you linked to, it says that there was no significant reduction in the vitamin A group. You have debunked your own claim.
He’s frequently been no good at reading his own sources.
Obviously you didn’t read the while thing and just skipped to what you wanted to see , there was a 82% reduction with two doses of vitamin A in children under 2 years of age (this is where the argument is emphasized.. CHILDREN dying)
Of you want more on the subject here is a nother one
http://www.measlesrubellainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Vitamin-A-and-Measles.pdf
Adequate vitamin A intake greatly reduces, but does not eliminate, the risk of blindness or death in people infected with measles. (Vitamin A deficiency in US children has been extraordinarily rare ever since the FDA fortified the food supply, but it is still common in some parts of the world.)
So. Nutrition can improve measles outcomes, but improving outcomes is not nearly as good as eliminating the disease in the first place.
Good supportive care can reduce Ebola deaths up to 75%, would you like to catch Ebola?
And all the dying kids over 2? I guess they, well their parents, just have to suck it up and deal with it, right?
You mean all zero of them in the last ten years?
You wanna call the 110 kids patents who died from the vaccine in that same time period and tell them their decision to POSSIBLY prevent a disease that is relatively harmless? Or maybe live with the guilt knowing the decision was not an educated decision?
If you live in high risk areas like I said before, the risk vs reward might be worth it but there is just to much shady shit going in with this between Merck whistle blowers and vaccinated petiole getting other vaccinated people infected
That for me regardless of how “safe and effective” they claim they are the small amount of adverse affects (their words not mine) are not worth the risk to me.. Is all I’m saying
What you are saying is bullshit.
http://vaccineimpact.com/2015/zero-u-s-measles-deaths-in-10-years-but-over-100-measles-vaccine-deaths-reported/
Self reporting is not confirmation. Further, how many millions of vaccinations were given?
How many of those deaths were car accidents, or due to a medical condition that showed up months or years later, with the child perfectly healthy in the meanwhile?
Yes much better to kill off a couple of hundred a year, and leave a couple of hundred more permanently injured.
I guess you’d call that bad luck, though, wouldn’t you, and absolve yourself of responsibility anyway.
Just another overgrown toddler.
Thomas, you’re right that I did not waste my time reading the entire article to desperately try to come up with a different conclusion from the author’s based on their data. The scientists who conduct a study are presumably much more qualified than I to determine what their data ultimately means than the non-scientist who reads their study, When you are trying to debunk the prevailing scientific belief, you must you must find a source that actually AGREES with you – the one you provided agrees with me.
Anti-vaxxers are essentially the climate deniers of the disease world. The scientific community has an overwhelming consensus on the issue, but people like you want to ignore it.
Apparently you don’t understand how political influence works – it provides kickbacks to private industries like the oil industry, and it prevents regulations that would restrain them, but it doesn’t actually turn government agencies into subsidiaries of private companies. Next you’ll be saying that the Post Office belongs to UPS or FedEx. The CDC’s job is to stop, prevent, and eliminate disease. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that vaccines do that for many diseases, so the CDC promotes them.
Additionally, vaccines are NOT PROFITABLE. They are often given out for free or barely more than the amount that it takes to develop and produce them. Pharmaceutical companies would much rather produce drugs that manage chronic conditions or keep you just barely from dying because they know you’ll keep taking them. Economically, they don’t want to produce a thing that with one or two dosages prevents you from getting sick in the first place.
Learn some critical thinking.
I never said I’m anti vaccine btw.. I’m saying the risk vs the reward as it stands right now is not favorable for vaccines
Merck is going through some serious law suits that can likely ruin their credibility
Fully vaccinated are not only catching the measles they are also shown to pass it on to other FULLY VACCINATED people
High rates of vaccinated people in most outbreaks suggest the vaccines are not nearly as effective as they claim (especially with pertussis, not sure if you saw the post I did comparing vaccination rates to morbidity rates since 1980 but it proves that regardless of vaccination rates the morbidity rates continue to climb and measles was 30 times more when we where above 95% vaccination rates.. But it’s there)
The general health of our population compared to other countries with a much smaller vaccination prograsm (less shots) is out of hand, we have really poor life expectancy… You would think all those vaccines would improve health but it’s actually the opposite in comparison to the rest of the developed world..
The CDC and fda actually admitted in 2013 that the pertussis outbreaks that where happening are due to failing vaccines…
More people are dying from the vaccines (in America) than the accrual disease
If you live in high tourist areas or travel then sure, get vaccinated cause the risk is higher (97% of all measles in America is imported)
But for me and my surrounding the risk is slim to none of getting sick so the risk (how ever small you believe it might be) of having any of those adverse effects (and I’ll even stick to the ones they list on the insert to avoid the inevitable argument about what it can and can’t cause)
Death, measles (yes you can get measles from the vaccine) deafness, blindness, brain swelling, seizures, permanent brain damage, encephalitis, pneumonia, sterility),… I’ll stop there, that’s enough reason really
If my son wants to travel when he gets older or decided he wants the vaccine he can make that decision when it becomes necessary (the risk of those adverse effects supposedly go down with age) or if they can come up with some better more trustworthy circumstances, I might reconsider but until then….
The risks and rewards are only “not worth it” because you have continually overstated the risks while dismissing the rewards. Such as with your claim that there are high rates of fully vaccinated people catching the measles in this, or any other, outbreak.
Actually, as long as most people do vaccinate, enough to keep the spread of VPD under control, no foreign travel is planned and access to good healthcare is available in case of catching the disease anyway, for an individual the risks of not vaccinating are very low. It is possible that it is lower than the risks of vaccination. However, as more and more people make that decision the risks of not vaccinating increase.
If you aren’t an expert on vaccination, then why should anyone listen to you prattle on about it? If you don’t know how vaccines work, then why should anyone take your word about whether they are dangerous or not?
Rosanna, you want data? Here is data: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/ You will see many links to the data throughout their website. You cannot claim that the CDC has an economic agenda, so hopefully you will actually respect their data.
Keep in mind the CDC said in 1958 that you do not get cancer from cigarettes…
They are very funded by the very people who produced the crap they are pushing as “safe”…
Source?
http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/editorials/vol-1/e1-4.htm
Only confirms that they said it but also breaks down how they twisted the statistics to fit their agenda .. Cause technically the way they worded it it’s a valid claim.. And what would make you think they aren’t doing the same with vaccines.. We already know Merck is in trouble for falsifying test results to secure the contact to manufacture the vaccines,..
Are you actually using an editorial from 1999 as your evidence?
The World Health Report 1999, chapter 5 and Statistical Annex and CDC data (http://www.cdc.gov/scientific.htm).
Is clearly listed as the source for the data..
How an individual not associated with the CDC interprets data put out by the CDC, does not actually reflect on the CDC.
Edit: Also: 404 Page Not Found
What the hell does an *editorial* from 1999 have to do with the CDC in 1958?
Thomas, given that the CDC only expanded from study of Malaria to covering STDs also in 1957 and had not yet expanded to cover TB or vaccinations in 1958, your statement is suspect. What is your source? The CDC is funded by the government, so your economic motivation claims are bunk.
“Funded by the government” and who do you think funds the people in that government? It couldn’t be the big corporations right? The koch brothers for instance are spending a BILLION dollars on the up coming elections.. You think they do that without expecting anything in return? You can’t be that naive
Additionally, you seem to not understand the difference between funding a campaign and funding the government. Government employees and activity are funded by our tax dollars, fees, and fines. Donations by people like the Koch brothers go to campaigns, which goes to the candidate – win or lose. The campaign money is used primarily to fund advertising and the people who make that advertising happen and shape the image of the candidate. It doesn’t build our roads, fund our scientific studies, pay for the FDA inspector’s salary, or the single mother’s food assistance. The oil magnate Koch brothers are not paying for the EPA with the billions they spend on elections. Similarly, you seem to not understand the difference between the legislature and government agencies. Buying a candidate’s way into Congress isn’t the same as buying an agency. If you “own” a congressman, he will attempt to make laws in your favor or block laws that work against you. He’s not the scientist doing the studies. He may attempt to eliminate the EPA or de-fund the CDC, but he doesn’t dictate their findings. That is why public studies are more reliable than industry funded studies.
Yeah I guess you believe that those campaign funding scenarios doesn’t come with favors expected from whom ever the funding is for? You’re basically buying your way into politicians who have the same agenda hoping that they will gain power so you have leverage… And findings can be twisted to appear one way or another depending on the outcome your looking for.. That’s the beauty with statistics
For example my highschool had a blood drive one year and they said the drive was useless because 50% of the blood donated was HIV positive (that sounds horrible right?)
But further investigation revealed that only 4 people actually gave blood so only 2 donations contained HIV (and they where siblings) so technically the 50% was a true statement but the reality paints a totally different picture
The statement CDC made that said cigarettes don’t cause cancer is technically true as well (using similar principles as my high school example) in the fine print it says cigarettes is a contributor, NOT a cause in cancer..
Contribution money gets you those kind of results, just like a lawyer can get you off even if you’re guilty just in the way the case is worded
To say there is no money in vaccine?
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/awardees/vaccine-management/price-list/
The vaccine schedule calls for between 24 and 56 vaccines depending on the state (and that’s just for children before they start school) add in boosters and travel required shots, the flu shots etc.. We have 350 MILLION PEOPLE IN AMERICA.. That’s not exactly “no money in vaccines”
Look at the balance sheets. Making vaccines is expensive, and most of them are sold at fairly low cost.
Trust me. The drug companies would rather be selling a brand-name daily treatment for a chronic disease, one which is a pill rather than a sterile injectible.
http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/editorials/vol-1/e1-4.htm
Not only verifies they said it, he also explains why they where able to claim cigarettes do not cause cancer.. It they way the CDC worded their claim it’s actually true.. But we all know that cigarettes do in fact cause cancer
This just shows you how they manipulated the date and twisted the statistics around to justify their agenda, why would you assume it would be any different when it comes to vaccines?
“I went back to school to become a holistic practitioner. I learned a lot about vaccination that I had never known.”
If you went to school and learned a lot about vaccinations, you should know how they work enough to enlighten the masses when asked about it.
Talk about avoiding questions…
In 2013 400 people died worldwide every day from Measles.
“Worldwide” is misleading.. Look deeper and you’ll find that is almost all in under developed and third world countries… Measles can be harmless if you have proper nutrition (the big player in this is vitamin A and high doses of vitamin C.. It’s actually proven that those two vitamins dropped the mortality rate almost 100% in the early 50’s which if you look you will also find that it’s about 10 years BEFORE vaccines where licensed)
That still left 400-450 deaths per year. Indeed Vitamin A (not clear about C) is associated with better measles outcomes: just, not as good as the vaccine, which drove deaths down to zero.
It’s also not harmless, unless you want to discount deafness, blindness, and, yes, the occasional death. Antivax arithmetic bewilders me: 10 (tops) vaccine deaths is a disaster, 450 wild measles deaths is a sign of harmlessnesss.
2014 VEARS data, which covers reports processed as of Dec. 14, 2014. VAERS data shows (as of Feb. 3, 2015):
1,244 cases of people reported hospitalized
416 cases of people reporting a disability
122 reported deaths
388 reported life-threatening cases
Measles btw.. A hand full of hospitalizations for dehydration and NO OTHER ISSUE during that same time period (or any time since the 50’s) you are more likely to die from the common cold..
You obviously have not looked into this and going by what the CDC tells you… Thence they also said sugar is good for you and cigarettes will not give you cancer (look that shit up). Consider for a minute the shit storm that would incur if they didn’t sick with their story after all these years, they are going to do everything in their power to convince you that you need to get vaccinated..
