I don’t know if it’s confirmation bias, faulty memory, or if my individual impression is correct, but it seems to me that over the years I’ve been blogging that stories like this one seem to be becoming depressingly more common:
Getting inoculated for diseases such as whooping cough and measles used to be a childhood rite of passage that few questioned. Now with shifting parental attitudes about vaccine safety, a growing number of California children are entering kindergarten without shots.
The trend worries public health officials because of the link between immunization rates and infectious outbreaks. As they grapple with the worst whooping cough surge in half a century, they are fighting back with outreach campaigns to promote vaccinations.
The Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative journalism center based at San Diego State University, found that waivers signed by parents who choose to exempt their children from immunizations for kindergarten enrollment have nearly quadrupled since 1990. California allows parents to opt out of some or all shots on the basis of personal beliefs, be it religious objections or distrust of the medical establishment.
That California is ground zero for vaccine rejectionism is not a surprise to me or anyone else who’s paid attention to the issue of the anti-vaccine movement. Indeed, when I last wrote about this a year and a half ago, I drily observed that when the outbreaks begin, they’ll probably start in California. At the time, I was writing about an LA Times article that described the skyrocketing numbers of “philosphical” exemptions being claimed by parents in California. The story laid out the problem in considerable detail. Affluent parents in affluent suburbs, never having seen the diseases against which vaccines would protect their children, decide that these diseases are not a threat, confident in the delusion that there’s no way their children could ever suffer from these horrible diseases. Oh, no! Those are diseases for children in Third World ghettos, not their precious children. After all, they’re affluent and can afford everything their children need, and they care so much about their children. Besides, Jenny McCarthy and her fellow travellers in the anti-vaccine movement tell them that vaccines cause autism. Obviously vaccines are nothing more than a plot by The Man to make lots of money and turn their children autistic! Last year, unvaccinated children were clustered in certain areas. For example, at Waldorf schools (or, as I like to call them, pathogen repositories), vaccine exemption rates can be as high as 82%. Otherwise, the highest exemption rates appeared to be in Sonoma County, although Los Angeles and San Diego Counties were also up there.
What about this year? This year, it looks as though San Diego County has an exemption rate consistently higher than the state average, just as it has been for quite a while. The Watchdog Institute found:
- Personal-belief exemptions granted to entering kindergartners reached a record high of 10,280 in public and private schools statewide last fall, up from 2,719 in 1990.
- San Diego County’s exemption rate is 2.64 percent, compared to 2.03 percent statewide. While those percentages seem small, public health officials are concerned that unvaccinated children tend to cluster in certain areas, creating pockets of vulnerability.
- Schools with the highest exemption rates tend to be private schools, public charter schools, and traditional public schools in affluent areas. Among schools with 25 or more kindergartners last year, 14 had immunization opt-outs for more than 15 percent of their kindergarten class. The top was the Waldorf School of San Diego in City Heights, at 51 percent.
A 51% exemption rate implies that only 49% of the children at the Waldorf School of San Diego are vaccinated, far below a rate that even has a prayer of maintaining herd immunity.
Of course, anti-vaccine parents both demonize and have unrealistic ideas about what vaccines can do, which is part of the problem. They demonize vaccines as the cause of autism, autoimmune disease, and asthma, along with all sorts of other health problems, even though there is no scientifically credible evidence linking vaccines to autism or any of the other conditions attributed to vaccines. Yet, at the same time, they justify their refusal with the implicit belief that vaccines are 100% effective. I refer to this as an “implicit” belief because a frequent argument made by anti-vaccine parents when it is pointed out to them that they are endangering other children is that those other children are vaccinated; so how could their precious baby ever be a threat to other children? The reason, of course, is that no vaccine is 100% effective. Some, like the MMR vaccine, are “only” around 90% effective. Now, in medicine, 90% effectiveness is in general excellent, about as high as one can expect from any intervention. It’s not 100%, though. Worse, pockets of unvaccinated children provide a repository for vaccine-preventable disease that can infect other unvaccinated children, as well as vaccinated children who, for whatever reason, did not develop effective immunity due to their vaccination.
Failure to vaccinate also endangers the unvaccinated children as well. Last year, in fact, this risk was quantified in a study that found that unvaccinated children have a 23-fold elevated risk of catching pertussis compared with vaccinated children. Given how nasty and contagious pertussis is and how safe the vaccine is, there really is no good reason not to vaccinate at least against pertussis. Of course, parents have their reasons not to vaccinate, virtually all of which rely on either exaggerated fears of autism, a woo-ful belief that “natural” must be better, and, perhaps, one of the most common delusions among the “natural health” set.” This last delusion is one shared by Bill Maher and consists of the belief that if you eat the right foods, excercise, and keep yourself healthy “naturally,” you can’t get sick from vaccine-preventable diseases. In other words, good living (whatever that means) is as good as any vaccine in their view. In fact, one anti-vaccine mother named Yvonne Haines was interviewed in the article is quoted thusly:
“We do find that the unvaccinated kids are extremely healthy because their bodies have been allowed to develop their own immune system, rather than relying on vaccinations, which are like substitutes,” she said.
Uh, no. They aren’t any healthier than vaccinated children, and microbes don’t care how “healthy” your children are.
Yes, it’s true that it’s better to be well-nourished and in good physical shape than not. It will even help fight off disease. But it won’t protect your children the way a vaccine will. You can have the healthiest child in the world, but if that child is exposed to, for example, measles, which is highly contagious, chances are that your child will catch the measles. Ditto pertussis. Unfortunately, what public health officials are fighting against is attitudes like this:
Rebecca Estepp of Poway, a mother of two boys 12 and 10 years old, is familiar with that logic, but she cannot square it with her maternal instinct.
After her first son suffered adverse reactions from vaccines and developed autism, she decided to not to go through with the full schedule of immunization for her second son.
“I don’t know if there is an acceptable level of collateral damage in the war against infectious diseases,” said Estepp, who is also the government and media relations manager for SafeMinds, a nonprofit that investigates the link between vaccine ingredients and neurological disorders.
We’ve met Estepp before. She frequently lays down swaths of burning stupid about vaccines of this sort. She’s so utterly convinced that vaccines caused her child’s autism that nothing will convince her otherwise. Meanwhile, she continues to promote the false dichotomy that it’s a choice between “autism and the measles” and that she’d pick the measles. In actuality it’s a choice between measles and not getting the measles, given that the MMR vaccine is, by any measure, incredibly safe. It is also a choice of preventing measles at a very low risk versus the risk of getting the measles and its potential complications. Nonetheless, Estepp decided that she’d put her her son at high risk of contracting measles, which, contrary to the misconception, is not a benign disease. Worse, she did it because she believed in a myth promulgated by the anti-vaccine movement.
One aspect of this article that perfectly encapsulates the thinking of a lot of these crunchy anti-vaccine moms is an interview with Johannes Lasthaus, Waldorf’s administrator:
Schools that top the list of highest exemption rates in the county in 2009 are almost all either private or charter schools. The private Waldorf School of San Diego, where tuition ranges from $7,500 to $14,000 a year, has the highest exemption rate.
“Our parents are really educated. They are trying to make their own decisions, not being influenced by pharmaceutical companies,” said Johannes Lasthaus, Waldorf’s administrator.
His school, he noted, has had no outbreaks and maintains a policy of keeping sick children at home.
“It’s all about people’s right to choose what is right for their child and their family and really respecting people’s choices, whether they choose to vaccinate or choose not to vaccinate,” said Julie Joinson, Waldorf’s director of admissions, speaking for herself. She noted that her daughter, 14, who has never been vaccinated, is “super healthy.”
“It’s not that I think that vaccinations are terrible,” Joinson said. “If I lived in a third-world country with open sewage running down the streets, I would probably vaccinate my child. At this point, I really have concerns about what goes into vaccinations.”
With all due respect, Ms. Joinson has “concerns” because she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Think of it this way. Before the polio vaccine, the U.S. was not a “Third World coutnry with open sewage running down the streets.” Yet, as recently as the 1950s, every summer there were polio scares in which public swimming pools were closed down. Periodically there were polio epidemics, and there were thousands in iron lungs. Does Ms. Joinson know what ended that? No, it wasn’t sanitation. Sanitation was just fine in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. It was vaccines. Similarly, it was the vaccine that eradicated smallpox. The fact is that the single biggest source of microbes causing vaccine-preventable diseases is not raw sewage, as Ms. Joinson seems to think. It’s other children. These days, it’s unvaccinated children far more than vaccinated children.
As for the Waldorf school having had no outbreaks, it’s only a matter of time. In fact, Waldorf schools, which are widely known for their resistance to vaccines and scientific medicine, have had a number of outbreaks. For example, just this year there was a measles outbreak in Essen, Germany where the majority of cases were linked to a Waldorf school. In 2008, the East Bay Waldorf School was shut down due to a pertussis outbreak, and a Waldorf School in Salzburg, Austria was hit by a measles outbreak. There are numerous other examples, and, as vaccine uptake falls, Mr. Lasthuase is fooling himself if he thinks his school is not at risk, no matter how strict he is about sending children home when they appear to be sick.
I believe that we are approaching a tipping point. Although vaccine uptake is generally high throughout the U.S., there appear to be more and more pockets of vaccine refusal, leading to populations of unvaccinated children who can serve as vectors to result in outbreaks as herd immunity breaks down. Although I doubt that vaccination rates will fall to the point where mass epidemics are likely, although Generation Rescue and Jenny McCarthy are sure enough doing their best to make sure that happens (if you don’t believe me, just wait a while to see what sorts of comments appear on AoA after this post triumphantly trumpeting this article). There are likely to be more and larger outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.
It’s the face of the future. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear I’m not.
540 replies on “Vaccine exemptions in California threaten herd immunity”
Assuming that any are available, short videos of babies suffering from pertussis and similar diseases could be posted to YouTube. After all if the antvaxxers want to play emotional games with autism, then maybe fighting fire with fire is called for.
I know you’re talking about MMR and pertussis here, but please, please tell me these people are vaccinating against polio.
I’m old enough to be among the first groups of schoolchildren given those ghastly injections during the mass immunisation programs here when we had regular epidemics in the 50s. The relief our parents must have felt when it was done! I remember the newspapers full of pictures of kids my own age in those iron lungs. Like something from a horror movie now.
One is tempted to ask why these nature nuts have so much more faith in nature’s ability to make immune systems than in its ability to make pathogens.
And another thing – why are these stories near invariably about anti-vaccine moms? Don’t the fathers care whether their children get vaccinated? These being affluent families, one presumes that relatively few of the children have wholly absent fathers. Or is it just that the journos feel that focusing on the mothers make for better stories?
The sad part is that these parents think they are making an intelligent, well-thought out decision by not vaccinating their children when it is actually the opposite. They have fallen for the pseudo-science and rhetoric of the anti-vaccination crowd.
When are people going to realize that there aren’t two valid sides to every single issue. In this case there is proven medical science versus quackery, and these people have sided with the quacks.
You clowns can inject whatever you want into your own bodies. It’s when you try to force these debilitating, profit generating concoctions (vaccines) on me and my kids that I have a problem.
After reading the comments to the article at that first link of yours here, I’m somewhere between depressed and enraged. It’s like a checklist of examples for the Skeptic’s Toolbox.
@Maggy
Educate yourself.
and as long as you keep yourself and your spawn away from the rest of the world, that’s fine, Maggy. But your decision to let ignorance and paranoia influence you is not enough justification to allow you to risk the health of others.
This burning stupid is coming from the same source as the burning stupid of the tea-bagger xenophobia and for the same reason.
So-called “leaders” of the anti-vaccine movement need something for their followers to hate so the so-called “leaders” can capitalize on that hatred to get money and power.
The same is true of the so-called “leaders” of the tea-baggers. They need something for their followers to hate, so they pick something that their followers don’t know much about; Muslims, immigrants and people who are not like their followers.
Letter from the parents of Dana McCaffery, who died of Pertussis aged just 4 weeks. Read it and weep (I did).
http://danamccaffery.com/openletter.html
Parents later harrassed by antivaxxers, which makes my blood boil.
Maggy @6:
Three antivax lies in one sentence. I’m impressed. Firstly, I don’t recall ever hearing of vaccination gangs roaming neighbourhoods and vaccinating children in the manner of press gangs. Secondly, vaccines don’t cause autism but Rubella can. Also, compare the risks of vaccination to the risks of the disease and “debilitating vaccines” becomes laughable. Thirdly, each dollar spent on vaccination saves several dollars in medicare for vaccine preventable diseases. Profit generating? I think not.
“It’s when you try to force these debilitating, profit generating concoctions (vaccines) on me and my kids that I have a problem.”
Vaccination largely elimates diseases in humans and animals. Currently there is a huge problem with a salmonella outbreak caused by chicken eggs coming from just 2 farms. Unlike in the US, this is not a problem in Great Britain, where a couple of low-cost vaccines are required to be used on the chickens. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nation/low-cost-salmonella-vaccine-for-hens-not-required-in-us-but-might-have-prevented-egg-recall-101423864.html
No doubt, if a similar solution is proposed in the US, Jenny, PETA, and friends like Maggy, will object on the grounds that the vaccines cause autism in chickens.
As usual in this country, the matter will only be settled by courts, specifically, when one of the outbreaks kills one of the affluent but vaccinated kids and the affluent parent decides to pay lawyers to make his fellow affluent but antivaxer parents pay for their Maggy attitude. Anti-vax propaganda has held up at Oprah and Larry King, but never in a real court.
Maggy. My kids are now adults. As it happens both of them are women. I don’t know and they don’t know whether their rubella vaccinations are fully effective. Neither of them is pregnant at the moment. Neither of them lives like a hermit.
So when they are pregnant, how can we ensure that they won’t be infected with rubella and finish up with a blind or deaf or otherwise disabled child? Do they lock themselves away for weeks at a time when they *might* be pregnant for fear of contact with unvaccinated people like your family? There is no neon sign that lights up on people’s foreheads on those days when someone is infected and before the obvious symptoms are there to see.
It isn’t possible for you to protect foetuses from possible infection because the greatest damage usually occurs in the first trimester when few women are obviously pregnant.
The irresponsibility shown by you and others like you condemns other families to unnecessary grief, heartache and expense. Shame on you.
You uniformed gullible fools can do whatever you want with your own bodies. It’s when you deliberately leave your kids vulnerable to deadly diseases for no credible reason at all that I have a problem.
In all seriousness, if I had my way you’d be charged with child neglect. If your intention is to increase the risk your kids will die or be permanently disabled, avoiding vaccines is an excellent choice.
@ 5, No one is forcing them on you, define and quantify debilitating and with the exception of some newer vaccines, vaccines are not a profitable venture for pharmaceutical companies.
Orac, here is an interesting news report that I found: http://projects.latimes.com/schools/2008-immunization-exemption-rate/ranking/page/1/
Not an “extremely” profitable venture, perhaps. But it is still modestly profitable; if it were not they wouldn’t do it.
It’s news like these that make me a little more worried that someone out there really is trying to bring about the end of the world as we know it, and, no, I don’t feel fine.
@ Andreas Johansson
Dont under estimate peoples belief in how the body works when there are books on how it actually works. I talk to people everyday in a sales job, and the insane things people think is mind blowing. If you believe in evolution, then it makes no sense to think that the pathogens out their evolve at or about the same rate as our immune cells.
@maggy
I work in the Natural Foods industry. Your comment has one problem, unvaccinated children are way more profitable for the industry you so despise, for the illness usually requires more medications, and more interventions to repair the damage. Once you understand how bacterial infections like pertussis actually damage lung tissue, and what is actually in a vaccine (dead or disabled bacteria or viruses). Upon injection the acquired immune cells create antibodies for that “non-self” challenge, so if in the future you come into contact with that same non-self challenge, your body can respond more quickly and efficiently so that it can’t do it’s damage. In the case of pertussis, and Orac correct me if I am wrong, the bacteria release a toxin that damages the lung tissue which can take weeks to heal after the challenge has been put down. If vaccinated, your body mounts a learned defense more quickly preventing the bacteria from reproducing to the point of causing damage AND from it spreading to infants who are too young to receive the vaccination.
If there is any other junk in there please list it it. Remember their are two parts to your immune system the innate and the acquired. Learn how they work together and you can see why vaccinations make sense. It’s simple and it is elegant, and it is a reason why breast feeding is important, mom passes on her antibodies to child. But breast feeding also has limits providing defenses.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8446110
Correction: After reading Maggy’s note, I’m somewhere between depressed and enraged.
Marky #10, you don’t understand. It is about hate. Hate autism, hate the vaccines that “cause” autism, hate the people who disagree that vaccines “cause” autism, hate the people who say anything that invokes cognitive dissonance that interferes with the pure, unadulterated hatred.
Of course they would harass parents of a child killed by a vaccine preventable disease if those parents talk positively about being vaccinated. That is what bigots do. Harass the objects of their bigotry until the objects of the bigotry know their place and don’t disagree with their betters. The objects of bigotry are seen as objects, not as people.
Pro-vaccine parents can’t be ârealâ people, or they would be anti-vaccine. Pro-vaccine objects are not human. They don’t have the human characteristic of being able to love their offspring. They may pretend that they can, but ârealâ people who âreallyâ do have the capacity to love their children, and who âreallyâ show that love by not vaccinating them with those evil vaccines can see through the fake crocodile tears that pro-vaccine parents shed when their child dies from a vaccine preventable disease.
Pro-vaccine parents are incapable of feeling pain, even when their child dies. Maybe they feel some discomfort, but is is not like the ârealâ pain that an anti-vaccine parent feels when their child has autism or a vaccine reaction, or a twinge of pain or irritation from being vaccinated. Arm soreness from a vaccination? Now that is ârealâ pain when an anti-vaccination child has it, or the vicarious pain an anti-vaccination parent feels with a child with a sore arm from vaccination.
Maggy–
I paid $20 at the drugstore for an H1N1 shot. That was the retail price, and the drugstore was paying a nurse to administer the vaccines.
Now think about what one night of hospitalization for a serious case of the flu would cost. Just the copay for a visit to the ER is $75. I have a lot of problems with for-profit health care as it exists in the United States: but nobody is suggesting that the bean-counters are so incompetent that they would throw away thousands of dollars in order to get a fraction of that amount.
Now look at your budget: yes, you have to pay for food and housing and clothing (though there’s probably some flex in all of those–do you need meat or will canned beans do?). But with the rest, would you rather spend your money on keeping your kids healthy, or on buying them video games or yourself a trip to the movies?
I hate quotes like this that indulge the parent and assume that the adverse reactions in question are in fact from the vaccine, no questions asked. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I’m over 50, and as a child suffered through measles, chicken pox, and mumps. My own children had chicken pox, and my mother told me her story of suffering through whooping cough. Some older relatives were debilitated by polio. My oldest has severe eczema and his pox got infected.
After these experiences and recollections, I cannot understand the ridiculous position of the anti-vaccine crowd. Other than to repeat Santayana “”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
[You can have the healthiest child in the world, but if that child is exposed to, for example, measles, which is highly contagious, chances are that your child will catch the measles. Ditto pertussis.]
Chances are they won’t die or have permanent sequelae from either without the vaccine. Just need to throw that in there for true informed consent.
[For example, at Waldorf schools (or, as I like to call them, pathogen repositories), vaccine exemption rates can be as high as 82%. Otherwise, the highest exemption rates appeared to be in Sonoma County, although Los Angeles and San Diego Counties were also up there.]
So surely these “pathogen repository” schools have had massive outbreaks and carnage. What is the carnage in these schools? How many deaths in this most likely of places to have a deadly outbreak? Do you have that answer for us, ORAC, or did you conveniently leave that little factoid out? Fascinations.
Oh, Clayton. Of course you’re right, and you get a gold star for trying, but…. you’re asking Maggy to think! And be reasonable! She’s not going to do that! She’s going to use her MAGICAL MOMMY INSTINCT instead.
*pukes*
ps, as a Mommy myself, my “instinct” says, learn how stuff works, and listen to experts. be humble and willing to learn, rather than prideful and entitled.
When I visit CA, an errant thought creeps up on me : I never had pertussis, mumps, rubella, etc. and I was vaccinated way back in the last century, I wonder if…. Now, our “health freedom fighters” have rallied the “masses” on the steps of both the NJ and NY state capitols demanding a “philosophical exemption” for school children and revocation of health care workers’ mandated H1N1 vaccines; they continue to arduously lobby for laws to suppport their beliefs. If you’ve never been to metro NY: it’s rather densely populated( (e.g. Cliffside Park, NJ : 24,000 per square mile; Hackensack: 10,000- it’s wall-to-wall towns surrounding NYC ). We also have enclaves of what a local newspaper has dubbed “BoBo’s” ( members of the *Bohemian bourgeoisie*)- consider the possibilities! When there were sporadic outbreaks of H1N1 , there were school closures. I recall stories my grandmother told about working in her grocery stores and worrying about customers tranferring infection that she might bring home to her own children ( she lost one to “Spanish Flu”)… oh, there were quanrantine signs posted on houses.
[Maggy, will object on the grounds that the vaccines cause autism in chickens.]
You will object by saying autistic chickens taste the same to you.
Especially considering that there is no indication in the statement of even how long after the vaccines the child “developed autism.” As far as we know, it could have been diagnosed at 2 years, long after the infant vaccination schedule is complete. It’s not uncommon to hear parents “admit” (for lack of a better term) that autism symptoms were noticed 3 months after the MMR, for example. That is reluctantly admitted after the initial assertion that “they got the shots and suddenly developed autism.” Or not so suddenly, as the case may be
It’s like Peter Griffin says, “I knew a guy that bought a car out of a newspaper once. Ten years later? BAM! Herpes.”
Shasta – don’t get me started on the whole “use your mommy instinct” nonsense. Another problem with a grain of truth, but a ton of fail.
Hello windmills…
Chances are you won’t die if you shoot yourself in the gut in an ER, either.
The RELEVANT fact is that there is a significant chance that the child WILL die or be permanently disabled.
Risks are risks, not certainties. It’ll happen.
[Your comment has one problem, unvaccinated children are way more profitable for the industry you so despise, for the illness usually requires more medications, and more interventions to repair the damage.]
This keeps getting repeated. Do you have a reference for this. And unless the medical system has some secret profit sharing for all involved in allopathic care, please give a corporation name. Then show earnings for vaccine and earning for that company for the medicine that treats the disease for said vaccine.
It’s time to debunk this science blogger myth.
via Liz Ditz:
Vaccine refusal should come with certain responsibilities.
@ Science Mom : I just *know* you’ll be hearing “government plot”….. or worse.
Evidence please. Particularly since the normal concept of a loss leader doesn’t apply; selling a vaccine doesn’t then force (or even meaningfully encourage) the vaccinee to purchase further products.
Thereby making them profitable.
And the ones that haven’t, remain because there is enough profit to convince them to do so.
[It’s simple and it is elegant, and it is a reason why breast feeding is important, mom passes on her antibodies to child. But breast feeding also has limits providing defenses.]
For some reason, breast milk is an obstacle to pharmaceutical scientist’s profits. But they are working on it. They’ll figure out a way to vaccinate earlier. Breast milk antibody be damned.
Todd, that’s cruel to the kid. Just let them strengthen their natural immunity be attending measles parties like we did as kids. Did hurt us none, but for the few who didn’t make it, but they’re long buried, or locked up in a group home.
Clayton wrote:
I can’t parse your third sentence here. But I’m fully aware plenty of people believe the silliest things – it’s tempting to ask them to justify their beliefs because it appeals to my baser side to see people tie themselves into knots.
Gah. “… fully aware that plenty …”, that’s to say.
I actually did read a thread on Mothering (where else) where people actually said “These were all migrant laborers’ kids in the Central Valley.” Subtext: We’re affluent white people in the Bay/San Diego.
Of course, this is also the site where everyone wrings their hands over the NYS-mandated Vitamin K shot and discusses strategies for how to get out of it and avoid CPS reporting. It baffles me. (As do the hospitals that apparently permit parents to waive the shot, which is not legal.)
Augustine
“It’s time to debunk this science blogger myth.”
well go on then…..
as an immunosuppressed adult, who takes weeks to kick every small thing that comes along and is at the risk of getting very seriously ill fairly easily (and you’d never know it to look at me), people like Maggy scare the crap out of me. Hope I don’t run into her kids anytime soon!
@colmcq
I’m actually working on researching the cost to treat vs. cost of vaccine question. It’s pretty hard work, considering I’m not a physician and, consequently, need to do lots of research on the complications and treatments for those complications. So far, I’ve got pertussis covered. Prevention is more cost-effective than treatment (unfortunately, my links are on a different computer). 1 down, 13 diseases to go.
The CDC has a list of vaccine prices. Pertussis, IIRC is about $23/dose. Total 5-shot series would then cost about $115. Treatment of the complications generally involves antibiotics, at the lower end, which, if that’s all that happened, would be cheaper than the vaccine. However, since pneumonia is pretty common and, in infants, hospitalization is recommended, that’s about $3,000-$4,000 per day (different hospitals may vary), if there are no complications or comorbidities (CC). If there CCs or major CCs, that jumps to about $4,500-$5,000 per day. Hospitalization for pneumonia in infants is usually about 3-5 days, but can vary.
That’s the easy stuff. Somewhat less common are seizures, dehydration, anoxia (potentially leading to encephelopathy), asthma (which, if it becomes chronic, will lead to significant lifestyle considerations and daily management with a corticosteroid inhaler…for life). Oh, and then there’s the potential for death. Funeral costs can run anywhere from about $6,000-$10,000 and higher.
This is pretty scary. I have a 2 month old who just got his vaccinations, and will continue to, on the regular schedule. My mother-in-law asked if we were going to “space out his shots.” I told her no, there’s no reason to, and that would be more traumatic for him. When he got his shots he was pretty cranky afterward. She told me it was because of all the “stuff” in the vaccines. I thought it would be due to the sore injection site…I really don’t know about this, do the vaccine ingredients make a baby cranky? I was going to ask our pediatrician at the next visit.
Anyway, I do think it will take seeing a lot more of these diseases come back to make people realize the value of vaccines. I have an aunt who has been in a wheelchair since age 9 due to complications from measles (and this was just before the vaccine came out). My husband has an aunt who had polio. She has a limp from it. Too bad that because vaccines worked so well…people forget how important they really are.
The people leaving comments on this page are so mis-informed its shameful. Im 34 years old and have never been vaccinated. Guess what Im way healthier then so many people. I had the dreaded Whooping Cough, and guess what it wasnt that bad, lasted about 2 weeks and for about 3 days i have a fever around 101. I had the chick pox SURVIVED. I had the measles SURVIVED. Also i would like to point out to the people who like to say “We were vaccinated as children, it was a right of passage” Go ahead and find out how many shots you have had, because if you were born before 1990. You had between 5-10. Your all still living right?? Now tell me why these poor kids need 39 shots before the age of one? Why are we giving a Hep B shot to a 4 hour old baby? Ar the participating in needle sharing drug use? Are they having un-protected sex?? NO so unless the mother is Hep B positive then why give it to a baby that young? Now my 4 children are also not vaccinated, and you know what Not one of them has allergies, not one has asthma, And at the ages of 10, 7, 4 and 2 They recently all had the chicken pox. Now they will have life long immunity, not immunity that wears off at 20 years old, and then they will risk getting chicken pox and it turning into shingles. ALSO, most people who dont vaccinate ARE NOT JUST LISTENING TO JENNY MCCARTHY!!!!! that is the most absurd thing that you pro-vaxxers like to spit out of your mouths. Last time i checked it WAS NOT ok to eat, formaldehyde, aborted fetal tissue, aluminum, monkey kidneys, SV40, and so on. SO TELL ME HOW ITS OK TO INJECT IT STRAIGHT INTO YOU BLOOD STREAM, surpassing your natural line of defense.
ALSO they are herding people up and forcibly making them take vaccines.
http://www.naturalnews.com/022267.html
Also not getting vaccinated does keep you out of the doctors, not one of my kids have ever…Let me repeat that for you NEVER BEEN TO THE DOCTORS OFFICE!!!!! EVER. So keep going to your doctors, and following them blindly. Ill keep doing what im doing which is keep my kids healthy without putting poisons into their body’s, and deal with it.. Also i will share a link from the CDC where it says the the people who were vaccinated for whooping cough are the ones spreading the disease.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol6no5/srugo.htm
One more thing, they came out with a new vaccine to stop people from being stressed out, It turns off the part of your brain that released mood changing hormones… What do you all think about that??? I think you should all take it, its probably good for us not to have emotions!! HAHAHAHA
An important consideration is that it would take a conspiracy to withhold vaccines from the market to encourage treatment. There is competition, after all (though it is very limited for some vaccines) and hence all suppliers would have to agree in order to make it work.
