I didn’t know nonsense could be so well-organized, anti-vaccine edition

We need a place for the trolls. Maybe an equivalent to the Lanthenide series, “off the chart” as it were:

So – Sid Offit
Su – Commonsense et al
Ds – DrSmart
Mm – Medicien Man (or is that Dr Smart’s sock puppet?)
Jn – Jen the Tylenol troll

and of course, the latest highly unstable element As – augustine (I didn’t choose Ag or Au because they already represent something valuable. You can also pronounce As as if it had 2 s’s)

Yes, “DrSmart” and “Medicine Man” are the same person.

Even though Jen does go on about tylenol, she is not a troll (she has changed over time).

Who is “Twyla”?

What about the ever amusing STY?

Meryl Dorey isn’t on it.

Chris@4, Twyla is Twyla Ramos, an AoA contributor who trolls blogs inserting ‘vaccines cause autism’ to any conversation, regardless of the topic. Need I say more?

There is another jen, also an AoA regular who is just a garden-variety tosser. I think that is the one that comes to mind when you think of a jen-troll. Or should, anyhow.

Must include STY.

Forgot one!

Tony Bateson, our Upper Class Twit from Oxford.

I can’t use the symbol Tb, because it’s taken by Bensmyson.
How about Mb, for Master Bateson?

Has anyone seen this?
http://gammasquad.uproxx.com/2010/08/mris-to-diagnose-autism-shut-up-self-diagnosers?

Loved that. . .but I wanted to see what they found in ADD brains!

I got in trouble with some woo-loving friends the last time I posted a periodic table – I think this might go over their heads, though.

Heh, and here we were talking about G Taylor’s killed by autism site on lb/rb. Nice to see her on there.

@Liz, I disagree with the term “suffer” but otherwise, that’s a pretty funny article.

I see someone has mentioned Meryl Dopey… I mean Dorey.

How about Sherri Tenpenny and her wares under “Junk Websites.” And don’t forget that mistress of myriad woos, Dr. Christiane Northrup. She hates vaccines almost as much as she loves bioidentical hormone$.

One: I don’t think Passionless Drone is a troll. She puts a lot more effort into research than I think a troll would spend.

Two: should the vaccine court be included? Anti-vaxxers act as if its mere existence supports their arguments, as well as the total amount of monetary rewards its given, but in-and-of-itself it’s not anti-vax.

I feel honored to be a part of your little anti-normal person tyrade. Go ahead and add me to the list of normal people in your silly little insignificant chart. Maybe a chemical composition will derive from it to cure Chris’s type 1 diabetes of what’s her name paralysis from the flu vaccine.

I wonder where the periodic table of liberalism fits in? Here are some of the elements:

Socialism/communism/atheism
evolution/darwin worshippers
gay or gay supporter or gay sympathizer or gay worshipper
tree hugger/environmental terrorist
PLO/Hamas terrorist/flotilla supporters
vaccination/forced sterilization nuts (also commies)
mandatory fascist/socialist healthcare rationing system supporters
G20 gimme everything I want now terrorists
violent labor union thugs
black liberation theology/socilaist/terrorists
social justice fake Christians
economic justice/socialist fake christians

man, there are just too many enemies of freedom to name here, but it would be a good thing to organize them into a periodic table of violent and dangerous left wing fringe nutjobs who need to be put into mental institutions.

@Buzzard bait:

I wonder where the periodic table of liberalism fits in? Here are some of the elements:

…

vaccination/forced sterilization nuts (also commies)

A lot of anti-vaxxers are liberals, especially the crunchy granola type liberals. It’s not a left-wing/right-wing issue.

Also, are you talking about “forced vaccinations”? I don’t know of anyone on this site who’s in favor of forced vaccinations. There is support for mandatory vaccination, which means “vaccination is mandatory for children going to public schools”. With mandatory vaccination, parents can have their children go to a private school, or home school them, so it’s not the same as “forced”.

but it would be a good thing to organize them into a periodic table of violent and dangerous left wing fringe nutjobs who need to be put into mental institutions.

I can’t tell if you’re using hyperbole or not. If you’re not using hyperbole, then wow, is that ever a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Also, how pro-vaccine do you have to be to a “violent and dangerous left wing fringe nutjob”?

Has anyone ever underwearpuppeted your name Chris?
You are scaring me. Don’t make me send my brother Doctor Smart here. I will. Just in case you are wondering what my real credentials are as a doctor, you can find them at my URL. I think you will be surprised.

One: I don’t think Passionless Drone is a troll. She puts a lot more effort into research than I think a troll would spend.

I agree PD does seem to try to at least think for him/her (?) self.

Perhaps PD could be replaced by “Smarter Than You” with his weird rantings about the vaccine-autismpocalypse coming later this year.

Bruce,

I can’t use the symbol Tb, because it’s taken by Bensmyson.
How about Mb, for Master Bateson?

I love it. Now I will bust up laughing whenever he posts his ‘there are no unvaccinated autistics’ crap.

Nice to see Jay Gordon make the table at #42 (Jy). However it should have been organized so as to place him under #15 (Aw), considering how far he is up Andrew Wakefield’s butt.

Given how much competition there is for that slot, I suppose they couldn’t keep everyone happy.

It needs crazy treatments – maybe the Actinides.

I suggest:

89: Gf: Gluten-free
90: Hm: Homeopathy
91: Sp: Supplements
92: Ho: Hyperbaric Oxygen
93: Bi: Biomed
94: Dd: Doctor’s Data tests
95: Co: Colonoscopies
96: Np: Naturopathy
97: Gs: Google search
98: Wu: Woo
99: Fc: Facilitated Communication
100: Cn: Chelation
101: Ic: Industrial chelators
102: Lp: Lupron
103: Kt: Kill them (with our treatments, $99.99 per session)

What did the poor Moon rocks do to be included here?

Re: Adam, post 34. Why would you have #89 as gluten free? What is wrong with a gluten free diet as a treatment? Or are you referring to people who do it despite not actually needing to (unlike celiacs who have to)?

Well, this is a table of anti-vaccine woo. Obviously, it’s only woo as an autism treatment: Like Chelation, Hyperbaric oxygen, and Lupron, there’s legitimate reasons to use it, but in autism/anti-vaccine woo, pretty much every autistic child gets “diagnosed” as “needing” it, which isn’t, in fact, true.

Sid will be crushed that he didn’t make the list.

Not so much. I realize I have to wait my turn and pay my dues.
—————————–
Where Mayer Eisenstein? And the Geiers?
—————————–
I don’t think Passionless Drone is a troll. She puts…

I think I recall she being a he, but I could be wrong – although a drone is male. That having been said pD is far from a troll

I don’t know why I feel so compelled (perhaps my dedication to objectivity) but Sid is spot on here. pD is a he and not a troll, Eisenstein and the Geiers should absolutely be on that table and lastly, Sid has not earned his/her way yet.

“Anne Dachel, too. She trolls every pro-vaccine news story and drops a fact-free soundbite.

Posted by: Orange Lantery ”

That is fabulous!! “fact-free soundbite” LOVE it!

@43:
Thanks, Angela. Wish I could spell my own pseudonym, though.

I’m trying to think of other trolls that I see across various blogs and news sites. Chris and I have run into a dude named JonGH who likes to Gish gallop across the screen at various sites, but I don’t know that he’s a big enough pony.

I’m guessing Tb stands for “Two Bensmysons” or “Team Bensmyson”, though we could give them the appropriate “Bs” symbol and give “Tb” to Tony Bateson, who deserves a spot for being a classic one-trick troll.

Doctor Smart?
They are called stents, not stints.