America had the most vaccines required than any country in the world and we have the unhealthiest children in recent history right now.. The countries with less vaccines have a much higher life expectancy and much better health over all (we are Nr 34 on that list if healthy countries)
People with measles pneumonia often wind up getting ventilated. Over 100 people died of it between 1989 and 1991, and thousands were hospitalized.
There were most assuredly not 122 reported deaths from the MMR in 2014. You can search VAERS yourself (here). That’s for all vaccines. And its juxtaposition in time, not necessarily causal. You can find an explanation of why that number is probably inflated at Politifact, which looks to be where you got the number in the first place.
So the total vaccine deaths from all vaccines is about 1/4 pre-vaccine deaths from measles. And that’s before we add in polio (thousands of deaths) and flu.
The usual antivax number is 108 measles vaccine deaths, but that is in ten years, or since the inception of VAERS over 25 years ago. Why would we want to trade 11 annual MMR deaths (although the 2014 total, from my search, was only 2)?
I’d like a source that we have more than 450 deaths each year from the common cold. Or is it the usual antivax narcissism: people who die from measles are filthy, impure, weak immune system, McDonalds eaters? There really isn’t any evidence for that. Your good health is not from your Awesome Lifestyle™ and Badass Immune System™: it’s because all your neighbors vaccinated.
Did you notice that all those countries with better health also have government-run or government-subsidized health care? Our statistics are comparably to theirs, if you exclude American poor people, whose health, pre-Obama, we largely ignored.
Well of you follow the conversation you will see that I did say vears data according to the CDC is between 10 and 30% “real” cases.. That still leaves about 10 deaths last year (falls in line welt your estimated 11a year)
And the rest of the issues still add up to more than the actual disease’s complications annually (in America).. Those hospitalizations from measles are generally from dehydration, not a big deal.. I tried to find some solid evidence on deaf and blind that are caused by measles and I can’t find much so I’m going to assume it’s not really a issue (or there would be more available information or things online)
The brain swelling and pneumonia are also very rare in developed countries…
There was a deaf-from-measles boy in my grammar school. Hundreds of such cases every year, because ear infections are a common complication. The hospitalization rate for measles in advanced countries is about 10%, taken over recent outbreaks, as is a death rate of 1:3000 to 1:1000 reported cases.
The Lizard People at the CDC say
I never understand antivax arithmetic. 3 (or 11) MMR deaths per year is a disaster, and 450 wild measles deaths per year is the sign of a mild, benign, routine disease.
OK so basically you just provided the evidence that says diarrhea is the main “complication”. As I stated earlier ” most hospitalizations are from dehydration (probably from the diarrhea) AND diahrrea ”
You know of ONE person who was deaf from measles in grammar school (I’m going to assume your in the 40-50 age group judging by the picture next to your name) that means roughly 30-40 years ago and you only know of ONE deaf.. “From ear infections, because they are common with measles”.. You know where else ” ear infections ” are “common”? ALMOST ALL INFANTS because the ear canals and the angle they are in infants do not drain properly (you know how I know this? I personally had l huge problems with ear infections as a child and I was told this is very common (my 8 month old son has had 4 (2 of which was double ear infections) of them already) this is less likely in older kids to adults because the angle of said ear canal changes when your head grows to accommodate them properly..
What happened to blindness btw, I didn’t see ANYTHING (pardon the pun) in the CDC jargon you quoted about going blind..
Pneumonia : (notice how often ” developing world “and ” low income countries ” is used in this piece from Wikipedia
“In 2008, pneumonia occurred in approximately 156 million children (151 million in the developing world and 5 million in the developed world).[6] In 2010, it resulted in 1.3 million deaths, or 18% of all deaths in those under five years, of which 95% occurred in the developing world.[6][11][77] Countries with the greatest burden of disease include India (43 million), China (21 million) and Pakistan (10 million).[78] It is the leading cause of death among children in low income countries.[6][64] Many of these deaths occur in the newborn period. The World Health Organization estimates that one in three newborn infant deaths is due to pneumonia.[79] Approximately half of these deaths can be prevented, as they are caused by the bacteria for which an effective vaccine is available.[80] In 2011, pneumonia was the most common reason for admission to the hospital after an emergency department visit in the U.S. for infants and children.[81]”
What you will also find is the lack of measles being a big contributor to pneumonia
You are more likely to get pneumonia from the flu (like I said in a previous post)
Your chances of catching (and/or dying from) in America from measles is slim
That leaves encephalitis..
0.1% of cases..
And each and every one of those things you listed are also listed as “side effects” FROM THE VACCINE
Basically the odds of catching measles and becoming immune for life are smaller than the risk of having any of the issues or death caused by the vaccine (no matter which ones you believe are causde or not caused by vaccines there are a hand full they admit to and have been proven so there are some regardless) especially since it’s not just one shot, you play with these odds every time you get another one (no one has ever had measles twice, with exception for an unclear case of a girl in 1952 who was thought to have it twice in 14 days but it is unclear if it’s the same instance lasting longer than usual or two separate instance PLUS she had some hereditary immune deficiency so it was deemed unclear)
I’m not sure if you have seen the vaccination rates vs the morbidity rates I’ve posted in this thread but they show that vaccines are not doing what they claim they are doing (pertussis being the stronger case with vaccination rates above 95% almost the entire 33 years listed yet the morbidity has steadily increased by about 1200 a year for 33 CONSECUTIVE years)
Measles was 30 times higher when we where above 95% vaccination rates and where deemed eradicated when we where at the lowest rates (below 87% I think it was, not just for one year but 5 years running in both cases)
I should point out that I am fully vaccinated and I have had measles myself (and pertussis, mumps, pneumonia, chicken pox and meningitis) so I have personal experience with the disease(s).. I am neither deaf nor blind and most certainly not dead..
And there are plenty of people who have driven while drunk more than 6 times without an accident. Your personal experience is rather irrelevant compared to the overall population. Obviously those who have died from VPD will not be here to say that.
In the developed world, most people have access to health resources to treat complications of these diseases. That means death rates are drastically reduced. It does not mean death cannot still result or that complications do not occur. It does mean higher health care costs, either directly through insurance or indirectly through taxation, for the society as a whole, costs which could be reduced through avoidance of the disease altogether through vaccination.
400 deaths is 400 deaths. That year it was 400 people that stopped living every day because they got a disease that can be prevented with a vaccine. 400 people dead. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t the US. Measles can kill and we can’t downplay the deaths because it didn’t happen here, yet.
014 VEARS data, which covers reports processed as of Dec. 14, 2014. VAERS data shows (as of Feb. 3, 2015):
1,244 cases of people reported hospitalized
416 cases of people reporting a disability
122 reported deaths
388 reported life-threatening cases
Measles btw.. A hand full of hospitalizations for dehydration and NO OTHER ISSUE during that same time period (or any time since the 50’s) you are more likely to die from the common cold..
You obviously have not looked into this and going by what the CDC tells you… Thence they also said sugar is good for you and cigarettes will not give you cancer (look that shit up). Consider for a minute the shit storm that would incur if they didn’t sick with their story after all these years, they are going to do everything in their power to convince you that you need to get vaccinated..
America had the most vaccines required than any country in the world and we have the unhealthiest children in recent history right now.. The countries with less vaccines have a much higher life expectancy and much better health over all (we are Nr 34 on that list if healthy countries)
I’m still waiting for that evidence the CDC said cigarettes don’t give you cancer.
Let’s take whooping cough as an example. In 1979 Sweden withdrew use of the DTP vaccine on the basis that it was not effective and possibly unsafe. The fear, of course, would be that with lower vaccination rates, the death rate would increase. So what happened in this case?
A 1995 letter from Victoria Romanus at the Swedish Institute of Infectious Disease Control indicated that deaths from whooping cough remained near zero. Sweden’s population was 8,294,000 in 1979 and 8,831,000 by 1995. From 1981 to 1993, eight children were recorded as dying, with the cause of death listed as pertussis. This averaged to be about 0.6 children per year possibly dying from whooping cough. These numbers show that the odds of dying from pertussis in Sweden were about 1 in 13,000,000 even when there was no national vaccination program. [6]
In another case, DTP vaccination coverage in England dropped from about 78 percent to 30 or 40 percent because of concerns over safety. The assumption was that there would be an increase in deaths due to the decreased coverage. The years from 1976 to 1980 were the ones when vaccination rates were at their lowest. Using official statistics, the number of deaths in those years totaled 35. The deaths from the previous five years (1971 to 1975), while vaccination rates were higher, totaled 55, or about 1.5 times greater than when vaccination rates were lower. [7] This was directly opposite what is generally believed should have happened.
http://vaccineimpact.com/2015/the-truth-about-measles-the-mainstream-media-is-suppressing/
And there are close to 300 deaths EACH DAY! just in the US from medical malpractice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117251/
Death does not have to be the worst outcome from not being vaccinated and getting measles, living the rest of your life with the other problems that can result from having measles like eye problems, lung and heart problems, can be just as bad, especially when you could have avoided it by being vaccinated. I have never heard of vaccines being made from aborted fetuses, viri need living cells in order to replicate. Aborted fetuses are DEAD. By the way, every time you eat a hamburger, steak, bacon or eggs, you are putting foreign protein into your body, so what is so different from injecting them into an arm, butt or leg muscle? What “facts” show that there are more deaths from the MMR vaccine than from the disease? Please cite the source of this information. Some holistic practitioners
are well read, and informed, but I’d also trust an immunologist before most holistic practitioners.
Speaking of “Any corporation with enough $$$$ can conduct a “study” to determine the results they want reported”… what about a massive industry that would be vastly threatened by a major pharmaceutical companies… say, companies that sell “natural medical products”… you know, the holistic medicine industry?
When I read links from guys like Dr. Mercola, and the whole time I’m reading him, I see advertisements for his 9,000 various supplement products… I wonder, gee, this guy’s livelihood isn’t threatened by the pharmaceutical industry, now is it? He certainly wouldn’t have a reason to spend money on “research” to boost sales…
Why do supplement companies spend so much money not to just hide bad results or whatever, but to make sure that they are not even subject to FDA oversight?
Even if we grant that pharma is going to try to do whatever they can to skirt regulatory issues, it’s nothing compared to the scam that big-supplement has pulled, convincing lawmakers that they don’t even need to be watched!
And now we’ve seen how honest they are.
Speaking of money, how much did they charge you for that worthless degree?
In very rare cases, people can die from vaccines. Even the most fanatic anti-vax sites give about 11/year, which is inflated. But let that go. We had 400-450 deaths every year just from measles, now add on polio, pertussis, diphtheria.
Why would a parent pick hundreds of deaths versus (alleged) 11 deaths? One reason is ego: the bad outcomes of “natural” illness can’t happen to people who go to “naturopath” practitioners. Another reason is sociopathic selfishness, letting everybody else vaccinate and free-riding on the fact there is no one left to catch most diseases from (tetanus being a prominent exception, since you can get it from a cut). That’s not a very moral approach either.
It’s like the person who fears driving over a bridge because they watched the I-35 collapse in Minneapolis.
Millions of people drive over some of the thousands of the bridges in the US every day, and 99.9999999999% of them don’t end up in the lake. But the moment they do, all the skeptics question the integrity of the engineers, the builders, the materials… they cite that no bridge is 100% safe and call for everyone to drive 397 miles out of the way to avoid the bridge or to work and live and operate our lives on one side of the bridge, lest we endanger ourselves by crossing the bridge (heaven forbid our car is the one that puts the bridge’s strength in jeopardy).