Of course, the antivax loons are generally alleging a conspiracy to hide the risks, so it doesn’t necessarily defeat the comparison in that context. In the real world, though, it does.
Wow! All the way to comment #42 and nobody has used the “we’re not a herd” rebuttal yet! The anti-vax loons must be on a retreat this week.
Todd W.,
When you calculated the cost of treating pertussis, did you also factor in the cost of prophylactic antibiotic treatment for family contacts? The current recommendation is that all family contacts be treated no matter their vaccination status. Recommended antibiotics run the gamut from azithromycin and clarithromycin (expensive) to erythromycin and TMP/SMX (cheap).
Prometheus
[Todd: I’m actually working on researching the cost to treat vs. cost of vaccine question. It’s pretty hard work, considering I’m not a physician and, consequently, need to do lots of research on the complications and treatments for those complications. So far, I’ve got pertussis covered. Prevention is more cost-effective than treatment (unfortunately, my links are on a different computer). 1 down, 13 diseases to go.]
Todd, Why all the work. Why don’t you just ask posters around here for their references. It just rolls of their tongues effortlessly. I’m sure they could save you some time. But my question applies more to corporate business. The money you’re researching is spread around throughout a system. Financial decisions are made by “what’s in it for me” people, not what’s the best, economically, for everyone else.
So your work will be wasted fodder. It could have some propaganda purposes though if know one scrutinizes your means, methods, and conclusions.
Could anyone tell me how much it costs to have a child properly vaccinated per schedule in the US? In the UK it is, of course, free; but even here we have idiotic anti-vaxxers (an oxymoron I know) and the occasional measles outbreak.
And is it just me or is augie getting dumber by the day? “Sequalae” indeed! Looks like someone bought himself a can of turd polish…
Sharron:
Is your last name Poe?
huzzah a commenter linking to naturalnews.com to brighten my day.
“Particularly since the normal concept of a loss leader doesn’t apply;”
True, the concept of loss leader does not apply in the normal way.
But, to be profitable, a drug company requires a certain trust from those who prescribe and consume their drugs.
The only way for them to get and maintain that trust over long periods is to actually make improved public health their central motivation in producing and refining and marketing pharmaceuticals. The byproduct of such a modus operandi is increased profits.
Obviously, a sicker public represents a bigger market for medicine companies, but if the drug companies are responsible for the greater sickness, they lose money when people stop buying their goods; they don’t make money. And in spite of all the paranoid people out there, most of the medical practitioners and medical researchers are in fact motivated by better health, and expose dangerous pharmaceuticals when they somehow get through the years of required rigorous testing. Apart from altruism, successful improvement in public health earns the researchers accolades, awards, research grants, and better salaries. So even if it’s all about money at the end of the day, it still makes sense that health professionals really attempt to improve, not endanger health.
So, the trust that drug companies earn by helping to suppress infectious diseases with vaccines, makes them more profitable when people buy their products for other reasons. That’s a kind of loss leader.
It’s the same reason that improved reliability helped Toyota become more profitable, even though cars lasting only a few years should increase the size of the market for cars.
Please provide evidence of your being “way healthier.” Also evidence that such is due to vaccine avoidance.
So you were lucky. Others are not and can be killed.
References please; those numbers are grossly incorrect.
Because we can never be sure the mother is NOT positive, so given the excellent safety record of the vaccine, the benefits outweigh the risks.
Please provide evidence the lack of allergies or asthma has to do with vaccination.
Widespread immunization can prevent BOTH chicken pox AND shingles. So your claimed benefit is not actually meaningful.
No, there are other fools, liars, and frauds out there too.
Formaldehyde: In all foods, and manufactured by the body. The amount in a vaccine is negligible.
Aborted fetal tissue: Not in vaccines – this is a common lie, but no more than that.
Aluminum: The most common metal in the earth’s crust. Ubiquitous in the environment. A baby is exposed to vastly more aluminum from breast milk than the entire vaccine schedule.
Because the ingredients in vaccines are not harmful at those doses.
Mike Adams customarily makes stuff up; if you assume 100% of what comes out of his mouth is a lie then you’ll be about 99% right. This particular case has been completely debunked.
So you don’t care about their health then?
That’s not what it says. It says that they CAN still spread the disease. You know, just like the unvaccinated who got it, but less so.
Citation please.
the MMR is only 90% efficient? That’s better than the efficiency of CPAPs to treat Sleep Apnea. I believe CPAPs have an efficiency of 80%.
Even then, I’d rather take something that’s 80-90% efficient than the risk of a painful and serious disease, or the guaranteed result of slowly dying from sleep deprivation, organ failure and all the other health problems Sleep Apnea can cause.
and also, Sharron @ 44, the validity of your, er, arguments is extremely decreased when you state things like vaccines being injected straight into blood streams. They are not; they are injected into muscle. At no time in getting any vaccine has a nurse looked for a blood stream to give me a vaccine.
So, when small details like that are being ignored, how exactly should we trust you to be doing your full research on actual scientific facts?
Step aside augie – we’ve just been fire-bombed with stupid.
You appear to have been vaccinated against education – or was that naturally acquired?
Your poor kids…
@Scott
Missed on correction:
Not a single vaccine is injected straight into the blood stream. Vaccines are administered by subcutaneous (under the skin), intramuscular (into the muscle), orally (by liquid solution or pill) or nasally (inhaled spray).
[The only way for them to get and maintain that trust over long periods is to actually make improved public health their central motivation in producing and refining and marketing pharmaceuticals. The byproduct of such a modus operandi is increased profits.]
Yeh, profits are secondary to PHARMA. LOL.
But “INJECT IT STRAIGHT INTO YOU BLOOD STREAM” sounds a whole lot scarier. Helps the stoopid anti-vax argument.
Do anti-vaxxers freak out about the nasal route? That’s the way you’d catch the flu “naturally” after all.
yeah my poor kids. my poor kids who eat only organic food, my poor kids who are never sick, my poor kids who are in amazing health, my poor kids. That is the dumbest thing ever. By the way scoot Aborted fetal tissues is in the shot.
http://www.informedchoice.info/cocktail.html
Also how do you know that its safe?? The told you right?? good one. You people are the biggest idiots.
Hey scott i dont take then because they dont need to go. We are not stuck in that vicious circle that you are stuck in. If something is wrong with them i take care of them. I know how to cure a fever without running to the doctors. Not one of my children have ever used a antibiotic. All you people who are pissed how many kids do you have?? and how other are they sick?? there is your comparison. Every vaccinated kid i know is sickly. with ear infection. Peanut allergies, 4 colds a year. Its sad really. Keep doing what your doing though im sure you are all doing a great job!
http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/cdc_comparison.pdf
There is your list of vaccines that they give in 1983, and the amout they give now. So stop vomiting up false facts. And hey i think your due for another shot!! have fun
And will you still be saying that if they’re paralyzed by polio?
False. Some vaccines are grown in cell lines originally derived many years ago from aborted fetal tissue. That’s a completely different statement. Claims to the contrary are simply lies.
So far, that you know of.
And yet you decline to provide any evidence for your claims. I personally suspect you’re lying.
Grossly wrong. It double-counts many shots, and ignores others. Try using sources that have the faintest clue what they’re talking about, instead of making up whatever BS suits their propaganda.
Yet, from what I have seen, we’re the ones using correct grammar and punctuation.
Here’s a question, sharron; do you ever reference anything that is not supportive of your own views and not twist them around to say what you think they say?
“Then they best be addressing the problem, then hadn’t they.
This is why you do not ignore people when they say they reacted to a vaccine.
And if it has aborted fetus of a little aborted girl from long ago – then it just might be sure enough religous conviction rather than fear of autism. (but I doubt it).
Posted by: Benedetta | August 26, 2010 ”
This was an exact and complete quote from the AoA comments section of the article (http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/08/vaccine-refusals-on-rise-in-san-diego.html).
Can anyone tell me what the h*ll is this person talking about?
as compared to:
Oh so your kids do get ill?
Hey, ain’t you lucky, living in a world where, largely thanks to vaccines, your kids won’t catch the really nasty diseaes from those of properly educated and informed parents?
Parasite.
And sites like “informed consent” are lying to you.
No, the reason that your kids are to be genuinely pitied is that if they ever did get ill with a serious illness you wouldn’t do anything to help them.
And I’d keep them away from those nasty teachers too – I mean a lack of education never hurt you, did it?
Homeschooled methinks…sigh.
Sharron–
Great, you inherited good genes and can afford to feed your kids nothing but organic food. Who is going to take care of the children of the people who are earning paltry wages harvesting that food?
I always thought the religious exemption was completely ass-backwards.
“I have these” (incorrect) “medical arguments against vaccination.”
“Too bad. They’re mandatory.”
vs.
“I have completely irrational and arbitrary beliefs that randomly happen to prohibit vaccination.”
“Okay then! Just sign here.”
I feel that mandatory vaccinations are (just barely) a human rights violation (just barely), but I think that making it a condition of attending public school, with the only exceptions being for medical reasons, is perfectly reasonable.
I got chicken pox naturally at 10. Six years later, I got shingles. Of course, that’s just an anecdote, and therefore isn’t of much use….
@adelady
I’m pregnant and just discovered I’m not immune to rubella. I’m nervous that ignorance and pseudoscience could end up causing totally preventable harm to my baby. It’s very frustrating.
>Im 34 years old and have never been vaccinated. Guess what Im way healthier then so many people.
What’s your point? How many is “so many”. That still leaves 6B less “so many” that are healthier than you.
Anyway, vaccines helped increase life expectancy in the US from 70 to 80 in the last 50 years. How your health at 34 influences that trend escapes me.
> I had the dreaded Whooping Cough, and guess what it wasnt that bad, lasted about 2 weeks and for about 3 days i have a fever around 101.
Right. And my uncle smoked until he was 90.
But some people die of smoking. And some people die of whooping cough.
A smart society looks at the overall trends, not just at yours and my uncle’s health.
>Go ahead and find out how many shots you have had, because if you were born before 1990. You had between 5-10. Your all still living right??
Wrong. Many who were vaccinated with 5 or 10 or more shots died, and many who were not vaccinated died. What’s your point?
>Now tell me why these poor kids need 39 shots before the age of one?
Whatever the actual number, the answer is pretty simple. The shots improve the odds of a healthy life. Good reason, no?
>Why are we giving a Hep B shot to a 4 hour old baby?
See above.
>Now my 4 children are also not vaccinated,
Shame on you.
>and you know what Not one of them has allergies, not one has asthma,
Right. And I survived childhood without ever being belted into a car seat, children’s or otherwise. Nowadays, that’s illegal. For the reason, see above.
>Last time i checked it WAS NOT ok to eat, formaldehyde,
Check again. It is found in many foods (diet colas e.g.) and in drinking water, and is ok (legal), as long as it’s below prescribed levels. It’s also ok (legal) to inhale it from smoking.
>aborted fetal tissue,
True, this is not ok, although probably not that dangerous. Also not in vaccines.
>aluminum,
Check again. It is ok (legal) to consume Al in foods. It’s used legally to adjust the pH in flour and baking powder.
>monkey kidneys,
Are there restrictions on eating monkey kidneys?
>SO TELL ME HOW ITS OK TO INJECT IT STRAIGHT INTO YOU BLOOD STREAM,
It’s generally injected into muscle, but for the reason, see above.
>ALSO they are herding people up and forcibly making them take vaccines.
http://www.naturalnews.com/022267.html
And yet, you and your kids haven’t taken them.
Whether they are or not, they should be. You should have a choice not to be vaccinated only if you agree to live separately from society, stay out of public places, and keep your kids out of publicly funded schools. It’s illegal to poison your children; it should be illegal to expose them (and others) unnecessarily to pathogens.
Attitudes will inevitably begin to shift the day the iron lungs have to be broken back out again.
My understanding is that life-styles involving high population densities are very risky because of infectious disease. Polio became a much larger health threat when city population densities began to rise and when transportation got much better. I submit that humans can’t support the really high modern population densities that currently exist in many places in the world without vaccines.
@viggen
Don’t forget the role of sanitation. From what I understand, improved sanitation made polio more of a risk, since it was less likely to become infected as an infant, when it is relatively benign (though not completely). Older age at infection meant worse outcomes.
@Sharron
I’m sure University of Google has some excellent courses in grammar, composition, vocabulary, and spelling*. Once you graduate from those, maybe you can tackle something tougher, like medical science. As is, your grasp on the subject is exceedingly weak.
I don’t bring this up to be a grammar troll, but it seems that one’s confidence in their ability to educate themselves is often inversely proportional to their ability to actually do so, as evidenced by the inability to become fully literate in their first (and presumably only) language.
They are not home schooled they attend school. I dont have time to sit here and argue. If you ask for the insert that all doctors get with the vaccine it states the ingredients. Choose whatever you want. Im 100% happy with my choice not to vaccinate, and im thankful that my parents did not do it to me. End of story.
…these horrible diseases
————————-
Child, please!
@44 Sharron
Scott and Todd already answered about the real issues of these product into vaccines, but I would like to add my 2 cents about the “NOT OK to eat part”
I could only speak for my culture, but, Sharron, if you ever go into a real French restaurant, don’t ever order:
rognons (kidneys), tablier de sapeur (stomach), andouillette (intestine bits into a sausage), or foie (liver, full of all the chemicals the animal ate or produced while alive)… According to your list, anyone eating this should drop dead.
You can object that these are cooked. Fair enough. Except that, one, a number of real toxic products are not inactivated by cooking it (look up botox – that’s why you should not feed the pig before making a pork out of it, because after a meal bacteria from its guts will manage to move into its bloodstream, including Clostridium botulinum), and two, a number of peoples like their meat blue.
Don’t try steak tartare either (raw ground meat, with an egg on top).
Speaking of eggs, do you eat any? There are, technically, fetal tissues. Well, they certainly are if coming from an organic free-range farm and the local rooster had anything to say about it.
It’s the vaccinated kids that are the one’s that get the other kids sick! There were MORE kids that contracted polio AFTER being vaccinated than before the vaccine. Don’t take my word for it, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH! This “one size fits all” vaccine schedule is eugenics under the guise of promoting “health”, all the live virus’ AND mercury injected into our babies (which is accumulative in the brain) brings on degenerative disease & not prevention of it. In Chicago the mayor won’t vaccinate his own kids, nor the principals of schools, yet they brought in teams of nurses to inoculate children with or without parental consent; how’s that for a “police state”. Most “educated” parents refuse to vaccinate their children. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/23/vaccine-refusals-have-nearly-quadrupled/
And at the ages of 10, 7, 4 and 2 They recently all had the chicken pox. Now they will have life long immunity, not immunity that wears off at 20 years old, and then they will risk getting chicken pox and it turning into shingles.
I had chicken pox in 1960. Guess what? I’ve gotten shingles twice. When your kids are grown they will not thank you.
I dont have the time to sit here and proof read these, I have 4 kids home right now there are on a break at school, taking care of them is more important then sitting here and proof reading this. also i have a masters degree. i am not un educated. thanks
@ORAC
They aren’t any healthier than vaccinated children
———————————
You have some empirical data your hiding?
For those of you throwing the “Human Rights”, “Civil Rights”, and “Constitutional Freedoms” excuses… There is plenty of historical evidence, case law, and legal opinions that support compulsory vaccination. Remember, your rights only go as far as my rights. And the right of an entire community, society, and human race to be healthy and free of vaccine-preventable diseases will outweigh your right to ignore the science any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.
@Rene
Law is not morality and society has no rights. Only the individuals comprising that society have rights. Those right do not include the right to forcibly medicate others
@ Scott, http://aspe.hhs.gov/pic/fullreports/06/8476-5.doc
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15575064
http://www.vaccineethics.org/issue_briefs/industry.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/16/business/drug.php?page=1
Twenty-Five years ago, there were more than 2 dozen manufacturers producing more than 300 vaccines and biological products, today there are 5 manufacturers producing less than a third of the products. How is this an example of a profitable business? Sure, there is some profit, but overall, a loss when considering what a headache producing biologicals is.
Manufacturing older vaccines is done so more for image. There is potential for newer vaccines to fetch more profits but is still a dodgy venture e.g. HIV vaccines.
ugh troll in #32: I actually wish you well in your attempt at debunkery. You might actually then be something more than a revolting Internet troll. Given your history of dishonesty and incompetence on this blog, though, I am not expecting much.
sharron in #44: I am way ahead of you, then. To my knowledge, I have had neither whooping cough nor measles (I did have chicken pox, before there was a varicella vaccine if memory serves) on account of having been vaccinated. Certainly I cannot imagine it being ‘not that bad’ being sick for two weeks (especially if it happened during summer vacation!) as a child or adult, since neither my parents then nor myself now could really afford two weeks off from earning money because of pertussis.
At any rate, we are comparing anecdotes. Neither individually is all that valuable. The scientific data, which you are insisting on butting heads with, is.
AnthonyK in #52: Your first sentence in the comment was hilarious. Well done, sir.
@ORAC
Nonetheless, Estepp decided that she’d put her her son at high risk of contracting measles,
——————————
WTF? How’s he at high risk of contracting the measles when there were:
CDC Features – Measles: Make Sure Your Child Is Fully Immunized
Jul 23, 2010 … In 2009, only 71 cases of measles were reported in the United States.
Almost missed this one. Sharron, you may want to brush up on your vaccine history. Once SV40 was discovered through new screening methods in the polio vaccine, measures were taken to ensure that future batches were free of this contaminant. So, any child who is vaccinated today is not exposed to SV40, thanks to improved screening. In fact, the polio vaccine has not had SV40 since the 60s. As it is, the science is still unclear whether SV40 has had negative effects.
I know, I know…cancer. True, it has been found in some cancer tumors. However, it is now known if it has played a causal role in such tumors (see link above).
[compost:At any rate, we are comparing anecdotes. Neither individually is all that valuable. The scientific data, which you are insisting on butting heads with, is.]
The scientific data is incomplete. That’s the facts and you know it. The only thing you can honestly say is “but, but….”and try to rationalize why it’s incomplete.
[As it is, the science is still unclear whether SV40 has had negative effects.]
er, Tobacco science you mean. Gotta love those type of strategies. “Doubt is our product”. Still working today.
Really? You have some secret cure for ear infections that doesn’t involve antibiotics?
I mean a real CURE. Not some, “let them be mostly miserable for a week and hope it goes away.”
My wife has her own otoscope, but she is not good at recognizing ear infections in humans. Given that ear infections have accounted for most of our fever problems, I want them treated.
It is extraordinary the heat generated by this subject on this website. Unlike anything I have known on any other forum.
My long held position is simply based upon the fact that extraordinary amounts of my time over fourteen years have sought to find unvaccinated people who are autistic. I have not found any, many thousands of competent and even tempered people have read my claims and have not opted to disillusion me by providing some contrary facts. I now believe that my claims about the UK where I live and work, attend conferences, read millions of words about autism and meet hundreds of parents etc., are probably true of the USA and elsewhere. If so the conclusions are absolutely damning. In Britain there are between two to three million people whose parents chose not to vaccinate them since 1966 none of them however, choose to tell me that their children bacame autistic. It boggles belief that there are such people and they are too reserved to speak!
Tony Bateson, Oxford, UK.
@34 – Sharron, of course you SURVIVED … those that don’t survive seldom post on blogs.
Everyone you know who was a soldier in Viet Nam SURVIVED too … does that mean there were no casualties?
Everyone I know who was in WWII or the Korean War as a Marine SURVIVED.
I’m trying to figure out how sharron comes to the conclusion that she is so much healthier than everyone else. I mean, outside the times I’ve been sick, I’ve been PERFECTLY HEALTHY my whole life.
Then again, I also haven’t had whooping cough, or the measles. I did have the chicken pox, though. I had strep throat when I was young, too. That was pretty ugly.
For someone who is so damn healthy, she sure did get some pretty nasty illnesses.
This is the best thing I’ve read all day. A literal LOL. I salute you, sir.
I wonder if Sharron eats any of the following:
Tuna (contains methylmercury, which is worse than ethylmercury, and is in greater amounts than any flu vaccine containing thimerosal)
Banana (contains aluminum)
Carrots, potatoes or other root crops (may contain arsenic, depending on the soil in which they are grown)
sharron in #73:
Your posts on this topic bely your claims to being educated, at least as far as medical science goes. You have repeatedly appealed to sources which are on record as having been demonstrated to be mistaken and/or lying, and you have repeatedly made rather basic errors of fact (as demonstrated by others replying to you).
Sid in #76:
Actually, most (though not all) laws are derived from moral obligates. Murder, theft, arson, rape, battery, etc. are wrong. Ergo they are illegal.
Kevlynn in #71:
You exhort people to do their own research. Most people around here have, and they have come to rather different conclusions than you.
In the meantime, would you please provide evidence for these claims of yours:
(1) “It’s the vaccinated kids that are the one’s that get the other kids sick!”
(2) “There were MORE kids that contracted polio AFTER being vaccinated than before the vaccine.”
(3) “This ‘one size fits all’ vaccine schedule is eugenics under the guise of promoting ‘health'”
(4) “all the live virus’ AND mercury injected into our babies (which is accumulative in the brain) brings on degenerative disease & not prevention of it”
(5) ” In Chicago the mayor won’t vaccinate his own kids, nor the principals of schools, yet they brought in teams of nurses to inoculate children with or without parental consent”
Claims (1) through (4) are scientific claims, so I trust you have primary references to peer-reviewed literature or official CDC/WHO documentation to back you up.
In the meantime, you indicate that vaccine refusal in San Diego is on the rise. On the one hand, I cannot help but agree that your use of ‘scare quotes’ around the word educated to describe those parents is, unfortunately, apt, and on the other hand, I must disagree that this is anything other than a cause for considerable concern.
Man, the trolls are out today! Between sharron’s blather, Kevlynn’s rant and darling Sid, poor Augie is getting ignored. What a shame.
@Sharron: a master’s degree means nothing to most of us here. Most people on this blog attempt to use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. We aren’t always successful (I tend to be a poor speller), but you certainly would sound more intelligent if you used them. Boasting about your degree, on this board, also means nothing. You can’t prove you have one or not, nor can you prove I have one or not. The only person who can have it proven is Orac, since his alter ego isn’t much of a “sooper sekrit” any more.
All I have to say is this: I was fully vaccinated as a child and as an adult I am trying to keep up to date. My children are fully vaccinated. My husband is fully vaccinated due to health issues (genetics rule over modern life). We have no illnesses that can be attributed to vaccines. We DO have issues that our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents had. The idiots who blame vaccines on health issues have obviously never read the family bible, done family research or a genetic tree. My family is more healthy now than 3 generations ago, and my children’s generation, thanks to vaccines, should be even healthier unless the flakes take over.
Can I be first to invoke Scopie’s law on Sharron? She loses.
Darn it! Just realized this computer kept me signed in. The last comment was by me (MI Dawn).
By the way: I sincerely doubt Sharron had pertussis. First, since she doesn’t see doctors, she never had the test to determine whether she actually had it or just a common cold (much more likely). Those of us who have HAD pertussis as adults can certainly point to the “hundred days cough” typical diagnosis, confirmed by tests. I was not tested, but my best friend, who had it just before me, DID have a positive test. We still think that’s who I got it from. However, she got the broken ribs from coughing, too. I just had the “cough till you vomit” and lost weight. Not sure which of us was luckier.
oh Orac, give it a rest with all your “worry” for the babies/children who will develop measeles or pertussis etc. The stupid pharmaceutical companies have NOT done enough due diligence in truly studying all the vaccine ingredients for safety and there is that teensy weensy problem of not having done a randomized, double-blind study comparing vaccinated VS unvaccinated children for incidence of autism and other health problems.(yeah, sure it would be unethical…blablabla). The pharma industry is just having an orgy of excess with its extension of flu shots for everyone (including probably fetuses if they thought it was plausible). THis is what happens, Orac, when the agenda becomes profit over safety. People start to catch on and question what is happening around them. No.surprise. When will they grow a brain and realize they need to truly convince people and prove vaccine safety?
@42
I think it is not that straight-forward to calculate the cost-benefit ratio for vaccination. The problem is that a vaccinated person is less likely to catch the illness, but also less likely to spread it. This leads to nonlinearities, so that the case with few non vaccinated people has vastly lower infection rates/costs compared to the case where few people are vaccinated.
Just as an advance warning that the cost savings may not seem so great in the former case, although they are in fact substantial if you compare to the pessimistic scenario.
@jen:
When we already has an overwhelming mountain of evidence, which convinces everyone that examines it, why exactly should we believe that ANY new study will convince you and your ilk? After all, you’ve conclusively demonstrated your willingness to completely ignore any facts which rebut your preconceptions.
Anyone not convinced by the data we already have will not be convinced by more data. Either they are unaware of the data (and need to be educated), or they ignore the data (and are beyond hope). In neither case is adding MORE data on top going to be helpful.
[Pablo: Really? You have some secret cure for ear infections that doesn’t involve antibiotics?]
Most ear infection are viral, nacho. Demanding they be treated is how we get antibiotic resistance.
[Given that ear infections have accounted for most of our fever problems, I want them treated.]
I want, I want , I want…
This is my new favorite jen quote.
There must be a lot of unattended bridges, then.
WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE BRIDGES???!!!11!!
Ok I dont need to sit here and defend my stance. I said what i had to and thats it.I will put a question out there who do you trust? Man or God….I happen to not trust man…. The amout of toxins that are in food (food that was put here for us to eat by god are one thing) Do i trust a vaccine then when broken on the floor is a bio-hazard? Anwser to that is NO. If its a bio-hazard once droped on the floor its a bio-hazard in the body. If you people are so happy with your choices to vaccinate fine. I am also happy with my choice not to do it. Also i didnt say i have never been to the doctor. I said my children have never been to a doctor. They have been to homeopathy doctors, and my husband is a chiropractor. So they are also Adjusted on a normal basis, but thats a different story. How do i come to the conclusion that im healither?? I have not even had a cold in 10 years. In 10 years i have not been sick one time. You people on here are laughable… Raise your children the way nature intended it. Or go get shots in hope that they protect you, since there not 100%.
@Orange Lantern
Yep. “Ethics, schmethics. Bring back Tuskeegee!”
Okay. I read “homeopathy doctors” and nearly burst out laughing. Then I finished reading those two sentences…
I am truly afraid for those kids.
A lie.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/04/when_right_wing_nuts_try_to_do_science.php (Skip down to the section entitled “Oh, noes! The fetal DNA in vaccines is giving the kids teh autism!”)
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2009/07/thermonuclear_stupid_about_vaccines_from.php
Seriously, Sharron, do you realize how ignorant you sound when you parrot the anti-vaccine lie about “aborted fetal tissue in vaccines”?
Yep. The odds of anyone involved being able to recognize the symptoms of a manipulation-induced stroke, for instance, seem remote.
I just can’t wrap my head around why society tolerates (nay, in some circles ENCOURAGES) such abuse.
I had a perfectly healthy baby last year. born at 7 lbs 8 oz. She was given the Hep B shot at 14 hours old. With in 10 hours of the shot she has swollen up so bad, She only lived 48 hours after the shot was administered. During my pregnancy they test you for STD’s. I was neg. with Hep. B. I wish i would have know then what i know now, because i would still have my baby girl here with me. Those of you who think its ok to shoot up a baby with that crap, well there is no hope. I hope nobody has to witness what i had to with my daughter, all thanks to so called modern medicine.
I was fully vaccinated as a child, but I still caught whooping cough at age 7. I was sick for almost a month, couldn’t go to school, a parent always had to stay with me, the whole bit. I have also had chicken pox twice. The fact that parents aren’t vaccinating scares the bejeezus out of me. Its only a matter of time before there is a whooping cough outbreak in my area, and I’m terrified of getting it again.
On another note, the only child I have ever known with autism was never vaccinated for fear of autism. Hows that for irony?
My son fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm. Bone sticking out, blood everywhere.
Now, you fans of allopathic medicine would suggest that I should take him to a doctor, but you know what they’d do – they’d just put him in a cast made of dangerous chemicals (have you looked at the ingredients – they have alginate, which comes from algae, which KILLS PEOPLE. Look it up) and pump him full of drugs.
I took him home and made a natural concrete out oatmeal and my own spit (father’s saliva having well-known curative properties) and applied it daily until the bones healed naturally.