Chelation is a marvelous medical tool, when indicated. Autism is not an indication to chelate. Same with gluten. Got celiac? Go gluten free. I don’t know about niacin or any other ‘natural’ cholesterol lowering but based on previous experience with your posts, I discount them heavily.

Is the Smart like in Maxwell Smart? or alcohol in an abrasion smart(s)?

Most glaring omissions: John Best and the Geiers.

Possible additions: Harold Doherty and Craig Willoughby.

Agree with the consensus that passionlessDrone is not a troll.

@ MikeMa

Go ahead and discount them then. That just means more supply for me.

@ Chris:

Right, Right, rightey right, boy am I right. Stop stalking me.

I have about 200lbs of #6 to get rid of if anyone needs some..;.)

@ Twyla, the objective definition is explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet-Troll

Based on this chart, it looks like a troll is just a blogger whose opinions you don’t agree with?

No, that would be AoA’s definition.

Thanks, Science Mom – I should have thought of going to Wikipedia! Now I finally understand better what is meant by “Troll”. I am not familiar with the blogging of “Crazy Dawn”, but I can say for sure that all the others on your (Orac’s) list of trolls are not actually trolls. Our “primary intent” is not to provoke an emotional response, but to disseminate information for the sake of raising awareness of vaccine injury, which will hopefully someday result in a better understanding of both prevention and treatment of vaccine injury.

This is actually a great chart, except for the headings, and I am proud that you would consider my paltry insignificant blogging as worthy of a spot amongst such illustrious tireless brilliant people. But all the column headings need revision, as does the title of the chart. Most of these people became involved in this field because of their children’s vaccine injuries. If they had rejected vaccines, they would not have become vaccine safety advocates. Instead, they accepted vaccines, and are still dealing with the consequences for their vaccine injured children today. So, a more accurate title would be something like “Periodic Table of Vaccine Safety Advocates”. And change “Opportunistic MDs” to “MDs Not Afraid to Think Outside the Box, Help Children, and Speak Out”. Change “Junk Websites” to “Websites Where You Can Find Accurate Information Usually Suppressed Elsewhere by the Govt/Pharm Complex”. With these and a few other column heading changes along these lines, this chart would be much improved.

Niacin does have beneficial effects on cholesterol levels particularly in lowering LDL and triglycerides as well in increasing HDL levels. This is a commentary about niacin and current trials and the future of niacin e-published ahead of print publication. It can cause liver toxicity, but the number one reason my patients stop taking it is that therapeutic doses often cause an uncomfortable and disconcerting flushing reaction. This reaction can be mitigated by taking aspirin 30 minutes prior to the niacin, but that is challenging for some people to do. Just an FYI.

Twyla, nothing you have posted makes me think you are a vaccine safety advocate, unless by vaccine safety advocate you mean advocate for making vaccines 100% safe with absolutely not side effects or risks or anything and not accepting anything less, in which case, yeah… never going to happen and really? That’s your standard? Glad I don’t live in your fantasy land. By that standard, there is nothing I could use or give or perform in medicine. Nothing. Everything has a risk to benefit ratio. Vaccines have one of the most favorable ratios around, particularly in comparison to some of the meds I prescribe and use every day in clinic. Or are you proposing I stop using those meds as well?

gaianinc, nothing I have ever posted advocates for “making vaccines 100% safe with absolutely no side effects or risks or anything and not accepting anything less.” I have often written about the importance of weighing risks and benefits. The problem is, our govt agencies are simply denying the risks without studying them. No longterm studies on the affects of our vaccine program. No study of the children whose vaccine injuries have been reported to VAERS, not even of those who have received payment for vaccine injuries. pD wrote an excellent article about how little is actually known about the immune system’s response to vaccines. http://passionlessdrone.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/a-brief-overview-on-early-life-immune-challenges-and-why-they-might-matter/

One of the worst examples of faulty weighing of risks and benefits is the Hepatitis B vaccine given at birth to all babies, when only a small minority (those whose mothers carry this virus) are at risk of having this virus, and the baby’s health status at that time is unknown (allergies? kidney or liver problems?).

Yes, I would accept some risk to get a small pox vaccine back when the disease was prevalent. I get that. But part of a good vaccine program is to understand the adverse effects, instead of sweeping unintended consequences under the rug.

There needs to be better understanding of adverse reactions for the sake of prevention and treatment. This does not mean that I am against all vaccines. It means we need an honest and accurate weighing of risks and benefits.

I don’t understand why so many seem to approach vaccines with a mentality similar to that of a totalitarian dictator — no criticism allowed — those who criticize are enemies of the state. That is not a scientific mentality. Problems with vaccine should be addressed.

As Dr. Bernadine Healy said to reporter Sharyl Attkisson:

“You’re saying that public health officials have turned their back on a viable area of research largely because they’re afraid of what might be found?” Attkisson asked.

Healy said: “There is a completely expressed concern that they don’t want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people. First of all,” Healy said, “I think the public’s smarter than that. The public values vaccines. But more importantly, I don’t think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you’re afraid of what it might show.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml

So you know exactly who will have contact with your child and how and what exactly your child will do for the rest of your child’s life so that you know that your child will never get Hep B? Really? I guess my crystal ball is not that effective. I much prefer to protect my child with a vaccine than assume that my child will be fine. Considering the risk of the immunization causing my child harm is substantially less than the risk of my child being hurt in a car accident, not immunizing is the non-logical choice.

Or do you plan to argue that immunizations cause 30,000+ deaths per year (see the National Transportation Safety Board for their stats; I’m on a “smartphone” where I can’t toggle back and forth)? Because that is the number of traffic fatalities per year. Do you protest against transportation?

Oh and what Todd W. said.

Todd W, I went to the clinical trials.gov site and searched for Phase IV post-market studies. Only one study appeared, which tracked the number of subjects reporting “solicited symptoms” during the 4-week follow-up period after each dose. This looks at obvious, short term reactions, but does not address the question of whether our current schedule is having cumulative effects on our babies’ and children’s developing immune systems. Two dozen vaccines by the age of two (and another dozen before school starts) is unprecedented in human history. Is it only a coincidence that we have escalating rates of many immune system, GI, and neurological disorders such as food allergies, asthma, diabetes (the auto-immune kind), ADHD, autism, bipolar, and more? The whole point of vaccines is to stimulate the immune system. Do we really understand all the consequences?

Yes, the NIH’s new initiative is very encouraging. It aims to fund studies on “1) physiological and immunological responses to vaccines and vaccine components, 2) how genetic variations affect immune/physiological responses that may impact vaccine safety, 3) identification of risk factors and biological markers that may be used to assess whether there is a relationship between certain diseases or disorders and licensed vaccines, or 4) the application of genomic/molecular technologies to improve knowledge of vaccine safety.” AoA described this here:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/08/nih-launches-effort-to-define-markers-of-human-immune-responses-to-infection-and-vaccination.html
If this results in good helpful research, a better vaccine program, and better treatment for vaccine injuries, I will be happy. I am not committed to complaining about vaccines forever, if things change as they should.

The VAERS site says, “You or your health care provider may be contacted for follow-up information by VAERS staff after your report is received.” Additional info is gathered on “selected VAERS reports”. It does not say how often that actually happens. Certainly not every report is investigated. They mention regarding “Data quality” that “Since reports are accepted from anyone, the data reported is not always complete or accurate.” Most of the date is just what was reported, not investigated and confirmed or denied, not fleshed out with necessary additional data or follow up.

Regarding Hepatitis B, the WHO web site says that, “The virus is transmitted through contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person – not through casual contact.”