People will always question vaccines, even if we have ridiculously favorable statistics for them.
I bet you’d fall off your seat if I told you that you could die in a car accident.
A large amount of people who wear socks have also been found to be autistic, therefore socks can cause autism. Seriously, what is wrong with you. Definitely make a note in your Health Mom diary to go and get educated.
You know what I find so hilarious about the “chemicals and toxins” argument? When I was a very young kid and margarine made it’s debut, it came in bags with a food coloring “button.” You would pop the button and squeeze the bag around until the food coloring mixed in to make it look like the color of butter.. talk about chemicals! haha! It will be interesting to see how the “all natural, organic” generation fares in old age in comparison to their “toxin-ingesting” counterparts. I bet they will all have the same health issues their own parents faced.
Interesting story behind that: the margarine manufacturers had the capability to color the margarine at the factory, but the dairy industry was afraid of the competition from nice, pretty yellow margarine, so they lobbied Congress to make doing so illegal.
Oh that’s funny! I didn’t know that! I just remember my favorite thing was to pop the button and mix it around!
Oh dear what an uninformed rant.
A “holistic practitioner”, telling a M.D. about how inaccurate her article was?
That describes the science-level of anti-vaxxers, summarized in the first three sentences. Emotion, “alternative medicine” and pseudo-science clouding judgement and getting in the way of medical science and the laws of probability.
This is about herd immunity and the laws of probability.
The fact that many lefty women are bad at math and distrust authority is not a shocker.
And this is how she argued her point that the article is inaccurate:
-because my child was vaccinated until the age of 2
-because I have a quack degree that allows me to go around pretending I know what I am talking about when I talk about things from the field of formal medical science
-there is a media cover-up conspiracy regarding vaccine safety
-will the dr. please stand up and list the ingedients in vaccines and “statistics that show deaths caused by some vaccinations” that I have bookmarked off the internetz?
-“dumbest thing I ever heard” argument
-sth about monkeys, dead foetuses and however that is in her mind relevant to artificial colouring and rise of obesity in children
– holistic practitioners are the same as real doctors
-mentioning of THE FACTS, as in facts like probably citing VAERS as the source of deaths that have been documented as attributable to vaccines
-some random generaélised fearmongering in the shape of “it is a scary society out there”
-some more random fearmongering in the shape of “trust no one with an actual medical degree”
She like, totes debunked it. Did I miss anything?
You were doing so well until the “lefty women” crack. Why bring politics and sexism into a discussion about medicine?
Thank you, Nick! I would go beyond “sexism” all the way to “misogyny” in Steel Wind’s case.
Oh I think you’ll find SW is disrespectful of all sorts of people-anyone who disagrees with his politics for a start, then women.
Every year I age it becomes more clear that there are many very disrespectful people in the world-women are just an everyday opportunity for them.
“Then they call holistic practitioners quacks and charlatans”
Gee I wonder why that is? Maybe because when your comment of a holistic practitioner is read straight after this blog written by an MD you are the one who sounds incoherent, uneducated and stuck knee-deep in conspiracy theories?
My whole family is vaccinated with that being said, you are dead wrong. The choices they make are made with the knowledge they have gleaned everywhere. I have a cousin who has never been vaccinated, whom is being raised by her great grandma. Doctors told us NOT TO VACCINATE due to the fact the use live viruses in the vaccins and people, like great grandma here, who have little to no immune system are at a higher risk of catching ONCE the child was immunized. That means that live virus that was injected into said child just became a possible killer to grandma. You say anti vaxers are the reason for the outbreaks, it is just aspossible to have come a vaccinated who was carring the live virus who then in turn infected someone with the compromised immune system. By the way, I too work in the health field and my area of expertise are elderly, disabled, and those who have a compromised immune system.
Lets remember when AIDS and HIV first came to light. They have that compromised immune system, there wasn’t one thing they didn’t catch and it was not due to being expised to a non vaccinated person
Your article only proves yoyr narrow mindedness with atupid comments that arent tru. I personally know many non vaccinators. One reason was the government has lied one to many times to be trusted with thier child well being. Two a vaccinated should not be at risk of anything if the vaccines worked like they have been telling us. Three when confronted with a question of government back peddles and WILL SAY ANYTHING TO COVER IT’S OWN ASS! Howmany times have we heard that something is healthy or safe only to have them retrack it as well as statements concerning it. I personalky find that people who have high education are the ones who put on airs of superioty and believe just because they have said degree that the rest are stupid. I need to stop, I could go all day on this. This just makes me so angry.
Thanks for demonstrating the truth of my piece.
Great article. I think there’s another factor. There’s a fair amount of distrust of drug companies and their profits by anti-vax folks—founded or otherwise. Paranoia and conspiracy theories go a long way. What about the argument that the scientists were paid by big pharma? There are many articles claiming fraud.
Thank you.
Tom
Those companies would make a hell of a lot more money selling medicine to treat the illnesses than they do off of vaccines.
Great point.
A liberal estimate of pharma company profits from vaccines is about $24 billion. Before we start talking greed please recognize that this is about 2.5-3% of their total profit alone. If profit was all they were after they would shift priorities over to Viagra or other lifestyle drugs that people will pay through the nose to get.
I see that the NY Attorney General has just alleged massive fraud in the Alternative Medicine supplement business. Whatever value these supplements might have, what gets sold is sugar pills without even the claimed ingredient.
Interesting, this is getting some traction in Australia too. There is a lot of discussion about how what is says on the bottle may not be what is in the bottle.
And many companies happily sell both, which shocks the alternative guys quite a bit. Never understood how they do all their research and don’t know that.
Dietary supplements really are a scandal.
If this happened with a food or drug, deliberate counterfeiting, mislabeling, and tainting on that scale, it would be front-page news for days. The entire country would be howling for the manufacturer’s head, laws rammed through Congress to bring an end to it. But for herbal supplements, apparently we’re OK with “caveat emptor.”
If you are afraid of profits by people selling treatments, why oh why would you trust Dr. Mercola or any of the other antivaxx doctors that have online stores. Or who is paying for all the antivaccine information?
I would have said ‘treatments’ not treatments, but otherwise 100% agree.
Being an anti-vaxxer and not being vaccinated because of a compromised immune system or other legitimate medical issue are two completely different things.
I love putting on airs of superioty. It’s the best.
Not all vaccines have “live” viri in them. Many are “killed” or “attenuated”. Your comment, with all of the spelling mistakes, misinformation and conspiracy theory overtones shows that YOU are not as “educated” as you think you are. You obviously can use a computer so do a bit more self education at sites like the CDC and medical information sites like Web MD instead of “Bubbas nose medicine” and Faux News..
Great article and you hit the truth which unfortunately is something most of those who chose to put their children at risk will still not accept about their thoughtless “informed ignorance”.
How sad, to perpetuate stereotypes when there’s a real, nuanced situation at hand. I and many parents have chosen not to vaccinate our children, and for none of the reasons you list. When thoughtfulness is derided as ignorant privilege, we are all in trouble.
When ignorant privilege masquerades as thoughtfulness, we are all in trouble.
Oh my goodness, reading all of these comments are painfully exhausting. At what point do you accept that your desire to be mollycoddled through this “nuanced” situation comes at a price not just to your child but also to mine?
My special needs foster child needed a blood transfusion recently, and consequently may not receive any of his childhood vaccinations until 6 months pass. I am TERRIFIED that he will catch something since he is unable to have the added level of protection that vaccinations will bring him. Your “thoughtfulness” IS ignorant privilege…My child has NO say, while you play with his health. I just can’t anymore….
Amazingly, this is not the first to come in and proclaim to have a great, nuanced justification. And when asked about it, it turned out to be….oh, look at the pretty butterfly!
Yes, that. Or, like that one guy asked me to “explain my position, then he’d answer my question.” He was asked over and over, and it was always pretty butterflies everywhere..
Given the state of that guy’s brain I wouldn’t be so sure they were pretty.
Haha! You’re probably right..
I used to not vaccinate either until I realized that I have a sociology degree and that essentially the entire medical scientific community disagreed with me! (I was also letting anxiety get the better of me).
Reading the internet was not the same as 1000s of highly educated specialists collaborating on the safety and efficacy of vaccines. I can’t imagine even reading the internet to build my house to code!
Personally, I think you are an idiot for not vaxing your kids. I think this article is very on point, and hopefully your own children don’t suffer because of your lack of poor judgment
Bear in mind that if everyone in (say) California were equally thoughtful, and declined vaccination for themselves and their families, over time the measles rate in California would increase to roughly 500,000 cases/year, and roughly 40 deaths/year from measles. Not a great risk — unless one of those is your child. What makes the sort of thoughtfulness you describe work is actually merely the privilege of living among neighbors who are vaccinated.
Nuance, my gluteus. There’s nothing “nuanced” about “whaargarbl the Illumnierty are aut to get us”, or buying into Wakefield’s reprehensible lie about autism, or deciding that since others have gone to the trouble to get vaccinated, you don’t need to, or “but vaccines don’t work” (protip: they’re probably the single most successful medical treatment in human history), or whatever other absurd excuse you might have.
Some say the earth is round, some say it is flat. Let’s go for a nuanced “it’s wavy”.
So, what are your “thoughtful” reasons, MM? Do share. We’re all ears, here.
What reasons have you chosen for not vaccinating your children?
I am very pro-vaccine and my whole family is vaccinated but I think this article is pretty harsh and unhelpful. Rather than attribute all the worst character traits to those who don’t vaccinate, I think more reasonable explanations exist for their concern. Addressing those would be more constructive. For starters, why have so many Americans grown distrustful of the accepted authorities on everything from healthcare to education? It’s not an insignificant portion of the population so, it’s just illogical to write them all off as crazy. Could it be that the public gets conflicting reports from “experts” on nearly everything, all the time? There is ample evidence of a lack of integrity and objectivity in many of the government oversight organizations that are supposed to protect us. I’m not gonna spend hours doing a research paper here but there are plenty of historical examples of the FDA either failing to do it’s due diligence or caving to corporate interests and allowing harmful ingredients into the food and drug supply. I think our energy is better spent in looking for ways to improve the public trust with these agencies rather than demonizing non-vax parents.
I don’t need a research paper, but at least a few of these “plenty” examples would be nice.
Well, Nick, I read the paper daily (Usually the WSJ or Washington Post) and over the years have read a number of stories about conflict of interest and unsafe approval practices at the FDA. Unfortunately, my middle aged memory doesn’t allow me to recall details with encyclopedic precision. Thank goodness for google, which for the internet comments section is all the effort I’m willing to muster. Here’s one article I found (though a little old now) that chronicles some of the more high profile examples. http://fee.org/freeman/detail/abolishing-the-fda
And some others:
http://www.businessinsider.com/zohydro-pay-to-play-scandal-2014-3
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/reports-emails-show-alleged-pay-to-play-between-drug-companies-fda/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/08/fda-scientists-complain-obama-corruption/
My favorite example is the fine and civil suit against GM for its bad ignition switches. You don’t see anti-car people going in horses-and-buggies, do you? Whether one or another pharma company cheats or just screws up, that can happen. But antivaxers have a counterrevolutionary idea that Purity and Cleanliness protect from measles and polio, at least from bad outcomes. This is rubbish.
Okay, you don’t trust the FDA. But there is extremely little variation in the vaccine schedule between countries. Are you suggesting that every first-world country on the planet (not to mention global health organizations) is part of a massive conspiracy to overstate the benefits and downplay the risks of vaccines?