And today, he’s fine. He might have some limited range of motion, and I don’t think the grinding sound his arm makes when he straightens it is normal, but he’s learned not to whimper about it because he knows that he wasn’t healed with “medicine,” he was healed with love.
This is why I don’t believe in your modern “preventive” medicine. Where’s the love? Where’s the love? Won’t someone think of the children?
@sharron
Now I’m just curious what your degree is in. I’m betting against anything vaguely science or statistics related. Also, while you may not have time to proofread (which would catch the odd typo or two), you display a lack of understanding of your primary language that would not be fixed by proofreading. I assume you’ve read books, right? If reading didn’t teach you the basics of grammar, word usage, etc, how can you expect to educate yourself on subjects that are far beyond your area of expertise?
Why do you trust Mike Adams? He’s clearly a salesman and often tells outright lies. Orac isn’t a salesman, and we don’t even trust Orac implicitly (beyond what he has earned through his education and practice). We tend to trust the scientific consensus, which has a pretty darn good self-correcting mechanism built in. Why don’t you? What self-correcting method does your instinct have? How would you know if you were wrong?
@tony_bateson
One of the primary antivax advocates has an unvaccinated child with autism. I can’t remember which one it is, but I’m sure someone on here can fill in the details. She, of course, blames it on toxins in the vaccines she received decades ago.
@ Sharron “yeah my poor kids. my poor kids who eat only organic food, my poor kids who are never sick, my poor kids who are in amazing health, my poor kids.”
My 3-year-old eats a Tastykake Kandy Kake practically every day and is hardly ever sick either. Has never had an oral antibiotic yet in her life. And she’s fully vaccinated. If my anecdote were worth as much as you think yours is, I should be on my soapbox about how Kandy Kakes keep you healthy. (For those who don’t know what they are, Kandy Kakes are a round cake with a layer of peanut butter, all enrobed in crappy chocolate – like nectar to the gods for a 3-year-old)
No surprise that Sharron now attributes all good things to the sky fairy and her kids have been to the homeopathic
waterdoctor. I do hope her kids reach adulthood with enough sense to understand how ignorant even ‘educated’ people can be. Their mother will look like a raving lunatic in hindsight.mikerattlesnake –
that is of course Kim Stagliano. She has three kids on the spectrum – two vaccinated, one not. She still blames vaccines.
(not their vaccines, of course, but HER vaccines)
It couldn’t be anything genetic, of course.
BTW, I stay away from the blog for several hours because I’m in clinic, and the trolls have really come out. I mean, Sharron is one of the silliest new trolls I’ve seen in a while.
Regulars, ‘fess up! Did any of you post a link to this post on Mothering.com or some other antivax forum?
@102
Which foods do you eat that are “just as God made them?” The aforementioned bananas are a product of selective breeding by humans over many generations, as are most strains of produce and livestock you eat, even if grown organically.
How exactly does homeopathy work? You must know since you seem to trust it to.
What are the laws regarding calling something a biohazard? You must know since you’re so worried about them. Me, I work at a medical company (we only make diagnostic tests, btw, before you accuse me of having some vaccine agenda) and I know that even when a sample is screened and shown to be negative, we have to treat it as hazardous. That doesn’t mean it’s actually dangerous, there are just very strict rules about anything medical.
Oh, and which God is that again? Why should we trust him? Why did he keep lifespans so low for so long? Why did he allow so many children to die and be permanently disabled by polio? What, exactly, has this dude (who, by the way, I’ve never met… have you?) done to make you trust him to be so gosh-darn infallible?
Wow…I totally missed Mr. Bateson, there.
Well, it helps to open your eyes and unplug your ears, for starters.
My guess is that tony_bateson has never heard of an unvaccinated child with autism because he doesn’t actually tend to stick around after asking the question.
Orac writes:
Already here, tragically:
http://www.examiner.com/sf-in-san-francisco/california-department-of-public-health-now-recommending-pertussis-vaccine-during-pregnancy
jen writes:
Future tense is inappropriate, sadly. Read the San Francisco newspaper article above. Five babies dead as of mid-July, more now.
Really? Promise? Well, if you are going, could you get some apostrophes while you’re out? If not for you, maybe for the kids, or least the kids’ teachers 😉
You can quit standing in the dumb corner augie – we need all 4 of them today.
Sharron–
Personally, I trust some humans, but mostly not those who claim to know what gods want. (Since you say “God” with a capital G, I assume you’re thinking of the same God who sent plagues to Egypt. Why should I trust medical anything from a plague creator?)
As for “natural,” how on Earth do you conclude that chiropractic is more “natural” than standard medicine? Though I suspect that’s the wrong question, and the correct one is why you think “natural” is necessarily good. It’s natural for animals (including humans) to die of infected wounds. It is artificial, and good, to prevent that with antiseptics and tetanus shots. (Please tell us that you and your children at least wash, and try to drink clean water.)
@Jessica
I am very sorry for your loss.
sharron in #102:
This is coming from the person who takes her kids to see homeopaths and whose husband is a chiropractor (and who therefore subjects their children to adjustments).
Given that both homeopathy and chiropractic are quackeries of quite recent provenance (18/19th century), would you mind explaining how, exactly, raising children “the way nature intended it” involves doing either?
Also, given that homeopathy and chiropractic are the inventions, solely, of men, I think you maybe should re-examine whether you yourself are trusting God in the manner you suggest we ought to be.
You are under no obligation to remain and attempt to defend your position. However, unless you come up with some evidence that has not previously been demonstrated to be mistaken or deceitful, there is little chance of you advancing it, whether you never come back to this blog again or if you become a ‘regular’.
There’s nothing irrational about distrusting vaccines when stories like these come out every day:
“The Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) recommends that vaccination with Pandemrix vaccine is discontinued until an explanation is found for the observed rise in cases of narcolepsy among children and adolescents.” (Source: Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare)
“Doctors should stock alternative vaccines for under fives who are due to have the seasonal flu vaccine this winter, a letter from the head of immunisation at the Department of Health has said. The action is being taken as rate of convulsions caused by high fever among children in Australia given the jab was ten times higher than normal. Up to one in 100 children given the jab, made in Australia by CSL and marketed in the UK by Pfizer, suffered febrile convulsions in the following hours and days.” (London Telegraph July 31, 2010)
“Doctors across Australia have been ordered to stop giving young children the seasonal flu vaccine after 44 children fell ill hours after being immunised. The otherwise healthy children, all aged under five, suffered fevers, vomiting and febrile convulsions after receiving the vaccination. More than 20 were admitted to hospital and at least one child is seriously ill.” (London Telegraph April 23, 2010)
“Federal health authorities recommended Monday that doctors suspend using Rotarix, one of two vaccines licensed in the United States against rotavirus, saying the vaccine is contaminated with material from a pig virus.” (CNN.com, March 22, 2010)
“Thousands of doses of meningitis C vaccine were recalled last night after a contamination scare. The alert was sounded after tests found traces of the bug Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause blood poisoning. About 60,000 doses are being recalled, a third of which had already been delivered to GP surgeries and health clinics in the past month. It is not yet known how many have been given to babies.” (Daily Mail Online, Feb 26, 2010)
I could go on, but why bother? It only took a few minutes to dig up these stories and I didn’t even bother searching for cases of pharmaceutical companies being fined for withholding information about serious side effects associated with their vaccines. There are plenty of them, believe me.
The ultimate scientific facts about these cases (and hundreds like them) are irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter, for instance, if the Pandemrix vaccine actually causes narcolepsy. My point is that people have good reason to distrust vaccines when they see stories like this on an almost daily basis. In fact, it would be irrational to ignore them.
Isn’t it odd that Sharon’s “never sick, organically fed, never to the doctor” kids just spent 2 weeks of misery with chicken pox, what’s about as much illness as my “vaccinated, occasional McDonalds, all well visits” kids have been sick combined? Bit of selective memory there Sharon?
My wife suffered 60% hearing loss due to a neglected ear infection as a toddler, but at least that neglect was due to poverty, lack of health insurance and missing education. If anything like that happens to one of your kids it would just be intentional abuse.
Sharron: So you do believe in homeopathy? Are you aware that homeopathic medicine at standard doses is just water or sugar pills, and contains none of the original substance? (By none, I mean around an atom per swimming pool)
Are you aware that when you add real controls and double blinding, any benefits of homeopathy disappear?
If you believe that you can demonstrate a difference between homeopathic medicine and water *by any means whatsoever*, you should apply to the JREF. Their $1m prize will be yours. I’m serious. If Randi is wrong and homeopathy is more than sugar pills, you will win easily.
http://www.randi.org
“The ultimate scientific facts about these cases (and hundreds like them) are irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter, for instance, if the Pandemrix vaccine actually causes narcolepsy.”
Really? That matters to me.
Somehow, Sharron has managed to outdo the imposing standard of stupidity that she set with her previous posts â and she did so while forbearing from all caps, for extra points.
Deity-besottedness, homeopathy, invoking her chiropractor hubby, and espousing the naturalistic fallacy all in one paragraph!
Sid, augustine, et al.: you’ll have to up your game to compete with this!
Yikes! It is a troll fest! I think we can all give a sigh of relief that Sharron does not home school. Can you imagine her kids writing college entry exams?
As far as costs are concerned, Todd you have probably seen this list of studies. I will present it so that Maggy and Sharron can tell us exactly which is cheaper: vaccinating a population of children, or paying for the hospitalizations from illnesses, and dealing with disabilities from diseases (hint: the rubella epidemic in the 1960s caused a strain on the state schools for the deaf and/or blind):
Economic Evaluation of the 7-Vaccine Routine Childhood Immunization Schedule in the United States, 2001
Zhou F, Santoli J, Messonnier ML, Yusuf HR, Shefer A, Chu SY, Rodewald L, Harpaz R.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005;159:1136-1144.
An economic analysis of the current universal 2-dose measles-mumps-rubella vaccination program in the United States.
Zhou F, Reef S, Massoudi M, Papania MJ, Yusuf HR, Bardenheier B, Zimmerman L, McCauley MM.
J Infect Dis. 2004 May 1;189 Suppl 1:S131-45.
Pediatric hospital admissions for measles. Lessons from the 1990 epidemic.
Chavez GF, Ellis AA.
West J Med. 1996 Jul-Aug;165(1-2):20-5.
Measles epidemic from failure to immunize.
Dales LG, Kizer KW, Rutherford GW, Pertowski CA, Waterman SH, Woodford G.
West J Med. 1993 Oct;159(4):455-64.
Impact of universal Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccination starting at 2 months of age in the United States: an economic analysis.
Zhou F, Bisgard KM, Yusuf HR, Deuson RR, Bath SK, Murphy TV.
Pediatrics. 2002 Oct;110(4):653-61.
Impact of specific medical interventions on reducing the prevalence of mental retardation.
Brosco JP, Mattingly M, Sanders LM.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2006 Mar;160(3):302-9. Review.
Encephalopathy after whole-cell pertussis or measles vaccination: lack of evidence for a causal association in a retrospective case-control study.
Ray P, Hayward J, Michelson D, Lewis E, Schwalbe J, Black S, Shinefield H, Marcy M, Huff K, Ward J, Mullooly J, Chen R, Davis R; Vaccine Safety Datalink Group.
Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2006 Sep;25(9):768-73.
Pediatrics. 2010 Jun;125(6):1134-41. Epub 2010 May 24.
On-time vaccine receipt in the first year does not adversely affect neuropsychological outcomes.
Smith MJ, Woods CR.
…. okay… now for the silly person, um… let me look up up thread, okay it was Kevlynn who intoned:
The problem is, deer, is that we did do the research and actually understand the mathematics as well. Some herd immunity arithmetic:
Take 1000 people (ignoring the infants under 2 months who cannot be vaccinated, or babies under a year who can only be partially vaccinated), if 5% refuse vaccines then the numbers are:
950 vaccinated persons (assuming full schedule)
50 unvaccinated persons
The pertussis vaccine is actually only 80% effective at worse, so the numbers are:
760 protected persons
190 vaccinated but vulnerable persons
50 unvaccinated persons
There is an outbreak and it gets spread to 20% of the population, then:
760 protected persons without pertussis
38 vaccinated persons get pertussis
152 vaccinated person who may still get pertussis
10 unvaccinated persons get pertussis
40 unvaccinated persons who may still get pertussis.
This is how more vaccinated persons get the disease than unvaccinated. Even if the infection rate was at 100%, there would still be more of the vaccinated getting the diseases because there are more of them!
Now, do you actually understand that? Did you bother to even read it?
A baby has died of pertussis in my state. The child died in the Children’s Hospital near where I live, but lived in the same county that an entire unvaccianted family of eight kids came down with measles (two of them ended up in the hospital). Please tell, dear trolls, how many deaths of children do you consider acceptable? How many children becoming permanently disabled from measles, mumps, rubella, Hib, pertussis, etc to find acceptable?
What real evidence do you have that the DTaP, Hib, MMR or IPV are more dangerous than the diseases? Please provide real evidence like I did above. Do not link to silly websites from purveyors of expensive nostrums like Mercola, Gary Null, Blaylock or Mike Adams (Sharron, exactly what is Adams’ qualifications again?), nor to news reports from clueless journalists.
Gary Carson, only under educated irrational people value sensational news reports over actual scientific research. You obviously have not been paying attention to this blog all week. Go back and read the article before this one.
Gee, if Sharron hasn’t been sick for 10 years, when did she have her “pertussis” infection?
@Gary Carson: you found 4 instances of vaccine questions(since the London Times was referencing the Australian issue, which was, IIRC found not to be related to the vaccines). I could go onto Pubmed and find thousands of instances where they were found safe in studies. I win.
@T Bruce: You, sir, win 10,000 internets today (thankfully, I don’t have any major bridges to go over on my way home from work today…I’d hate to see the trolls under THEM!)
You people are all morons with nothing better to do. It is funny and sad at the same time. Natural remedies do work. Also what works is knowing how to raise children properly. Some people just dont know how to parent. Take control of your health. Instead of listening to doctors who kill over 250,000 people a year with prescription drugs prescribed properly. Also my Masters degree is in Business Administration.
I had whooping cough when i was 13.
woot tony_bateson shows up to brighten my day further with the same idiotic screen he impales us with every so often. For at least the third time you stupid bastard, Ms. Kim Stagliano, an anti-vaccination proponent who feels so strongly about her position that she censors people who disagree with her, has an unvaccinated child with autism.
Of course, she’s also an idiot like you (you have something in common!) and has suggested that her child caught autism from her (Kim’s) vaccines. Intellectual giants, all of you.
Game, set, and match.
@131
Not used to stepping outside of the echo chamber, eh?
Gary Carson (@ 123):
First, the news stories documenting safety concerns with vaccines (or indeed, with any medicine) is, in fact, good, for two reasons. First, it means that safety & oversight mechanisms that are meant to catch problems with specific treatments are working. Second, it means that journalists are doing their job (however imperfectly as other posts on this blog note).
Second, it does, in fact, matter a great deal whether Pandemrix vaccine actually causes narcolepsy or not. If it does, then narcolepsy is to be added to its list of adverse effects and the-cost benefit ratio of using the vaccine vs. using some other vaccine or not vaccinating is to be recalculated. If it does not, then an apparent increase in narcolepsy incidence is no good reason to mistrust the vaccine.
Where on Earth do you get the notion that saying vaccines are generally good medical interventions (indeed, among the best) implies that one must trust them or their manufacturers without question? Why do you think we have clinical trials for safety and efficacy and post-licensure surveillance in the first place?
mikerattlesnake:
I believe it has come out that he ignores the evidence (like Kim Stagliano, and others who have posted on this and other blogs), and changed it to not meeting them in person. Which he gets around by either being very overbearing and unpleasant in the first place, or choosing not to follow up. See a more detailed bit of his floundering here.
What a shame, Sharron, that you parents didn’t vaccinate you against it.
I wonder if, what I assume is their guilt at making you ill by their neglect, affected you in any way other than one preventable illness?
Business Administration, eh. And I thought it must be public health!
TROOLLLLL IN THE DUNGEON!!!
Thought you ought to know…
Wouldn’t about anything that’s ever been within earshot of the ground contain aluminium?
Shorter Sharron:
I am right and need to evidence.
I imagine what mike @135 said is true. She is not used to people questioning her ideas like this. We push her, she insults us without giving a shred of evidence and refuses to even respond to what others have mentioned. Sharron, you are posting here just as we are. Does that mean you have nothing better to do? I am working right now, but I can spare a few minutes to read this blog once and a while. Likely that is the same for most of the people here.
Please do continue with your rants though, I need a good laugh.
None of the remedies you’ve mentioned using can be considered “natural” in any meaningful way. Chiropractic and homeopathy certainly aren’t.
There are some herbs that work, but they uniformly work better when the active ingredient is isolated, purified, and packaged in consistent dosages, and the safety and efficacy are carefully studied. Not one of which “natural” advocates ever do.
“Natural” remedies are, one and all, strictly inferior.
So why don’t you tell us, then, precisely what miraculous parenting powers you have which will prevent your kids from being killed by measles. Or paralyzed by polio.
Possibly the most ridiculous thing you’ve heard yet. Most of us here examine facts and evidence to understand how health, medicine, and the human body work. You, on the other hand, blindly accept the fraud of anybody with a good story.
Yeah, you’ve really “taken control” there.
While saving far more. Unlike the fools and frauds YOU listen to, who have never actually cured anything at all, and have no idea how many people they’ve killed through their delusions of grandeur.
The school which gave it to you should be ashamed to have graduated a credulous, gullible fool of questionable literacy.
Sharron intoned without regard to grammar:
Then you should be able to understand and refute with evidence the papers by Zhou that I posted. Do tell us, with actual data how giving vaccines is more profitable than taking care of sick kids? Do you have stock in medical supply companies used by hospitals?
@Jessica –
My sincere condolences. I experienced at second hand the loss of a child (my wife lost her teenage daughter in an auto accident when we were first dating), and have some remote idea of how devastating it is.
I did want to mention to anyone reading this and wondering about whether the Hep B vaccine is safe, that over 100 million people have been vaccinated in the U.S., and serious reactions occur about once in a million vaccinations.
Among the contraindications are being allergic to baker’s yeast, so that is something to watch out for.
I’m beginning to see why the US economy is in such bad shape.
I smell sock puppets in this thread! And they stink! At least wash them out before you use them, they smell like feet.
Anyway, I find this thread amusing for the following reasons:
1. The “not un educated” Sharron. Your failed attempts at debunking Orac were laughable…whether you are a troll or an “un troll”, either way, your internet arguing skills need a lot more work. Also, there is a term for taking your kids to only homeopaths and chiropractors when they require medical attention…we call it “child abuse” or “child endangerment” depending on their symptoms.
2. Tony from the UK and his attempts at personally finding an “un-vaccinated autistic person” by contacting every un-vaccinated person in England and asking them if they are autistic. Just curious, do you take the door slamming in your face as a “no” or as “possible”?
Thanks for making my day a bit brighter.
However, Orac’s article seems a cause for concern. I, too, fear that these diseases will once again rear their ugly heads and cause a lot of unneeded suffering and death. I will recommend medical school to my kids…I sense a need for health care professionals in the near future.
“The ultimate scientific facts about these cases (and hundreds like them) are irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter, for instance, if the Pandemrix vaccine actually causes narcolepsy.
“Really? That matters to me.”
You missed my point completely. Faced with all these stories in mainstream sources about contaminated vaccines and serious side effects associated with vaccines, average people with no particular scientific training are NOT being irrational to distrust vaccines.
You can talk about “herd immunity” and cost-benefit ratios all you want, but parents are concerned with specific INDIVIDUALS–their children. Given the choice, a lot of them are going to decide not to expose their children to potential risk. Maybe they’re WRONG not to trust this or that particular vaccine, but they’re not being irrational. Calling them anti-vaxers and nut jobs just shows how little you understand the lack of trust people have in the medical/scientific establishment these days, not to mention the government in general and Big Pharma in particular. Considering the history of the last fifty years, that lack of trust is completely rational. Can’t you see that?
How these institutions are going to regain that trust is beyond me.
Sharron MBA said
You mean with half of them dying in infancy I take it.
Arren, I don’t know why you denigrate Sharron’s MBA. Could a bunch of Engineers, Doctor’s or Biologists have created something as impressive and devastating as the sub prime meltdown.
Garry Carson – You should know that in science literate circles the Daily Mail is known as the Daily Fail. Elsewhere it is known as the Daily Heil for it’s blatant racism and because it supported Hitler in the 1930s. The Skeptics with a K podcast has a regular feature where the Merseyside Skeptics compare a Daily Mail report on a scientific study with what the study actually said. The difference is hilarious.
Well, yes, they actually are. News stories don’t demonstrate that a problem actually exists. The fact that it’s common to accept their sensationalism and fearmongering without question (largely due to lack of critical thinking skills) doesn’t make it any less irrational.
How not? The facts demonstrably say one thing, they choose not to believe it. That’s irrational. Just as much as claiming the sky is yellow.
And what history, exactly, would that be? Saving more lives than any other set of institutions in history has ever dreamed of?
sharron in #131:
Except that the two ‘remedies’ you have suggested you apply to your children, homeopathy and chiropractic, were invented out of whole cloth by quacks quite recently (historically speaking) and therefore can hardly said to be ‘natural’. If you mean other remedies instead, can you please indicate which remedies and what evidence there is of their efficacy (for preference, references to the primary peer-reviewed literature)?
The degree to which children will suffer from illness is largely a function of biochemistry, which parents can hardly hope to drastically affect through parenting style alone. Unless you have some evidence (once again, preferably peer-reviewed literature) indicating parental style makes a greater difference in outcomes for serious illnesses than medical intervention?
What is your source for this number? I keep seeing different numbers from different folks (one of the recent persistent trolls comes to mind).
The reason why medical interventions can have harmful adverse effects is because they have beneficial effects. Otherwise, they would be like homeopathy. The harm from quackery often does not result from the quack intervention itself, but from the lack of proper medical care.
Let me put it this way: what would the death toll be if there weren’t doctors properly prescribing drugs, doing surgeries, etc?
This is too good to be left uncommented:
@102
“If its a bio-hazard once droped on the floor its a bio-hazard in the body.”
Right. Take blood, for example.
I think I get what Gary Carson is trying to say. With news reports, such as those he listed, popping up with some frequency in the media, people naturally worry and wonder about what they’ve been told.
Where I think Gary errs is thinking that stopping at that point is not irrational. The rational sorts would ask, “What is really behind this story? Is there more to it than what was reported?” It is irrational to take a news story completely at face value, but it shouldn’t be surprising, since just about everyone does it at some point.
The problem, as Chris hinted at by referring to other of Orac’s posts this week, is that often the journalism is just plain bad. The question at hand is not placed in context or is exaggerated in some fashion.
Then again, even when the reporting is accurate, people have a tendency to misjudge the risk.
It is rational to question safety and efficacy of anything a parent gives to their child. Most of us are sympathetic to parents who are inundated with information both good and bad and are here to help separate the facts from the rhetoric for those who are interested.
On the other hand, it is irrational, irresponsible, and immoral to spread lies that put us and our families in danger while ignoring facts that refute them. The folks in this thread are not confused parents, they are hard-line ideologues who, whether through ignorance or malice, contribute to the confusion and paranoia of the general public. Hence the harsh words.
I find the idea that they actually allow “philosophical exemptions” to vaccination incomprehensible. These people’s kids are endangering almost every other kid around them, and yet they get a pass because of their idiotic parents.
No one, for example, would allow people a “philosophical exemption” from sanitation rules preventing people from defecating in the drinking water supply. No one would allow people to blatantly violate fire and safety codes because of a “philosophical exemption”. It mystifies the mind.
Gary Carson–
A good first step would be to stop repeating the lies. Quoting anti-vaccine propaganda, and saying “it doesn’t matter whether it’s true, it scares people,” is a good way of scaring more people. Yes, if someone repeats such a lie, it’s time to say “No, vaccines don’t cause narcolepsy”; if nobody is suggesting it, what do you gain by retelling the story?
“Gary Carson, only under educated irrational people value sensational news reports over actual scientific research. You obviously have not been paying attention to this blog all week. Go back and read the article before this one.”
This is ridiculous. You’re still missing my point.
First of all, these are NOT “sensational news reports.” They are stories from mainstream sources quoting national institutes of health in various countries. These side effects and cases of contaminated vaccines are REAL. These recalls are REAL. They demonstrate that the system works to the extent that it detected these problems, but all too often these vaccines have already been given to patients, including small children and babies. Nobody cares if “the system worked” if their child is in the hospital or has suffered irreparable harm. Don’t you see how cases like this effect public trust?
I don’t know how many different ways I can say this, but I’ll try it again. People are NOT being irrational to distrust vaccines when they read so many stories like this. You can talk about “scientific research” all you like, but average people like the parents in California mentioned in the post aren’t scientists. Don’t you understand that? What are they supposed to do? Start digging through a lot of barely comprehensible medical papers? How are they going to come to any conclusion based on “scientific research?”
The problem is trust. Trust in institutions. It doesn’t matter if a vaccine is safe if people don’t believe you when you tell them it’s safe. What are average people supposed to think when they read stories like this? They definitely don’t trust the big pharmaceutical companies. They don’t trust the government. They don’t trust “the authorities.” They have to make decisions concerning their own health and the health of their children based on limited information, so it’s no surprise that so many of them decide to avoid the potential risk.
People think that pharmaceutical companies push toxic drugs and vaccines and only care about money. They think that doctors, scientists and politicians are shills for the pharmaceutical companies. Maybe they’re wrong, but that’s the situation. Fixing it is going to take more than mocking “vaccine rejectionists” and going on and on about “scientific research.” The average Bob and Betty don’t give a crap about your scientific research. They don’t trust you. They don’t believe you. Is that really so hard to understand?
#32 “allopathic care” is a term used by believers in homeopathy (a.k.a. “magic water”) Originally it referred standard medicine in the early 19th century (that’s the 1800’s). I think we are just a little past that point.
It used to be that people would be embarassed to show their ignorance in a public forum, but nowadays the ignorant are proud of it and arrogant. It’s obvious that many anti-vaccine followers know little about human biology, vaccines and how the medical business works. They are not old enough to remember the diseases the vaccinations are for, in part because the vaccines were effective. I guess if they haven’t seen the disease, they think their children are unlikely to get it and so the disease is not a threat to them or their children.
The human memory does not work like a video recorder where the recording is made once and doesn’t change. Human memory can be changed by events that occur after the memory was made such as conversations with others.
So a mom with an autistic kid happens to talk to an anti-vaxxer and voila their child was injured by a vaccine. Then they start having quacks use IVs to give their kids industrial chelators to cure them of mercury poisoning they don’t have. When the boys grow up they have quacks give them drugs used for chemical castration to “help” their autism (or rather their parents). It’s a scary thing.
@Gary Carson
Yes, they are. They misjudge the actual risk and act from emotion. It is understandable, but it is not rational.
No. They can go to places like the CDC, AAP, FDA or any number of other similar web sites for information. If they go to the literature, so much the better. There are also people who are trying to boil it all down to more easily understandable and easier to read content, like the folks at Science-Based Medicine, antiantivax.flurf.net and so on.
Do you have any proposals for how scientists and health authorities might get past the emotional, gut distrust of which you speak?
Gary Carson said: “You can talk about “herd immunity” and cost-benefit ratios all you want, but parents are concerned with specific INDIVIDUALS–their children.”
What we’re concerned with here are the children in California suffering through a whooping cough outbreak, and all the other kids (and susceptible adults) who will be harmed if vaccination rates drop further. This forum does include discussions of things like herd immunity (we don’t assume parents are too dumb to understand the science involved without special training), but the focus continually is on children, the hazards to them caused by antivax ideology, risky treatments for nonexistent “vaccine injury” given by quacks, and so on.
I think we could do more to personalize the impact of not vaccinating. For instance, parents need to see pictures like these of victims of preventable infectious diseases, to realize how far we’ve come in protecting kids, and how far back we could slide if immunization is allowed to be demonized without challenge.
Gary @ 156:
And you are missing the point of everyone who is trying to discuss this with you.
Whether or not the average person trusts pharmaceutical companies or government agencies is irrelevant. What is relevant is what the actual data say. If people aren’t prepared to believe the data, that is their problem. If people automaticaly rule out information because its source has ‘Merck’ or ‘CDC’ on it rather than after weighing its merits, that is their problem, not Merck’s or the CDC’s.