The CDC says:
“How is HBV transmitted?
“HBV is transmitted through activities that involve percutaneous (i.e., puncture through the skin) or mucosal contact with infectious blood or body fluids (e.g., semen, saliva), including
• Sex with an infected partner
• Injection drug use that involves sharing needles, syringes, or drug-preparation equipment
• Birth to an infected mother
• Contact with blood or open sores of an infected person
• Needle sticks or sharp instrument exposures
• Sharing items such as razors or toothbrushes with an infected person
HBV is not spread through food or water, sharing eating utensils, breastfeeding, hugging, kissing, hand holding, coughing, or sneezing.”
~~

Regarding gaiainc’s comment “So you know exactly who will have contact with your child and how and what exactly your child will do for the rest of your child’s life so that you know that your child will never get Hep B?” Did I say anything like that? No, I said that most newborns are not at risk for HepB – only those whose mothers are carriers. The risk of giving a vaccine to an infant within hours of birth is unknown. And by the time the child grows up enough to engage in risky behaviors, the vaccine’s effects will have worn off. Whether this vaccine has more risk or benefit at a later age is another topic. But in looking at the very crowded infant vaccine schedule, with unexplored synergistic effects, I can’t see the Hep B being necessary on the day of birth, or at age 2 months, 4 months, or 6 months. The risk of a baby contracting HepB is miniscule.

Regarding Todd W’s comment that “Finally, your little sound bite from Healy is her opinion, and to me reads as a straw man. She seems to assume that the reason researchers will not pursue an hypothesis is out of fear…” She is not assuming; that is what people have told her. She says this is “a completely expressed concern”. She has held very high level positions including deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Policy, chairman of the Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, and director of the NIH. She has connections to very high level insiders.

@Twlya

I went to the clinical trials.gov site and searched for Phase IV post-market studies. Only one study appeared

What were your search terms? I went and searched for “vaccine safety”, limiting my search to Phase IV (there’s a check box for that). I got 192 results.

Is it only a coincidence that we have escalating rates of many immune system, GI, and neurological disorders such as food allergies, asthma, diabetes (the auto-immune kind), ADHD, autism, bipolar, and more?

It very well may be. There is certainly strong evidence that increased sterilization of the environment is responsible for many autoimmune disorders, like allergies and asthma.

It does not say how often that actually happens. Certainly not every report is investigated.

You’re shifting goalposts. You said that no study or follow up is done on VAERS reports. I showed you that there are. Now you shift to complain that not all are investigated.

The risk of giving a vaccine to an infant within hours of birth is unknown. And by the time the child grows up enough to engage in risky behaviors, the vaccine’s effects will have worn off.

You apparently did not read all of the information on Hep B available at the CDC’s site. While we do not know every possible risk of the vaccine, we do know a great deal about it. We know that, in general, it is quite safe and that serious adverse events are extremely rare. That is not “unknown”. We also know that the greatest risk of Hep B is to infants and young children, since it is more likely to lead to chronic Hep B infection and more likely to lead to cancer. That risk decreases the older you get. So, again, it appears that you did not read the information that I provided, nor does it appear that you read the info Chris provided.

As to Healy, she is reporting opinion, whether her own or others, not facts. We cannot verify that others did, indeed, tell her that was the reason. Even if it is true that others told her that, we cannot verify that what they are saying is reality. Further, I don’t care what her position is or was. What I care about are the facts and evidence produced to support a position. Accepting someone’s statements as true simply based on who they are is a logical fallacy, which I try to avoid. What matters is not who says something, but what they say and the evidence that they provide to support their position.

Again, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Further, as I suggested, you should stop getting your information from places like AoA, seeing as they heavily censor their material so that, more often than not, only those things which fall into their agenda of “vaccines cause autism” ever make it on their site. Many of the things that they post are factually incorrect. Nearly all of it is spun to support their a priori belief that vaccines are the root of all evil. (Yes, I’m being hyperbolic…but only a little.)

Go to the sources, rather than getting your information filtered through the screen of AoA and their ilk. Hell, go to the sources rather than taking me at face value. think critically.

Todd W, when I have a chance I will redo my search as you described. Re: “You’re shifting goalposts. You said that no study or follow up is done on VAERS reports. I showed you that there are. Now you shift to complain that not all are investigated.” I agree it was inaccurate of me to say that NO study or follow up is done on VAERS reports. That was carelessly written. Apparently some is done, but it is not at all clear from the web site how many are studied — certainly not all — but my impression is very few. I am not complaining about not ALL being studied. But there seems to be extremely little study or follow up. I have known many autism parents who tried to get govt officials interested in studying their children’s vaccine reactions but to no avail. Go ahead and tear that statement apart as subjective experience. But show me any evidence of our govt studying autistic regression into autism following a vaccine reaction.

@Twyla

but my impression is very few.

Why? What gives you that impression?

The only reason for giving the Hep B vaccine on the day of birth is in case the mother is infected. There is a miniscule risk of a baby contracting Hep B from other sources.

You are, of course, assuming a couple of things. 1) You assume that every mother is tested. 2) You assume that no test comes back with a false negative (i.e., saying that the mother is not infected, when, in fact, she is). 3) You assume that the infant is extremely unlikely to come into contact with an infected individual (e.g., another infant at daycare, other family members, etc.) at home or in other settings, such as a waiting room at the ped’s office, supermarket and so on. 4) You assume that the infant is extremely unlikely to come into contact with an infected surface. From the CDC site I linked to above, “HBV can survive outside the body at least 7 days and still be capable of causing infection.”

These are some major assumptions. Against this, let’s look at some of the risks involved. We know that adverse effects from the vaccine are quite rare and do not tend to be major. Serious adverse events are extremely rare. We know that infection in infants is almost guaranteed (~90%) to become chronic. We also know that about 1 in 4 of those with a chronic infection will develop some type of liver disease, like cirrhosis or cancer. Those are some pretty big risks. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty certain than I would not be able to keep an eye on my child 100% of the time and act fast enough to prevent the child from sticking things (like their hands) in their mouths that may have come into contact with an, unbeknown to be, infected surface (from blood, saliva or other bodily fluids). I’m also pretty sure that while I may know about most of the little cuts or scratches that my child might get, I probably am not going to be able to, 100% of the time, keep such cuts or scratches from coming in contact with infected material.

From my perspective, no matter how careful one is, there is a risk of infection from some source. It may be small, but the consequences (e.g., death from liver disease and the attendant costs associated with treatment and palliative care) are quite huge. Against that, the risk of an AE from the Hep B vaccine is smaller, and the consequences significantly less serious (e.g., the Vaccine Information Sheet from the CDC for the Hep B vaccines (PDF link) states, as the worst AE for which we have statistics, “Severe allergicreactions are believed to occur about once in 1.1 million doses.”).

I am willing to be shown that I am wrong, though. If you have evidence that the shot is, objectively, more risky than the disease, by all means, state your case.

I have known many autism parents who tried to get govt officials interested in studying their children’s vaccine reactions but to no avail.

With whom did they speak? What was the claim? Had the hypothesis been studied already, even if not including their particular child? If there were studies to which they applied, what were the exclusion criteria?

show me any evidence of our govt studying autistic regression into autism following a vaccine reaction

What, you mean like the government’s investigation into thimerosal’s potential relationship to autism where they found no association? Perhaps the CDC’s activities looking at vaccines and autism? And didn’t I point out, already, that the government is spending money on this?

Twyla, I have to ask. Have you actually done any primary research of your own? Have you gone to the various government web sites to find out what they are doing? Or do you simply take the word of the people at Age of Autism? I was able to find the above information with some pretty quick, basic searching, which really makes me wonder what the heck you are doing that you haven’t found these answers. Did you really not know? Or are you spinning things to fit with your preconceived notion that vaccines cause autism or are, in some other vague way, responsible for a variety of other health issues?