I find it much more likely that Virginia has never stopped to consider any country but the US in regards to this topic.
Often people who say that also claim other countries don’t vaccinate nearly as much as we do. Occasionally they choose examples that are right, usually they choose examples that are either flat wrong or a few decades out of date.
In other words, you think that folks who are anti-vax for no good reason whatsoever need to be coddled and begged to “trust.” Here’s the thing: we live in a very complex world with lots of information flowing out there. It behooves all of us to be as informed as possible, to use logic, to examine facts and identify reliable sources. Have there been some spectacular failures of trust in the world of public health? Of course there have, including the Tuskegee syphilis ‘experiment’ and the dreadful forced sterilizations that many states engaged in with the ‘science’ of eugenics as their basis. The victims in these cases were members of severely oppressed classes – it was our systemic racism that drove these hideous events. Do corporations unduly influence our political world, to the point of owning it? Yes, I believe that is so. I’m one of those Occupy Wall Street kind of people when it comes to money in politics and the inequality of wealth. Do I loathe Big Pharma? Yes, largely, I do. Yet, none of that has anything to do with the science around vaccines. This isn’t about “trust” and the need to grow it. It’s about people who choose willfully to ignore the nuances of our complex world, who have a flat-earth mentality that no amount of facts, discussion, explanation or patience can affect. Whose minds are not open to any information that does not agree with their pre-determined conclusion. I think the author here really may have a handle on what is driving this: ego and privilege. It is not possible to “build trust” with folks who are determined not to have it. Full disclosure here: I have an MS in Public Health and worked in state and local health departments for years in the arena of prevention. When I was running a 10-county (very rural counties) HIV/AIDS program in the midwest in the early 90s – I kept encountering, regarding the transmission of HIV, the same kind of vein-popping anger and willful ignorance as in the anti-vax folks. What I found underneath that anger, fear that could not be relieved by any information and mistrust of “government” etc, was homophobia. It’s those horrible “others” that were the problem. Those horrible sinful “others.” And people were hatefully furious about it and terrified. Over the ensuing years, as people realized that if mosquitoes could carry HIV (something I was routinely accused of “hiding”), the patterns of infection and transmission would look completely different, and so on – most of that craziness went away. And in this same time period, we’ve had great strides in protecting the rights and civil liberties of LGBTQ people. That has had its effect, too. In this case, the horrible “others” are the pharmaceutical industry, ‘government,’ etc. Not the oppressed and the powerless. This makes me think that the craziness is NOT going to to away on this issue – it’s privilege vs privilege here. Not sure your well-intentioned platitudes about building trust hit the mark. Why put that burden solely on the pro-vax side to begin with? Where is MY responsibility to build reasonable trust through self-education?
I agree, ego is the problem. But I think you’re missing a bit here.
It’s a feeling of superiority, but it’s not about rebellion per se. These folks really seriously believe they are doing what’s best for their children. The problem is they also seriously believe their children are special.
They honestly think their children are pure.
Let that sink in. More and more that’s what I’m hearing and seeing. They say, “My child isn’t a breeding ground for bacteria.” “I keep my kids clean.” & “My son is pure.”
Purity. It makes me shiver. Whenever a group starts defining themselves as more pure than the rest of us, well, it’s time to worry.
Showing those who refuse vaccinations for their children science that their being defiant without reason, I believe, will be as ineffective as trying to teach them science. They don’t care about being rebels, they don’t care if people think their stupid. They think their child is the Übermensch who cannot be harmed because they aren’t unclean like you are.
Even if they aren’t that far gone, they are so far gone that no amount of logic can reach them. They are intractable, just like NRA zombies or those that believe in a 6,000 year old Earth. They will not be swayed.
Oops. There’s an extra “science” in the middle of the first sentence in the 6th paragraph.
As a registered user, you have the ability to edit.
I did. Then I deleted my correction comment. The edit took, but the deletion did not.
The vaccination rates have stayed relatively the same for the last 15 (and they actually went UP after the “anti vaxxer movement” started, they where below 90% for about 5 years prior) the anti vaxxer movement supposedly started in 98 with the Wakefield report about measles .. If you look at the vaccination rate for the 33 years listed in this chart from WHO you will see that it’s been relatively the same with exception for those years prior to 2000 (when measles was deemed eradicated btw, the vaccination rate was it’s lowest, keep that I’m mind.. And in the early 80’s when the vaccination rate was above 95% for 5 years we had THREE TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MEASLES as we do now.. Did you get that? The higher the vaccination rate the MORE measles we had)
But back to my original point.. The claim that less people are vaccinating is NOT supported in the numbers of actual vaccinations
Measles vaccination rates
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tscoveragemcv.html
Vs morbidity rate for same time period
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencemeasles.html
And if you look at pertussis vaccinating the case is actually worse for you and your theory about less people vaccinating
In fact we have had a vaccination rate ABOVE the mythical “herd immunity” (92%] for almost 33 years (it’s been in the 96% on average)
What’s makes MY case stronger is the morbidity rate of pertussis has been steady increasing for 33 CONSECUTIVE years by roughly 1200 cases.. So not only are you wrong when you say “less” people are vaccinating this data suggests that the vaccine does NOT work as they claim..
Pertussis vaccination rates
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tscoveragedtp3.html
Vs morbidity rate for same time period
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencepertussis.html
I assume you are familiar with the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and their beliefs regarding pirates and global warming?
The anti-vac movement began long before Wakefield. Wakefield was actually developing his own vaccine.
OK so even if it began prior to Wakefield (which I’m sure you are right) the vaccination rates in these 33 years that are available on this chart my argument still holds valid, the rates do not reflect the statement that “less” people are vaccinating… ESPECIALLY with pertussis where it has been that high for almost the entire 33 years and there was 33 CONSECUTIVE years of steady RISE in morbidity regardless of the vaccination rate
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/01/20/378630798/parents-who-shun-vaccines-tend-to-cluster-boosting-childrens-risk
That looks at the total vaccination rates across the entire country, and ignores that the outbreaks are all happening in places where the local rate is far lower.
how do you explain Disneyland in California then? People come from all over to go there, you can’t attach a ‘local rate’ to a place like that.
You absolutely can. How many of the children who got measles at Disneyland weren’t vaccinated?
That’s pretty much the ONLY instance where there where in fact more unvaccinated than vaccinated.. Almost any other outbreak the vaccinated are as high as 100% of the sick.. Ever heardheard of “measles Mary”? She is patient zero in the new York outbreak in 2011 SHE WAS FULLY VACCINATED and she even passed it on to another 4 FULLY VACCINATED people… The pertussis outbreaks in California recently 92% where vaccinated
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/pertussis-vaccine-failure-is-not-just-modern-but-historical-vaccine-has-never-been-effective/
http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/04/measles-outbreak-traced-fully-vaccinated-patient-first-time
1985, Texas, USA: According to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1987, “An outbreak of measles occurred among adolescents in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the spring of 1985, even though vaccination requirements for school attendance had been thoroughly enforced.” They concluded: “We conclude that outbreaks of measles can occur in secondary schools, even when more than 99 percent of the students have been vaccinated and more than 95 percent are immune.”[8]
1985, Montana, USA: According to an article published in the American Journal of Epidemiology titled, “A persistent outbreak of measles despite appropriate prevention and control measures,” an outbreak of 137 cases of measles occurred in Montana. School records indicated that 98.7% of students were appropriately vaccinated, leading the researchers to conclude: “This outbreak suggests that measles transmission may persist in some settings despite appropriate implementation of the current measles elimination strategy.”[9]
1988, Colorado, USA: According to an article published in the American Journal of Public Health in 1991, “early 1988 an outbreak of 84 measles cases occurred at a college in Colorado in which over 98 percent of students had documentation of adequate measles immunity … due to an immunization requirement in effect since 1986. They concluded: “…measles outbreaks can occur among highly vaccinated college populations.”[10]
1989, Quebec, Canada: According to an article published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health in 1991, a 1989 measles outbreak was “largely attributed to an incomplete vaccination coverage,” but following an extensive review the researchers concluded “Incomplete vaccination coverage is not a valid explanation for the Quebec City measles outbreak.[11]
1991-1992, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: According to an article published in the journal Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical, in a measles outbreak from March 1991 to April 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, 76.4% of those suspected to be infected had received measles vaccine before their first birthday. [12]
1992, Cape Town, South Africa: According to an article published in the South African Medical Journal in 1994, “[In] August 1992 an outbreak occurred, with cases reported at many schools in children presumably immunised.” Immunization coverage for measles was found to be 91%, and vaccine efficacy found to be only 79%, leading them to conclude that primary and secondary vaccine failure was a possible explanation for the outbreak.[13
I can cherry pick too:
http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/varicella_report_2010_euvacnet.pdf
“Of the total cases with a known vaccination status,
115,716 (99.5%) were unvaccinated and 630 (0.5%)
had received at least one dose.”
I mean, hell, your own second link points out that such a thing was the FIRST TIME EVER.
Yeah because no one had thought to look into this before because it was assumed to be impossible… Imagine how many other cases there may be of someone had looked into it… I personally was fully vaccinated as a childchild, I had ALL the childhood diseases.. Mumps, measles, chicken pox, pertussis and even meningitis.. So did my little brother (and half of the kids I went to school with) vaccines do not work as advertised period.. They do not make ANYONE immune, you might become resistant to, bit not immune
The industry doesn’t do ANY long term studies or testing, half of the side effects listed are followed by the words “is unknown at this time”.. What other thing meant for human consumption gets approved with words like that listed in the risks and dangers section?
Where is the studies showing over all health between vaccinated vs unvaccinated dime by the vaccine manufacturers? Kiggs did one and it suggests unvaccinated children are far more healthy than vaccinated with less ” general “health issues, fewer learning disabilities, ADD, asthma, diabetes, allergies common colds etc etc are almost non existent in the unvaccinated compared to vaccinated
The vaccine manufacturers just keep saying ” one more shot should cover it ” then when it doesn’t they just say it again and again with the argument “the viruses mutated” or “it didn’t work as well as we had hoped”.. That doesn’t sound very scientific to me… If you wanna vaccinate your children that up to you but the argument ” for the greater good “and the ” risk is worth the reward ” are all based on the assumption that the vaccine are more effective than they are.. Bit now that you need constant boosters and more shots because the shit is wearing off sooner than expected the “good” gets less and less rewarding and the “risk” goes up with every shot…
If you just get the measles your I’ll for a few days and your immune for life..
Half of your class had meningitis? That’s terrible! How many of them died?
Oh, right, none, because you’re making it up.
Where is this alleged study?
And tell that to all the children who have died of the measles, or gone deaf, or blind, or are now mentally retarded because of encephalitis, or thought they had gotten better only to die a few years later to SSPE.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11869601
Two doses of oil and water based vitamin A were associated with a 82% reduction in the risk of mortality in children under the age of 2 years (RR=0.18; 95% CI 0.03 to 0.61) and a 67% reduction in the risk of pneumonia specific mortality (RR=0.33; 95% CI 0.08 to 0.92)
You know what works even better? Not catching the measles in the first place.
More importantly, that’s not the study I asked for. You claimed “Kiggs did one and it suggests unvaccinated children are far more healthy than vaccinated with less ” general “health issues, fewer learning disabilities, ADD, asthma, diabetes, allergies common colds etc etc are almost non existent in the unvaccinated compared to vaccinated”.