Furthermore, when people (media or laypeople) knowingly or unknowingly spread demonstrable falsehoods or evidence-free conjecture about vaccines, they are making the problems, both the trust problem and the health consequences, worse, not better.
Is that really so hard to understand?
@Brett: well put. Choosing not to vaccinate SHOULD forfeit your right to put your child in a public school. Have philisophical reasons, religious beliefs, or “mother’s intuition”? Fine. Home school or find a like-minded private school. Society provides this education and it has the right to enforce standards to ensure safety as a condition of enrollment. Just like the right to bear arms ends where the school property begins, so does your right to not vaccinate your kids.
The U.S. taxpayers shell out 5 billion dollars for mercury laden H1N1 vaccines (250 million doses at $20). You clowns think its free. Over 2/3 of this poison goes unused and has to be disposed of as hazardous waste. This is despite the fact that they bring it into our schools. Half the cases of H1N1 take place in the U.S. with over 10,000 reported deaths. Poland refuses to take part in this scam. They have less reported cases than any other industrialized country.
Now get off your butts and head to Walgreens for the 2010-11 mercury laden flu shot with the H1N1 virus as a special bonus.
Lions and tigers and flu oh my, Lions and tigers and flu oh my, Lions and tigers and flu oh my, Lions and tiger and flu oh my……
Could you please provide one double-blind,
placebo-controlled study that can prove the safety and effectiveness of
vaccines?
Could you please provide scientific evidence on ANY study
which can confirm the long-term safety and effectiveness of vaccines?
Could you please provide scientific evidence which can prove
that disease reduction in any part of the world, at any point in history was attributable to inoculation of populations?
Could you please provide scientific justification as to how
injecting a human being with a confirmed neurotoxin is beneficial to human health and prevents disease?
Could you please provide scientific justification on how
bypassing the respiratory tract (or mucous membrane) is advantageous and how directly injecting viruses into the bloodstream enhances immune functioning and prevents future infections?
Could you please provide scientific justification on how a
vaccine would prevent viruses from mutating?
Could you please provide scientific justification as to how
a vaccination can target a virus in an infected individual who does not have the exact viral configuration or strain the vaccine was developed for?
@Penelope
Use tongue depressers have to be disposed of as hazardous waste, too. What’s your point?
Oh, and by the way, do you eat tuna at all? Or any other kind of fish?
I see Sharron’s been reading the “nine questions” idiocy on various antivax websites. Fortunately, we have answers to many of these little hunks o’ burnin’ stupid passing for questions that will “stump” advocates of science-based medicine.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=5025
Sorry, Sharron. Those questions only stump newbies.
The bit about “injecting directly into the bloodstream” is particularly stupid and ignorant. Here’s a hint: Vaccines aren’t injected “directly into the bloodstream.”
[bacon: For instance, parents need to see pictures like these of victims of preventable infectious diseases, to realize how far we’ve come in protecting kids, and how far back we could slide if immunization is allowed to be demonized without challenge.]
followed by pictures like these in the doctors room:
Vaccine Reaction Images
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccineimages.asp
And then they need to reshow the first pictures and say “now vaccines aren’t a guarantee. You’re child may still wind up looking like these pictures.”
Nice propaganda for the slipperey slope arguement, bacon. “Oh, no. If we stop vaccinating it will be like 1918 again.”
sharron, those questions have been addressed, as Orac points out.
I find it sad that you cannot even come up with your own questions, that you shamelessly just copy and paste the ignorance of other people. This does not bode well for your understanding of the issues.
I have read those before they beat around the bush, and its just like all of you do beat around the bush. Tell me why do so many kids have cancer now a days?? why are there so many auto-immune diseases on the rise? whats your answers for that?
@Sharron
Ahh….someone’s been reading the 9 Questions nonsense. Read this article, sharron.
Penelope in # 162:
Evidence, please.
“…News stories don’t demonstrate that a problem actually exists. The fact that it’s common to accept their sensationalism and fearmongering without question (largely due to lack of critical thinking skills) doesn’t make it any less irrational.”
None of the stories I quoted were “sensationalistic and fearmongering.” They simply stated the facts about various recalls and problems with vaccines. One of the quotes came from the Finland National Institute of Health & Welfare. Most of the others were from mainstream papers in England and Australia quoting their own institutes of health. These stories DO constitute evidence that “a problem actually exists” with these particular vaccines. Why are you denying this?
“The facts demonstrably say one thing, they choose not to believe it. That’s irrational. Just as much as claiming the sky is yellow.”
There’s nothing irrational about it. People hear scientists and doctors say that vaccines are safe, then they read stories about all these recalls and side effects. Furthermore, they don’t know what’s in the vaccines. Not really. Is there mercury in a vaccine? Is mercury safe? Does it cause autism? Your average parent doesn’t know. How could they know?
The whole issue for the average person boils down to how much they trust their doctor and the public officials who assure them that vaccines are safe. If they don’t trust them–and more and more people don’t these days–there’s nothing irrational about making a decision to avoid a potential risk.
“Considering the history of the last fifty years, that lack of trust is completely rational.”
“And what history, exactly, would that be?”
You’ve got to be kidding. People have been lied to so often that they don’t believe “the authorities” anymore. They don’t believe the government. They don’t believe the “experts”–the scientists, the doctors, the corporations, you name it. Do I really have to go back through all the details? Haven’t you been paying attention?
The first question is directly answered with an example of a “double blind, randomised and placebo controlled trial” just as is asked for. How is that beating around the bush?
What about the speech that bill gates gave and said “With vaccines, and health care we should be able to decrease the population by 20%” Why are they putting GMO’s in every single food? Why do they put fluoride and lithium in the water? This is much bigger then just vaccines and if you cannot see it you are either part of the pharmaceutical industry, or your just plain blind.
This is what I was referring to Todd W.
200 ppb mercury = level in liquid the EPA classifies as hazardous waste based on toxicity characteristics.
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/tsd/mercury/regs.htm
25,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose, Hepatitis B vaccine vials, administered at birth from 1991-2001 in the U.S.
50,000 ppb mercury = Currently concentration of mercury in multi-dose flu, H1N1, meningococcal and tetanus vaccines. This can be confirmed by simply analyzing the multi-dose vials.
This explains it quite well.
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/wm/publications/anewpub/WA841.pdf
Penelope:
You are clueless and ignorant. You do not know anything at all about hazardous waste.
Did you know that your own blood is hazardous waste? I’ll bet that means it’s bad for you.
At my local grocery store, I just saw some signs by the milk refrigerator. They aren’t allowed to pour more than a certain amount of milk down the drain per day. Any more and it has to be handled by a separate waste contractor.
Just because you can’t pour large quantities of something down the drain doesn’t mean that small quantities of it are harmful to people.
Let me summarize thusly: You say that vaccines are bad. And you give your reasoning. Your reasoning is very, very wrong.
Thus, my conclusion: I have now seen one more person who believes that vaccines are harmful, and this person is clueless, ignorant, and appears to have no evidence for their beliefs.
Look, you SELF-PROCLAIMED skeptics:
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Only the “scientific“ ELITE, made up of pointy-headed intellectuals and effete pinko college professors and the Glaxo orbital base that controls them, could be so BLIND as to deny the MILLENIA of True Wisdom that has descended on down the ages. Homeopathy and Chiropractic SOUL-MEDICINE has existed since BEFORE humanity!!!!! Only the conformist conspirings of these SELF-APPOINTED gatekeepers would DARE to pretend otherwise: their flinging about such esoteric jargon as “peer review”, “statistical significance”, and “cost-benefit analysis” clearly demonstrate their REAL goal: obfuscation. It’s not as if there are worldwide inquiry-motors, driven by a series of tubes, into which anyone can submit a phrase and discover its meaning and significance â what an ABSURD notion!
TRUE science is done within the infinity of a FEARLESS* individual’s soul-cosmos intertwinality. This sacred communal mode of episteme-harvesting yielded my breakthrough: that chiropractic and homeopathic MEDICINE were passed down to us from the extraterrestrial forebears who seeded Earth**, a FACT that’s been covered up by the ESTABLISHMENT’s just-so story about both of their origination in the nineteenth century!!!!
WONDERFULLY, the holy principle of the Magic of the Market has manifest the resurgence of these Pillars of Health! The popularity of these TRUE modalities amongst people whose REAL minds aren’t poisoned by logic-shackled brains is proof positive of their efficacy!! And as the fifty-fourth Lost Holybook of Drossanddreck*** reminds us:
* Which rules “scientists“ out: we all know they’re the fraidy-cat WUSSIES that got beat up at school and weren’t popular!
** They named it Gulliblia in the Eternal Tongue â now watch the lemming-like “scientists“ rush to dispute this privileged FACT in lockstep: more PROOF of their DESPERATION as the power of their secret Pharma-front cabal wanes!!!!!! Order my book now and discover what else THEY don’t want you to know!!!!!!!!
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@Penelope
First off, the EPA mercury exposure limits are for methylmercury, not ethylmercury (which is in the preservative thimerosal).
Second, why are you bringing up amounts in the old Hep B vaccines?
Third, influenza vaccine contains 25 mcg of ethylmercury per dose and is available without thimerosal. Meningococcal vaccine is given to adolescents, not younger children. The tetanus vaccines administered to children are thimerosal-free.
Now, how much methylmercury (remember, it’s worse than ethylmercury) is in a can of tuna?
BS, Sharron.
For example, from that very link:
You asked for double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. Mark gave them to you. The rest of the questions were answered similarly.
Gary, if the source of mistrust in authority comes from:
(1) Incorrect or dishonest claims by anti-authority activists, or
(2) A knee-jerk behaviour based not on the actual evidence at hand but on past issues, real or imagined,
then, yes, it is reasonable to conclude that the mistrust (and any decisions following from it) is irrational.
I call Poe on Sharron, MBA. They’re’s know weigh any1s english could bee that bad. Oh, and Gary Carson, you are the whiniest concern troll, like, ever, you disingenuous douche. I kind of feel sorry for Augie today. It’s like he’s invisible or something. Here’s a bone, Augie, you plagiarizing twit: It’s now 16 days since your promised rebuttal of the data I presented you with. Can I expect that soon? My Master’s Degree is in Autism and Vaccines, and it’s from Harvard and Yale and Oxford, so my anecdotes about my kids carry, like, way more weight than the rest of y’alls.
So it is us who need to be educated on vaccines and infectious disease?
Ok then. Could one or more of the anti-vaxxers, complete the following sentence for me?
As the reservoir of disease expands (for arguments sake..let’s say measles..but feel free to chose any other example)due to non-vaccination and thus the number of viral mutations increase, then…
EXACTLY â finally someone with the COURAGE to see through the lies of assistant antichrist Bill Gates and his shadowy backers’ nefarious plans for global control via population reduction.
To find out more, order my newest book, in which I conclusively prove the connection between the Kenyan operative in the White House, the COMPLETELY unjustified and VERIFIABLY dangerous fluoridation of the water supply, and the collusion of the astronomy community to fudge facts in order to discredit astrology!
@H. Broderix
Does your book come with the tin foil hat and healing crystals, or do I need to pay extra for those?
Gary Carson said: “People have been lied to so often that they don’t believe “the authorities” anymore. They don’t believe the government. They don’t believe the “experts”–the scientists, the doctors, the corporations, you name it.”
So in this world where “People” refuse to believe anyone with knowledge or expertise, including those who’ve dedicated their lives to medical research and public health, they’re supposed to turn to…who?
Some Guy With A Website who sells supplements out of his garage?
“Try homeopathy(for pertussis) it works.”
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Autism-Mercury/message/285158
Gary Carson, some of us have actually written the journalists spreading the lies (I have done it when they post something as inane as “the thimerosal in the MMR vaccine). Now go back and read the article Orac posted before this one.
Then go and pick up the books Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, and perhaps the one I am presently reading Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner. There are few more books on science warped by bad journalism that others can point out to you.
To counter you silly fear mongering stories, here is some decent journalism.
Penelope, there are thimerosal free influenza vaccines available (even of the H1N1 type, a flu that tended to kill children and pregnant women). So get out of 2001 already and learn there is a difference between methyl and ethyl already!
Sharron, I am still waiting for you to tell us how the economics favor not vaccinating children. Until you come up with some sure fire evidence that treating sick children in hospitals is more cost effective than preventing diseases I can assume that you have lots of stock in medical supply companies.
Just like it helps Jay Gordon’s bottom line to not promote vaccination in his practice. That way he can play hero doctor rushing to the hospital when a celebrity’s kid has pertussis.
(Todd, Broderix has got to be a Poe)
I love how no one responded to Jessica (the woman whos child died 48 hours after the hep b vaccine at birth) Also nobody had anything to say to Sharron about the post where Bill gates is saying he wants to reduce population in the world by 20% with vaccines and health care. You are all Pharmshills.
Look harder Mark. People have addressed Jessica.
I have no idea when or where Bill Gates said that but so what? What does Bill Gates opinion on the use of vaccines have to do with how safe they are?
“…it does, in fact, matter a great deal whether Pandemrix vaccine actually causes narcolepsy or not. If it does, then narcolepsy is to be added to its list of adverse effects and the-cost benefit ratio of using the vaccine vs. using some other vaccine or not vaccinating is to be recalculated. If it does not, then an apparent increase in narcolepsy incidence is no good reason to mistrust the vaccine.”
This is a perfectly valid scientific argument. Unfortunately, knowing that narcolepsy has been added to the vaccine’s list of adverse effects doesn’t do anything for a parent whose kid got narcolepsy from the vaccine. The parent isn’t concerned about scientific procedures. They’re concerned about their children and the issue is trust. If they think that a vaccine could cause narcolepsy–even if there’s no ultimate scientific validity for their belief–they’re going to think twice about having their children vaccinated. If their doctor assures them that the vaccine DOESN’T cause narcolepsy and they trust their doctor, then they’ll go ahead and have their children vaccinated.
“Where on Earth do you get the notion that saying vaccines are generally good medical interventions (indeed, among the best) implies that one must trust them or their manufacturers without question? Why do you think we have clinical trials for safety and efficacy and post-licensure surveillance in the first place?”
I never said that people have to trust vaccines or manufacturers without question and I’m not sure how you got that out of what I wrote. Maybe I didn’t express myself clearly. I don’t know.
It’s not an issue of “trusting without question.” The issue is that a lot of people don’t trust the scientific and medical establishment at all. Most people aren’t scientists. They’re making personal health decisions based on limited information and decide to avoid potential risks. That’s all. Personally, I don’t see anything irrational about that.
Personally, I can see the benefits of vaccines. I don’t have blind faith in the medical safeguards you mentioned, but I’m not some rabid anti-vaccination type. I can understand why the medical establishment is concerned. They should be. This lack of public trust could lead to the spread of diseases that could easily be prevented. I understand that.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. It reflects the general breakdown in faith in all of our institutions. I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to medical treatments like vaccines, especially when so many people (myself included) believe that the watchdog agencies have been captured by the corporations they are supposed to regulate. Restoring faith in the system is essential. How you do that, I don’t know.
But…but ethylmercury has two carbon groups and methylmercury only has one so ethylmercury must be even worse! It iz bigger chemical!!
Chemicalz are te eeevil!11!1eleventyone!!
Bill gates funds most vaccine programs travis. Bill gates is also funding a program that will put vaccine mists into the air of public schools and will absorb into your skin via your pores. All the elite want public reduction. They think the world is over populated and using slow kill methods. Obviously all you people know about is vaccines, you dont know the whole agenda so until you look at the big picture here you will continue to be big pharma shills.
Mark there is too much crap from trolls like you to respond to everything. Plus the Pharma Shill Gambit is old and tired.
People did respond to Jessica. We are sorry for her loss, but one anecdote does not trounce the whole of the data. Sorry, harsh but true. My son suffered seizures when he was 48 hours old, and would have died had it not been for getting real care. This was before the HepB vaccine was given to newborns. But folks like you don’t care unless it is tied to the vaccine, even if the vaccine may not have caused the health crisis (case in point: a young girl died in the UK shortly after receiving the Cerverix vaccine at school, it turned out she had a large cancerous tumor that had not been known about). There is often more to a story than is given.
Sharron, I see you are unwilling to read the responses to those questions you cut and pasted from elsewhere. Here is a podcast that should help answer those questions.
And exactly how much stock do you have in hospital supply companies? Which companies? You see the shill gambit goes both ways.
Augustine @ 166 RE: vaccine reaction images.
Those would be scary… except they are SMALLPOX vaccine reactions. You know, the smallpox vaccine that kids don’t get anymore, because we wiped it out with vaccination???
Mark, your reading comprehension is very poor. The Gates Foundation is funding programs to bring the standard of living up in many areas. It has been shown that when children stop dying so quickly, people actually choose not to have as many children. So then population stabilizes.
Here is an example of what they do.
Until you come up with actual documented proof of your claims that come from reliable sources, you will be designated as Clueless Troll Mark.
Sharron proudly states that all three of her kids got the chicken pox. I’m sure her kids will thank her in the future when the VZV DNA they now have hanging out in their nerves gets reactivated and they get a nasty case of wild-type shingles. And if the prevailing theory is correct about the decrease in WT circulating VZV (chicken pox) leading to an increase in virus reactiviation and therefore shingles cases, they’ll be able to thank her sooner rather than later.
So it isn’t evidence when he says “through vaccines and health care we can reduce the population by 20%” If that’s not proof enough for you i don’t know what is. The world isn’t looking out for all you people, and unless you realize that then there is no hope. I feel sorry for all of you!
Ah yes. The sooper double sekrit world population elimination strategy designed to reduce the number of Microsoft customers. So secret, in fact, that Bill Gates goes around doing speeches about it!
[EnKIDu:You know, the smallpox vaccine that kids don’t get anymore, because we wiped it out with vaccination???]
Was that damage caused by the vaccine program? YES or NO?
Yes it was. Vaccines can damage and kill. THIS is why they should not be coerced or forced onto anyone.
Thats the thing its not a secret. They are doing it in front of your faces and none of you believe it, because your to dumbed down by these vaccines, and all the drugs they are pumping into your water. I wont even feel bad for any of you, because you all get what is coming to you. They tell you to you face they are reducing the population, but yet you all seem to think its a good thing. Shame on all of you. What do you think they are trying to do with this One world government. You are all so blind to whats going on around you its a sad state of affairs. Go ahead and keep watching fox 2 new you idoits! Let them tell you drugs in your water is safe. Let them claim vaccines are good for you. Oh and for the person way up on this post that said how do you cure a ear infection without antibiotics, try olive oil and garlic. Just keep listening to everything your government tells you is good, and line up sheep because your being walked to the slaughter house! PEACE
“A good first step would be to stop repeating the lies. Quoting anti-vaccine propaganda, and saying “it doesn’t matter whether it’s true, it scares people,” is a good way of scaring more people. Yes, if someone repeats such a lie, it’s time to say “No, vaccines don’t cause narcolepsy”; if nobody is suggesting it, what do you gain by retelling the story?”
What lies? These are all mainstream stories quoting national institutes of health. They are not “anti-vaccine propaganda.” THe story about narcolepsy was taken from the site of the Finland National Institute of Health and Welfare. THEY took the vaccine off the market until it could be determined if it was causing this outbreak of narcolepsy. Why do you deny that these things happen? Nowhere in my post did I say that the vaccine actually CAUSED narcolepsy. How would I know that? As far as I can tell, nobody knows yet. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. Are you saying that vaccines are a hundred-percent safe? ARe you saying that there aren’t reports about potential side effects caused by vaccines coming out all the time? The entire point of everything I’ve been trying to say is that people have rational reasons to avoid vaccines even if their fears are scientifically unfounded. And yes, “it doesn’t matter whether it’s true, it scares people.” THAT’S THE POINT. How hard is this to understand? People aren’t scientists. The issue is TRUST.
“On the other hand, it is irrational, irresponsible, and immoral to spread lies that put us and our families in danger while ignoring facts that refute them. The folks in this thread are not confused parents, they are hard-line ideologues who, whether through ignorance or malice, contribute to the confusion and paranoia of the general public. Hence the harsh words.”
I agree with the first sentence completely. Personally, I’m not particularly anti-vaccine, but I generally avoid them unless there’s good reason to do otherwise. For example, I’ve never caught one of these seasonal flus, so I don’t get flu shots. It all boils down to a judgment call, really, but I’m just talking about myself here. I wouldn’t tell somebody not to vaccinate their kids, for instance. That’s their decision. I’m not arguing against vaccines per se. I’m arguing against this irrational idea that people are acting irrationally when they avoid getting vaccinated.
One anti-vaxer I know said recently that they would consider taking a vaccine if there was an outbreak in their area. By then, isn’t it too late? Isn’t the point of vaccines to prevent outbreaks? I guess she is okay with using everyone else as her canary in the coal mine.
Join us for a free showing of the documentary “Dr. Strangelove” this Saturday night in my parents’ basement.
Bring your own tin foil and bottled water.
I must be right. I have an MBA.
You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to take a vaccine.
You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to take a vaccine.
You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to take a vaccine.
You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to take a vaccine.
Mark,
It’s fun to pretend that everyone is against you, isn’t it? However, if you really believed the crap you mis-spell, you wouldn’t be nearly so public about your secret knowledge. Either you subconsciously know you’re perfectly safe, or you’re suicidal (or the real conspiracy is paying you to make conspiracy theorists look stupid).
Gary,
Yes, it all comes down to trust – either trust the agencies that openly report even the least likely risks of vaccines, and attempt to take corrective action, or trust the people who have not the slightest knowledge of how vaccines work. Which seems like a a better idea to you?
OK braintrust, I’ll dumb this down for you since you won’t bother to read anything further on the subject. Women in undeveloped and developing countries have lots of babies since they lose so many in childbirth and infancy. By providing a means to reduce child mortality rates, i.e. prevention of prevalent diseases via vaccination, women will eventually opt to have fewer offspring since more are living to adulthood. This, in turn will reduce population expansion. That is all Mr. Gates is saying but obviously addressing a more savvied audience and leaving room for dipshits like you to read ‘conspiracy theory’ into it.
Mark, provide the actual link to those words on the Gates Foundation website so it can be read in its actual context.
Gary Larson, an issue with one vaccine does not damn all vaccines. Plus if you read it percolated through a journalist you will miss vital information. Especially since no one who understands science would ever say any medical procedure is 100% safe. That is a classic anti-vax Nirvana fallacy. Stop whining and read what Orac wrote just before this article. And do make sure you are current with tetanus immunity.
Melissa, that is fine. As long as you don’t expect taxpayers to pay for any hospitalization or injury from a vaccine preventable disease like tetanus. Plus do stay away from the rest of us, especially infants, when you have a cough.
[SM: By providing a means to reduce child mortality rates, i.e. prevention of prevalent diseases via vaccination, women will eventually opt to have fewer offspring since more are living to adulthood.]
You’re stretching it there, don’t you think, momma?
I wonder if Melissa A would change her opinion after exposure to rabies.
Good grief, who left the troll door open?
Bill Gates gave $10 Bn to fight malaria. Not a disease the rich west has to worry about, but a disease, largely, of poor people. And yet you, oh ingnorant, paranoid one, accuse him of being part of a wingnut global conpiracy?
There is a conspiracy out there: it’s a conspiracy of ignorance, of refusing knowledge, of judging without recourse to people who know about these things. And unfortunately, it’s a disease of affluent societies as well as poor ones.
And it’s one you’ve caught.
Socio-pathic nutcase.
Yeah today they say vaccines are good for you. 50 years ago doctors said smoking was good for you, oh and they also claimed 50 years ago drinking pop was good for toddlers. Take a look at vaccines charts. All of those diseases were almost gone before the vaccine even came into play. Also i don’t let bats, and squirrels bite me. Breastfeeding natures vaccine.
No! Melissa, stick to your guns! If you get rabies, especially before you get the chance to raise any children, do NOT get a vaccine. Please do not get a vaccine!
TYPICAL pro-vax FREELOADER, aren’t you Todd? Bet you’re one of these simpering handout-types that think the GOVERNMENT should ensure the nutritional value of school lunches! “Waa, waa: government feed my children! Waa, waa: Hussein Obama, steal money from hard-working white folks to pay for my healthcare and dozens of vaccine-poisoned welfare babies! Waa, waa, let’s all bend over for a One World Government in which a God-fearing truthteller like Glenn Beck is deprived of the Freedom to have his makeup girl apply Vapo-Rub to his ocular areas in order to facilitate those REAL tears just brimming under the surface!”
THIS is what’s turning all of our precious baby boys HOMOSEXUAL! You MORONS, it’s just like Mark said: THEY’re doing it right in front of your idiot faces, but you’re too busy marching to the slaughterhouse*, whilst watching “fox 2 news”, when you could be curing cancer with a few** chiropractic adjustments, a homeopathic distillation of olive oil & garlic, and a CAN-DO ATTITUDE!
* Sure, keep blabbering empty statistics about better-by-a-decade “life expectancy” â more EMPTY jargon from EMPTY-minded meat puppets! Of course, REAL folks know that all that means is how long people “expect” to live â read between the lines, drones!
** Per week. At least. More may be better â consult your holistic professional!
@H. Broderix
Your ideas intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Too late, I fear.
No? Yet you appear here, amid a particularly frenzied troll attack, and argue that people who put our children’s health at risk (and their own of course) by refusing vaccination actually have a point?
Based on Daily Mail articles, and news that a government might have withdrawn a vaccine to investigate safety fears?
Nah, I call Shrek on you too.
(Psst – your CAPS are showing)
Mu and Ken,
Are you up to date on your rabies vaccine? Are your children?
“Whether or not the average person trusts pharmaceutical companies or government agencies is irrelevant. What is relevant is what the actual data say. If people aren’t prepared to believe the data, that is their problem.”
You have it exactly backwards. The average person doesn’t care about the data. Even if they do, most of them can’t understand it. The data is important to scientists, not to the public. And how is it irrelevant that people don’t trust the pharmaceutical companies and government agencies who are the ones assuring them that the data proves that the vaccines are safe? It’s not that people “aren’t prepared to believe the data.” The problem is that so many of them aren’t prepared to believe the authorities who can actually understand the data. THat’s the issue.
“If people automaticaly rule out information because its source has ‘Merck’ or ‘CDC’ on it rather than after weighing its merits, that is their problem, not Merck’s or the CDC’s.”
I’d say that it was Merck’s and the CDC’s problem. A serious problem. Credibility is everything in situations like this. Big Pharma has a major credibility problem. So does the government in general.
“Furthermore, when people (media or laypeople) knowingly or unknowingly spread demonstrable falsehoods or evidence-free conjecture about vaccines, they are making the problems, both the trust problem and the health consequences, worse, not better.”
I agree that people who spread alarmist information and conjecture and lies are part of the problem, but the stories I cited don’t fall into any of these categories. Vaccines have side effects. They may only effect a small number of people, but they exist. People read these stories and they get worried. They don’t trust the authorities who assure them that vaccines are safe. That’s the problem.
Seriously, Melissa, I don’t think you should be breastfeeding bats and squirrels…
Don’t listen to H. Broderix and the rest of those nuts. I have the only proven solution to all health related issues:
Bloodletting!
It’s an ancient healing tradition used for thousands of years, and I’ve tested it myself. For three years, every time I got sick I let some blood and EACH TIME I GOT BETTER!
Blood is a bio-hazard! And it’s going through your entire body. Did you know that most disease is distributed through your body by blood? The less blood in your body, the less disease in your body. Dispute that one!
For only $5000 USD I can certify you in this ancient technique that the modern medical world does not want you to know about!
Orac @114: it was me. I twittered it.
Then I went & got my flu shot.
Already had pertussis (Tdap) — before birth of grandson.
Hey, y’all? You up to date on your pertussis vax? Go and do the right thing.
@Chris “Just like it helps Jay Gordon’s bottom line to not promote vaccination in his practice. That way he can play hero doctor rushing to the hospital when a celebrity’s kid has pertussis.”
I have never hospitalized a celebrity’s child for pertussis. The only time I hospitalized a child with pertussis was in 1984. It is a relatively uncommon illness almost always well-tolerated by healthy children and adults. Herd immunity is valuable to protect those too young to be vaccinated or for those with special medical circumstances. This summer, I gave quite a few more DPT shots than usual because the large amount of media stories about increased pertussis in California encouraged parents “on the fence” to get either primary or booster doses. The CDC’s MMWR data are at odds with the popular media’s characterization of the number of cases. Pertussis, as you know, is a cyclical illness and it seems that every five years or so there’s a moderate increase in the number of cases.
This is an amazing number of responses in such a short period of time and I have not had a
chance to read everything yet.