Your posts here have shown that you appear rather ignorant of the facts. You cast vaccines in a shady light that is unsupported by reality. Despite being pointed to where you can find answers to your questions and/or where you can remedy your misconceptions, you persist in repeating them. Before posting again, take some time to actually read the primary sources. Seriously. If you put that effort into educating yourself, rather than taking the word of AoA conspiracy theorists or random parents who, despite honest intentions and beliefs, may be mistaken, go to the CDC site. Go to the FDA site. Go to PubMed and clinicaltrials.gov. Read the information out there. Oh, and educate yourself on how to evaluate a study. Science-Based Medicine blog had a good series tailored to lay persons like you and me discussing what things to look for in a study to determine how much value to place on it.

I admire your passion and dedication to your cause, so I would really like to see you base that on the real world, rather than anti-vaccine echo chambers.

Twyla, did you skip reading the second link? The father did not know he had hepatitis B that he passed along to his daughter (he also infected the mother, if you can’t figure out how that happened, I’m not going to explain it to you). As a consequence he had to something no parent should do, watch his child die.

Now, as far as babies not bleeding on anyone… I guess you must have kept everything sterile and protected. But let us dispense with anecdotes and go to the data. Unlike you, I ignore websites edited by incompetent journalists who failed to find the Clinic for Special Children in Lancaster County. I start with the CDC Pink Book, since it has references I can check… and from there find other papers at PubMed. To make it simple I’ll just quote from the Pink Book chapter on Hepatitis B:

During 1990–2004, incidence of acute hepatitis B in the United States declined 75%. The greatest decline (94%) occurred among children and adolescents, coincident with an increase in hepatitis B vaccine coverage. A total of 4,519 cases of hepatitis B were reported in 2007.

… snip…because of a change in strategy…

Hepatitis B vaccines have been available in the United States since 1981. However, the impact of vaccine on HBV disease has been less than optimal.

The apparent lack of impact from the vaccine can be attributed to several factors. From 1981 until 1991, vaccination was targeted to persons in groups at high risk of acquiring HBV infection. A large proportion of persons with HBV infection (25% to 30%) deny having any risk factors for the disease. These persons would not be identified by a targeted risk factor screening approach.

…snip…

A comprehensive strategy to eliminate hepatitis B virus transmission was recommended in 1991; it includes prenatal testing of pregnant women for HBsAg to identify newborns who require immunoprophylaxis for prevention of perinatal infection and to identify household contacts who should be vaccinated, routine vaccination of infants, vaccination of adolescents, and vaccination of adults at high risk for infection. Recommendations to further enhance vaccination of adults at increased risk of HBV infection were published in 2006.

My daughter was the first of my children to get the HepB vaccine, and I knew it was important because of the area we live has a large population from where it is endemic (also it is not terribly far from where PKIDS was founded, so I knew of the dangers in the early 1990s just by reading the local paper). I got my boys vaccinated during the next year, since I knew it was now available.

Age of Autism and Barbara Loe Fisher Arthur’s National Vaccination mis-Information Corporation should also be covered under Scopie’s Law:

In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to (and other non-scientific websites like AoA, NaturalNews, etc) as a credible source loses you the argument immediately …and gets you laughed out of the room.

Funny how you did not mention the turning blue bit earlier. Though the HepB is given shortly after birth, so a reaction could be any number of things. My sister’s second son had to be under lights because of jaundice, and my first son had seizures as a newborn (and was transported from the hospital he was born in to a children’s hospital). Were those vaccine reactions? Um, no… both of them are over twenty years old.

I believe you are the one who assumes to much.

@ Twyla:

But parents should be able to make informed choices. Yes, there is a risk of some mothers not knowing that they are carrying HepB. But there are also risks to the vaccine.

I’m glad we’re in agreement. Where we disagree, I think, is the “informed” part. What risks to the vaccines do you feel mothers are not informed about? I’m looking at the VIS for hep B right now:

“Severe problems are extremely rare. Severe allergic reactions are believed to occur about once in 1.1 million doses. A vaccine, like any medicine, could cause a serious reaction. But the risk of a vaccine causing serious harm, or death, is extremely small.”

I would welcome a discussion of evidence that the above statement is not true. So far you have not provided any. Perhaps the crucial studies are in the AoA article, which I can’t access here, but I will try to get to when I am on my home computer.

My son turned blue and stopped breathing a while after receiving his HepB vaccine with thimerosal on the day he was born. The medical staff rushed him away and resuscitated him. They kept him in the hospital an extra day for observation. They never could figure out what happened. Was that a vaccine reaction? We will never know for sure.

Of course we won’t know for sure, especially not knowing all the medical details of the event (How long ago did this occur? How soon after the vaccine? For how long was he not breathing? Whas he centrally cyanotic or peripherally cyanotic? What interventions were required to resuscitate him?). But we can make an educated conculsion based on the existing data.

Instead of running through references chosen for you by AoA, you might try reading the safety and efficacy studies referenced in the report by the ACIP prior to the recommendation of universal newborn hepatits B immunization (PMID:16371945). I read through Lewis et al 2001 (PMID:11734710) which evaluated ~5000 newborns and concluded:

“This study found no evidence that newborn hepatitis B vaccination is associated with an increase in the number of febrile episodes, sepsis evaluations or allergic or neurologic events. In addition our data did not support any increase in medical procedures attributed to receipt of hepatitis B vaccine.”

On the other hand, you are describing a neonatal apneic event, sometimes called an ALTE (apparent life threatening event) which occur reasonably commonly in neonates and infants, and indepently from vaccine administration (indeed, if the vaccine had been delayed in your child, the event probably still would have occurred and we would not be having this discussion). They are idiopathic about half the time. There is not good evidence to suggest that your child’s event was caused by the vaccine. If it is, it has been too rare for studies to detect, and would not be appropriate to include in a list of significant risks.

Further reading of the ACIP report will provide references to the efficacy of universal hepatitis B vaccination and reduction of deaths and disease burden of hepatitis b. If you have evaluated those and have useful critiques, we’re all ears. It would be comforting to know that your concerns about vaccination were from a review of the evidence, and not purely a combination of your personal musings and articles that make their way to you through the filter of an anti-vaccine website.

Twyla, you’re citing a website that still presents “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as true information, even though it’s been nearly a century since that document was exposed as a lazy forgery plagiarized from a mid-19th-century political pamphlet aimed at Napoleon III.

Do you actually believe, contrary to all the evidence, that the “Protocols” are a true document?

If not, then why are you getting your information on vaccines from a site that presents that notorious anti-Semitic fraud as true?

I know this is overkill, but Twyla, have you ever heard of Scopies Law? To wit: “In an evidence based debate, citing whale.to as a credible resource automatically loses you the argument, and gets you laughed out of the forum.” See Anateus Feldspar’s comment above as to why. Also, that’s not the craziest thing on the site. Orac did a whole post about whale.to.

@Julian Frost: you beat me to invoking Scopie’s Law. I can’t believe (or maybe I can…) that Twyla actually listed whale.to as a creditable source!

As a former nursery nurse, I saw many cyanotic episodes in my career, and almost all of them were non-injection related in occurance. And, my career was mostly before Hep B became routine. I still question the people who claim it was given the day of birth. In EVERY hospital I worked in, Hep B was usually given the day of discharge, after the mother signed a consent for it. The only injection given routinely to a newborn without a consent was Vitamen K. If Twyla didn’t sign the consent for Hep B, then it wasn’t given. And I would LOVE to see the documentation that it was given right after birth, as she seems to be claiming:

My son turned blue and stopped breathing a while after receiving his HepB vaccine with thimerosal on the day he was born. The medical staff rushed him away and resuscitated him.