Oh, sorry..
http://healthimpactnews.com/2011/new-study-vaccinated-children-have-2-to-5-times-more-diseases-and-disorders-than-unvaccinated-children/
This has the links to it and a few others
Not for nothing but 102 cases (last I looked at the Disney outbreak) is coincided an outbreak of historic proportions but in 2000 when measles was “eradicated” we had 82 cases.. That’s 20 less than this “epic outbreak”.. And 102 out of 350 MILLION people is hardly epidemic (and Disney during Christmas peak is the perfect incubator, how many cases of the flu or common colds where cought? This kill more people annually than measles in America but no one is taking about those)
82 cases in a year, versus 100 in a month. Remember the outbreak keeps hitting new states, cities and counties. If we continue to get 100 per month, that’s 1,200, which is a bit more than 82.
Of course, outbreaks don’t grow linearly. They grow exponentially until they hit a limiting factor, such as improved vaccination coverage or effective quarantine measures. (Or, they grow exponentially until a large percentage of the susceptible population gets it and die down naturally.)
Some days, I hate math.
And the vast, vast majority of those 102 cases were unvaccinated. So, what’s your point?
Edit: Also, 102 cases in a few days versus what I’m guessing was the number for an entire year.
“The data was collected from parents with vaccine-free children via an internet questionnaire by vaccineinjury.info and Andreas Bachmair, a German classical homeopathic practitioner.”
Quality data right there.
OK and explain to me why it matters who asks a select group of people the same “yes and no” questions and tallies up the answers? No one is diagnosing anything or making any medical suggestions is a simple yes and no questionnaire.. If you have more of one answer than another then you have a result, it’s not rocket science
There is no other way to conduct that type of study really.. So it makes no difference who asked the questions.. And if the vaccine manufacturer was so sure of their product why haven’t they conducted such a study? I would assume that should actually be part of the fda approval process actually but it’s not for vaccines..
Because self-report is incredibly unreliable, even when done by actual doctors. A homeopath? Please. And there is certainly another way to do it: actually have someone competent examine the kids.
And what makes you think they haven’t conducted said studies?
http://www.jpeds.com/content/JPEDSDeStefano
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17928818
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22184954
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa071434
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/584.%20%20%20full
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197365
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17168158
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=1239
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(98)24018-9/fulltext
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10376617
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2004/Immunization-Safety-Review-Vaccines-and-Autism.aspx
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2013/autism-risk-unrelated-to-total-vaccine-exposure-in-early-childhood.shtml
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/793.short
Internet questionnaire means massive selection bias.
Especially given the site name.
I like the euphemistic ‘vaccine-free’, and propose that from now on we talk about children being ‘hearing-free’, ‘sight-free’ and…errmmm…’life-free’.
Also, that 102 number is for a single outbreak that happened in a matter of *days*, the 82 cases were for an entire *year*.
You’re almost proving my original argument by yourself with that statement.. Remember the vaccination rates? In 2000 it was LOWER (I forget the exact number but it was between 83 and 87%) it’s listed as 92% now (above 91% since 2000) and using Disney is a cheap shot in the first place because under normal circumstances we have been between 50-100 cases a year .. Disney is a special circumstance, and 97% of all measles in America is imported to begin withwith
Anyway I have better things to do than argue details with you.. All I did was provide a non autism related angle to the argument with plenty of information suggesting the risk vs reward is at the very least not nearly as good as they like you to believe
What you do with your life and children (if you even have any) is totally up to you
The only reason I even participated in this conversation is because I don’t think autism is the primary reason people don’t vaccinate anymore and frankly because of the autism claims the whole situation gets discredited in my opinion and there is so much more to this than that..
You seem to have all the answers you need to justify your beliefs but there are some out there that are not sure that could use a fresh perspective that doesn’t include mercola or any other biased sources… Vaccination rate vs morbidity rates as reported by WHO is raw data without any bias or opinion based information that for some reason has been over looked in any discussion I’ve seen
I see you still don’t understand that you are only looking at the total national rates and not the local ones.
I replied to this once already, but Disqus seems to have eaten it. You still don’t get that you are only looking at the total, nationwide rates, rather than the local ones.
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423287090./839922689411075/
Edit: whoops, miscopied the URL the first time
I replied to that as well. The population in California for instance is large enough that what ever they do our don’t do well be reflected in the national total so regardless of the few percent they change locally if it where a significant amount it would change the national total because of the volume of people who live in those places…
And I also pointed out that there was a bigger correlation between the outbreaks and Filipino people.. Why Filipino? Because of you look into it 49% of the measles in America is traced back to someone who traveled to or from the Philippines.. They have the biggest problem with measles per capitacapita (something like 50k cases last year)
My point is, where we have the biggest concentration of Filipinos in the US also happens to be the exact regions with the most measles.. Presumably because more people travel to and from the Philippines in those areas this there o is a greater risk to catch the measles in those areas..
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Filipino_Americans
“The population in California for instance is large enough that what ever they do our don’t do well be reflected in the national total”
If the whole state did, sure. County by county variance, which is what’s actually happening, no.
And here is your timeline
http://vaxtruth.org/2012/01/measles-perspective/
Do you have one that’s not from a crank website?
Also, as to several of that site’s claims:
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423282048./852538028149541/
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423282130./850650018338342/
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423282132./849585615111449/
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423282477./844543665615644/
And the author’s qualifications are???? Oh, that would be “lay person” right? A commentator asked her for citations to prove her claims, but alas, she had none….
http://www.kiggs-studie.de/english/survey.html
You’re saying these people are not qualified? It’s where the German government gets their advice from… The homeopath dude just put their study results into something the general public can understand
Kiggs did not do the study. The answers were compared to a Kiggs study.
“The independent study is self-funded and is not sponsored by a large “credible” non-profit or government health organization with political and financial conflicts of interest.”
http://www.vaxchoicevt.com/science/studies-comparing-vaccinated-to-unvaccinated-populations/
I tried to post a pair of comments earlier, but they seem to have vanished into the internet. The first was, do you have one that isn’t from a crank site.
The second was: In regards to various claims made by that site:
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423284010./852538028149541/
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423284060./850650018338342/
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423284090./849585615111449/
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423284125./844543665615644/
Now with added goodness:
https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM/photos/pb.414643305272351.-2207520000.1423284228./839922689411075/
Every heart of vaccine “shedding”.. That means that the vaccine itself can actually spread measles up to 21 days after its given.. Yes that means the vaccine itself can actually give you and others the measles… (It’s even listed in the vaccine insert as a possible side effect along with death, pneumonia, and everything they say is bad with measles IS LISTED AS A SIDE EFFECT from the vaccine)You will never look at vaccinated children the same!- Shedding Viruses: http://youtu.be/VKSeiAs_A4w
Pay close attention to the part with the insert from the vaccine.. He reads it out loud for you
Disneyland Measles Outbreak Caused By Vaccine?: http://youtu.be/eTE26ENzQr8
I’ve heard of it being debunked.
Also, those side effects of the vaccine are because it’s made with measles. The difference is that the chances of them happening from measles is 0.1% to 10%, depending on the specific complication. With the vaccine it’s 0.0333…% to so low that it can’t even be determined if it was actually the vaccine that caused it.
Can you explain why we should listen to you instead of the overwhelming number of immunologist, pediatricians and public health officials around the world?
It takes an extraordinary amount of hubris to imagine you know more than they do. That’s the ego I’m talking about in this piece.
http://luckylosing.com/2011/10/13/vaccine-shedding-time-up-for-another-vaccine-myth/
It still doesn’t show any drops in vaccination rates.. Even if there are clusters of these mass groups of people who are not vaccinating it would still show a drop in the total percentage (most of those places are highly populated so it would make a significant impact on the total regardless)
Thomas, where did you get your degree in epidemiology? Just wondering……
Didn’t know you need a degree in epidemiology to observe trends between two things that are supposedly connected, if one goes up and the other doesn’t or one goes down and the other goes up you have a result that shouldn’t be happening.. That’s math and logic.. In not trying to diagnose anyone or fix the problem I’m just identifying there is a problem..
You can look for yourself
The vaccination rates have stayed relatively the same for the last 15yrs and they actually went UP, they where below 90% for about 5 years prior to the anti vaxxer movement that supposedly started in 98 with the Wakefield report about measles .. If you look at the vaccination rate for the 33 years listed in this chart from WHO you will see that it’s been relatively the same with exception for those years prior to 2000 (when measles was deemed eradicated btw, the vaccination rate was it’s lowest, keep that I’m mind.. And in the early 80’s when the vaccination rate was above 95% for 5 years we had THREE TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MEASLES as we do now.. Did you get that? The higher the vaccination rate the MORE measles we had)
But back to my original point.. The claim that less people are vaccinating is NOT supported in the numbers of actual vaccinations
Measles vaccination rates
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tscoveragemcv.html
Vs morbidity rate for same time period
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencemeasles.html
And if you look at pertussis vaccinating the case is actually worse for you and your theory about less people vaccinating
In fact we have had a vaccination rate ABOVE the mythical “herd immunity” (92%] for almost 33 years (it’s been in the 96% on average)
What’s makes MY case stronger is the morbidity rate of pertussis has been steady increasing for 33 CONSECUTIVE years by roughly 1200 cases.. So not only are you wrong when you say “less” people are vaccinating this data suggests that the vaccine does NOT work as they claim..
Pertussis vaccination rates
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tscoveragedtp3.html
Vs morbidity rate for same time period
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencepertussis.html
Do you mean like this trend?
I suppose that now you think breastfeeding causes autism.
Well not really, I would need to know what other factors there are (like medications mother was on or is on)
I happen to believe there is a connection to anti depressants and anxiety meds prescribed to the female population today more so than the vaccine causing autism but that’s not what I’ve been arguing in this thread at all.. I think autism claims are no longer the primary reason people don’t vaccinate either…
You really said that breastfeeding might cause autism, on the basis of that trend line? Thanks for proving Dr. Amy’s point!
When you compare vaccine vs what they are supposedly protecting you from I.e morbidity rates is simple and straight forward.. No degree necessary as I said
You compare it in a simple and straightforward way, and that’s why you get it wrong every time.
You are misreading that measles vaccination graph. Notice how the trend is “broken” in between 1989 and 1992? That’s because the second dose was introduced in 1990, and it took a few years to get a second dose to many children.
Yes, pertussis is on the rise. That’s because the acellular vaccine doesn’t work as well as the old one. Personally, I think the solution is to offer the old vaccine again, since it was only taken off the market due to antivaxxer lies.
The information is readily available if you look for it btw
“The CDC admits the data shows “pertussis is greater in vaccinated persons.” Yet they continue to recommend the vaccines because “current evidence suggests pertussis vaccines continue to prevent disease caused by both pertactin-positive and pertactin-negative pertussis strains since other components of the vaccines provide protection.”
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/failed-whooping-cough-vaccine-still-being-used-in-the-united-states-outbreaks-blamed-on-unvaccinated/
A New England Journal of Medicine letter was published on February 7, 2013, noting the first appearance in the United States of pertussis strains that are missing pertactin. More recently a paper evaluating the prevalence of these pertactin-deficient strains in the United States was published in Clinical Vaccine Immunology.
Pertactin is one of several components of all pertussis vaccines. It is a protein that helps pertussis bacteria attach to the lining of the airways. There is a new study that found the likelihood of having reported pertussis caused by pertactin-deficient pertussis compared to pertactin-producing pertussis is greater in vaccinated persons. However, current evidence suggests pertussis vaccines continue to prevent disease caused by both pertactin-positive and pertactin-negative pertussis strains since other components of the vaccines provide protection.