Just to give all of you a little more fodder for your comments, I have, as you also know, a large number of unvaccinated and partially vaccinated families in my practice. I am not seeing any more pertussis than in a normal year–that is, maybe one case every month or two–and I promise you that I’ll let you know immediately if I do.
Best,
Jay
Gary Carson
One of the stories you quoted was from the Daily Fail where sensationalism and fearmongering are editorial policy. You should read what Ben Goldacre has to say about the MMR scare and the role of sensationalistic scaremongering by the British newspapers in bringing back measles in the UK.
@Chris I forgot to mention, your continual comments and others’ comments about my “bottom line” make me certain that you have no understanding about the economics of a medical practice.
Just like in any other business, when you sell things for more than you pay for them, you make more money. Vaccines are one of those things.
Not vaccinating makes me less money, not more.
Duh.
Jay
But having a reputation for reassuring rich people that it’s OK not to vaccinate their kids is surely what your reputation is based on – and hence your hourly rate?
Cost of vaccinations $70. Reassurance that it’s not necessary – priceless.
“That California is ground zero for vaccine rejectionism is not a surprise to me or anyone else who’s paid attention to the issue of the anti-vaccine movement.”
Yeah count me in. California eh? I never knew a left wing state could be intelligent enough to avoid danger. Guess I was wrong. I never take those unnecessary killer vaccines. Speaking of killer vaccines and crazy people, CHRIS here is one for you. Just what you always wanted. Documented cases ofdeaths from vaccines. http://truthaboutgardasil.org/
It’s sad that Mr. Wu-Peddle’s posts could just as easily be Mark’s. Not that Mark will get the point.
@Chris
I am still waiting for you to tell us how the economics favor not vaccinating children. Until you come up with some sure fire evidence that treating sick children in hospitals is more cost effective than preventing diseases I can assume that you have lots of stock in medical supply companies
——————————–
Since I don’t subscribe to your socialist medical model, cost effectiveness of vaccination is meaningless. If I have to pay a $10 co-payment to avoid a $2 vaccine I’m fine with that. In the unlikely event I’d need real medical care, I have what economists like to call “insurance”. If these “insurance” companies (if there are any left after Frantz Fanon Jr. is done with the country) would like to charge those declining vaccination a higher premium so be it.
Melissa in post #207:
Melissa, it would be much easier to take your claims seriously if they were not simply ridiculous-sounding assertions. What evidence do you have to support the following claims you make:
(1) That 50 years ago (in 1960) doctors (which doctors?) actually said smoking was good for you.
(2) That 50 years ago (in 1960) doctors (which doctors?) actually said soda pop (one here assumes you mean stuff like Coca-Cola) was good for children.
Most diseases you will catch do not come from bats, squirrels, or any animal biting you. They will come from the person ahead of you in the public washroom inadvertently leaving germs on the stall door handle or the paper towel dispenser, or from the asymptomatic person shedding infectious agents standing in line nearby you at the cinema/bank/Eucharist line-up/whatever you go stand in line at, and that sort of thing.
The ‘vaccine-preventable diseases were on the way out’ claim is a flat-out lie that is easily dispelled (i.e. with a graph like this one: http://www.iayork.com/Images/2009/3-31-09/Measles.jpg),
Sid # 222:
(1) Throwing around buzzwords such as ‘socialist’ and ad hominems such as ‘Frantz Fanon Jr’ (as a stand-in for your current Prez, I daresay?) is not an acceptable substitute for actual evidence. Since the question is economic as well as medical surely you can cite an economics journal?
(2) Countries with somewhat more… what was that stupid buzzword again?… ah, yes, ‘socialist’! Anyway, countries with somewhat more ‘socialist’ health systems than the US seem to have the ability to get better health outcomes for less money spent. See, for example, research like http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/w717?ijkey=btmwgHzAr9YPo&keytype=ref&siteid=healthaff
If you are going to be playing fast and loose with your patients Dr. Jay, it would behove you to stay current on the relevant literature: http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Fulltext/2005/05001/Defining_Pertussis_Epidemiology__Clinical,.5.aspx
Pertussis is a vastly under-reported disease with an estimated 250K-3 million cases actually occurring annually in the U.S. Well tolerated you say? That appears to be a rather wrong assertion by you and your esteemed colleague Dr. Sears: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2680566/
And you can click on my name to review the stats for pertussis complications.
And this is a bad thing how? Does this make you feel uncomfortable because it flies in the face of your anti-vax advice to parents? Hopefully, they didn’t have to beg you for them. And its DTaP or Tdap Dr. Jay, DTP infers the whole-cell vaccine, no longer in use in the West.
Citation and example please.
Why is it cyclical Dr. Jay? I also explain this on my blog. And this year’s peak is more than moderate in California and 8 infant deaths already.
You had said in a previous comment that you have already had suspected cases but declined to do labs. Pertussis is a reportable disease you know. Do you not provide the best available practise for your patients or is it more convenient to be able to say you don’t have any cases of pertussis because you don’t bother to test? To give you some food for thought, antibiotics may not alter the course of the disease but they do prevent transmission. Do you consider such evidence for families with infants?
Oh Melissa, you’re embarrassing yourself.
Breastfeeding is definitely protective, but by no means a cure-all. It certainly does not protect against diseases such as whooping cough.
As an aside, I came across this old post on the abchomeopathy website from an antivax mother whose 3.5 year old son had whooping cough. She also had a 4 month old daughter and she was asking advice on what ‘remedies’ to provide so that her baby would avoid catching it. Of course the obvious happens. It’s an excrutiating read. She flippantly talks of the ‘blue spells’ when her daughter is struggling for breath:
http://abchomeopathy.com/forum2.php/22971/
It’s downright perverse not to vaccinate your child.
My 3 month old daughter is due for her 2nd round of DTaP next Friday, and that can’t come round soon enough.
Melissa – as Chis said: please stay away from infants if you have a cough.
And
H. Broderix Wu-Peddle of the Gölpost-Schifft Institute
did we have a lovely conversation at Showdogs a few weeks ago?
Wow. That sobered me up real quick. That was a really scary read. I need a drink…
Bloodletting, you say?
Ken, there just might be a THIRD pillar of Healthy Life that has yet to be revealed in my superempirical explorations…..
Whaddaya say….. pardner?
H. Broderix, my fine partner.
Some of my recent graduates have complained about the cleanup involved in my procedures. I have therefore been working on a new Quantum Bloodletting technique. Do you realize that at the quantum level the blood cells have a 50% probability of existing or not existing until you actually observer them?
With the correct mental discipline (and $7000 USD) I can teach my students how to make half of a person’s blood simply never to have existed!
Liz, I can’t say that I’ve had the pleasure…..
::ahem::
I mean, the pleasure of showing up yet another in an epic succession of DELUDED so-called “skeptics“!
MATERIALIST!!
“But having a reputation for reassuring rich people that it’s OK not to vaccinate their kids is surely what your reputation is based on – and hence your hourly rate?”
It’s like a free fire zone in here, Dave! Keep your helmets on and your heads down.
@AnthonyK Interestingly, my hourly rate is one of the lowest in town. I see fewer patients each hour because the topics I discuss with my patients take too long for anything less than a one hour visit. But, Orac, I am no longer driving a four-year-old car. (Remember that conversation?) I bought a new one a couple months ago.
Unless you all slow this down, we’re going to hit a record for comments/24 hours. 9,000,000 visitors by next week?
Again, the spirited conversation is educational and entertaining.
Best,
Jay
You’re onto some great HEALING, friend Ken.
According to these ultra-ancient papyri that one of my more gifted mediums is currently visualizing, the next iteration of your Ever-Unfolding Learning Spiral* will be the subquantum restorareplacementization of the missing half of their blood volume with megablood, which is resistant to both disease AND evil! It’s a goldmine!!! Er….. a HEALING ALL-NATURAL goldmine.**
* The secret of the EULS, and the fractal variations thereupon that fit each individual person like a Mandelbrot glove, is explicated in my Spinning Your Circle Into A Spiral (G-S I Press). Comes with a free circular keychain, which you bend into a spiral as the First SpinStep!!
** Free tip: make sure to set up a shell charity, to which you DONATE a good tithe of your take. Funnel that to the Caymans, and you’re good to go!
That sound like socialized medicine to me. Your not one of them communists, are you?
Actually, the keychain is a GPS location beacon that allows me to track each individual’s geographic predilections and sell the data en masse to Google.
Eat that, hippie!
Dear Jessica @107
Please accept my condolences on the death of your newborn daughter. The death of a child at any age, but especially a newborn, is tragic.
Ken – sadly my current lactating status precludes me from the soothing embrace of alcohol. Mind you my liver has been spared a great amount of pain due to the volume required to counteract that awful site.
Dr. Jay:
I see no reason to believe your whining when you cannot even get the name of the vaccine correct. You really need to upgrade your medical education or retire.
The vaccine has a fundamental flaw and lacks ACT. ACT is found in wild pertussis (non-vaccine strain) and not in the vaccine. It allows the host to clear it form their lungs. Vaccinated individuals can’t clear and now become carriers/reserv…oirs of infection
This is all in the medical literature and if you want links to studies many here can send them to you.
Pertussis has been on the rise for ages. It has never been eradicated. Pertussis only killed 133 people from 1995-2003. Not very many. The burden of death has been switched to those younger than 6 months. Transplacental antibodies are no longer present in vaccinated mothers, this passive immunity from mom to baby protected their newborn and vaccination destroyed this.
The fact is Petussis vaccine has been used religiously and the incidence still increases. Vaccinated adults walk around with waning immunity and they now become the largest group becoming infected with lagging coughs more than two weeks and pass this on to newborns along with vaccinated siblings.
As an aside, I came across this old post on the abchomeopathy website from an antivax mother whose 3.5 year old son had whooping cough.
In which story the magical sodium ascorbate cleared things right up. I’m surprised it took 225 posts and a redirection, with no sign yet of the “BUT THE VACCINE DOESN’T PREVENT TRANSMISSION!!!” pertussis card.
Dear Dr. Jay:
Just like in any other business, when you sell things for more than you pay for them, you make more money. Vaccines are one of those things.
Please explain how you do that, since most of the pedes/family practice docs I know know full well that insurance reimbursement for vaccination & well-baby visits are a cost burden to their practices. Of course I live in an expensive area..but so do you, Dr. Jay.
I hesitate to say this, given the previous conversations, but I do have an MBA.
****topic change****
A very very truncated conversation: one of the issues driving the conversation about paying for health care in the US is how criminally perverse the cost of basic health services has become. I just paid $30.00 out of pocket for the flu vaccine, through a local full-service grocery store. If I’d done it through my insurance, I’d have had a $15.00 co-pay, + some reimbursement from my insurance company, + probably $10.00 of some clerk’s time scheduling the appointment + the overhead for my health care provider’s time + my wait time at the clinic + 3 or 4 mailed notices from the insurance company… it’s insane!
A few bad apples… sorry for the broad brush.
“Just like in any other business, when you sell things for more than you pay for them, you make more money. Vaccines are one of those things.
Please explain how you do that, since most of the pedes/family practice docs I know know full well that insurance reimbursement for vaccination & well-baby visits are a cost burden to their practices. Of course I live in an expensive area..but so do you, Dr. Jay.
I hesitate to say this, given the previous conversations, but I do have an MBA.”
Liz, nice to see you here. Your peds/FP friends are not being candid with you. If in fact, the vaccines and well child care are “loss leaders” or a “cost burden” they’re not running their practices too well. Insurance companies reimburse the cost of vaccines, a small profit margin and a cost of administration.
@Chris Most of us old docs still call it a “DPT.” You’re neither an MD nor old so there’d be no way for you to know that.
@John Well said. Please know that your facts will soon be attacked, twisted and ignored if they don’t fit into the perseveration of the mass of posters here.
Best,
Jay
Liz, Dr. Jay does not take insurance. He can charge whatever he wants for the vaccines, which is probably why he has so few that are fully vaccinated.
“So in this world where “People” refuse to believe anyone with knowledge or expertise, including those who’ve dedicated their lives to medical research and public health, they’re supposed to turn to…who?
Some Guy With A Website who sells supplements out of his garage?”
I’m not saying they SHOULD turn to the guy selling supplements out of his garage, but that’s the kind of thing that happens in an atmosphere like this. I don’t think people “refuse” to believe anyone with knowledge or expertise. I think they just don’t trust establishment figures–at least not to the extent they used to. When it comes to medical issues like the safety of vaccines, I think most people still have a fair amount of trust in their personal doctors (though a lot of people see doctors as shills for the pharmaceutical industry). If the system morphs into some kind of huge state-run health-care scheme where you rarely see the same doctor twice, the level of trust is going sink even further.
“Yes, it all comes down to trust – either trust the agencies that openly report even the least likely risks of vaccines, and attempt to take corrective action, or trust the people who have not the slightest knowledge of how vaccines work. Which seems like a a better idea to you?”
People here seem to think I’m arguing against vaccines. I’m not. As for your question, the answer is obvious, but the reality is that a lot of people have lost faith in these agencies. They think they’re lying or they think they’ve been bought off or whatever. THey just don’t believe them. And it isn’t just a case of not trusting corporate or government or medical authorities. A lot of people see them as malevolent.
Personally, I think the only logical response to a situation where you don’t trust the established authorities is to simply suspend judgment, but people really aren’t wired that way. If they lose faith in one authority, they turn to another, maybe the guy with the website who sells supplements out of his garage. A lot of people find him more credible than the established authorities BECAUSE he isn’t an established authority. This breakdown in trust in traditional institutions and authorities is real and it’s spreading. I predict that you’re going to see the numbers of people refusing vaccinations to keep growing despite the assurances of perfectly legitimate scientists and doctors who are sincerely interested in public health. And, yes, it will probably lead to serious outbreaks that could have been prevented.
“…an issue with one vaccine does not damn all vaccines. Plus if you read it percolated through a journalist you will miss vital information. Especially since no one who understands science would ever say any medical procedure is 100% safe. That is a classic anti-vax Nirvana fallacy. Stop whining and read what Orac wrote just before this article. And do make sure you are current with tetanus immunity.”
I guess I’m not making myself clear. I never said an issue with one vaccine damns all vaccines. I’m not arguing against vaccines. I’m trying to describe why I think people are avoiding vaccinations. They’re making decisions based on their perception of risk and that perception is shaped, in part, by stories like the ones I cited. Most people aren’t going to do the research necessary to get at the “vital information.” They’re not going to read medical journals. If they did, they wouldn’t understand them. You’re looking at this from the perspective of a scientist. Most people aren’t scientists. How would they know if they found the vital information? They depend on medical professionals to make those judgments and if they don’t trust the medical professionals, it doesn’t matter if the professionals are telling the truth.
“…you appear here, amid a particularly frenzied troll attack, and argue that people who put our children’s health at risk (and their own of course) by refusing vaccination actually have a point? Based on Daily Mail articles, and news that a government might have withdrawn a vaccine to investigate safety fears?”
Calm down. I wasn’t even aware that I had landed in a “frenzied troll attack.” Do you get a lot of them here? That would explain the level of hostility, I guess. I’m not a regular reader.
THis is all I’m trying to say:
Vaccines have side effects. Some are more serious than others. Vaccines get contaminated. They get recalled. Stories about side effects and recalls appear in the news all the time. Sometimes the papers get the facts all wrong or leave important information out, then other sources blow them out of proportion for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter. The facts don’t matter. People read these stories and get worried. They don’t trust the establishment. Most of them aren’t scientists. They depend on medical authorities for their information and if they don’t trust the medical authorities, they end up making decisions based on their perception of their own personal risk. Or rather on risk avoidance. All I’ve been trying to say from the beginning is that these decisions aren’t necessarily irrational. That’s all. If you want to fix the situation, you’ve got to restore trust in the system and legitimate authority. How you do that, I don’t know.
“Really? You have some secret cure for ear infections that doesn’t involve antibiotics?
I mean a real CURE. Not some, “let them be mostly miserable for a week and hope it goes away.”
My wife has her own otoscope, but she is not good at recognizing ear infections in humans. Given that ear infections have accounted for most of our fever problems, I want them treated.
@Pablo Just started to read the posts and probably should resist this opportunity, but I just can’t.
“Watchful waiting” is acceptable and even recommended treatment for otitis media. Ear infections resolve at a very similar rate with or without antibiotics. There’s a body of research showing that treating early with antibiotics increases the chances of getting future ear infections and that these may have resistant bacterial sources.
The topic of pediatrics does not have to be your strong suit but being this far off puts you in the same category you like to place me!
Jay
“Liz, Dr. Jay does not take insurance. He can charge whatever he wants for the vaccines, which is probably why he has so few that are fully vaccinated.”
@Chris Now you’re just being plain silly.
I’m interested to see how you respond to Gary Carson. I’ll sit on my hands for a few hours and come back.
Jay
Gary said, “Vaccines get contaminated. They get recalled.”
Yes, but food gets contaminated (hello eggs) and cribs/ strollers/toys get recalled all the time. No one is lobbying against the use of cribs/strollers/toys for their kids, or suggesting that their kids don’t eat. People seem to go to extremes with vaccines that they don’t necessarily go to with other things.
FDA approved, prescription drugs are the 3rd leading cause of death right now in the USA. Enough said.
@gary Carsons 188
“None of this is happening in a vacuum. It reflects the general breakdown in faith in all of our institutions. I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to medical treatments like vaccines, especially when so many people (myself included) believe that the watchdog agencies have been captured by the corporations they are supposed to regulate. Restoring faith in the system is essential. How you do that, I don’t know.”
Well for starters we could demand something from our elected officials to prevent the round robin game of industry insiders guarding the industry they just worked for and are apt to return to. But the trust is broken, and we may need something new. Just like in a relationship, sometimes the trust gets broken and it can never be mended, so that relationship ends and a new one begins. I would love to see the FDA scrapped, and have a scientific advisory board free of any and all business interests. Would it be enough? I doubt it when journalism as it is now practiced is about fear mongering for profit. Hard for anybody to garner trust when people are always shouting “don’t trust them”.
I wish the natural health people would get a clue as to the underbelly of that industry. I work in sales , I have managed health food stores. Let me tell you naturalists something you don’t want to hear. The majority of the products are crap and don’t even contain what they claim they do. For instance many oregano oil products are simply olive oil spike with carvachol, a constituent of wild oregano that has some biological activity. Others are thyme, while rich in the polyphenol thymol it has little effect on bacteria, but does damage to the liver. Or how about the beta glucan products out there. A couple brands actually have the real stuff, the rest are just loaded with nutritional yeast, which contains beta glucans, but not in a form that is available to our bodies. I’ve seen test results on companies products that claim to be cod liver oil, guess what, they are just vegetable oil and vitamin A & D no Omega 3’s even though they claim it on the label. I have a list of practices and companies in the natural health world, outside of homeopathy and flower essences, that don’t make their label claims nor have the research to support their claims. It is sad and it pisses me off. But if anybody on this board wanted to start a company selling supplements tomorrow, you could. You wouldn’t even have to have a tableting machine nor a bottler, you just pay some company to slap your label on their product and trust that it contains only what you want in it, and not the stuff that was in the mixing bin, the encapsulating machine etc.prior to your batch of goods.
@John, The lack of ACT is only one problem with the pertussis vaccine construct. There are numerous other antigens that can elicit better protection and this may be a good candidate: http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.0020065
No it hasn’t been on the rise even with the vast under-reporting of the disease, both prevalence and case-fatalities have decreased: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/G/cases&deaths.pdf
This is also very inaccurate. Pre-vaccine, more than 50% of cases occured in infants LESS THAN 1 year old and more than 90% of deaths occurred in infants LESS THAN 1 year old. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10447027
Also, transplacental antibodies are still in question but don’t appear to be very effective and are short-lived, estimated to be less than 2 months. But given that the vaccine does not prevent infection, mothers are still given boosts by wild-type. So mass vaccination has not interfered with this at all.
Adults and adolescents have always been a major reservoir since wild-type infection only confers ~12 years of full or partial immunity (range 4-20 years). It has only been fairly recently confronted that the vaccine protection wears off much more quickly than previously thought and we are getting better at diagnosing pertussis. Even as flawed as the acellular vaccine is, there is simply no question that its use has reduced the burden and economic loss of pertussis disease.
Dr. Jay, if you actually knew what facts were, you wouldn’t have to caution others.
Melissa in #248,
Taking lessons from the ugh troll, are we? Too bad, you can be so much more (entertaining, thought-provoking, whatever).
There are two responses to that canard.
The first is that one of the reasons iatrogenic death is a leading cause of death is because modern medicine (you know, the kind you hate so much) has done a rather superb job of eliminating or attenuating the others.
The second is this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAyMYdQcwV4 (the guy who posted the video indicates his sources if you google ‘deadly doctor gambit’ – I would post link but I can’t recall how many trips the moderation filter and I don’t want to do that)
Melissa @ 248:
Cite?
@Melissa
Not quite enough said. You need to provide a citation for your stat. According to the CDC, these were the leading causes of death in 2007:
I haven’t read through all the comments, but addressing the vaccine profit issue…it looks like a mixed bag from what I can find.
DTap…not so profitable… http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba655
H1N1 Flu…pretty profitable… http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-20/novartis-profit-rises-on-h1n1-flu-vaccine-revenue-update1-.html
@Jay
Perhaps you should work on correcting your vocabulary, then, to avoid confusion. Using the correct terms is very important, especially considering that DPT is quite different from DTaP, which is also a different vaccine than Tdap.
Excellent cites Science Mom @ 81!!
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
http://www.surveyorhealth.com/meds/why-care/3rd-leading-cause-of-death
prescription drugs third leading cause of death
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
http://www.surveyorhealth.com/meds/why-care/3rd-leading-cause-of-death
prescription drugs third leading cause of death
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
http://www.surveyorhealth.com/meds/why-care/3rd-leading-cause-of-death
prescription drugs third leading cause of death
@ H. Broderix Wu-Peddle of the Golpost-Schifft Institute: I am employed by a certain *highly-placed* individual of nearly *limitless* influence, who, I believe, would be most heartily entertained by your, er…. ideas. Be assured that you would be compensated in an extremely generous manner and would experience the unrestrained luxury and mindlessly decadent opulence that few can even imagine. We realize that you are much too intelligent and resourceful to decline such an extraordinary offer, so we’ll send the vehicle ’round to fetch you posthaste. Yours, D.
@John #238
This is a new one on me so a quick Google gives me…
Pertussis Toxin and Adenylate Cyclase Toxin Provide a One-Two Punch for Establishment of Bordetella pertussis
Infection of the Respiratory Tract
INFECTION AND IMMUNITY, May 2005, p. 2698â2703
John, what are you talking about? Reference?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@Jay #242
Care to step up to the plate on this one Jay seeing as you seem familiar with it?
I can hardly wrap my mind around this sentence – I had to read it three or four times. She talks as if diseases are some abstract, external enemy, that might be nice to fight if we can do it conveniently, rather than an enormous cause of damage in themselves. Scientifically and historically clueless.
OOOOOOH! CHRIS! You are getting hammered. What’s wrong little stalker buddy? What’s wrong? This site is goooood tonight! Sit back and enjoy the show folks.
Thanks Pete @254.
The ignorance, arrogance and just plain ingratitude of someone who can say something like this would just be annoying if the wide dissemination of such views weren’t putting so many real people at real risk.
Hey, asshole, how’d you like a time machine trip back a hundred or two years before these vaccination programs, or most of modern medicine, existed? Or maybe just a quick flight to a Third World country where most of the population still doesn’t get enough or any vaccinations or modern medical care? You’d likely be screaming pretty soon for some of the good ol’ medical science whose life-saving effects you take for granted now in your sheltered, blinkered little life.
Shit-for-brains.
Orac,
How many people sent you the story?
Hey MPW…..How about a good old nutrition, sanitation, pure clean water, hygiene??? ever think that played a role?
Once again Orac, Dr Jay is clearly DESPERATE for acceptance here. Talk about wanting to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. And have his cake and eat it. I really believe that deep down he knows all the stuff JB, Jenny, Kirby et al spout is crap but he’s got rather firmly emeshed with it. I guess being on Oprah and hanging out with a Playboy bunny at rallies must make a man feel pretty special. But come on Jay. You know what’s right. Walk away from the whole celebrity she-bang, embrace some science, enjoy genuine acceptance here amongst the rational community, and give the health of the world’s children a much needed shot in the arm!
My parents grew up when polio was a real concern. Nutrition, sanitation, water, and hygiene weren’t much different then as now, but there was still an epidemic that didn’t clear up until the Salk vaccine was introduced. Article here.
Dr. Jay, you have admitted to not taking insurance. Reminding folks of that is not “silly”, and it explains how come you are not affected like the rest of pediatricians in California on lack of insurance reimbursements.
As far as you not remembering the name of the vaccine, especially with the Tdap being available: I have stopped calling Macy’s the “Bon Marche” for quite a while, and that name change happened after the DTaP replaced the DTP.
You really ought to update your medical education. Or retire.
As far as Garry Carson is concerned, I have responded to him enough. He is a concern troll that does not understand the responses to his rather nonsensical comments. He claims to not be anti-vax (just like you), but is echoing all of the silly arguments that have been debunked multiple times on this blog. So he can just dig himself deeper, just like you. Along with the vocabulary impaired paranoid electronics technician who has a stunted non-autosome chromosome when compared to mine.
Melissa:
You are a liar.
Now I am going to back to watching Torchwood’s last season, Children of Earth, where aliens want one out of ten of this planet’s children or they will kill everyone. Kind of interesting on the moral questions, especially since at least that many children did not make it past age five a little over a century ago. And one out of three died early about 150 years ago. Interesting that the population would benefit if 10% of the children went away was brought up by one character.
So folks, do you really want us to back to what it was like at the turn of the twentieth century? Be like the family of the owner of the oldest house on its original foundation in British Columbia, where only four out of seven children survived” And without a mother after the birth and death of seventh child, she died aged 31. (I went to the Royal BC Museum a couple of days ago) By the way, Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken died in the house in 1920 when he was 96 years old.
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/chiropractic_health_care/64085
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
The CDC is corrupt. Studies are hidden, or never published, and i need to go to bed, I have to get up with kids in a few hours. BUT Chris you are a liar. See we can both say that.
Chris
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/chiropractic_health_care/64085
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
The CDC is corrupt. Studies are hidden, or never published, and I need to go to bed, I have to get up with kids in a few hours.
Chris
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/chiropractic_health_care/64085
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
The CDC is corrupt. Studies are hidden, or never published, and I need to go to bed, I have to get up with kids in a few hours.
Chris
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/chiropractic_health_care/64085
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
The CDC is corrupt. Studies are hidden, or never published, and I need to go to bed, I have to get up with kids in a few hours.
Chris
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/chiropractic_health_care/64085
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
The CDC is corrupt. Studies are hidden, or never published, and I need to go to bed, I have to get up with kids in a few hours.
Chris
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/chiropractic_health_care/64085
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
The CDC is corrupt. Studies are hidden, or never published, and I need to go to bed, I have to get up with kids in a few hours.
It’s rather obvious that on the one hand Jay Gordon appears to always have ample time to jump on any anti-vaxx bandwagon passing through this blog, but on the other, not enough time to clearly answer any pertinent question put to him.
Except “the vaccine charts” don’t show that at all, Melissa (if by “vaccine charts” you mean the tables showing statistics like incidence and mortality for those diseases which are now vaccine-preventable.) It’s a common anti-vax myth, but if you ever looked at the statistics and actually understood what you were seeing, you’d know that what you claimed about the statistics isn’t true.
What those statistics actually show is that even before the vaccine, mortality had decreased. That doesn’t mean “the diseases were almost gone”; that would be incidence decreasing. A decrease in mortality means people were still getting the diseases but that with improved medical care, some cases that would have previously ended in death did not. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t end in brain damage, deafness, blindness, partial paralysis, sterility, or other such fun things. Vaccines on the other hand prevented cases that would have ended in death/brain damage/maiming from even starting.
You know what one of the major differences is between people who act intelligently and those who act stupidly, Sharron?
The people who act intelligently learn from it when things don’t go as they expected.
You asked the set of questions you copied from some antivax website. I’ll bet the website probably told you “no vaccine advocate can answer these questions!! just ask these questions and you’ll stump them!!” So you asked your questions and you found to your shock that the website lied to you, that the questions didn’t stump us in the least.
The most intelligent reaction to that would be if you asked yourself “Man, if these antivax websites are lying to me about what ‘stumpers’ these questions are and how they’ll totally flabbergast vaccine advocates … what else are they lying to me about??”