Just too many questions. Besides, IIRC, Hep B, when in the single dose vials that most hospitals used, does not and DID not contain thimerosal. Physician offices have used multi-dose vials, but few hospitals, even then (going back to 1984), did, because it made billing too difficult.

Julian Frost:

I know this is overkill, but Twyla, have you ever heard of Scopies Law?

Well, she would have if she had read the 78th comment, where I invoked it for AoA and NVIC. Since she pulled Scudamore’s whale.to as “evidence” we can pretty much conclude she is not reading anything that goes against her beliefs.

Triskelethecat said: “I still question the people who claim it was given the day of birth. In EVERY hospital I worked in, Hep B was usually given the day of discharge, after the mother signed a consent for it. The only injection given routinely to a newborn without a consent was Vitamen K. If Twyla didn’t sign the consent for Hep B, then it wasn’t given. And I would LOVE to see the documentation that it was given right after birth, as she seems to be claiming… Just too many questions. Besides, IIRC, Hep B, when in the single dose vials that most hospitals used, does not and DID not contain thimerosal. Physician offices have used multi-dose vials, but few hospitals, even then (going back to 1984), did, because it made billing too difficult.”

See http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4835a3.htm This notice from 1999 announces that thimerosal-free hepatitis B vaccine would become available and distribution was expected to begin in September of 1999. It was not available when my son was born, a few years before that.

“Notice to Readers: Availability of Hepatitis B Vaccine That Does Not Contain Thimerosal as a Preservative

“On August 27, 1999, Merck Vaccine Division* (Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, Pennsylvania) received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of a supplement to Merck’s license application to include the manufacture of single-antigen preservative-free hepatitis B vaccine (Recombivax HB®, Pediatric); distribution is expected to begin September 13, 1999. In addition, SmithKline Beecham Biologicals (SmithKline Beecham, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), expects to make single-antigen preservative-free hepatitis B vaccine (Engerix-B®, Pediatric) available in the near future. Further product information will be provided when it becomes available. Product packaging and labels will indicate that these vaccines do not contain preservative.

“To prevent shortages because of limited supplies of single-antigen hepatitis B vaccines that do not contain thimerosal as a preservative and to assure prevention of perinatal and early childhood hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection during the transition when both vaccines that contain and do not contain thimerosal as a preservative are available, the following three steps should be taken:…”

I don’t know, Triskelethecat, where you got the idea that most hospitals used thimerosal-free hep B vaccines. They were not even available when my son was born. He was born soon after they began recommending the Hep B vaccine for all babies on the date of birth, and before concerns about thimerosal were raised. And I don’t know how you came up with “right after birth, as she seems to be claiming.” I said “on the day he was born”. I don’t know how many hospitals you have been in, in how many states, but there is no reason for you to believe that all hospitals do things the same as the ones where you worked. I have heard parents say that their babies were given this shot without their permission. I did give permission. But I certainly was not fully informed. Yes, I should have asked questions. But I had faith in the CDC.

I know what happened because I was there, my husband has the same recollection, and we have the medical records. To all who are reading this, these are just words on a screen and you have no way of knowing whether I am delusional or a liar, and that’s fine.

But you really should get your facts straight, Triskelethecat, before questioning someone’s veracity.

I did not say that you called me a liar or delusional. My point was that for all anyone knows I could be a liar or delsional. So just because I know something, that doesn’t mean that anyone who reads what I write knows it to be true.

But, I am correcting your statement, because my reading indicates that for the first about nine years after the decision to give the the HepB vaccine to all newborn babies, it was not available thimerosal-free. After concern was raised about thimerosal (I believe this was in July of 1999) some hospitals stopped giving it on the day of birth. In the “Editorial Note” below the notice which I linked to above, the CDC states that it hopes that when the thimosal-free version is available hospitals will go back to vaccinating newborns as recommended by the ACIP. The notice makes it clear that thimerosal-free hep B vaccines were not available previously.

My husband and I were with our son, and no longer in the birthing room, but I can’t see the significance of that. Like you said, nitpicky.

I know that what I wrote is true. But I don’t know why this happened. I don’t know what was happening inside his little body and whether this was a vaccine reaction. He is the only one of my babies who received the hepB vaccine at birth, because of the timing — the year in which he was born. He is also my only baby who turned blue on his day of birth. But this is a very small and informal study!

Again, I told this story in relation to the issue of how little is known about identifying vaccine reactions, per my prior comments.

Again, I told this story in relation to the issue of how little is known about identifying vaccine reactions, per my prior comments.

It mostly reveals that you very little about newborns and vaccine reactions. So are you now going to say my son’s seizures when he was two days old was a vaccine reaction? Even though he turns 22 in a couple of weeks (and is still quite disabled, he attends community college with disability services).

My youngest was the only child to get the HepB vaccine before leaving the hospital (about 24 hours after birth). She is the only on who has never had to get speech/language therapy, and the only child who does not need to wear glasses. Can I also say that her getting the HepB vaccine the cause of her good fortune? Or can we just figure is was a roll of the genetic dice, especially since her older siblings are both boys (the younger boy was a late talker, he was formally diagnosed as dysphasic and only needed a couple of years to catch up before kindergarten, he is a college sophomore going into engineering).

@Twyla

2) The risks of giving the HepB vaccine on the day of birth are not justified by the benefits for the majority of babies.

Upon what evidence do you base this conclusion? Some questions to help guide you:

* What are the risks of the Hep B vaccine?
* What are the risks of Hep B infection?
* What is the risk of serious adverse reactions to Hep B in infants?
* What is the risk of serious complications from Hep B infection in infants?

I am honestly interested in your answers to these questions, along with your sources (hopefully primary sources) for those answers.

[* What are the risks of the Hep B vaccine?
* What are the risks of Hep B infection?
* What is the risk of serious adverse reactions to Hep B in infants?
* What is the risk of serious complications from Hep B infection in infants?]

Here’s your answer. Or motive anyway. It’s always a good thing to “follow the money”

http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/PREVIEW/MMWRHTML/00033405.htm

[In the United States, most infections occur among adults and adolescents (2,3). The recommended strategy for preventing these infections has been the selective vaccination of persons with identified risk factors (1,2). However, this strategy has not lowered the incidence of hepatitis B, primarily because vaccinating persons engaged in high-risk behaviors, life-styles, or occupations before they become infected generally has not been feasible.]

———————————–
[Efforts to vaccinate persons in the major risk groups have had limited success. For example, programs directed at injecting drug users failed to motivate them to receive three doses of vaccine.]
—————————–
[Educational programs to reduce parenteral drug use and unprotected sexual activity are important components of the strategy to prevent infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. These programs appear to have reduced the risk of HBV infections among homosexual men but have not had an impact on hepatitis B attributable to parenteral drug use or heterosexual trans- mission (2). Educational efforts alone are not likely to fully eliminate the high-risk behaviors responsible for HBV transmission.]
——————————–
[ In the United States it has become evident that HBV transmission cannot be prevented through vaccinating only the groups at high risk of infection]

____________________________________________

[ Vaccinating adolescents and adults is substantially more expensive because of the higher vaccine cost and the higher implementation costs of delivering vaccine to target populations. In the long term, universal infant vaccination would eliminate the need for vaccinating adolescents and high-risk adults.]