CDC is currently conducting studies in the United States to determine whether pertactin deficiency is one of the factors contributing to the increase in the number of reported pertussis cases. CDC will continue to closely monitor the situation and evaluate all available scientific evidence before drawing any conclusions. (Source: FDA.gov.)
Not to mention when the vaccination rate was at its highest in the first part of the 80′ WE HAD 12 TO 18 THOUSAND cases.. That’s THREE TIMES more than the “record” year of 600 last year when we where at 92%
And we all agree that the measles was deemed “eradicated” by the CDC in 2000.. Yet the 5 years preceding that we where THE LOWEST in those same 33 years..
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/completely-avoidable-vaccine-saved-victims-disneyland-measles-outbreak/
While everyone is all hung up on the risks of vaccinating (regardless of how severe you agree they might be) the fact is they are hardly doing what they say they are doing and there is no trend that suggests less people are vaccinatingvaccinating
Measles is not half as scary as they make it out to be, the “thousands of deaths worldwide” that they keep pushing is really “thousands if deaths in THIRD WORLD countries” cause there is a song correlation to mortality rates and malnutrition (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10944494 there are more in depth studies on this but I’m trying to get ready for work but this one does mention it as well)
Measles is 3 to 5 days of fever and rash, diahrrea and dehydration is the most common for contributing to anything “terrible” in those days.. Then you are done and immune for life.. Deafness, blindness and pneumonia can all be associated with ANY VIRAL OR BACTERIAL infection from the common cold to a sinus infection so those are general complications that rarely happen
Bottom line is the vaccines are not 100% safe (iort they wouldn’t make you sign a waivier giving up your right to suesue) they are nowhere near as “effective” add they claim and the disease is nothing like they suggest (in the developed world anyway) so why would anyone get vaccinated (vaccines have killed 108 in the past ten years and measles zero btw)
The risk vs the reward for me anyway is not favorable for the vaccines
“Measles is not half as scary as they make it out to be…Measles is 3 to 5 days of fever and rash, diahrrea and dehydration is the most common for contributing to anything “terrible” in those days. Then you are done and immune for life.. Deafness, blindness and pneumonia can all be associated with ANY VIRAL OR BACTERIAL infection from the common cold to a sinus infection so those are general complications that rarely happen.”
You forgot to mention that pesky encephalitis and brain damage… tell that to the parents of those children. If it’s YOUR child who ends up with it… well, I’m sure you’ll find something else to blame that on.
And don’t forget SSPE. You think you’ve fully recovered only to develop a degenerative and fatal neurological problem several years down the road.
Yes, you are right! I hadn’t heard of it, until another commentator posted about it… that is so horrible. That alone would convince me to vaccinate!
Same here. Scary, scary stuff.
You know, the whole “it doesn’t kill you so it isn’t that bad” is a bunch of bullshit.
OK, so let’s say it’s only a few days of a nasty rash, fever and diarrhea. You know what’s even better than that? Maybe a day or so of “redness at the injection site.”
And no, you don’t get to bring up “serious complications” of the vaccine, because, while they are possible, they are less likely to occur than serious complications of the measles, which are so conveniently ignored.
What kind of monster would subject their child to a week of rash, fever and diarrhea, assuming that is all there is, when there is a perfectly good vaccine that prevents ALL OF THAT!!!!???? What total assholes.
Exactly! Or the huge possibility of brain damage and disability! Assholes is right..
No, we are ignoring the potential for serious side effects. I don’t care, let’s ignore that and let’s just consider the typical presentation.
How, still, can anyone justify subjecting their kids to that shit?
I’ve said the same thing about the chicken pox. I don’t give a flying fuck whether anyone dies from it. It sucks. And it is for the most part easily avoidable with a simple vaccination. How is it even close? Only a total fucking monster of an a-hole would choose that for their kids. I don’t give a shit about “oh it can be mild.” Even a mild case of the chicken pox is far worse than the most common side effect of the vaccine (which isn’t even more likely than not to occur). Most kids have absolutely no response at all to the vaccine, not even redness or swelling. And yet, 1 week or more of chicken pox is better than that?
How much of a monster do you have to be to think it?
Then again, I just read this morning about some total asshole parents who faked a kidnapping of their 6 year old, complete with threatening him with a gun and rape, to try to teach him to be scared of strangers. That kid needs to be scared of his parents.
I have a 6 yo. I can’t even fathom subjecting him to such torture. Thinking about him having to go through that makes me cry right here. How awful! Such fucking a-holes people can be.
I need to go home and meet my son when he gets off the bus and give him a hug.
See you are the difference between a non-selfish, loving, responsible, aware parent and the idiots who have their heads up their asses… I heard about that 6 year old, it just made me sick. I just don’t have any patience with anti-vaxxers. I honestly believe they have to have some degree of sociopathic personality traits to be so stupid. I also think they are narcissistic for the most part too. It’s hard for people like us to even fathom that these parents would be willing to subject their kids to unnecessary pain and suffering. It infuriates me to no end too. Give your son a huge hug and know that he is a lucky boy to have a dad like you 🙂
This is the thing. We just had a round of the “stomach flu” (as my folks used to call it) through the house. First our 6 yo, and then the 4 yo a couple days later. It was just a 12 hour thing, and they all got over it fine.
Even then, I don’t know how many times I told each of them how I wished there was something I could do to make it better. Even though it was nothing serious, and I knew it would be gone in 12 hours, it STILL made me sad to see them feeling so sick.
Who can watch their kids feeling miserable and not feel bad for them?
We just got done reading The Lorax. We have to get his brother from daycare, and then he wants to read And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (in case you haven’t guessed, we are on a Dr Seuss kick these days)
“Even then, I don’t know how many times I told each of them how I wished there was something I could do to make it better.”
It makes me wonder how the anti-vax parents react to their kids when they get a VPD or anything else. Do they pat the kid on the head and say, “Oh you’ll get over it….here, have some organic bat-shit juice” or something like that? It wouldn’t surprise me..
“Who can watch their kids feeling miserable and not feel bad for them?”
That’s the thing, how can these parents even, for one SECOND, think it’s “OK” for their kids to suffer? But when I heard the “Wolfman of Arizona” (my nickname for him!), admit, without batting an eye, he wouldn’t care if his unvaxxed kid caused someone else’s death, my first thought was, narcissistic sociopath who wouldn’t care about his own child either.
I think putting it into perspective and realizing that these folks have more than a few screws loose helps me realize how glad I am not to think that way! And thank God there are more of us than them!
I’m not up on all the latest kid’s books, but I have always loved Dr. Seuss.. he is just timeless.. I know you enjoy story time with them as much as they do! I think that’s something kids always remember fondly when they get older too 🙂
The theory is that natural immunity is better than vaccine-induced. They want to make sure their kid is immune for life, rather than being immune from a vaccine, having it wear off later in life, and getting a really nasty case of the disease then. It makes a certain amount of sense, until you remember that adults get vaccinated too! Me, I’d rather just give my kid a booster vaccine if it came to that–even if it happens when they’re an adult, I know that when my kids are adults I’ll still try to make sure they stay up to date on this stuff. The ACIP recommendations change all the time. I’m sure they’ll eventually start talking about adult chickenpox and MMR boosters.
I am not really clear on why anti-vaxers treat the whole “Immunity wears off” thing as such an argument against vaccines. That’s not an argument against vaccines, it’s an argument for boosters. Maybe more people are getting shingles because there’s less naturally circulating chicken pox in the population. So what? Now we have a shingles vaccine. Fixed that for ya.
“Natural immunity” misses the whole fucking point – you want to NOT get sick in the first place!!!
What’s the first step in getting “natural immunity”? Getting the disease.
Moreover, it’s not like getting the disease guarantees lifelong immunity anyway.
You are right – just get the vaccine.
Those things are also common as “adverse effects” FROM THE VACCINE btw… I personally have had measles.. It’s not that bad
If you live in a developed country the chances of those are slim at best.. You figure out of the 50-100 cases on average we have had in the last 20 years (I know last year was a bigger than usual year but I’m arguing the possible odds of getting brain damage and encephalitis) how many cases in America ended up with ANY of those? I haven’t heard of ANY.. How about blind and deaf? (Also listed in the risk and danger section on the “vaccine insert” as a side effect) can’t say I’ve heard any of those either.. I know of one person, who was a neighbor of a friend who had measles complications FORTY YEARS AGO.. But that’s it. Bottom line is the fears they are using to get people to vaccinate are things that where caused by the measles in the early 1900’s .. Medicine and environment (hygiene, clean water, healthy foods and healthcare etc) have come a long way since and the measles today is no more dangerous than the flu or a cold (I think the flu is actually far worse)
Compare that to the amount of deaths and serious adverse effects, vaers gets 30k reported cases a year and the CDC says up to 30% of that is “real” so let’s use 900 cases.. That’s more serious adverse affects (not including deaths) ANNUALLY than measles had in the entire 20 years I used in the example above…
Common, from the vaccine? Not by a long shot.
Common, from infection? Yes, and your anecdotal evidence does not overturn the statistics:
http://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/complications.html
Sorry to break it to you, but your entire comment is simply information you’ve gleaned from disreputable internet sources. Bottom line is, vaccines save lives. Encephalitis is a real risk. And I should know, I have brain lesions consistent with residual encephalitis from having the measles. Measles no dangerous than the flu or a cold?? Well, that statement right there proves you have no idea what you are talking about.
And thank you, Nick Sanders for posting that link..
..
Looks like the real person to thank is Guesteleh. They are really going above and beyond here.
I know there was a post with a great link you posted right before my above comment but I can’t find it now! Disqus is overwhelmed again….
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1022280/
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/551272_5
I was in high school during this outbreak. Two of the kids affected were my teacher’s children. My mother dragged me (kicking and screaming – I was a dramatic teen) to the doctor got a booster (my THIRD MMR) because she was so scared I’d get it. Says a lot for the generation that saw death from VPDs. Both my parents remember standing in long lines to get their polio vax as well, and how relieved their parents were when the vax became available.
My father stood in one of those lines to get the measles vaccine. He’d managed to get through a few years of school so without ever catching it, then the vaccine became available, and his very protective mother dragged him to the first clinic in the area.
Well, there’s the kicker: “I personally have had measles and it’s not that bad.” There’s your “science” right there – your own personal, precious and HIGHLY MEANINGFUL experience. Thank you for truly, truly proving the point of this article.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1022280/
Yeah I know, I mentioned in my earlier post that during the time when we had the HIGHEST VACCINATION RATES (the timeframe you are pointing out in this comment) was the highest we ever had on record around 98%… That’s right, during the HIGHEST VACCINATION RATE we had THE MOST MEASLES… what was your point? We need to vaccinate because it causes more measles? Just checking
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tscoveragemcv.html
Look at the vaccination rate
“The major cause of the epidemic was low immunization levels among preschool-aged children and young adults.”
Read.
It’s hopeless. Thomas doesn’t understand what he’s reading. Next he’ll be suggesting we quarantine the Philippines. And all Filipinos wherever they may reside, worldwide.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/551272_5
Name one thing that is 100% safe. Go on, I’ll wait.
Never claimed anything is 100% safe, I only claimed that the risk vs the reward is not favorable for vaccines … If I lived in the Philippines or somewhere else that it’s a huge problem then maybe the risks are with the reward or if you live in a big tourist trap or travel a lot then it may be worth it as well but that doesn’t mean that it’s worth it for every situation
Do you even know the relative risks?