Not-so-intelligent reactions include kvetching about the form of the answer and shifting the goalposts by suddenly demanding an explanation for other diseases that at the current time no good evidence links to the subject at hand. (I know. I know. You’re going to post a thousand and one links which all claim they “prove” a connection between vaccines and cancer and auto-immune diseases. But, see, the problem is, those sites are the same ones that tell you lies like “these nine questions will stump any vaccine advocate!” and “[Vaccine advocates] believe that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganism [sic] and that the only things that can save people from viral infections are vaccines”* (that would be Natural News, which you cited in your very first comment to this blog.) Trying to figure out why they’re lying to you and what else they’re lying to you about is a far more productive use of time than trying to defend them.
* One doesn’t even have to believe that vaccines actually work to understand why this is such a howler. Just understanding the principle on which vaccines work will make it clear why this claim of Adams’ is such a pathetic falsehood.
Oh, crud… the Torchwood story is pulling a “let us have the government initiate an inoculation program.” AAARGH!!!!
Okay, I need to remember this is the same program where Jack Harkness re-animates fully from a piece of his head, some torso and an arm. What ever happened to the conservation of mass! Oh, wait, this is science fiction.
Sorry I am not really paying much attention, I missed the “vaccine chart” bit. Melissa A, here is something from http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Year…. Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . . 0.1
Can you please tell me what happened between 1960 and 1970 to cause the numbers of measles cases to drop so much? Some of our resident trolls like Little Augie, Sid Troll, MM and others are really befuddled by this list. Surely you have an intelligent answer!
Just be sure to provide real references, just like how you did (not) provide for what the third leading cause of death (by the way, did you know that the third leading cause of death in 1996 in ages 15 through 24 was suicide?).
I have to defend Dr. Jay a little here. ‘Wait and See’ is an acceptable, probably ideal, way to deal with otitis media. Ideally, you’d see the pt, diagnose OM, send home with a script for antibiotics, and if no better in 48 hours, fill it. However, once a pt has recurrent OM, little choice but to start the antibiotics. I’d also add that, if a patient has not be fully immunized against HIB and Pneumococcus, I’d be less likely to not treat with antibiotics, as these pathogens are common causes of both OM and meningitis, and OM can lead to meningitis.
I would like to know what immunization schedule you routinely use though Dr. Jay, as I haven’t seen you post it yet, despite multiple requests. I know you like to point out that you’ve never hospitalized a kid with measles (I have, unfortunately), but how about with HIB or Pneumococcus? I’d wager anything you have, esp with HIB. So do you recommend and give these vaccines routinely, since you’ve seen what those infections can do? I mean, since the introduction of the HIB vaccine, have you or haven’t you seen a decline in HIB meningitis (which routinely resulted in morbidity), epiglottitis, periorbital cellulitis, and occult bacteremia? So do you routinely recommend at least the HIB vaccine?
Paul in # 262:
I often find it strange that anyone dedicated to anti-vaccine activism would argue against vaccines using the developments you cite (nutrition, sanitation, hygeine, and availability of potable water) for three reasons.
First, of course, is that anti-vaccine sentiment is a subset of germ-theory denialism. In essence, one is, mistakenly or dishonestly, downplaying the dangers of routine exposure to microbial/viral pathogens and their toxic byproducts by suggesting that mass vaccination is useless/far less effective than documented.
With the exception of nutrition, the developments you bring up are also, strictly speaking, of no help if the germ-theory denialism is correct. Why should you worry about pathogens in your food or water, on your person, or in your waste if they aren’t dangerous enough to require vaccination to prevent disease or treatment to alleviate it?
I do not think that anti-vaccination activists think this through, but it is a logical extension of their argument.
Secondly, as outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in rich countries generally show, there are baseline rates of mortality and serious morbidities (blindness, deafness, orchitis, and so on, depending on the disease) which no amount of treatment appears capable of eliminating entirely but which vaccination does eliminate on account of the massive reduction in disease incidence it engenders. For example, please see the CDC information on pertussis: http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/clinical/complications.html
Thirdly, improvements in nutrition, sanitation, hygeine, etc. have been driven by the same advances in biological sciences that led to the development of vaccines, antibiotics, improvements in surgery, etc. that have taken place over the last 2-3 centuries. So if you are philosophically committed against vaccines (and especially if you are anti-vaccine on account of being an advocate for sCAM treatments like homeopathy) one wonders how you can justify treating science-based interventions like better hygeine as if they were somehow proofs against other science-based interventions.
Gary Carson: “People here seem to think I’m arguing against vaccines. I’m not…The facts don’t matter.”
The latter statement is part of the typical mindset of hardened antivaxers. With that, they’d happily accept you into the club.
“Personally, I think the only logical response to a situation where you don’t trust the established authorities is to simply suspend judgment”
So what does “suspend judgment” mean when it comes to protecting one’s children from preventable diseases? Just wait until some nebulous future, when you think it’s OK for people to listen to the knowledgeable folks whom you think it’s rational to dismiss as “malevolent”?
Sorry, Gary, I think it’s becoming clear that you’re heavily identified with an agenda of fomenting mistrust and outright hatred against “authorities”. Maybe you’re not particularly interested in vaccination, but you wouldn’t mind seeing a tremendously effective public health program into the trash if it “sent a message” to the leaders you resent.
@Chris
Some of our resident trolls like Little Augie, Sid Troll, MM and others are really befuddled by this list. Surely you have an intelligent answer!
—————–
Personally, I’ve never said vaccines didn’t cause a drop in the incidence of mild, generally harmless, usually benign, often asymptomatic childhood illnesses. However, it’s beyond dispute that the severity, as measured by mortality, of these illnesses declined dramatically well before the advent of the miracle of vaccinntion – and no, contrary to your wishful thinking, there are no other medical interventions that can take credit for the aforementioned decline
“Sorry, Gary, I think it’s becoming clear that you’re heavily identified with an agenda of fomenting mistrust and outright hatred against “authorities”. Maybe you’re not particularly interested in vaccination, but you wouldn’t mind seeing a tremendously effective public health program into the trash if it “sent a message” to the leaders you resent.”
(Italics added by me)
@Bacon Hyperbole. Illogical late night hyperbole. Try again in the morning.
Jay
@ Sid:
You’re a liar, Sid. I had a look at the chart Chris provided. The numbers vary wildly from point to point. Yet from 1965 to 1970 they drop by a factor of more than 5. By 1975 they halve again. They only declined dramatically after vaccination.
Good news:
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2010/08/waldorf-public-schools-face-lawsuit/
I say good riddance if all Waldorf schools were wiped off the face of the planet as the Steiner cult is anti-science and racist at its core.
Mind you, I have loads of friends and some of the people I love most went to Waldorf schools. Most are highly functional rationalists that had to study hard to get up to par. Some are bordering on the insane (one has a strong belief that fairies and Atlantis are real and then named a child Indigo). I bear with comments like ‘My world has magic in it – and it’s a better world’ even though the arrogance rubs me the wrong way.
But I can’t ignore the vaccination issue – when I get kids, I will be wary of letting them play with their un-vaccinated Steiner cultist counterparts.
The link between anthroposophy and homeopathy is interesting as well.
Sid Troll, if a disease can cause disability or death in one out of a thousand cases, how can you possibly call it “mild, generally harmless, usually benign, often asymptomatic childhood illnesses”?
Dude, what happened with the incidence of measles between 1960 and 1970? And how in the blue blazes can you call measles “mild”? Because I have presented you that chart more than once here and on ScienceBasedMedicine, and you have never really answered it satisfactorily. If you think you have and I missed (I admit to being fallible unlike the GodKing of Pediatrics Dr. Jay) your answer, please just post the link.
Now I will go back to the conclusion of Children of Earth, being interrupted by 19 year old son stopping by after work (apparently there are summer adult swims that go to 10pm, and he actually stayed to talk!).
@Chris No, insurance companies do not take me, you are correct. This would allow me to make more money vaccinating not less . . . And I still call it the DPT cuz the whole cell is gone.
Acarykoh #269 HIB and pneumococcus can cause OM but not as often as viruses and a lot of other organisms.
My vaccine schedule? Either none or just a DPT in the first 24 months of life. I think that there’s a greater risk vaccinating males under 24 months and would prefer not to unless there are special circumstances. I use very few other shots except the Varivax as a child approaches ten years because teen and adult pox are nasty and even a little dangerous especially during pregnancy. I give Hep B vaccines to nursing student/moms and dads, other medical moms and dads and higher risk teens and college kids.
I last saw bacterial meningitis in my office in a child in 1982-83. The reason for the great decrease from the seventies and eighties when HIB meningitis was relatively common? Vaccines!! No magic, just vaccines. This circular argument allows me the luxury of discussing shots with parents and considering public health second to their children’s health behind closed doors. No, no HIB or pneumococcal meningitis in the past 28 years. Healthy, healthy breastfeeding families. Obviously, if I were missing these kids . . . they’d be in trouble and I’d be out of a job. Epiglottitis, never. Periorbital cellulitis, maybe 2-3 kids in the past thirty years. Occult bacteremia? Probably just can’t recall those right now. Had to be a couple since the early eighties. No deaths. None. I used to recommend the HIB vaccine and still administer it from time to time upon request. Oh, Chris, I sell vaccines for cost plus a nurses fee. No profit. It seems right to me. I also give a fair number away. (I’m so cool.)
Best,
Jay
Well…there we have it. Paedatrician to the rich and famous and – he doesn’t “believe” in childhood vaccinations. Anti-vax in other words.
No surprise then, that he was stupid enough to let himself be ridiculed on “Penn & Teller”.
Perhaps someone here would like to supply the reccommended vaccine schedule that any responsible doctor will provide his young patients with, so we can compare it with DR Jay’s “I don’t think about infectious, preventable, childhood disaeses so that you don’t have to”.
Hey, I wonder what’ll happen when/if one of his unfortunate, unvaccinated patients gets one of the disaeses he reccommends not vaccinating against?
Dr Gordon at post 218: “Not vaccinating makes me less money, not more.” Dr Gordon at 277: “I sell vaccines for cost plus a nurses fee. No profit.”
Make up your mind: Do you make money off of vaccines or don’t you?
No deaths. None.
This is known as “luck”. I’ve never had an auto accident. Should I stop using seat belts since they’re clearly a waste of time for me?
I haven’t had time to read the whole thread as my fully-vaccinated child has a cold (must mean vaccines don’t work) and is a pain in the ass as a result. I just wanted to comment on Sharron.
I can’t speak for the US but in the UK, a family of four children under ten who had never had any contact with doctors or health professionals would be on Social Services At Risk register and an investigation of child neglect would be likely.
Seriously what kind of parent has NEVER taken their kid to a doctor. Have they never bumped their head on a coffee table, fallen off a climbing frame, coughed through the night with a cold that you know is just a cold but it worried you. Have they never had a temperature, diarrhoea, colic? Have they never eaten a crayon or put a piece of lego up their nose?
I know that I am both a) neurotic mother of an only and b) very privileged to live in a country where healthcare is free at the point of use but I just don’t understand a parent who is that blase and glib about their children’s health. I would think a parent whose kids had chickenpox and never took them to the doctor or at the very least the pharmacist, just doesn’t give a shit about their kids’ health.
Also the Bill Gates thing. Yeah. Microsoft are DESPERATE to reduce their consumer base.
@272 – Sid However, it’s beyond dispute that the severity, as measured by mortality, of these illnesses declined dramatically well before the advent of the miracle of vaccination – and no, contrary to your wishful thinking, there are no other medical interventions that can take credit for the aforementioned decline
Medical interventions that were developed or became widespread in the first half of the 20th century: IV fluids, antibiotics, O2, oral rehydration therapy. They cut the mortality rate, but not the morbidity rate for many infectious diseases.
It’s amazing what a few days or maybe a couple of weeks in ICU with oxygen cannulas and IV tubes can do for a sick child.
Two special cases:
Diphtheria – the first pre-vaccine medical intervention was intubation to keep an open airway, and a few years later anti-toxin was developed to prevent the cardiac failures from the toxin. Emil von Behring’s 1901 Nobel Prize was for developing the anti-toxin.
Cholera – Amazingly, all it takes is massive amounts of electrolytes (ORT) and most people can survive.
[TDM:Also the Bill Gates thing. Yeah. Microsoft are DESPERATE to reduce their consumer base.]
The people he’s talking about “neutering” is not Microsoft’s consumer base.
I’m not going to address the anti-vax arguments directly, but I know a thing or two about narcolepsy (my mother was narcoleptic, and I studied and watched carefully in case I or my younger brothers were someday diagnosed). I would like to read the entire study from Finland that showed that a certain vaccine was associated with a greater incidence of narcolepsy.
My mom would have been greatly heartened by any evidence that showed a rise in diagnosis of narcolepsy in teenagers. Why? Because historically, the time from onset of narcolepsy (more often than not in the early to mid teens) to the actual diagnosis was on the order of ten years or more. For my mother, it was eighteen years from the time she was labeled “lazy”, “unmotivated”, and “low functioning” to the time someone actually realized what was going on. A rise in diagnosis in teenagers would have clearly spelled, to her, increasing knowledge and acceptance of the disorder among regular doctors. I was curious and I asked my own doctor, a woman in her early 60s, if she would have known what was wrong with Mom if Mom consulted her today, and the first thing she said was, “We know more about that now.”
If the vaccine (an early childhood vaccine?) is associated with diagnosis (in adolescence) of narcolepsy, that’s a pretty long intervening time. The first thing I would think of doing is to rule out other experiences the affected teens have in common.
Still, I have to see a silver lining in the fact that these teens didn’t have to spend their entire young lives being put down and punished for having a disorder they didn’t understand.
There are other reasons to take a child to the doctor, too. Unrecognized poor vision or poor hearing, for instance, can severely impair school work, recreation, and even social interactions. Unilateral poor vision may lead to amblyopia, a permanent defect that could have been avoided. A good doctor can note such problems that would be missed even by an attentive parent. Doctors know what to look for.
@Speedwell: It sounds like the first thing that should be done is to determine whether the increase in the diagnosis of narcolepsy is associated with a true increase in the incidence of narcolepsy or if, like autism, the “increase” is due to heightened awareness and more correct diagnosis.
FYI, we have a sockpuppet infestation, beginning with Sharron. I leave it as an exercise for readers to figure out who Sharron’s sockpuppets are.
I will deal with it later when I have an opportunity.
Chris
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/chiropractic_health_care/64085
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
The CDC is corrupt. Studies are hidden, or never published, and I need to go to bed, I have to get up with kids in a few hours.
Orac – I’m very impressed with both the quality and quantity of “troll” in this thread. You’re obviously hitting some pretty big nerves to have generated such a venomous response.
And, I’m surprised augie hasn’t put in more of an appearance & would like to point out again his/her intellectual dishonesty in not holding the “trolls” to the same level of scrutiny as he/she does with the other side.
Overall, I get very discouraged that people can latch on to such cornball beliefs – when it was the success of medical science in general, and vaccines in particular, that give them the luxury to ignore said successes.
At least conventional medicine is put through a testing and study process – I would like those on the other side to point out a similar audit process for the “woo” procedures that they peddle – they can’t, because it doesn’t exist.
In the acupuncture thread, it was mentioned about how “Western” medicine automatically rejects “Eastern” studies – over the past decade there has been huge problems coming out of China, as new Chinese companies try to push new drugs and advancement to the marketplace. To say that much of that work is rushed and very slipshod is an understatement. If their medical advances are anything like the “leaded” toys or asbestos drywall, I would like “Western” researchers to go above and beyond in replicating results before latching on to the “next big thing” coming out of the Far East.
[Chris the I know everything because i’ve been around the world in the military: Sid Troll, if a disease can cause disability or death in one out of a thousand cases, how can you possibly call it “mild, generally harmless, usually benign, often asymptomatic childhood illnesses”?]
Before vaccines this number was approx. 1:8000. Now it’s 1:1000? What happened here? Did the vaccine make measles MORE deadly?
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf
“Before 1963, approximately 500,000 cases and 500 deaths were reported annually, with epidemic cycles every 2â3 years. However, the actual number of cases was estimated at 3â4 million annually.”
Anyone quoting only reported cases are being deceptive and using FEAR tactics. That is unethical. That is NOT informed consent. That is a LIE.
@266
@267
@268
“melissa” (oh, my wife’s going to be PISSED that you little lackwits used her name) and “paul”…
Sockpuppets. The stupid, it always trips itself up.
The seatbelt gambit. This may be the most favoRITE erroneous example that newbie sciencebloggers use.
[This is known as “luck”. I’ve never had an auto accident. Should I stop using seat belts since they’re clearly a waste of time for me?]
Let’s even it out so it is correctly useable. It changes the risk to benefit ratio if every child that is put into a carseat is exposed to a risk of seizure everytime you took them out. If this risk was inherit in just putting the child into the carseat before the car was even put into drive.
Would you make a law that some children have to die BECAUSE of the law?
Orac writes:
Heh, it was kind of a hint when “Melissa” and “Paul” quadruple-posted the identical comment.
Gary Carson, yeah, I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I’m old enough to remember when radio call-in shows were fora for large numbers of very sincere folks calling in to warn that fluoridation was the Trojan Horse of the Worldwide Communist Conspiracy. (Lessee, lotsa fluoridation now, not so much communism – guess that one worked out about as well as the statistics on thimerosal and autism.)
I seriously doubt the percentage of people who distrust government, scientists, etc., is any higher now than it has been in the past. It’s just that we have more opportunities to hear from them now that they are great users of the very science-based, government-driven technology they claim to distrust so much.
The strident insistence on myths (“The statistics show vaccines don’t reduce the incidence of disease – you could look it up!”) that are quickly shown to be utterly false if you bother to look up readily available references should demonstrate to you that many people are far more interested in defending cherished notions than in searching for facts that might interfere with them. This isn’t new either; after all, it was just a few years ago that the Vatican got around to saying Galileo had a point with this heliocentrism stuff.
Lastly, that bit about “I’ve never had the flu and I’m worried about complications, so I’m not getting a flu shot” is purest crap. (Substitute “car accident” and “wearing a seat belt” for “flu” and “getting a flu shot,” and see how convincing “Well, it’s never happened before” sounds to you.) Look up the actual numbers regarding percentages of people who’ve had any sort of problem with the shot, and balance that against the potential harm to yourself *and others* of remaining maximally susceptible.
@Orac: awww, c’mon, Orac. Let us play with Sharron and her sockpuppets. You can just killfile her for your own use, can’t you?
@Dr Jay: Boy, are you lucky. 30 years of practice and you never saw epiglottitis? I saw it about 4-5 times during my hospital nursing career and that only was for 15 years. It’s really scary to see a toddler like that. Do you have hospital privileges? Or do you let the hospitalists care for your patients so do “don’t see” the kids in the ER sitting leaning forward, drooling. (And gee, those kids were healthy, mostly breastfed (in fact, one was still breastfeeding at age 2) and middle/upper middle class white patients. I remember those kids because of the fear engendered in the staff. Some patients you never forget. Fortunately, I never saw a child die from epiglottitis as they were hospitalized and treated. Traumatic to parents and child but better than death. However, if you had offered those parents a vaccine to prevent HIB, I imagine they would have jumped at it.
Yuck.. Now I just feel dirty having read and responded to Dr Jay. He has succeeded in really disgusting me. My GP grandfather, who SAW babies/children die of vaccine preventable diseases, would have slapped him upside the head with a cluebat. He had no patience with idiots.
Yeah well when this blog doesn’t let you submit more then 4 comments at a time, thats why I tried with another name to see if it would post.Your f’in morons. All of you on this site are pharma shrills. You all really do suck at living, oh and another thing. Dont be mad because we decided not to take the poison shot. Tell Me why all the vaccinated kids are the ones getting sick with whooping cough. I love how you people love to claim the unvaxed are walking around with hidden germs thats going to infect the vaccinated. This is why you all sound like morons. Also some of you people on here how much are you paid to write on here for the pharmaceutical companies. I was an office manager for a psychiatrist. He works out of Detroit in the Fisher building. You doctors bend over backwards to push these drugs for those drug reps its so sad. All these people would come in there they didnt need to be on 10 medications but you know what they were, everyday he would have a waiting room of 40 people waiting for there drugs. You doctors need to get off your power trips and try to help people, Its very very sad.
[Melissa:
FDA approved, prescription drugs are the 3rd leading cause of death right now in the USA.
Chris : You are a liar.]
He then gives the a link to the CDC. Chris, some of those deaths from heart disease and cancer are iatrogenic or from medication.
I know you don’t want to hear it with your situational logic and ethics but it’s true. Calling someone a name doesn’t change THE facts to YOUR facts.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/284/1/95
“Institute of Medicine Medical Error Figures Are Not Exaggerated’
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/285/16/2114
“Medication Errors and Adverse Drug Events in Pediatric Inpatients”
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9728&page=26
And then there is death inherent in the procedure or drug itself. Even as prescibed or the procedure done properly.
vioxx anyone?
@214 Blood is a bio-hazard! And it’s going through your entire body. Did you know that most disease is distributed through your body by blood? The less blood in your body, the less disease in your body. Dispute that one!
And if you remove 30% or more of it very quickly, you will never get sick again!
*********************
@281, Dr. Jay The reason for the great decrease from the seventies and eighties when HIB meningitis was relatively common? Vaccines!! No magic, just vaccines. This circular argument allows me the luxury of discussing shots with parents and considering public health second to their children’s health behind closed doors.
So he’s perfectly willing to hide in the herd’s immunity. Parasite!
Oh, and Dr Jay: “…insurance companies do not take me…”
They won’t take you or you won’ bother to apply because you don’t meet the requirements they have and know they will turn you down? From my recollection of my forms when I was a participating provider, they didn’t ask if you gave vaccines or not. They DID ask if you carried malpractice insurance, your educational background, history of malpractice suits (if any), office hours, hospital privileges, things like that.
So why are you a non-insurance participating MD, except to make more money? Insurance companies reimburse non-par MDs at higher rates AND you can balance bill the members. If you don’t submit anything to the insurance companies, instead leaving that to your patients to do so if they desire, you can bill what you want.
Oh, and POOR YOU! You sold a 4 year old car and got a new one! Tell that to some people who are praying that their 12-15 year old car gets them to work every day…except they can’t go to work because their child got sick from one of your non-vaxed kids and they have to stay home with that child and not get paid since they don’t get sick pay. I have NO pity for you.
Melissa darling, before you go, please let us know the name of that Charm School you graduated from. Yo’ mamma must be PROUD.
[Chris: Some of our resident trolls like Little Augie, Sid Troll, MM and others are really befuddled by this list.]
No, no it hasn’t. That is an incidence rate chart, not a severity chart. I’m not deathly afraid of the measles like you are. Your universal projection of fear does not work on everyone. That frustrates you.
@melissa
An article that you may want to read and take heed of can be found here.
Julian “about to be educated” Frost:
[You’re a liar, Sid. I had a look at the chart Chris provided. The numbers vary wildly from point to point. Yet from 1965 to 1970 they drop by a factor of more than 5. By 1975 they halve again. They only declined dramatically after vaccination.]
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/reprint/52/Suppl_2/1.pdf
Science bloggers gathered for a fashion show:
No choice. Just the way they want it.
Augie, do a literature search, measles-related deaths, including SSPEs were also vastly under-reported. A fact that I have pointed out to you before.
@Melissa #306-
Where do I sign up to become a pharma shill?
And, how are vaccines poisonous?
@augie
Why do you cite Vioxx? What was it about the Vioxx scandal that means other medical interventions must be similarly corrupt?
@colmcq
I think it boils down to this:
1) Vioxx shows that corruption can happen to the detriment of patients.
2) We do not know what other similar cases are happening.
3) Therefore, all pharmaceuticals must be dangerous.
It’s the precautionary principle taken to an absurd degree, not to mention having some flawed logic in the process of going from 1 to 3.
Poor augie jack. Just weren’t getting the level of attention in this thread earlier youthat you feel you’re entitled to were. There, there dear…it’s alright now.
@Sauceress
Yeah. Nothing like equating the rationally-based to communist dictators to grab for some attention. It’s a bold move, but unfortunately augie’s been out-trolled in this thread.
Does anyone have a hypothesis on why this thread brought out all the dingbats? Was it picked up by sMothering.com or AoA or something?
Something had to send the loons this way.
My, shannon (or whatever her name is) has managed to flame out quite spectacularly!
To think, antivaxers being dishonest and spewing bile…. I thought I’d never see the day!
“In the U.S., up to 20 percent of persons with measles are hospitalized. Seventeen percent of measles cases have had one or more complications, such as ear infections, pneumonia, or diarrhea. Pneumonia is present in about six percent of cases and accounts for most of the measles deaths. Although less common, some persons with measles develop encephalitis (swelling of the lining of the brain), resulting in brain damage.”
Same source, Momma.
So there were 600,000 thousand hospitalizations per year from measles?
1/1000 deaths applied to 4 million cases is 4000 deaths when only 550 avg were reported. Wow, Momma. You’re stretching your “science” there. It could be 12,000 if used some other health authority numbers.
Either you’re in fantasy land on your numbers or medical observation is very poor to miss this many deaths.
Maybey you should reflect before you start parroting numbers like a CDC sheep.
@Pablo
I did a search for pages linking to this yesterday, but didn’t find any. The only thing we have is Liz Ditz’s speculation that she’s responsible, since she tweeted it yesterday. Dunno how many antivaxxers she has following her (don’t know why they would, since she’s pretty staunchly pro-vaccine), but it is a possible explanation.
[Why do you cite Vioxx? What was it about the Vioxx scandal that means other medical interventions must be similarly corrupt?]
I didn’t say medical deaths were because of corruption. It just so happens that standard medical care (in this case) was corrupt. Your logic is flawed which led to your flawed question. It happens. Science bloggers using logical fallacy while rigidly applying critical thinking judgement to those who oppose their arguments.
Todd speaks for himself against his own strawmen. He’s sort of a Don quixote. He sees things where they are not and calls his vision “science based”.
Since you are all so curious. It was on a few of the anti-vax fan pages on facebook.
Dr. Jay, you didn’t mention Rotavirus.* My son and older daughter were both breastfeeding when they were hospitalized for Rotavirus (I breastfed my three children for 18 months, 18 months and fifteen months respectively). My daughter was about 15 months old and went from 28 to 22 lbs. It took an hour to insert the life saving I.V.. She has a speech delay and I can never know if it was due to the electrolyte imbalance from dehydration.
Six months after she was born an oral Rotavirus vaccine was released (she was slightly too old for it). My youngest daughter got Rotavirus even though she had been vaccinated; and guess what, she threw up twice and had mild diarrhea for two days. Much preferable to hospitalization, don’t you think?
I am awed by the human immune system this is why I have vaccinated. I would love to know exactly why my son is autistic. I have fully vaccinated all of my children because I am convinced that there is no credible evidence for any vaccine-autism connection.
Death is not the only adverse side effect of these diseases. That is a fact that antivaxers seem to gloss over.
As for the troll infestation, IMHO it is just a case of one troll of many names and the regulars.
*Anecdotes, I know. After all, Orac needs to have to have a resident “warrior mommy” with infallible intuition. 😉
@Tsu Dho Nimh
Sorry, the medical miracles arrived to late to take credit for the plunging mortality.
Antibiotics, late 40s
The nasal cannula was invented by Wilfred Jones and patented in 1949 by his employer, BOC.
Dr. Gordon,
I know you focus on the individual patient, not on the health of the community as a whole. And based on what you’ve said, it appears you believe that vaccines have worked so well that for most individuals the risk of getting the vaccine-preventable disease and having some complication is so low that the risk of getting a vaccine-related complication is not justified.
We also know that with very rare exceptions these diseases have not been eradicated. Due to modern travel a person who is contagious but not necessarily symptomatic can easily carry these diseases to areas where there are no current cases.
With that in mind, I’d really appreciate your thoughts on these questions – both from an individual and a public health perspective based on a serious, vaccine preventable disease of choice:
– What number of cases per year is an acceptable number?
– What percentage of the population must be immunized in order to be sure we don’t have more than that number of cases?
– Supposing there were an outbreak of the disease in your area. Would it be worthwhile to immunize in that case? If so, how long would it take to immunize enough people to keep the disease from spreading?
Thanks.