__________________________________________________

[Hepatitis B vaccination is recommended for all infants, regardless of the HBsAg status of the mother.]
—————————-

U.S. infants are a means to an end. You’re an idiot to give your kid this vaccine unless you’re infected.

http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/63/5/838
“Recombinant hepatitis B vaccine and the risk of multiple sclerosis”

Some Compensated cases:
http://www.ccandh.com/decisions/werderitsh_5-26-06.pdf
http://www.ccandh.com/decisions/stevens_2-24-06.pdf
http://www.ccandh.com/decisions/gilbert_3-30-06.pdf

Problems in the
development of new
vaccines
Philip D. Minor

http://www.sgm.ac.uk/pubs/micro_today/pdf/050005.pdf

Some more follow the money with Hep B VACCINE:

“Hepatitis B vaccines were initially targeted at specific at risk groups, including healthcare workers and business travellers, and were made either from antigen from the plasma of infected donors or from antigen expressed in genetically modified organisms, such as yeast. They were (and remain) expensive, but have now been incorporated into global vaccination programmes, including universal usage in most developed countries as the impact on incidence following targeted use was not great. The usage in developed countries can therefore subsidize that in developing countries, but only if valid and recognizable uses in wealthy markets exist.”

Pedant mode: It is spelled Olmsted! There is no “a” in the silly man’s name.

Whatever. I have found the passports, and I am getting things ready to go on a boat to visit island of hubby’s birth. Okay, it is the provincial capital, not exactly the tiny town he was born with, but it is a vacation.

Play nice.

(Just in case you forgot, Scudamore claimed satanic ley lines burned his bum! Yeah, he is a trustworthy source. Not!)

Chris, good point – Olmsted, not Olmstead! My apologies to Mr. Olmsted, who is not a “silly man” but a great man.

Twyla, from reading that link, and others, it looks to me that was when it was universally recommended to be on the infant schedule (i.e. 2, 4, and 6 months, etc.), not the birth dose. That was approved by the ACIP in 2001 and the CDC in 2005. I’ll put up some links when I get a moment.

Okay, here are the actual CDC recommendations linked to by that AAP statement. Three doses were recommended for all infants between 0-6 months, and the first dose given between birth and two months of age.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00033405.htm

“Hepatitis B vaccination is recommended for all infants, regardless of the HBsAg status of the mother. Hepatitis B vaccine should be incor- porated into vaccination schedules for children. The first dose can be administered during the newborn period, preferably before the infant is discharged from the hospital, but no later than when the infant is 2 months of age.”

It would be physician/hospital specific whether to start at birth or at two months, per the table linked to below.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00033405.htm#00000747.htm

In 2005 is when the CDC recommended to universally immunize all newborns at birth, and not wait until up to two months of age.

From Todd’s source

[“Hepatitis B vaccination is recommended for all infants, regardless of the HBsAg status of the mother. Hepatitis B vaccine should be incor- porated into vaccination schedules for children.]

Why? Why vaccinate as many infants as possible when they are not the target group?

[Efforts to vaccinate persons in the major risk groups have had limited success. For example, programs directed at injecting drug users failed to motivate them to receive three doses of vaccine.]

[ Vaccinating adolescents and adults is substantially more expensive because of the higher vaccine cost and the higher implementation costs of delivering vaccine to target populations. In the long term, universal infant vaccination would eliminate the need for vaccinating adolescents and high-risk adults.]

It’s all about saving money and making money. They information is there. You just have to look for it.

re: Orange Lantern comment # 110 You linked to this November 22, 1991 MMWR CDC “Recommendations and Reports” entitled “Hepatitis B Virus: A Comprehensive Strategy for Eliminating Transmission in the United States Through Universal Childhood Vaccination: Recommendations of the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (ACIP” at
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00033405.htm
From the “Recommendations” section:

“Women admitted for delivery who have not had prenatal HBsAg testing should have blood drawn for testing. While test results are pending, the infant should receive hepatitis B vaccine within 12 hours of birth…”

“In populations in which screening pregnant women for HBsAg is not feasible, all infants should receive their first dose of hepatitis B vaccine within 12 hours of birth…”

“Universal Vaccination of Infants Born to HBsAg-Negative Mothers – Hepatitis B vaccination is recommended for all infants, regardless of the HBsAg status of the mother. Hepatitis B vaccine should be incorporated into vaccination schedules for children. The first dose can be administered during the newborn period, preferably before the infant is discharged from the hospital, but no later than when the infant is 2 months of age…” Note the recommendation “preferably before the infant is discharged from the hospital”.

Here is a table from 1994 clearly showing that the Hep B vaccine was recommended at birth by the ACIP:
http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/m0038256/m0038256.asp#Table_2

The 1999 CDC MMRW Notice which I linked to previously at
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4835a3.htm
concluded:
“After the statements on thimerosal in vaccines were published, changes occurred in newborn hepatitis B vaccination policies and practices in some hospitals, including unintended changes affecting immunization of infants at risk for perinatal HBV transmission… Of 574 hospitals that were aware of the statement and had existing policies or standing orders to vaccinate all newborns, 262 (46%) reported a policy change to no longer routinely vaccinate newborns of HBsAg-negative mothers… The availability of hepatitis B vaccine that does not contain thimerosal as a preservative should alert medical facilities to review their policies to ensure the vaccination of newborns as recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, AAFP, and AAP.”

Those are the kinds of original sources that I did look at, Todd W. Clearly the recommendation to vaccinate all newborns with HepB began way before Orange Lanterns’ stated 2005 date.

Nevertheless, this is a recommendation, not forced with threat of prison. A child can still be admitted to school if s/he began the HepB vaccines at age 2 months, even without a medical or religious or philosophical waiver. This is consistent with what I said, namely that I was informed that this vaccine was recommended at birth, and I did not question that recommendation.

The current schedule says, “Administer monovalent HepB to all newborns before hospital discharge.”
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2010/10_0-6yrs-schedule-pr.pdf
I can’t see that quibbling over exactly what year this recommendation went into effect really serves any purpose, other than wasting my time.

I do understand the rationale behind not offering the mother a choice, not saying “If you are HepB negative your infant may not need this vaccine on the day of birth.” This way you are more sure of catching everyone, even those women who don’t know yet that they are positive, or won’t say they are, or have not been tested and may not understand. But this attempt to cast a wide net also means that a whole lot of infants receive an unnecessary vaccine on the date of birth. The assumption that this is harmless is based on incomplete information.

re comment # 107 – MI Dawn repeats the oft repeated falsehood “At least, he [Dan Olmsted] couldn’t find a whole clinic for autistic (and other developmental needs) children in Amish country…” Mark Blaxill thoroughly discussed this in this two-part article:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/05/olsted-the-amis.html
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/05/olsted-the-am-1.html

Twyla, most of us are familiar with pD and his theories, including the one you linked to. We appreciate how he uses original sources and stands up against debunked theories like thimerosal (hence the fact that he was voted “not a troll” above). You can read an example of a amateur critique/discussion regarding his theory here:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/06/more_evidence_for_a_genetic_basis_for_mo.php#comment-2595724

Research into the importance of neuroimmunologic changes in autism is continuing at institutions like Johns Hopkins. However, the evidence for a causative link is lacking.

Todd, the economist: [So, once again, thank you, augie, for showing how universal vaccination saves money.]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/health/july-dec09/flu-costs_10-08.html

“Congress appropriated $7.65 billion in June to fight pandemic flu, including H1N1. Of that, $6.15 billion has been spent or is set aside, most of it for vaccine purchases and related supplies, including syringes, needles, antivirals and other support.”

We all know how that turned out.LOL. Thank you scientismists for the fear and the cure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/health/21vaccine.html

The vaccines, which require three shots for a complete series, cost about $400 to about $1,000, depending on the country and the fees for doctors’ visits. Unlike older vaccines that save money by preventing costly disease, these vaccines cost health systems money.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/hpv

“HPV-related diseases cost the U.S. health-care system about $5 billion every year, and we took that into consideration.” Although Merck would not make sales projections, population data show that the vaccine would gross more than $11 billion if all women 11 to 26 in the United States were vaccinated per the CDC recommendation.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3601104.html

“HIV and HPV were by far the most costly STDs in terms of total estimated direct medical costs, accounting for 90% of the total burden ($5.9 billion). ”

HMM! That is some fuzzy math right there. Spend $11,000,000,000 on a disease that costs supposedly $5 billion.