You know what correlates even more than the pockets of low vaccination rates in those places? The concentration or Filipino communities (almost EXACTLY as a matter of fact)… What does the Filipino have to do with measles you ask.. 49% of ALL measles in America is traced back to someone who traveled to or came from the Philippines (they happen to have the worst measles outbreaks in the world per capita btw AND their vaccination rate is pretty high if I remember correctly as well)
But back to my point, this could be a coincidence but the concentration of Filipinos in the same exact areas where the measles are prominent is something that should be looked into I think since they could be more susceptible perhaps but they probably have more people traveling to and from the Philippines (is where I’m getting at anyway) so the risk of getting measles there are far greater (regardless of vaccination rate) than anywhere else in America
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Filipino_Americans
The largest outbreak of measles for 2013-14 was in Amish who got it from some Amish missionaries to the Philippines. But the second largest outbreak was an Orthodox Jewish sect, where someone brought it back as a souvenir from London.
I have the sniffles today. My flu jab must not have worked. (Har-har.) SEE???? VACCINES DUN WERK!
I guess mine didn’t either.. I had my vaccine and got a cold 2 months later… definitely a correlation!
I have an idea… stop putting mercury (and other carcinogens) in the mix and I’ll probably be much more supportive.
Please do at least a tiny amount of googling on whether mercury is actually in infant vaccinations. Then you could maybe, possibly, try to find out from valid scientific sources where else children get mercury.
Infants shouldn’t even be given vaccines – period.
I totally disagree. Infants shouldn’t die of whooping cough-period. A shot to prevent that? Yep, pretty much all infants (leaving room for medical exemption) should get that.
Well, I’m not impressed that you disagree. That’s not shocking at all. What is shocking is that you’re so willing to pump live virus and various toxic chemicals into a child when their immune system isn’t even fully functioning yet.
Tell us about their immune system. Come on, you seem to know so much. How does their immune system work? In what respect is their immune system “not even fully functioning yet”?
Explain it to me.
OK, yeah I’ll do that when you find me evidence that there aren’t any harsh chemicals or live virus in barrage of children’s vaccines they’re ‘required’ to take. Smug much?
You made the claim. You provide the evidence.
Hey Wren, I know, do “a tiny amount of googling” and you’ll find tons of information about mercury, etc. in vaccines. (Sorry, couldn’t resist)
Yeah, I’ll grant one thing – wren’s comment was rhetorical, because she knows damn well which vaccines contain mercury and which don’t. You obviously don’t, but hey…
I’ve done my google “research” and can back up the factual claims I make. You could try to do the same, and then an actual debate is at least possible. Or you can just keep throwing out absurd claims anyone with actual knowledge instantly recognises as false and evidence you generally aren’t worth engaging.
Personally, I’ve got a bit of spare time, for the next 5 minutes or so, so I figured why not?
5 minutes of googling reveals the astonishing fact that Onnesty’s mum is Azura Queen of Slugs from the planet Og. So I think you should really cut him a bit of slack. Do YOU have alien aristocracy in your lineage?
Do you like eating apples? They have formaldehyde. Better stop eating apples then.
FROM WHAT SOURCE? Anyone can start a blog and say whatever they want. Why don’t you provide a link to a credible peer reviewed study instead of what you heard on antivax.org
Onnesty, as you google, do try to consider the source. My daughter’s friend just “proved” to their Kindergarten class that unicorns are real. When I was researching vaccines (because, as a parent, it’s what you do) I found that the voices and arguments in favor of vaccines were from reputable, specifically educated people, and the voices and websites against consisted of a group using questionable information to back up bad arguments and endlessly citing each other and throwing out statements like “we all know herd immunity is a myth” without anything to back up knowing something that goes against all current reason. In the end, because it’s a lot of science to wade through for an art major, I had to decide whether to trust pretty much every doctor and scientist alive (and some dead), or a few loud parents who could be scared of the wrong things. I figured, if something went wrong with my kids, I’d feel better saying “I trusted science” than “I trusted the internet.” But then, I play fast and loose with mercury…I sometimes eat tuna.
Are you trying to claim MLP is lying to me? Because those are fighting words.
Some vaccines are live attenuated viruses, yes. That’s a silly red-herring. I don’t know what a “harsh chemical” is, or at least what you mean by it. Then again, I am a chemist, so I actually KNOW what the chemicals really are and what they do.
Now, can you please explain how the immune system works and in what respect their immune system is “not fully functioning”? I’m not an immunologist, so maybe you can help me out.
Well, I’m pretty sure they all contain some of that harsh H2O. That chemical causes many deaths every year.
And they inject that straight into your bloodstream!
How about you provide proof that there aree harsh chemicals, live viruses and dangerous components to vaccines.
Real, qualified and validated proof… not just your tin-foil hat explanations.
a) Live viruses? Which vaccines on the routine pediatric schedule in the US include live viruses?
b) Pump? A tiny injection hardly equals a “pump”.
c) Toxic chemicals? We have already established you believe chemicals long since removed are still in vaccines, and the removal of mercury was not due to any established harm anyway. Which toxic chemicals are the problem now?
d) Not yet fully functioning immune system? When and how does it become “fully functioning”?
Having watched my baby sister suffer and end up hospitalised for pertussis, yep, I was more than happy to vaccinate my babies.
Not half as shocking as the fact that you a) married a spatula and b) worship elderberries.
Were you vaccinated as a child?
You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
First of all, if the CDC was the only source of pro-vaccine data, your mistrust might give you pause. But, the ENTiRE world’s health organizations and every research university on the planet have come to the same conclusions. The one study that linked vaccine to autism was proven to be completely faked, on purpose at that and you don’t trust the CDC? Your mistrust should be in the anti-vaxx movement spreading the lies they do. There is not a single post you have made that does not contain an egregious and refutable error. Your fear of vaccines is based on fear alone. There is absolutely no factual basis for it. None. Zero. Cite a single peer study from a single from a single credible source to back up your claims about vaccines. *crickets chirping*
And we should listen to someone that has no idea what vaccines are made of…
That’s not why you should listen to him. You should listen to him because he has three ears and a troupe of performing caterpillars.
Are the caterpillars vaccinated?
Then don’t give your infant vaccines. Then, you can exercize your freedom to choose: the kid, the trunk, off to the jungle you go, and stay away from the locals who don’t deserve something like your diseases in their lives. Or, sealed away in your house with your brood so you and your diseases cannot harm the society you intend to leech off, exposing people to diseases, death, and disabilities. No one is obliged to suffer you, your refusal to contribute, your greed in the taking, your arrogance and most of all, your danger, period.
Man, this ‘anti-choice’ movement is rabid. I had no idea.
How can one make a rational choice based on delusional fantasy?
Sorry, you want kids to suffer because of fiction? That’s not a real choice.
Some people will never hear the truth. I keep telling them that since you fell into the porridge pot as a child you have the special power of oats, but they refuse to listen.
Yeah. I’m pretty sure most of us here are rabidly against anyone’s choice to steal from our purses and against anyone’s choice to steal from our health.
Must be because we vaccinate against rabies each time a stray dog bits us. No doubt, you’d rather die of rabies infecting other people on your way to the other side, rather than taking the ebil vaccine.
If I was bitten by a rabid dog. Yes, I would get the shots. Thanks for asking.
Thank YOU for demonstrating the self-serving lie permeating the heart of the anti-vaxx movement. It’s all ebil mercury and poisoning one’s ummune system. Those enlightened people cannot be fooled by evil doctors and Big Bad Medicine. But when the shit hits the fan, they trot over to the doctor bleating “Save, doc! Big Bad Medicine, help!” As evidenced by the loving mommies who don’t vaccinate their kids against measles because medicine is ebil but when their superior knowledge and warm mama milk fail to stimulate the Great Immune System into fighting this tiresome little thing off, they rush to the doctor, infecting everyone around who can be infected.
All hail the Enlightened People!
You’re sick dude. Makes no sense. That’s like Starbucks saying “You either buy the CD in front of the register, or we’re not going to sell you any coffee.”
More like, “We aren’t going to sell you coffee without a cup.” Picking and choosing which medical care you believe in is about as illogical as asking your barista to serve coffee into your cupped hands.
Yes we are – when the choice is stupid. Your freedom to choose ends at other people’s expense.
“at other people’s expense” Yeah, I’ll never understand that as it relates to vaccinations. Hmm.
It’s called herd immunity.
YOUR inability to understand herd immunity is not a failure of vaccines, it’s just a reflection of your ignorance.
But then again, so is everything else you say.
I’ll help you out with an example: a woman has an infant daughter who is exposed to pertussis by a cousin (prior to availability of vaccine). Baby dies. Woman has another child the next year, a boy. He is exposed by a cousin, and dies. So yeah, at other people’s expense. The difference is that now “other people” can vaccinate, and the babies can be protected even if they’re too young to be vaccinated themselves.
OK, I’m with you in your particular story… but that (as you pointed out) is not the scenario we exist in. When someone tells me “anti-vaxxers are putting us all at risk” in 2015, your illustration is irrelevant.
In what way? Unvaccinated person transmits disease to another unvaccinated person. It certainly sounds like the scenario in which some of us exist. (For the record, I didn’t point out that we don’t; my point is that we absolutely do when people who can be vaccinated aren’t.)
You qualify your story with “prior to availability of vaccine”. But I’m talking about right now… 2015. I’ll repeat the scenario for you…
If I chose not to be vaccinated, how does that hurt YOU who has been vaccinated?
Or similarly… How would my kids (assuming they weren’t vaccinated) put your (vaccinated) kids at risk?
I have been (fully) vaccinated. But what about people who can’t be/aren’t old enough? THAT’s how you hurt other people.
If you don’t know the answer to that question, you don’t know how vaccines work. And if you don’t know how vaccines works, you aren’t knowledgeable enough to make judgments on their safety or efficacy.
Are you really an MD? I just have to ask.
So you don’t know how they work. That’s not a surprise. Anti-vax is based on ignorance and you are demonstrating that.
Oh Amy, that was demonstrated early this morning. I especially like the whole,
“Their immune systems aren’t fully functioning yet.”
“Oh, so tell me how their immune system works?”
“Did I ever mention that the CDC is lying?”
Wait… did you just gloss over my question? Are you really a Medical Doctor?
Why would anyone who fraudulently puts an MD after their name respond to your question with a no?
True.
If you can’t even research a basic question like that and find the correct answer, how can we take your “research” on vaccines seriously?
Not everyone can be vaccinated, and some people have other medical/physical issues that place them at risk even if they have been fully vaccinated.
It reminds of the part that starts at about 42 seconds in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQGgaI-BcI4
My newborn will be at risk.
It puts all infants at risk until they are old enough to receive the vaccine and develop immunity. It also puts older children and adults who are immunocompromised because of illness or medication at risk. Imagine you or your loved one enduring cancer treatment or serious chronic illness and then having to also worry about catching a preventable communicable disease.
Further, some people do not become immune after they are vaccinated. More than 95% of people are immune to measles after vaccination, but for those who aren’t, a 95% immunity rate means that the disease doesn’t have a chance to spread in the community, so they stay protected too.
Okay. Anti-vaxxing started in 1989 according to a poster above. So, girl child born in ’89 is now 26. Still unvacccinated. (Protected by herd immunity!) She’s pregnant. Someone’s unvaccinated child gives her rubella (aka German measles-which is prevented through that much-maligned MMR vaccine). Baby is born mentally disabled. That good enough?