@Dr Jay Gordon
Well I guess that just about settles it. No wait, what? Are really using this to justify your vaccination schedule? I feel a Fermi problem coming on: zero deaths in 30 years gives you a 95% confidence interval of between 0 and 3ish expected deaths in that time. Lets pretend that herd immunity is irrelevant, and all practices are equal. Lets say 100,000 family doctors in the US. Lets say that your schedule is implemented across the country. From the information you yourself are relying on, we can say that you probably aren’t responsible for more than 10,000 deaths a year. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dr. Jay Gordan, history’s greatest monster.
@Science Mom
Augie, do a literature search, measles-related deaths, including SSPEs were also vastly under-reported. A fact that I have pointed out to you before.
Do you have a link?
Wait here’s a link.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/02/how_not_to_report_science_and_medical_ne.php
Oh it’s just you
I can only think that you don’t use my username because you want your blather to remain unchallenged. A coward and an intellectual lightweight. A reading comprehension fail since I stated that measles mortalities were vastly under-reported as well and not all were hospitalised. Remember, not all have or had the luxury of medical care as you may have.
You should have consulted the literature as I suggested before you came out so cocksure and looking foolish. Causes of death were often attributed to the sequelae of measles, rather than measles itself. Surveys of the last U.S. epidemic revealed that up to 90% of measles-related mortalities went unreported as such.
hxxp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15106113
hxxp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15106092
hxxp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16235165
And that doesn’t even include SSPEs, which were also found to occur at a rate 10 times higher than previously thought.
Now augie, if you want to use my username and converse, I can do that. If you want to continue to be a fuckbucket, I will blithely treat you like the mental midget that you are. Your choice.
@Tsu…
True, antitoxin (a treatment requiring early application) did have an impact on diphtheria mortality (as did the toxin-antitoxin) – yet improved living conditions are also credited with a steady decline beginning in the late 1800s
@ Sid, are you also augie or just a pet? Why repeat myself when I have slung citations about before on the subject and have again?
I would think that having more information was a good thing to help formulate decisions, that is, if haven’t lodged yourself into the Dunning-Kruger corner.
@Sid, you said:
Perhaps this is just a matter of semantics, but society as a whole can use the force of law to make you do any number of things. It can require you to shovel snow from your sidewalk, for instance, which may provide you with minimal benefit but be beneficial to your neighbors. It can require you to observe certain “quiet hours” where you can’t use certain outdoor equipment that makes “too much” noise (I’ve heard tell some places forbid the use of leaf blowers altogether for noise reasons, though I don’t have a citation for that). It can require you to perform certain maintenance procedures, such as painting your house and mowing your lawn. If you are considered to be a danger to others due to contagious illness, it can quarantine you and anyone who happens to be well but was exposed to you.
So what’s so special about medicating you?
melissa and his/her other sockpuppets:
Again you are a liar. It wants you to wait a minute between posts, and since this is a busy blog especially with sockpuppets it can get hung up.
So we are not supposed to trust the CDC, yet we have to trust a website that pushes the use of poison (laetrile’s active ingredient is cyanide… there are many case reports in PubMed of cyanide poisonings from that “cancer cure”), a political group (“World Prosperity”?), and a chiropractor on a free webpage (suite101). Yeah, right!
If medication is so bad, go out in one of your many guises and stand in front of your local pharmacy and forcibly take the meds from people as they leave. I’d like to see you try to take insulin, antibiotics and beta-blockers away from everyone!
Now, are you even going to attempt to real data, or are silly websites all you have?
Dr. Jay, it really says it all when all health insurance carrier completely drops you. Some will drop a provider due to location, billing, and what not, but there are lots of health insurance companies. But to have all of them drop you, that takes a certain talent of monumental incompetence.
No deaths (and we are not counting the little girl with AIDS), eh? And you can’t claim hearing or vision loss due to illness, possibly because you must not check for those.
Chris you are funny maybe if people worked out, and ate healthy and they wouldn’t need insulin, and beta-blockers in the first place. The medical establishment is a vicious circle, and once in it your stuck for life using their products. Also vitamin b16 found in the pits of fruit does work to prevent cancer, but the medical establishment wouldn’t want you to know that because they cant profit from that. Promoting things like health is just bad business for them if they do.
Here is the problem with this nonsense>> Thinking that just because you come into contact with a germ or virus equals to getting that disease. IT DOES NOT. Whether or not you get sick or even die from a disease–all depends on the state of your immune system. The only thing a vaccine offers is an anti-body. An anti-body does not equal immunity. So to go around saying all the un-vaxed kids or adults for that matter…(how many adults keep up their booster shots?)…are causing other kids to get pertussis is a bunch of non-scientific propaganda to get the kids vaxed. If a child dies from pertussis it is because their own immune system is not working at optimal and an underlying illness is causes issues for that child to fight it off properly. You health in your own hands. Take care of your gut (where your immune system is built up). Need to proof…look at CDC’s own studies below–
“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. (N Engl J Med 1987; 316:771â4.)
“â¨http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198703263161303â¨â¨
“This outbreak suggests that measles transmission may persist in some settings despite appropriate implementation of the current measles elimination strategy.
“â¨http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/126/3/438
â¨â¨”A sudden increase in cases reflecting a pertussis outbreak in the Netherlands in 1996 (5) could not be explained by a decrease in vaccination coverage, which remained stable at 96% for at least three vaccinations in the first year of life. Until January 1999, children were vaccinated at 3, 4, 5, and 11 months of age with a diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and inactivated polio vaccine. In 1999, the schedule changed, and vaccine was administered at 2, 3, 4, and 11 months of age. The vaccine used meets international standards; no sign of an abrupt or gradual deterioration of vaccine quality, as determined at product release by the mouse protection test, was found.â¨
âhttp://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol6no4/demelker.htmâ¨â¨”All the children in the day-care centers had been immunized in infancy with all four doses of Pasteur diphtheria-tetanus toxoid pertussis (DTP) vaccine, which includes a booster dose at 12 months of age. The Pasteur vaccine contains 1 immunization dose (ID) …of purified diphtheria toxoid, 1 ID of purified tetanus toxoid, and >4 IU of B. pertussis. All family members of the infant were also fully vaccinated with four doses of DTP. The infant had received only the first dose of vaccine at 2 months of age.””We also observed that DPT vaccine does not fully protect children against the level of clinical disease defined by WHO. Our results indicate that children ages 5-6 years and possibly younger, ages 2-3 years, play a role as silent reservoirs in the transmission of pertussis in the community. More studies are needed to find the immunologic basis of protection against infection and colonization and thus an effective way to eliminate…
“â¨http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol6no5/srugo.htm
Melissa, are you saying that my son’s genetic thickening of the heart muscle (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) is due to not working out when he was fourteen? Are you saying that the twelve year old girl who died from that at a middle school track meet the week he was diagnosed got it from not working out?
Are you also saying that Diabetes Type 1 is from not working out? (be careful, I was specific with the type)
Are you saying that getting a strep infection is from not working out?
Not only are you a liar, you are very very stupid.
@Melissa
Lifestyle changes do next to nothing for Type 1 diabetes. If they did not use insulin, they would die a rather painful, needless death. Depending on severity, Type 2 diabetes can be managed with lifestyle changes. So, what do you say to those with Type 1?
Citation needed.
Funny. My doctor recommends eating healthy, avoiding things like smoking and alcohol and exercising. I’ve heard similar stories from other people on this and other blogs. My physician also prefers to take a “wait and watch” approach when possible, rather than simply throwing drugs at a problem.
(Caveat: My experiences represent an n=1 and should not be taken as absolute proof that all doctors are like this.)
You’re right “Melissa” when children get type one diabetes it is their fault for not being healthy enough. They made their pancreas fail by eating non-organic foods and not getting exercise.
Dealing with it without insulin is a great idea.
Also, idiot melissa, it was dubbed “Vitamin B-17.” One quick case report: Severe cyanide toxicity from ‘vitamin supplements’.
And yes it is in the seeds of fruit. That is so when animals eat the fruit, they avoid the seeds so that a new tree will grow. Do you also suggest people eat the castor beans because they are “natural.” Don’t, or you will have Homeland Security at your door.
There’s no such thing as “Vitamin B16”. You don’t even know what a vitamin is.
Just like the medical establishment keeps the fact that immunization and public health measures prevent disease a big secret because it’s bad for business.
Go be stupid someplace else.
Another question for Jay Gordon–
If your unvaccinated patients come down with the symptoms of something that might be contagious (such as measles or pertussis), do you have them come to the office, and risk infecting each other and anyone they pass on the way? Or do you make house calls, with gloves and mask so you don’t become a disease vector yourself?
Some parents who don’t vaccinate are counting on herd immunity (and some will even say so). Do you warn those parents that visiting your office is a health risk, because their children will be exposed to infection from other unvaccinated children? Yes, there’s some risk just going out on the street, but you and they are choosing not to think about that: the risk is greater in a waiting room full of sick children who lack the same immunities.
MBA Melissa – you really are a festering pile of stupid, aren’t you? You are an expert on medicine, yet you can’t spell and punctuate; you claim your kids never get ill, but say that when they do you won’t take them to the doctor, and then you spurt the nonsense that doctors are all in it only for money; you lie and distort – and sock-puppet, apparently -and you promote nonsense that makes people ill.
You are a disgrace to oxygen metabolism.
Please don’t have any more children.
You don’t deserve to produce life.
How many children died of untreated childhood-onset diabetes before insulin was available as a treatment, moron?
Gotta go folks. Time to get ready for another small vacation with Dear Hubby. This time we are heading over the mountains to visit some wineries, and take a boat trip on a big lake that starts in the desert and ends up in the mountains. I hope to bring home a box of fresh peaches from my freezer.
Have fun with the sock puppets. (oh, and just for their benefit, Little Augie is an adolescent who is very confused, I just ignore him and Sid Troll)
@Melissa
You excoriate the medical industry (both pharma companies and hospitals/doctors) as being in it for the money (without presenting any evidence that this is the case, by the way). A question for you, what are homeopaths, chiropractors and so forth in it for? Are you telling me that they do not charge for their services?
Tell me, who spends more money testing their products to a) make sure they are safe and b) make sure they are actually effective: pharmaceutical companies or “alt-med” hawkers?
Another question: some pharmaceutical companies own subsidiaries that sell “natural” remedies, like herbal supplements, vitamins and even homeopathic nostrums. Do you due extensive research on the products you use to ensure that they aren’t coming from teh e-ville Big PharmaTM?
sid tiny problem with measels where control through santation it should fallow the decreese seen in cholara and it doesn’t in both death and occurance. the curvers for choara and santation duplicate that seen in measels and vacantion.
@M. O’brien
The state’s ability to force you to do something doesn’t make that force legitimate.
————————–
It can require you to shovel snow from your sidewalk
I’ll get back to this one after lunch. It seems the laws vary
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/15/realestate/shoveling-snow-from-sidewalks.html?pagewanted=2
—————————–
It can require you to observe certain “quiet hours”
Legitimate, since these loud noise creates a nuisance
—————————–
It can require you to perform certain maintenance procedures, such as painting your house and mowing your lawn.
A little more questionable. A car along with an old refrigerator on the front lawn could be said to create a visual, as opposed to an auditory, nuisance but where does it end. Can the state tell you what color to paint the house, what kind of plants to grow etcetera…
We could also have olfactory nuisances: no skunk farm in the neighborhood for example.
—————————–
If you are considered to be a danger to others due to contagious illness, it can quarantine you and anyone who happens to be well but was exposed to you.
Legitimate since it protects you from people who could, because they’re actually sick – and apparently unwilling to remain home, and depending on the illness, harm you.
So what’s so special about medicating you?
I’m not infected and I’m not harming anyone. It’s you/the state who’d be harming me if I was opposed to being vaccinated
n=2, if you count me, Todd. I’ve mentioned my doctor’s approach many times. It is as you’ve said.
I’ve also talked about how when I listen to Dr Radio (XM Satellite radio), I often get annoyed by how much they continually talk about diet and nutrition. Shoot, they even have a dietitian that does her own show nowadays.
But then, what do the people at Dr Radio know about doctors…(they are all staff at NYU Medical Center)
Jay Gordon in comment #293: “My vaccine schedule? Either none or just a DPT in the first 24 months of life.”
Jay Gordon in a “Q&A” on his website (see the Feb. 10, 2010 entry):
“Why do you advocate staggering vaccines?
I think the immune system, like every other system of the body, matures slowly, and that it can better tolerate viral infection at older ages and better tolerate one virus at a time. The other thing is that vaccines all contain other ingredients. They contain aluminum, they contain tiny bits of formalin [an aqueous solution of formaldahyde]. So I recommend waiting as long as parents are comfortable, and vaccinating very, very slowly. I also ask parents to wait at least six months before the first vaccine. I prefer to wait a year. I have patients who choose to get no vaccines at all, and I support that. I have patients who choose to get almost no vaccines at all, and I support that. I have patients who choose every vaccine except this one or that one; I support that.” (bolding added)
Leaving aside all the other idiocy in Jay’s answer, he notes that his vaccine schedule involves giving vaccines “very, very slowly” – while in his comment here he reveals that his vaccine schedule for young children is no vaccines at all – or maybe just a single DPT shot (which leaves kids with far less than the protection they need – the American Academy of Pediatrics, of which Jay boasts of being a Fellow, calls for five doses between the ages of two months and 4-6 years).
Two questions, Jay: since your website statement about staggering vaccines conflicts with your admission here that your vaccine schedule for children is essentially zero, will you take down or revise the website statement and refrain from further public statements about how you have a staggered/reduced vaccine schedule?
And since you’ve admitted having a vaccine schedule for children that essentially consists of no vaccines at all, why did you get upset at Penn & Teller for showing you saying “Children should not be vaccinated”, since that reflects your actual view as stated here?
@ Todd, Pablo:
Make that n=3. She’s really quite emphatic about it, too.
@DB
Very interesting. I wonder how slowly is “very, very slowly”. The reason I ask is because if you wait too long between shots in some of the vaccines that require a series, the efficacy decreases.
N=4. (Or 5, since, as a woman, both my gynecologist and my GP have gotten on my back about diet, exercise, nutrition…geez.)
Penelope in # 162:
It’s a lie, plain and simple. It’s true that Polish Health Minister decided not to buy H1N1 vaccine on the basis that it’s not sufficiently tested. She did get a lot of flak for that, but in retrospective she was right – we lucked out and H1N1 were much more benign than we feared it to be.
But.
We still scored quite a lot of cases, fatalities including. Number of confirmed H1N1 deaths in Poland is 182. For example Germany had 258. The point is, there is over 81 millions Germans and only 38 millions of Poles. Hence, here in Poland we had _more_ H1N1 deaths per capita than Germany.
You know, Phil Plait is going to be here soon to accuse you guys of being dicks…
Scott writes:
I think you can make it n=x-1, where x is 99.9% of the number of licensed GPs and the 1 is Melissa.
Melissa, you’re helping to persuade people, but not in the way you would like. When you say “maybe if people worked out, and ate healthy and they wouldn’t need insulin,” it shows the lack of understanding of disease behind your opposition to insulin, vaccines and other medical treatments. After reading that, any sensible person would no more take medical advice from you than they’d take advice on how to fix cars from someone who didn’t know the difference between a Ford and a Chevy.
Just re-reading bits of this thread and it struck me: it must be such a bizarre thing to go through life believing everything that Mike Adams and his ilk say. Imagine seeing chemtrails in the sky, militant doctors with autism-causing vaccine guns, mind control drugs in the water supply, billionaires bent on genocide, and killer mutant plants everywhere you look. Then imagine that after you have wasted years of your life living in an unquestioning bubble about that stuff, you wander onto a blog that is CLEARLY wrong about this stuff. Then upon parroting the emotionally gripping rhetoric that convinced you to believe in this nonsense, you are essentially laughed out of the room while simultaneously being asked difficult questions that you can’t even begin to answer.
But you’re smart! You have a college degree! A masters even! How is this possible? These people must be paid handsomely to sit around and come up with seemingly intelligent responses to stump the people who KNOW the real truth. That’s it! It’s a conspiracy to make you look dumb and these people are all in on it! Just circle the wagons, close your eyes, go back to the nice websites and it will all go away…
Also vitamin b16 found in the pits of fruit does work to prevent cancer, but the medical establishment wouldn’t want you to know that because they cant profit from that.
Are you talking about laetrile?
When I read that, I can’t help thinking of Elmer Fudd.
Melissa (#341) states:
Uh, no.
I doubt that “working out” and “eating healthy” would prevent Type I diabetes, which is generally believed to be caused by Coxsackievirus B4.
(see: Dotta et al. Coxsackie B4 virus infection of beta cells and natural killer cell insulitis in recent-onset type 1 diabetic patients. PNAS. 2007 Mar 20;104(12):5115-20.)
I’m not up-to-date on the latest information about hypertension, but I know of a lot of people with hypertension who are fit and “eat healthy” – some are even vegans (which, I must confess, I don’t think fits the “eating healthy” definition). Also, I think that “beta blockers” are no longer the first-line treatment for hypertension.
Somehow, the simplistic approach to health and medicine, while is has great appeal, never seems to work out in the data.
Prometheus
That coffin really didn’t need another nail…..
Bruce McNeeely for the win….he scores!
Thread over.
“Bruce McNeeely for the win….he scores!”
I also think AnthonyK’s comment back up there in the fast and furious thick of the troll/sock infestation on this thread deserves a mention.
#119 AnthonyK
Now I’m imagining Ilpalazzo saying this, and Excel and Hyatt infiltrating it undercover. Heheheh.
@366
Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting phawmshills.
Gee, didn’t do a thing to overcome the genetics of my type 2 diabetes (mother and her brother have it). Hmm, maybe I should’ve stayed in shape by “working out” instead by working.
But wait a minute, it was an awful, money-grubbing evil medical doctor that detected the diabetes at an early stage. With counseling from a qualified diabetes center, I have controlled it without medication for over four years. Where’s the profit in that?
[Gee, didn’t do a thing to overcome the genetics of my type 2 diabetes (mother and her brother have it). Hmm, maybe I should’ve stayed in shape by “working out” instead by working.]
What gene is that again? Get out of here, bug guy. You should be in the gym.
Two years ago where I live, we had a whooping cough outbreak. It spread from a grade school to adults very rapidly. No one died but a lot of people got really sick.
The county health department got on it fast and managed to stop it.
Orac makes a good point. We are approaching a tipping point where vaccine coverage isn’t going to be high enough in many areas. And it looks like for now, we will just have to read about it in the newspapers. IIRC, dozens of kids died in the USA last year from whooping cough, a disease that had all but disappeared decades ago.
@Dangerous Bacon You’ve become illogical. I have always enjoyed spirited exchanges with you because you often have intelligent comments. You’ve stopped that in favor of ad hominem attacks and solipsism. Why?
Jay
I must repeat, if one reports every tree limb fatality as being related to the last or next fatality, one could declare an outbreak and get a separate division in departments of public health nationwide.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/nyregion/27zoo.html
Science. More science and less “correlation equals causation.”
Jay
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/06/27/2010-06-27_removal_efforts_cant_locate_every_rogue_limb.html
Talking to myself here . . . But remember this one?
Pertussis Deaths — United States, 2000
Editorial Note:
Despite record high vaccination coverage levels with 3 doses of DTaP among U.S. children aged 19–35 months (3), pertussis continues to cause fatal illness among vulnerable infants. During 1980–1998, the average annual incidence of reported pertussis cases and deaths among U.S. infants increased 50% (4).
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5128a2.htm
During 1980–1998, the average annual incidence of reported pertussis cases and deaths among U.S. infants increased 50% (4)…..
The increased morbidity and mortality occurred primarily among infants aged <4 months, who were too young to have received the recommended three DTaP vaccinations at ages 2, 4, and 6 months (1,2,4).
…..Timely vaccination of infants and children according to current recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices remains the most effective way for infants’ caregivers and health-care providers to prevent pertussis (2).
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5128a2.htm
During 1980–1998, the average annual incidence of reported pertussis cases and deaths among U.S. infants increased 50% (4).
The increased morbidity and mortality occurred primarily among infants aged less than 4 months, who were too young to have received the recommended three DTaP vaccinations at ages 2, 4, and 6 months (1,2,4).
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5128a2.htm
Jay – put down the rag and step away from that jar of ether.
Hunter S. Thompson
“I must repeat, if one reports every tree limb fatality as being related to the last or next fatality, one could declare an outbreak and get a separate division in departments of public health nationwide.”
I’m assuming Dr. Gordon’s comment is related to the pertussis outbreak. So, is he saying that reporting each case of pertussis as being related to other cases of pertussis is equivalent to reporting each tree limb fatality as being related to other tree limb fatalities? And that reporting an outbreak of a contagious disease is equivalent to declaring an outbreak of accidental death?
My mind boggles.
Jay, are you being intellectually dishonest and cherry picking your quotes. You know better than that. You know that you will get caught, as Lurkin showed.
Your choice quote talks about immunization rates among children, but later mentions this: “As illustrated by these two cases, adult and adolescent caregivers and other family members have been linked epidemiologically as sources of pertussis infection for vulnerable infants (10).” Unfortunately, the MMWR report didn’t mention what booster uptake rates were among adults and older children.
You should know better, Jay. Shame on you.
@ 382 LW: It’s a crummy analogy, too.
We’ve had a lot of down tree limbs in my state this year, smashed houses, roads blocked, etc. They are due to the same storms and odd weather that blows in off the ocean and affects everyone, combined with an infestation of a kind of invasive beetle that attacks the local hardwood species.
That is to say, each downed tree is not a unique incident, it happens because of environmental conditions (especially infection by a well-adapted parasite) common to the entire state.
Elementary school kids and Fox news anchors understand this. And in fact our department of forestry is quite concerned, because hardwood trees are valuable economic resources; the department of transportation is concerned as well, as they really don’t have the budget to pay out overtime for tree cleanup so often. They go around checking the trees for infection and require that people have an arborist see to dangerous trees. Firewood facilities and lumber mills are being inspected, any logs that are infected must be quarantined and treated.
Dr Jay, are you implying that people aren’t valuable therefore we shouldn’t be concerned about their welfare, or are you implying that the very serious financial cost of treating people for a case of pertussis should not be something the state concerns itself with? Or both? Either way, what an absolutely vile thing for a physician to say.
@381 & 384. Damn, Jay’s been busted.
Damn. Dr. Jay just incinerated another irony meter.
After all, what are Dr. Jay’s arguments in support of the scientifically discredited idea that vaccines cause autism but a massive case of arguing that correlation equals causation?
Dr. Jay, you owe me yet another irony meter. I’ll put it on your tab.
David, the check’s in the mail.
Just tweeted: AND today’s brand new judicial decision must not be exaggerated to the detriment of calm discussion either: http://bit.ly/9kZFhm
Correlation does not prove causation even if I agree with this individual MMR decision. I just think that side-effect-denialists need to calm down, too.
And, obviously, I cherry-picked nothing regarding the CDC year 2000 article: I included the link to the whole darned article!
“Side effects denialists?” Oh, Dr. Jay, you are a card! No one’s denying that vaccines can have side effects. We’re just pointing out to anti-vaccine loons that those side effects do not include autism.
[enkidu: @381 & 384. Damn, Jay’s been busted.]
enkidu, you don’t pay attention very much do you? Nor are you very skeptical.
[…..Timely vaccination of infants and children according to current recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices remains the most effective way for infants’ caregivers and health-care providers to prevent pertussis (2).]
Which means, “what we’ve been doing is not working but let’s try MORE of it.” In spite of high vaccination coverage these outbreaks still have been happening.
By the way, the “tree limb fatality/disease outbreak” analogy posts are meant to be read as semi-facetiously as possible. Hard to inject humor into this discussion, but the weight and incredibly serious topic of childhood fatalities speaks for itself and must allow occasionally lightening of the discussion.
Have a wonderful Sunday!
Off to the beach with my wonderful little dog and then to the soccer pitch where I look as out of my depth as I often do here! Then Sunday hospital rounds and check ups.
Best,
Jay
[Orac: We’re just pointing out to anti-vaccine loons that those side effects do not include autism.]
Oh, but they do.
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BANKS_CASE.pdf
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/eletters/123/1/e164#39891
“As a Neurologist that saw his normally developing daughter regress into autism before turning 2 years old, co-incident with immunization, I obviously have an inherently different bias than Offit, the wealthy vaccine inventor and patent holder. One in my situation must askâWhat is post-vaccination encephalopathy?”
“This leads to the next logical conclusion which is, since science does not understand post-vaccination encephalopathy, then we donât know what factors could increase or decrease its incidence (thimerosal, aluminum, live virus combinations, diet/metabolic factors, multiplicity of vaccines).”
@ augie, do you have access to the Poling’s medical records? I didn’t think so. Why does Poling conveniently leave out his daughter’s mitochondrial disorder and numerous illnesses prior to his observation?
I also noticed that you haven’t bothered to respond to measles-mortalities under-reporting. Try addressing the assertions at hand rather than trying to deflect attention from your ignorance of the literature.
Stupid comment. Tree limbs aren’t contagious pathogens. Whooping cough is caused by contagious bacteria which readily spread among susceptible populations and the Germ Theory of Disease was understood centuries ago.
Analogy fail.
@Augustine @390
You translated:
to mean:
You might want to re-read that, as the meaning is quite clear and not what you say it is.
pssst jack, your ideological desperation is showing.
Jay’s use of the term “side effects denialists” indicates how utterly clueless or dishonest he is. That is an inclusive or by the way.
Let’s do a comparison with AGW denialists.
The scientific consensus is among climate scientists is overwhelmingly in favor of the AGW hypothesis.
The scientific consensus among scientists with expertise in autism, immunology, pediatric medicine is against Jay’s “hypothesis”.
AGW denialists are often extremist libertarian ideologues who are upset because AGW demonstrates a fatal flaw in libertarian philosophy (the problem of externalities).
Antivaxers often are motivated by extremist libertarian ideology and ignore or minimize the effects on other people of not vaccinating.
AGW denialists invoke crazy conspiracy theories and make wild allegations of conflict of interest to explain why the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly against them while ignoring the blatant conflicts of interest of the Oil and Coal industry astroturf organizations and industry funded professional contrarians that deny AGW.
Antivaxxers invoke crazy conspiracy theories worthy of Doctor Strangelove‘s General Jack T. Ripper to explain why the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly against them while ignoring the blatant conflicts of interest of their Wakefield and the biomed quacks.
AGW denialism gains public legitimacy due to false balance “tell both sides” journalism from scientifically illiterate journalists.
The autism-vaccination “hypothesis” gains public legitimacy due to false balance “tell both sides” journalism from scientifically illiterate journalists.
However, if the world (especially the USA) ever starts to take AGW seriously, there will be a lot of surplus serious excavating equipment from the Athabasca Tarsands available for Jay to keep digging the hole he is in.
Raven @394 – It looks like you missed Big Blue’s comment @385 where he showed that falling tree limbs could be due to an infectious agent. Jay is even more wrong than you are suggesting he is.
Tree limbs media sensationalism equates nicely to pertussis outbreak sensationalism. I don’t don’t claim that the analogy is perfect or even great. Just that it’s worth a thought.
And, lighten up, you guys! It’s a lovely Sunday out there. Let’s go out and play!!
Best,
Jay
“Lighten up” meaning we should stop pointing out when you’re being stupid? That’s not going to happen. You say something stupid, people point out the problems, you back off and pretend you didn’t mean it, and then you get annoyed because people pointed out your mistakes. Let’s be grown-ups here, or try to. The grown-up response to being shown an error is to either apologize or thank the person, not blame them for listening to you in the first place.
Dr Jay,
Is your dog vaccinated? If so, why? If not, why not?
Dr Jay,
Why did you stop recommending the Hib vaccine? I almost died of orbital cellulitis caused by Hib as a two year old and it shocks me that you don’t recommend the vaccine.
Since it seems to matter to you, I was breastfed as an infant, my parents fed me a healthy diet, we lived in a clean orderly house. My dad is an MD, and he made sure I went to the ER right away when my eye looked a little funny.
Why do you leave kids in your practice vulnerable to such terrible things? How do you sleep at night?
“Antivaxxers often do cite the case of Hannah Poling, claiming that it is a known case where vaccines triggered autism. However, anyone who examines the case closely realizes that this is not so. Hannah Poling had a rare mitochondrial disease (how rare? only four other cases are known) which resulted in some autism-like symptoms.