Ahh, Todd, I guess you didn’t like that because your objections were weak.

[There was some evidence that there was potential for the virus to be as virulent and dangerous as previous pandemic flu strains, such as the 1918 flu.]

I guess your “evidence” wasn’t cracked upped to what you thought it was.

[HPV Vaccine: You picked a brand new vaccine that is still under patent protection,]

You didn’t like that I picked an actual vaccine?

[For example, this study found about $4-5 billion annual burden.]

First of all that $5 billion number is crap. You know it. You know how disease promotion works. A fudge here, a fudge there. Or you can be dishonest. I’d like to see an itemization of this fictitious number. But I gave it to you anyway just to make a point.

Assuming that the HPV vaccine has long-term efficacy, that $11 billion would be one-time.

Really? That’s all just $11 billion? C’mon Todd, you’re becoming delusional on vaccine projection now. I’m telling you, if you don’t get this infatutation under control it will be the downfall of the enterprise of science.

1. YOU are assuming long-term efficacy without any evidence except for a fantasy. Do you have ANY evidence for long term efficacy fantasy boy?

2. There will be many more cohorts to sell this vaccine to not just a one time $11 billion Merck profit investment.

3. Mercks REAL plan is to have developed country’s taxpayers to pay for undeveloped countries vaccines. That’s where the BIG bucks are made. BILLIONS of people. Never mind addressing WHY developed countries have higher infectious cervical cancer rates in the first place.

And finally back to the topic. 3 day old infants don’t need HEP B vaccine! Period. At risk adults and adolescents are the target group. But since the vaccine strategy fails and society supposedly has to pay for their burden then the ACIP/CDC chose for us, without our consent, that we must vaccinate ALL infants whether or not they will EVER be exposed or at risk in the first place.

It’s a societal crime every time an infant is injured through this economic mechanism. Do coercion vaccine advocates feel any remorse? I doubt it. Not by the cold calloused bloggings of this group. It’s the cost of scientism.

Twyla,

bottom line is for most infants there is zero benefit to getting this vaccine on the day of birth, therefore it cannot be said that the benefit outweighs any risk.

We could also say that for most car trips there is zero benefit to wearing a seatbelt. I was in a car crash in July and had I not been wearing my seatbelt I would almost certainly have been very seriously injured.

For a baby who has not been exposed to HepB via an infected mother, there is no benefit to this vaccine.

Not even wrong. As other commenters on this thread have pointed out, there are other ways to get HepB.
Ok, someone pull up the numbers please. What percentage of unvaccinated babies get HepB? What are the consequences (deaths, liver damage etc.)? What are the negative consequences of the vaccine? How do the risks compare?

Fair enough, Twyla – no doubt physicians might interpret guidelines differently. However, you linked to a discussion section of a learning module, not a hospital policy or anything particularly official. Interestingly, the module was written well after the 2005 guidelines and makes multiple references to the 2005 guidelines. The reference that it gives for the sentence you quoted is to a 1991 CDC recommendation concerning post-exposure prophylaxis of healthcare workers, which as far as I can tell makes no reference to birth doses of hep B in hep B negative mothers. I don’t think it’s a particularly well-researched case module in that respect, or good example of your interpretation.

OK, let’s do an experiment — let’s both keep repeating the same things 100 times and see whether after that either of us is convinced (j/k).

I harbor no delusions that I will be able to convince you of anything, and that is not my purpose in discussing this with you. As I said, I want accurate information presented, for readers of the site. I think you are looking at the evidence through the lens of what you want to see, and I would like you to prove me wrong. If you can show me quality data that the risk of hepatitis B vaccination at birth is greater that the risk of the disease to a hepatitis B negative mother, than I am willing to change my position and my practice regarding that particular immunization.

It occurs to me that perhaps you are not familiar with pubmed, which is why you seem to have not read the 2005 CDC report regarding the risks of hepatitis B and the benefits of universal immunization. It addresses the risks of the vaccine as well. I only provided the pubmed ID (16371945), so I will link to the full report to facilitate your further education.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5416a1.htm

I am willing to review the highlights of it later, if you have not found the time or the desire to review it in detail.

@Twyla

There are a very small number of pregnant women who are infected with the HepB virus, and an even smaller number who test negative but are infected with this virus. What I said is that if the mom is not infected with this virus, there is zero benefit to giving this virus on the day of birth.

Fair enough. Although this makes me wonder: if there is a percentage of women who are infected but test negative (small though that may be), do you recommend not vaccinating the infants of women who test negative on the day of birth? How would you differentiate between a woman who is not infected and one who is but tests negative? When would you recommend vaccination for these children, given the seriousness of Hep B infection in the young?

I would still say that there is some benefit to vaccinating at birth. For example, if the child is not brought in for regular check-ups after discharge, is not immunized at future check-ups or, for whatever reason, is not brought in until significantly later, there is some potential benefit provided by partial immunization. I would not say there is zero benefit to immunization at birth. As Orange Lantern suggested, you should go read the CDC’s reasoning behind the birth-dose recommendation.

The impact of giving a vaccine on the first day of birth is poorly understood — not only the rate of obvious reactions, but also how this vaccine affects the developing immune and nervous systems.

I agree that it would be good to have more longitudinal studies looking beyond the short-term. One difficulty (and I’m not sure how easy it would be to overcome this) is that the longer out you go, the more confounding variables there will be. So, any results that were obtained would be very hard to tie back to the vaccine. The short-term (“obvious”) reactions are pretty well understood and characterized at this point, however.

expain why other studies have shown, for example, increased rates of special ed services among those who received the Hep B at birth

Can you provide a link to one of these studies? I wonder which would you say is worse: needing special ed services or complications from chronic Hep B infection, such as liver cancer? Quick question, what is the range of services that have been reported? How valid is the study that found this increase?

Twyla:

To compare this to wearing a seat belt is not a good parallel. Seatbelts have no risk of causing short term or long term effects on the immune system or nervous system, nor causing any other health or cognitive issues. There is no down side to wearing a seatbelt when you don’t have an accident.

I’m shorter than average. Seatbelts, even most adjustable ones, seriously chafe my neck. It’s very annoying, and annoying means distracting, which is not a good thing when operating a motor vehicle. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to speculate that they may be responsible for a very small number of car accidents (just as it is said that vaccines are responsible for a very small number of adverse events). And when an accident does occur, they are not always clearly beneficial. A seatbelt broke my mother-in-law’s collarbone, which then punctured and deflated a lobe of her lungs. The irony is that it wasn’t an accident where she was likely to be ejected (though that can be difficult to predict), especially since the airbag properly deployed. She still wears a seatbelt, even though the worst injury she sustained from that accident was caused by the seatbelt itself, because she knows that while seatbelts can cause injuries, they can prevent much more horrific ones. (She learned that lesson when a drunk teen crashed his car outside their property, and was ejected through the windshield. Fortunately, the authorities got there before my in-laws did, and they didn’t have to see it. But they drive by the “THINK!” sign every day. South Dakota has a program where THINK! signs are placed at every site of a fatal drunk-driving accident on state roads.)

It’s true that seat belts have no adverse* effect on the immune system or nervous system, but I don’t think that invalidates the analogy. Their effects mostly pertain to trauma, but they do have effects.