Your kids can’t put my vaccinated kids at risk unless they develop which destroys their immune systems. However, we’re getting to the point where unvaccinated kids can (and do) infect other unvaccinated kids–to devastating effect. The herd immunity can’t be counted on anymore.
And before you say such cases as I’ve described above are rare, well, so are the complications from vaccines.
A few clues:
1) Are vaccines 100% effective for every person who is vaccinated?
2) Can everybody be vaccinated?
You might also wish to consider that diseases which are unable to spread are also unable to mutate much.
That explains so much.
Yeah but they will never understand why.
Well, I’m waiting. Seriously….
If I chose not to be vaccinated, how does that hurt YOU who has been vaccinated?
Or put more broadly. How would my kids (assuming they weren’t vaccinated) put your (vaccinated) kids at risk?
I really want to know. Not just toying with you.
My wee kiddo was two weeks old when she started using public transport in October and spending up to four hours on school premises every day Monday to Friday.
Thanks for nothing had you chosen not to be vaccinated or not to vaccinate your kids.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Community_Immunity.jpg
Solipsism is a failure of a philosophy.
You say that like it’s a bad thing?
Exactly. Don’t vaccinate. Just leave the herd, because I’m sure you don’t want to be saddled with the immunity that comes from the herd’s evil immunizations.
“Infants shouldn’t even contract vaccine preventable diseases–period”
there, I fixed it for you
Thanks. That’s helpful.
Brown sugar causes moral collapse in the elderly.
Awesome. I’ll tell my grandmother. Thanks.
I’m not sure how you can say this will so much confidence when the ‘science’ on this topic is far from settled.
Far from settled? How many thousands of studies do you require? How much more research funds and time should be poured into this rather than cures and vaccines for diseases not yet preventable by vaccines?
“How much more research funds and time should be poured into this” – A bunch! And it should never stop. If you’re going to “REQUIRE” me to inject my kids, I want there to be no doubts that they are 100% safe. And that is certainly NOT the case now.
Nothing is 100% safe.
It’s about comparative risks. Seatbelts can, in extremely rare cases, cause more damage than they prevent. Vaccines can, in extremely rare cases, cause serious adverse reactions. However, a car accident without a seatbelt is far more likely to lead to serious injury or death than one with it. A vaccine preventable disease is far more likely to lead to serious adverse effects or death than the vaccine.
True what you say about risk. But I believe the rates of of adverse reactions from immunizations are grossly understated. The CDC is a government controlled organization. Therefore, they can and will understate any and all statistics that do not line up with their objectives. This has been shown repeatedly true over the years, and is no less true (in my opinion) in this particular case.
So just make things up, and all of a sudden, poof! It’s real!
It is real. I said “I believe” the rates are overstated. That is a real statement.
Yes, it’s all your fantasy.
But it is good that you admit that you have absolutely no real basis for anything, and it is based on something you have made up.
I’m observant. I read. I watch what happens around me. I analyze what I’m being told. I listen to the experiences and knowledge of others. My viewpoint is not made in a vacuum, as you suggest. Just because I oppose your viewpoint doesn’t mean it’s “made up.”
Sorry.
“…it is based on something completely made up.”
There, it doesn’t require that you made it up, it could have been someone else and you just accept it.
You don’t know the first fucking gnat about the CDC. So yes, it is pretty much made in a vacuum.
Do you believe everything you hear? I mean, I would assume you listen to the news and occasionally go “Yeah, I don’t think that’s true”. Don’t you? Or do you just accept everything that is said? I’m really curious. For real.
Depends on what is said and who says it. Moreover, it depends if I have actual knowledge regarding it.
However, when it is something said by a reputable source in an area where I have no expertise, my response is to shrug and say, meh, they likely know more about it than I do. And if it is something that concerns me, I will ask people who I know who know something about it. So if I had any concerns about the CDC vaccination recommendations, I would talk to our pediatrician for starters, and if I needed more, I could contact an immunologist. Heck, if I really had a concern, I would contact someone on the committee that makes the recommendations (email is so great) and ask them directly.
What I don’t do is assume they are lying and think I know more about it, nor do I make decisions based on the presumption that they must be lying or conspiring.
Yeah, you are much more trusting than me. I will admit. I think the CDC is about as reliable as the FDA.
As I said, you don’t know the first fucking thing about the CDC nor the FDA, for that matter, so whether you “trust” them or not is pretty much irrelevant to anything. It doesn’t matter who YOU trust because you are an ignorant doofus.
Now, that in itself doesn’t make the CDC nor FDA trustworthy, but it certainly doesn’t have any bearing on whether they are untrustworthy.
BTW: go back and look at your comments here about your objections to vaccines. Notice that it has changed in pretty much every single comment. Recall that the initial claim about about harsh chemicals and live viruses, which you know nothing about, and then you went to the immune system, which you know nothing about, and then you are on to conspiracies, which again, you know nothing about.
A little self-reflection might be in order here.
So, pretty reliable?
..and the post office.
Real for sure… totally stupid and misinformed… but real.
That he believes it is real, but what he believes is fantasy.
“That is a real statement.”
I cannot even begin to figure out what this means in this context. I mean, yes, onnesty made this statement, but what is making a statement of belief meant to prove?
I believe my cats can cure cancer. That is a real statement.
onnesty,
Thanks so much for dropping in to demonstrate what I mean about ego. It’s difficult to imagine a larger ego than someone who claims to know more about adverse vaccine reactions than the Federal government.
How do you? You read it on a website created by quacks and you think that marks you as defiant of government authority and smarter than the rest of us, when it really demonstrates your appalling ignorance and gullibility.
Oh, and thank you ever so much for caring about us so ardently that you want to educate us about what you think you “know.” Please, save yourself the trouble. You are yet another of those privileged, defiant, “empowered” fools who bolster their egos with anti-vax nonsense. We already have more than enough of those.
Amy, not to be disrespectful. I have nothing against you. And I’m not completely “ANTI-VAX” as you might suppose. But I also don’t agree that the Federal Government has the people’s best interest in mind – in the slightest. And they have repeatedly earned my mistrust – the hard way. And THAT of course is the real heart of the problem. It’s almost to the point now where regardless of what is said by the FDA, CDC, FBI, EPA, NSA, etc, the opposite is actually probably closer to the truth.
So if you were to tell me the Federal Government started demanding/suggesting mandatory vaccines across the board, my assumption would be that it’s a result of some sort of financial corruption and back-door deal from pharmaceutical companies and/or their lobbyists. Would I have proof? No, of course not. But this type of thing has happened many times before, and it will continue well into the future. If it quacks like a duck…
You can (and likely will) call me ignorant because I hold to a healthy caution in these matters. But I won’t be convinced until the evidence comes from unbiased/independent sources that are not government funded. It’s just that simple.
So you don’t trust the U.S. government. To take this stance against vaccines that mistrust has to extend to most governments in the world. There is a lot of world outside the U.S.
I can’t really speak to other governments or people groups. Show me one that is immune to corruption.
Show me one anti-vax celebrity that is immune to corruption? Yet you choose to believe them. Why?
No, I don’t believe anti-vax celebrities. I’ve actually never knowingly met/seen one. I’m not sure what you’re saying.
Where do you get your information on vaccines? You don’t do original research on vaccines, right? So you trust others to provide you with information. Why them and how do you know they’re not corrupt?
You don’t have to believe any are immune to corruption. However, for your mistrust to make any sense, you do have to believe they are all corrupted by some shadowy group that wants to harm us all through vaccines. You must also believe that no opponents to incumbent governments have ever discovered this corruption, even though they must have participated if ever they got into power. In addition, thousands of scientists and millions of doctors have either been a party to this conspiracy of corruption or too ignorant to notice it despite their education in the field.
You will not accept funding from the pharmaceutical companies, governments or anyone else with a vested interest in vaccines. Who the heck else would pay for these studies?
By the way. My kids are vaccinated. I held my nose and did it. And they are fine. But I do know of a couple personally who took their child in for vaccinations. Upon getting the shot(s), baby cried uncontrollably for about 12 hours and then died in their arms. Anomaly? Perhaps. But I also know of several people who’s children were diagnosed with autism within days of getting injections. CDC says “there’s no connection”. I just don’t believe them. That’s all. I just don’t believe them.
You said: “But I do know of a couple personally who took their child in for vaccinations. Upon getting the shot(s), baby cried uncontrollably for about 12 hours and then died in their arms”
Really? Since you know them personally, can you give me their names? City and date? This would be news. Can you point me to a news article?
No chance the COD was something else? (I’m not actually asking onnesty because I know he’ll claim it was the vaccines even if it turns out it wasn’t.)
http://www.jpeds.com/content/JPEDSDeStefano
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17928818
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22184954
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa071434
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/584.%20%20%20full
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197365
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17168158
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=1239
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(98)24018-9/fulltext
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10376617
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2004/Immunization-Safety-Review-Vaccines-and-Autism.aspx
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2013/autism-risk-unrelated-to-total-vaccine-exposure-in-early-childhood.shtml
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/793.short
Vaccines DO NOT cause autism.
Nick – the problem is, facts don’t matter. He’s already said that. He knows very well what the facts are, he just doesn’t believes them, and creates his own.
Even so, I refuse to let their denial make the facts just go away. No matter what, I will not let anyone ignore the clear as day evidence that there is no link. Especially since I am on the Autism Spectrum, and I am absolutely sick of people screaming about how you shouldn’t get vaccines because you might end up like me. Does being autistic suck? Yes. Is it better than dying painfully as a child? Hell fucking yes, there’s no comparison. Even if the alleged link existed, vaccination would be the way to go. Since it doesn’t, there is no excuse whatsoever.
Ah, yes – the “MY OWN PERSONAL PRECIOUS EXPERIENCE AND THAT OF MY VERY SPECIAL FRIENDS” argument. Ego. Ego. Ego. Privilege. And you “just don’t believe them.” Because….you just don’t.
In demanding absolute certainty, you ask for a thing that does not and can not exist.
What mercury? And what carcinogens?
Stop changing the goalposts! Infant vaccines do not have mercury in them! You said they do and they do not. Stop lying or at least admit you life and you have no idea what you are talking about!
Agree. Full disclosure on what is in the vaccines would be appreciated. Not something I should have to try and decipher myself. If they are truly safe, then we should be told what’s in them – EXACTLY what’s in them. not like ‘natural flavours’ like you see on ingredient lists, but actual ingredients. The push to vaccinate should be accompanied with facts and data not – they’re safe so do it or you’re an arrogant moron.
Be careful with matches around that strawman.
Personal insults are not an argument for or against something. Show data revealing what is in each vaccine and provide that to parents at their doctor’s offices. Wouldn’t take much to do that and then people can make informed decisions about what goes into their bodies and their children’s bodies.
Do you have the medical training to actually read the ingredient list, and know what’s worth caring about and what isn’t? Does the average parent?
Medical dictionaries online may be able to simplify explanations for parents.
True, but how many have the time and patience to check them while in a doctor’s office while the doctor is waiting and their kid is getting antsy?
The doctor could send them home with the information at their previous appointment, then the parents can check into it. Remember that not all parents will request this information – it’s the ones who want to know what’s in the vaccine, so they are already invested in learning more.
If the doctor has to send them home with it, why can’t they just look it up for themselves in the first place? It’s already been pointed out that it’s available online.
Do it when the kids are asleep the week before.
I don’t believe I need medical training to read words and understand them. I am an intelligent person, if there is something I do not understand then I can look it up.
Words with no context are meaningless. Your ability to read is one thing; an ability to put what you read into context and understand THAT is another thing entirely.