* They do have effects on the nervous system in the sense that a shoulder restraint can prevent whiplash, which can prevent or at least reduce serious damage to the neck, spinal cord, and brain. (The brain sloshes around rather freely in the head when the body comes to an abrupt stop. The force is greater if the body is allowed to bend freely rather than being tightly restrained.) This is, in fact, the whole point of that strap. A lap belt would be sufficient if you weren’t worried about damage to the nervous system.

And why would it be so horrible if rich countries paid to save women in poor countries from dying of cancer? One argument against the HPV vaccine has been that it’s not needed because we can all go get regular pap smears and if necessary have biopsies and possibly have larger bits of our bodies removed. Not only is that not exactly an appealing thought, but it assumes access to a health care system that can supply everyone with regular pap smears and the appropriate follow-up. That’s a questionable assumption in the U.S., and a ridiculous one in large parts of the world.

Vicki dear,

You’re delving into politics. Not science. Sit back down.

[It’s irrelevant because neither the mother nor the physician knows for certain whether the mother has hep b. Without that knowledge, the benefits still outweighs the risk.]

The quality of this is baffling. You are defending your ignorance with certainty. How can you assess accurately without that knowledge? And then arrogantly claim your decision as the right one? Can you see this? Have you been blinded by your ideals that vaccines are absolutely the way to go for everyone? But this has become the medical creed. Do something, anything.

You’re basing your argument on “because we just don’t know”. That is not a scientific decision at all. It’s an idiotic one.

I posted the stats above.

Todd W.:

Twyla, go back and read the posts above again.

It has been established that she does not read the comments other then hers by referencing whale.to after Scopie’s Law was invoked.

Oh, yeah… about seat belts. I was in a car accident where the seat belt broke a couple of my ribs. I was kept in the hospital for a couple a day for observation to see that I did not also damage my spleen. I believe the spleen has an active function in the immune system.

Twyla, like Little Augie, is a silly person and should be ignored.

[J]ust because youall believe in “Scopie’s Law” that doesn’t mean I have to believe it or follow it.

You do if you want to be taken seriously here.

[Oh, yeah… about seat belts. I was in a car accident where the seat belt broke a couple of my ribs.]

Seatbelt gambit again! UGHH.

Ok. Did you break your ribs before the accident just from the hazard of putting on the seatbelt? I doubt it. Maybe you shouldn’t vaccinate and drive because of the real risk of having a seizure and causing harm to yourself and others. That would put a dent in compliance.

But then again, maybe thousands of people really are trapped in the wrong body. Evolutionary mistake, it happens.

Todd,

Chris appreciates your chivalry. You’re her huckleberry.

[Roger Medic: Please provide real documentation of these cases of real people having real vaccine-induced seizures while really driving.

A real risk?]

Get your panties out of a wad and pay attention to the syntax.

Do you think he meant to say “context”?

Is there some kind of contest elsewhere by Twyla, little augie and others to try to be the most idiotic troll on this blog? Are they actually trying to get onto that periodic table?

Don’t worry guys, there is plenty of room on the extended periodic table from Element #65 to #118. That should even cover some of the more amusing sock puppets.

Massachusetts House of Representatives. Unfortunatley, the web page only gives as a reference as one of her books, and since I don’t own it and don’t plan on buying it, I’m not going to be able to figure out what her original sources are. I will say that most of her points are wrong or irrelevant to the issue, but maybe at a later time.

I’m more interested in the paragraphs that come next, written by Dr. Yazbak. It opens with this:

1.Hepatitis B is a reportable disease. The incidence rate of Hepatitis B in the United States has always been very low, 0.1 to 0.5% compared to 5 to 20% in the Far East and Africa.

And at that point my jaw hit the keyboard. 0.1% of the population is about 125,000 Americans. 0.5% IS 1.25 MILLION AMERICANS. This is “very low” in Dr. Yazbak’s world? Compared to what, lefthandedness? That is a metric boatload of people!!!

But then things go right off the rails. The next sentence:

In 1991, there were 18,003 cases of hepatitis b viral illness in the US with an estimated population of 248 million.

No, that is wrong. There were about 18,000 new, reported cases of hepatitis b in the US that year alone (of course, no citation was given for that statistic. I had to look up incidence rates for the early 90’s). There were still between 125,000 and 1.25 million Americans with Hep B living in the country that year. This is the difference between incidence and prevalence. Dr. Yazbak is either deliberately misleading or horribly, horribly bad at math.

Next sentence:

According to the Guide to Clinical Preventive Services,“The number of cases [in the U.S.] peaked in 1985 and has shown a continuous decline since that time”

No kidding. The first vaccine was distributed in 1982. Be nice if there was a full citation here. There isn’t. Next:

In 1986, only 279 cases of HBV infections in children under 14 were reported nationwide.

Love the use of the word “only” there. 279 new, reported kids with hepatitis b in that year. Again, no citation, but it still sounds like a lot of children to me. Next sentence:

“Hepatitis B continues to decline in most states, primarily because of a decrease in the number of cases among injecting drug users and, to a lesser extent, among both homosexuals and heterosexuals of both sexes,”

The citation is for the MMWR for October 13, 1997 MMRW. Here it is:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00050719.htm
I don’t find that quote in it anywhere.

Even if it was, it seems to me that since we had been immunizing since 1982, we would see decreases in the number of cases in injected drug users, homosexuals, and heterosexuals.

Interestingly, after the Hepatitis B vaccine was recommended for general pediatric use, the CDC released new statistics on the “estimated incidence” of hepatitis B in the US. Now some 1_ million Americans had chronic Hepatitis B, 5000 died annually from liver failure and many others developed carcinoma of the liver.

Now, hold up, Dr. Yazbak just said up to 1.25 million Americans have hepatitis b. How are these CDC statistics “new”? One million is between 0.1% and 0.5% of the population. What gives? Again, is Dr. Yazbak deviously bad at math, or being simply devious? Take your pick.

The CDC also added that in the 80s, some 200,000 to 300,000 cases of Hepatitis B occurred annually.

This was not a new number either. It is not the number of “reported cases”, it is an estimate of the incidence in the 1980’s because hep B is a stigma-associated, long-incubating, tragically underreported disease. I didn’t immediately find studies prior to 1990 to corroborate theses estimates, but PMID:9806021 is a 1998 study that uses NHANES data and finds a similar incidence during that period.

I could go through this page line by line and continue to demonstrate the lies, half-truths, and trickery that it used. This is the kind of junk that is served up as “compelling information” on these sites that you casually use as evidence. You don’t demonstrate that you have read the evidence on either side of the debate, and as far as I can tell, you regurgitate websites that have been fed to you without independently evaluating their content.

I’m not going to do this again. It’s extremely time consuming. Twyla, please, come with primary sources that you have read and understand, or stay in your echo chamber.

Hey guys you missed out Bernadine Healey the first female chief of the NIH , Robert Kennedy Jnr , Katie Wright (J&J dynasty)….why was that ? afraid of the heavy weight division you scoundrels ? Vaccine derived Autism exists , and
exists in very large numbers that your day of reckoning is coming boys . I cant wait til that happens (maybe China will be put you in your place when they work out you have destroyed a million of their citizens !).
Why dont you include a picture of poor Zeda Pingel after her Gardasil vaccine – not even you apologists can dare to refute that one.

Hey guys you missed out Bernadine Healey the first female chief of the NIH , Robert Kennedy Jnr , Katie Wright (J&J dynasty)….why was that ? afraid of the heavy weight division you scoundrels ? Vaccine derived Autism exists , and
exists in very large numbers that your day of reckoning is coming boys . I cant wait til that happens (maybe China will be the ones to put you in your place when they work out you have destroyed a million of their citizens !).
Why dont you include a picture of poor Zeda Pingel after her Gardasil vaccine – not even you apologists can dare to refute that one.