It is not known why the mitochondrial disease abruptly got worse and produced the autism-like symptoms; the government elected to award compensation on the theory that it could have been a febrile reaction to vaccines that caused the abrupt worsening of the mitochondrial disorder. Consider that carefully. If a febrile reaction to vaccines could be the trigger for Hannah Poling’s autism-like symptoms, so could any other febrile reaction, including those induced by the diseases that vaccines protect against. Saying that what happened to Hannah Poling proves that vaccines cause autism is like saying “this child was in the middle of the street; a milk truck was unable to brake in time and the child was hit. This proves that milk is harmful to children.” What was actually harmful to the child was her pre-existing mitochondrial disorder.”
It’s news like these that make me a little more worried that someone out there really is trying to bring about the end of the world as we know it, and, no, I don’t feel fine.
Ant, Ant ,Ant
What you’ve said is nothing new. The old she would have been like that anyway. How very “scientific” of you. Very proveable, huh?
[Ant the reacher of alternative hypotheses otherwise known as “the guesser”…”which resulted in some autism-like symptoms.”]
as opposed to some definitive blood test that “other autistic kids get. Give me a break. Autism IS diagnoses by autism like symptoms.
You wannabe scientist are bad with faulty analogies
[is like saying “this child was in the middle of the street; a milk truck was unable to brake in time and the child was hit. This proves that milk is harmful to children.” What was actually harmful to the child was her pre-existing mitochondrial disorder.”]
Moral of the story. Milk trucks ARE dangerous for kids in the street. Just like vaccines are dangerous for kids with underlying disorders (and others)
So what you’re doing is blaming a child that was harmed from a vaccine by abdicating the vaccine. The child is inherently dangerous to vaccine program. There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with the vaccine. It was the faulty child. Disgusting way to spin it. But I don’t blame you. You’re just repeating the same thing your friends say.
Anything for the good fight. Collateral damage must be dehumanized.
GALLANT considers analogies carefully, looking at the components of the analogies and the relationships implied, in order to understand what the maker of the analogy is trying to convey.
GOOFUS merely grabs up terminology he doesn’t understand and analogical components he hasn’t even tried to understand, and hurls it around indiscriminately like a monkey flinging feces. As a result he gets completely distinct propositions like “milk is harmful to children” and “milk trucks are harmful to children” hopelessly confused.
@ Dr Jay: “By the way, the “tree limb fatality/disease outbreak” analogy posts are meant to be read as semi-facetiously as possible. Hard to inject humor into this discussion, but the weight and incredibly serious topic of childhood fatalities speaks for itself and must allow occasionally lightening of the discussion.”
So your argument is, “HAHAHAHA DEAD KYDZ SICK ADULTS BWAHAHAHA!”?
Having personally had pertussis as an adult after my childhood vaccinations wore off, and having caught it from an unvaccinated lady coughing all over the ER where I was waiting for my spouse to be treated for a back injury, I really DON’T have a sense of humor about that subject. Neither do parents whose children suffer through the disease or die from it. I know this for a fact, because I asked my granny and the old biddies in the nursing home with her–they have absolutely no sense of humor about how a third of their kids died.
Augie @ 390
Re-read the CDC report, especially the part that Todd highlighted as part of his post @ 384. Read it slowly if you have to, several times, until the lightbulb goes off.
BTW, I pay attention, and can actually comprehend what I read.
it seems that augustine, “dr” jay, and their ilk, ignore facts, demonstrate a complete lack of integrity, and show themselves to be habitual if not congenital liars, for one purpose: to prove to themselves that they are powerful enough to sway the behavior of others. they do not actually care about the health of others, but are trying to prove to themselves that they can “fight back” against some fictional bogeyman. (well, dr. jay may have some financial reason too, but that’s beside the point).
keep throwing facts at them: they’ll keep distorting and ignoring them and throwing out crap. calling them on it doesn’t faze them, likely because they are surrounded by folks who have already swallowed what they spray.
(I can predict augie’s response: “where are your facts? nothing you’ve said is supportable”.
augie, read your own posts and note how completely at crossroads your interpretations are to the reality that’s been quoted to you.)
“Why did you stop recommending the Hib vaccine? I almost died of orbital cellulitis caused by Hib as a two year old and it shocks me that you don’t recommend the vaccine.
Since it seems to matter to you, I was breastfed as an infant, my parents fed me a healthy diet, we lived in a clean orderly house. My dad is an MD, and he made sure I went to the ER right away when my eye looked a little funny.
Why do you leave kids in your practice vulnerable to such terrible things? How do you sleep at night?”
@ grenouille Not sure how old you are, but if you were two-years-old before the HIB vaccine you must be at least thirty-something. Maybe much older. Lots of medical problems and other dangerous things occurred before they were preventable. Infectious diseases treatable with antibiotics and automobile fatalities preventable with seat belts for instance.
The HIB vaccine is a great vaccine. It works, has virtually eliminated meningitis and epiglottitis from pediatric practice and was a godsend back in the early eighties. Now, however, it may have outlived it’s usefulness as a universally given shot rather than being a vaccine reserved for those at highest risk. That high risk group no longer includes healthy Western children. Still, I do not want to change public health policy regarding the HIB vaccine; I merely want parents to know the relative risks and benefits for their individual children. Then they can make an informed choice. Most would still choose the shot but some might not.
Vaccine side effect denialists are not real scientists. They just keep parroting the same tripe over and over again. I realize that the “denialist” label does apply to all of you here, just as no one here is dumb enough to label me “anti-vaccine” when I give vaccines every day and support their judicious use. But there are some denialists among you and they should be ferreted out and educated.
Best,
Jay
This set of waves is so fast and furious that more appear before I finish dealing with the previous.
@Big Blue Unintelligent, facile post with an obviously intentional misinterpretation of my comments. You need a dictionary. Also, I tend to doubt a 33% mortality rate amongst the children of the nursing home “biddies” as you so disparagingly call them. You have no facts. And no respect for your elders.
@dean Or should I call you “dean?” The “dr” is real but I won’t be “sensitive” about your use of the “quotation marks.” I only mildly object to your suggesting that I have a financial interest in not vaccinating. That’s just plain bad math. To repeat, doctors who claim that vaccines are not profitable are either fibbing or running their practices poorly. When you sell things for a higher price than you paid for them, you should be making a profit.
Unless someone says something unbelievably foolish, inaccurate or insulting, I’ll take the rest of the Sunday off. Actually . . . I guess those inevitabilities mean I better check back in a couple hours. Sadly, I occasionally find myself enjoying the same tone of voice that the rest of you use. I need a bath.
Best,
Jay
“when I give vaccines every day and support their judicious use.”
Just wondering..
Would there be any interest, from those authorities who keep an eye on the conduct of doctors in general, in a pediatrician who did have a blanket refusal to administer any and all vaccines?
So what is your high risk group criteria? What were the health statuses of the children that have and still do acquire invasive Hib disease?
Of course you don’t want others to stop vaccinating, which contradicts your ideas about Hib vaccination, given that ‘healthy Western children’ aren’t at risk for Hib disease. How else could you encourage parents to free-ride on herd immunity?
You’re a real piece of work Dr. Jay.
This is a disappointing blog article that is sensationalist, but very short on science.
Herd immunity was a theory promoted by Fox (NOT the television company!)
It is, however, still just a theory, and doesn’t hold true for all pathogens. Diptheria is a prime example where the theory doesn’t fit. Measles outbreaks in vaccinated populations should also raise a few eyebrows.
The topic of vaccination has reached pseudo-religious status – from those on BOTH sides.
Those against are wary of ALL vaccinations, while those in favour assert that they’re 100% safe, but refuse to put themselves on the line to back their opinions. (I say opinions, because until we can scientifically demonstrate how and why severe adverse reactions occur, making claims either way is only faith based)
Maybe a law change is in order? When something is completely safe, then any harm a patient experiences must have been intentional, and a felony has therefore been committed.
Would that instill confidence from the public?
Such accountability is past due it seems. The “all care and no accountability” stance needs adjusting
@Dr Gordon:
Oh ho! So, we finally get a step closer as to how you “judiciously” use the HiB vaccine: only for high risk children. So, what counts as “high risk children” in this context?
What advances have been made in the past 30 years for the treatment of meningitis and epiglottitis to make it better (risk/benefit wise) to treat them after they happen rather than to prevent them from happening in the first place?
To repeat, doctors who claim that vaccines are not profitable are either fibbing or running their practices poorly.
Hi Dr. Jay,
I’m curious. Could you shed some light on all of this for those of us who aren’t doctors? Could you run some real numbers for us?
Assume a family arranges an office visit for the sole purpose of getting their 4-year old current on immunizations prior to Kindergarten entry.
1 – What is the actual realistic income for a typical board-certified pediatrician who takes insurance for adminstering recommended immunizations? Please account for realistic actual reimbursement for the visit (the office visit, plus the vaccines) to the doctor.
2 – What are the real expenses?
Proportion of all the total educational expenses from total career hours practiced (undergrad, medical school, residency, etc., CME’s, board certfication, you get the idea).
Proportion of office overhead (rent, utilities, submitting claims, processing reimbursements, etc.).
Malpractice insurance.
Actual cost of the vaccines, and their related overhead.
Reasonable cost for Pediatrician’s time (plus compensation and benefits for the likely medical assistant or nurse) during the office visit.
Please give us some real numbers, and show us just how profitable it is to spend an office visit vaccinating for a pediatrician
“The “dr” is real …”
You may have passed courses, but you clearly failed anything to do with honesty, ethics, or possibly understanding, of the material.
Dr. Jay is clearly full of it. He claims that he didn’t cherry pick because he linked to the full document. Let’s recap, shall we?
Jay posted this quote:
The clear implication being that the pertussis vaccine in children wasn’t doing a whole hell of a lot. Taken out of context like that (apparently hoping that people wouldn’t actually follow the link) certainly makes it sound like immunizing children against pertussis doesn’t help much. Very deceptive and dishonest, Dr. Jay, considering what that very same article actually cited as the reason for the increased incidence in infants, namely:
Even though you posted the link, Dr. Jay, you still cherry picked your quote in a rather blatant attempt to spin the article to support your argument that the pertussis vaccine isn’t really important.
Bwahahahahaha! Seriously, Dr. Jay? Hold on. Let me catch my breath. Whew! That had my eyes tearing up. You should do stand-up instead of pediatrics, Jay. You’d make a killing. Well, maybe not more than you might be contributing to if you keep up your
anti-vaccinehand-waving ways.More soberly, though, what vaccine side effect denialists would those be? First, I suppose, you should define what you mean by a “vaccine side effect denialist”. Then I’m assuming that you can point out some concrete examples of such behavior.
As others have mentioned, define “those at highest risk”. So, your recommendation, then, is that except for people who meet that definition, everyone else should not bother with the vaccine, correct?
Let me tell you a little story, Jay. Not too long ago in a magical United Kingdom, there was a charming of manner, though vile and black of heart, man that we’ll call Shakefield. Now, he convinced the people of this land that the MMR vaccine caused problems in the poor, fragile little guts of their li’l ones and that those problems gave the li’l ones teh autismz. Oh, no! In fear, lest they lose their li’l ones to teh autismz, the people stopped immunizing against measles, mumps and rubella. Now, not long before all this happened, the rulers of this kingdom had announced that measles was no longer endemic to the land. However, when people stopped immunized out of the misplaced and misguided fear wrought by Shakefield, the total number of unimmunized li’l ones rose. It then happened that the li’l ones began to be infected by measles, thanks to the wonders of modern, international travel. It started slowly at first, but soon, the measles were able to infect enough li’l ones that it could survive and continue to spread throughout the kingdom. There were reservoirs everywhere in which the viruses could grow and multiple. So many, in fact, that the rulers had to deliver the stunning news to the people: measles was once again endemic. What had been eliminated had returned and was there to stay.
Now, Jay. What is the moral of this story as regards stopping immunization?
@333 Sid, O2 therapy is far older than the invention of the nasal cannula:
http://www.lakesidepress.com/pulmonary/papers/ox-hist/ox-hist-intro.html
http://www.perf2ndwind.org/html/news/2003/JanFeb/History%20of%20Oxygen%20Therapy.html
Oxygen tents: 1922
@333 Sid, O2 therapy is far older than the invention of the nasal cannula.
http://www.lakesidepress.com/pulmonary/papers/ox-hist/ox-hist-intro.html
http://www.perf2ndwind.org/html/news/2003/JanFeb/History%20of%20Oxygen%20Therapy.html
Oxygen tents: 1922
And the use of IV fluids is also old – it was used in the treatment of cholera in 1832. It didn’t get really successful until the late 1920s or so because they needed to understand a lot more bacteriology and physiology.
*******
And there are effective pre-1940s antibiotics mentioned in the medical books of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
I see that Jay Gordon has been busy not answering questions designed to enlighten us about his practice. I think you may have misread my inquiries, Jay – there’s nothing ad hominem about them. I’ll repeat them to give you another opportunity to respond.
Since your website statement about staggering vaccines conflicts with your admission here (post #293) that your vaccine schedule for children is essentially zero, will you take down or revise the website statement and refrain from further public statements about how you have a staggered/reduced vaccine schedule?
And since you’ve admitted having a vaccine schedule for children that essentially consists of no vaccines at all, why did you get upset at Penn & Teller for showing you saying “Children should not be vaccinated”, since that reflects your actual view as stated here?
Thanks in advance for responding.
Your recent remarks also raise a couple followup questions as others have noted.
Who are the “vaccine side effect denialists” you claim to recognize here, and what are examples of this alleged denialism? (references to your non-evidence based belief that vaccines cause autism do not count).
And I’d also like to know if you get your dog vaccinated against distemper, rabies, parvo etc. (I’d assume that rabies vaccine is legally mandated, but maybe California has an exemption if it’s against the doggie’s religion)?
Lastly, let me assure you that in spite of temptation, I will never close any remarks to you here with the phrase “and your little dog, too!” 🙂
Hope you had a nice day frolicking in the sunshine.
@Dangerous Bacon Yes, thanks, I will revise the vaccine content on my website to reflect my current views.
P&T cut off the first part of my sentence. You do not have to be a sound editing expert to hear that. They reversed the meaning of the sentence.
I support parents’ rights to vaccinate their children on a schedule which they feel is best for their individual child. I also support their right to give no vaccines at all. Public health and herd immunity are a part of any vaccination discussion I have with the parents of my patients.
Many of the people posting here imply or state outright that they deny the possibility of certain vaccine side effects. They are not selective nor staggered in their comments.
My dog has had the legally required vaccines. And I had a wonderful day today. I hope you did, too.
Best,
Jay
If that’s the case, it should be really easy for you to find an example, right?
@Dangerous Bacon Thanks for your help.
I will soon change all information on my website to reflect our discussions here.
How does this look to you? Feel free to email me privately if that works better.
Thanks.
Jay
@Dr Gordon:
Yes you also vaccinate children every day? You must serve an enormous number of children if you vaccinate children every day yet you give vaccines in so few circumstances.
Dr. Jay:
I think I understand your viewpoint, to a degree. But first I have to take you to task a bit. I find it completely unbelievable that you trained in the 80’s and saw no cases of HIB epiglottitis, periorbital cellulitis, occult bacteremia, or meningitis. I also take issue with the fact that you have only seen one case of bacterial meningitis in 30 years. This seems incredibly unlikely. The only way I can reconcile this is that you must employ a hospitalist that doesn’t keep you informed of your patients (likely), or you are the most fortunate doctor in any specialty that I have ever met. I mean, I know orthopedic surgeons that have had patients with meningitis.
I’m trying to understand your point on vaccines. I guess you feel the risk out weights the benefit. I think you believe that in your practice you spend more time with your patients (I believe that), and therefore that gives you more insight to how best to manage their health (not unreasonable). However, you admit the HIB vaccine is a success, it’s effective. Man, honestly, one doctor to another, I’d feel AWFUL if a kid I recommended no vaccine to died of said disease. I mean, quit my job, move to Fiji bad.
I was pondering Jay’s assertion that he’s seen no patients with complications from vaccine-preventable diseases (I’m paraphrasing, here) except maybe once in his practice. It got me to wondering: how many of his patient parents, when their kid gets sick, decide to take their kid to a different doctor for treatment, knowing that Jay operates so far outside the standard of care? That would certainly explain his “not seeing” them. The hospitalist hypothesis would work, as well.
That, of course, leads to another question: how many of his families switch to different doctors permanently due to his “brave maverick” stance?
BS! I’ll admit the only time I heard of Haemophilus influenzae type b was when I read the vaccine info sheet. That is until I was talking to a co-worker who was pregnant about vaccines. She told me the story of how her first son died of meningitis courtesy of the Hib bacteria. Perfectly healthy and beautiful toddler to dead in a matter of days. He died in 2005, a month shy of his 2nd birthday.
Maybe you would see them, Jay, if you uncovered your eyes and took your hands off your ears. When I started paying attention I started to see examples of children affected by vaccine preventable disease. Kind of like noticing all the red cars on the road when you are driving one.*
*Cue hand-wringing trolls calling me a hypocrite for not considering children “damaged” by imaginary “vaccine injury” (I am not talking about ones injured by real vaccine adverse effects).
Science Mom @413
I believe sociopath is the word you were looking for. Or was it parasite?.
Stop calling names, think harder, open your minds. You have, sitting in front of you, a person doing just that and you’re too myopic to see it.
All doctors as old as I am have seen the diseases you list. But, I have not seen bacterial meninigitis in a child since 1982 or 1983. The HIB vaccine did that for us all just as the small pox vaccine did it’s job well. Now, the possible side effects of the vaccines have to be measured against the extreme rarity (non-existence of small pox) of those two illnesses. Not a perfect parallel by any means.
No, Todd, parents don’t take their kids to other doctors to diagnosis HIB orbital cellulitis or meningitis. Do you think I’d still be”standing” if that occurred?? I do get plenty of second opinions from ID docs, eye docs, and every other specialty, but parents don’t run screaming from my care to see who might be better at diagnosing terrible infectious diseases. Please raise the quality of your thinking and your posts. They are just plain feeble.
To answer your question very specifically, I care for thousands of families and in an average year two or three families leave my practice. Usually they leave for geographic reasons, but occasionally over differences of opinion in pediatric care. If they left in droves over missed or misdiagnoses, I would not be in business. I work really hard and am just as good at what I do as Orac is at what he does.
Best,
Jay
MA @429, Yes those would work too.
What I find very telling is Dr. Jay’s refusal to answer any of the really hard questions that force him to think outside of his anecdotes and comfort zone. In other words, like real scientific methodology and shit. Instead, Dr. Jay likes to address those that he believes may be his allies, disregarding that many scientific discoveries and consensuses emerge from adversarial processes.
Oh still with this ridiculous assertion? They didn’t reverse the meaning of your statement Dr. Jay, stupid is as stupid does. You have had numerous opportunities to clarify yourself and offer what was edited that would make sense.
You refuse.
@Jay
Thanks for answering my idle, unimportant musings and ignoring my earlier, more substantial post. To wit:
* What is your definition of a “vaccine side effect denialist” (VSED)?
* You say that VSEDs exist here at RI. Please provide a concrete example of VSED behavior.
* What is your definition of “those at highest risk”?
* Am I correct that your recommendation is that except for people who meet that definition, everyone else should not bother with the vaccine?
I missed another characteristic of anti-vaxxers that is similar to AGW denialists.
AGW denialists like to point to a single snowstorm, season or location where the temperature has decreased while ignoring data over longer periods and and larger areas that indicates temperature is increasing.
Antivaxxer’s believe anecdotes and elective samples trump larger studies.
Notice how Jay calls us denialists while he uses every technique from the denialist playbook. The only question is whether he is completely unaware of his hypocrisy or he is being deliberately misleading.
Jay–
My question from Friday remains open. Maybe you didn’t see it on your way to the beach. I repeat:
If your unvaccinated patients come down with the symptoms of something that might be contagious (such as measles or pertussis), do you have them come to the office, and risk infecting each other and anyone they pass on the way? Or do you make house calls, with gloves and mask so you don’t become a disease vector yourself?
Some parents who don’t vaccinate are counting on herd immunity (and some will even say so). Do you warn those parents that visiting your office is a health risk, because their children will be exposed to infection from other unvaccinated children? Yes, there’s some risk just going out on the street, but you and they are choosing not to think about that: the risk is greater in a waiting room full of sick children who lack the same immunities.
[science Momma: I also noticed that you haven’t bothered to respond to measles-mortalities under-reporting. Try addressing the assertions at hand rather than trying to deflect attention from your ignorance of the literature.]
I’ve already addressed it. Your 1:1000 measles death fantansy still doesn’t hold up. Unless you think there were thousands of unreported measles deaths compated to the avg. 500. And if that’s so then you must admit our government has massive surveilance innaccuracies.
The HIB vaccine did that for us all just as the small pox vaccine did it’s job well. Now, the possible side effects of the vaccines have to be measured against the extreme rarity (non-existence of small pox) of those two illnesses. Not a perfect parallel by any means.
Not even close to a perfect parallel. Quite askew in fact. Small pox is gone from the wild thanks to the vaccine. Thanks to everyone who safely could getting the vaccine. If there is any chance at all of getting rid of Hib (and I must admit to having my doubts-a bacteria must be harder to get rid of permanently than a virus) then an ad hoc refusal to take the vaccine is the worst thing you could possibly do at this point.
Incidentally, “it’s” is short for it is, not the possessive. I rarely grammar cop, but that one bothers me for some reason. Possibly because of the meaning changing nature.
@Dianne
It depends on where the organism lives, what kinds of reservoirs it has. For example, polio, smallpox and measles only infect humans. So, vaccinate enough people, the last of the viruses “die out” and there’s no need to vaccinate anymore. Something like influenza, on the other hand, can infect birds, pigs and horses, so it is unlikely that we’ll ever be rid of it.
I’m not sure what the reservoirs are for pertussis, whether it only infects humans or if it can survive outside of humans for extended periods of time.
I agree, Todd. I’m just not sure about Hib’s reservoir status. I’m pretty sure measles, at least, maybe mumps and rubella as well, is/are human specific, meaning that elimination of these pathogens is within our reach…if it weren’t for the anti-vax movement. Tetanus is definitely not since it grows in soil. Foregoing the DTaP or at least the T part, though, is suicidally stupid.
Sorry about the double post. Could have sworn I only pushed submit once…but I guess I would have been wrong.
Todd W. writes:
Another species of Bordetella is responsible for the common disease “kennel cough” in dogs (most kennels and training facilities will require you to show proof of vaccination before they will board your dog), a related illness in pigs, and will even (rarely) infect humans. I surmise from this that even if the species that causes pertussis in humans died out, we’d still potentially be vulnerable in the case of mutations in species that infect animals. I suppose Michael Behe might disagree. 🙂
[I’m not sure what the reservoirs are for pertussis, whether it only infects humans or if it can survive outside of humans for extended periods of time.]
No need in guessing if pertussis can be eradicated.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=516
“Could we ever eradicate bacterial diseases? No way. Not ever.”
He also shows the explanation of how vaccinated individuals can also spread pertussis.
“Vaccine efficacy is 64% for cases defined by mild cough, 81% for paroxysmal cough, and 95% for severe clinical illness (11). Note the vaccine is good for attenuating the disease, not preventing it entirely.”
So good luck in trying to prove that it is the unvaccinated middle class waldorf school mothers who are at fault for causing death.
This is an argument coming from vaccine ideology not evidence.
Dr. Jay: “I work really hard and am just as good at what I do as Orac is at what he does.”
Stuart Smalley: “I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!”
I’m sorry, it just popped into my head.
Jay Gordon: “I will soon change all information on my website to reflect our discussions here.
How does this look to you?
I support parents’ rights to vaccinate their children on a schedule which they feel is best for their individual child.”
So, instead of the statement already up on your site declaring how you advocate a reduced/staggered vaccine schedule, you’d substitute even vaguer language, to avoid committing yourself in any way on the subject. That’s an improvement? What kind of guidance does that give parents visiting your site?
It’s hard to tell just what changes you might make in any case. True, you did remove the HIV denialist stuff you had up there before, but as I recall you told Orac that you’d stop hyping the formaldehyde VACCINE TOXIN nonsense, and there’s still scaremongering on that subject on your site.
You know, seeing as I (and numerous other minions) on this site are suspected by you of collecting payments from Big Pharma in order to push vaccines, why is it you expect me to edit your website for free? I should be paid what it’s worth. I expect a check in the mail for at least $1.37.
Jay: “Many of the people posting here imply or state outright that they deny the possibility of certain vaccine side effects.”
Again, who, and what are they “denying”, apart from your anecdotal “evidence” about vaccines causing autism?
Jay Gordon in a 2/16/09 Huffington Post article entitled “The Vaccine Court Was Wrong”: Vaccines as they are now manufactured and administered trigger autism in susceptible shildren.”
Jay Gordon is post #424 above: “I think that vaccines and other environmental âtriggersâ may lead to large side effects in genetically susceptible children and adults. I think that autism is one of those possible side effects. I abjure the concept that the connection between autism and vaccines is proven but insist that observations of experienced doctors and involved parents carry weight and constitute evidence.” (bolding added)
Um, Jay, are you going to appeal to the folks at HuffPo to edit your remarks there to reflect your newfound conviction that you’re unsure if vaccines cause autism?
How do you keep your myriad, conflicting and ever-changing opinions straight?
Jay: “My dog has had the legally required vaccines”
What’s “legally required” apart from rabies vaccine? Does that mean your dog is unprotected against other, serious and potentially fatal infectious diseases? Kennels around here will refuse to board a dog unless it’s had its recommended shots. Do you take your dog everywhere you go, or utilize the services of a kennel whose philosophies on vaccination match your own? (if the latter, I pity the poor dogs).
That’s simple, DB: AUTISM.
Don’t be fooled. This has been clear all the time: When Elmer Fudd here talks about “side effect deniers,” he means one thing and one thing only, and that is autism. It’s not that he thinks that we here deny the real side effects of vaccines. No, we deny the one big side effect that he insists occurs.
By calling it “side effect denials” he can pretend that he is just taking the high road and playing the “safer vaccines” card. He’s not. It is a blatent anti-vaccination ploy to try to avoid the issue.
And Jay, your crap about “using a vaccination schedule that parents feel is best” is bullshit. How do parents determine what is best? By listening to your imbecilic ramblings about all the side effects that vaccine proponents are refusing to tell them? I’m sure that really helps them make a great decision. Real decisions are only made when properly informed, and not when they are based on the ramblings of demonstratably blithering idiots.
You are deceitful piece of shit who uses fluffery to prey on the sensibilities of parents to boost your own ego. Go away.
Reading Dr. Jay Gordon makes my blood boil.
What constitutes a high risk child? So Japanese children should still get it? What about Australian or New Zealand children? How about Arabic children? What about Brazilian kids? And if so, WHY? How would you distinguish them from these so-called “Western children”. I was not born in North America, but I live here. Would you consider me a Western child? Do you have any idea how racist and bigoted your comment is? Your reasoning also will lead to a resurgence of Hib disease, sort of like WHO had polio nearly eradicated, then someone in West Africa freaked out about it, and now polio is back again. I have had the fortune of never seeing invasive Hib disease and really, I would like not to. However, given physicians like you, I may get the chance. Oh yeah.
I have a hard copy of the CDC Pink Book 11th edition on my desk. I looked up Hib. The first vaccine licensed for use was in 1985 and wasn’t effective in the under 2 year-old group. The conjugated vaccine was licensed in 1988 which can be use in the under 2 year-old group. Given that Hib would strike 1 in 200 kids in the US and two-thirds of those were under age 18 months, I would like to say simply that the man is full of hooey.
Hib’s only reservoir is humans per the CDC Pink Book.
If you go to the National Highway Traffice Safety Administration website, they have nice stats on how many people have died in the US each year in motor vehicle crashes. The last numbers from 2008 and 2009 (latter is estimated) are 37,261 and 33,963 respectively. Not injuries, DEATHS. Between 1988-2008 approximately 925 claims have been awarded to children harmed by vaccines. I look at those numbers and it seems blatantly clear to me that I put my child at greater danger every time I drive my child around than the danger my child faces with immunizations. So not immunizing my child makes no rational sense. However this isn’t about sense. This is about fear. Always has been, always will be.
No you haven’t addressed it augie and I posted 3 references. So you are too stupid/lazy to read them. There are problems with surveillance systems and that goes for deaths as well as cases dipshit. Saying otherwise doesn’t make it so; provide actual evidence.
Wow, so having to spent the day in bed because of some minor sickness, I read all of the posts, some of the linked contents and made my “informed decision”: I’m gonna vaccinate the crap out of myself and my (future) family! For all I can see, the trolls like augie and sharron don’t understand the least bit of science whatsoever and dodge every paper thrown at them in a way that makes me wonder if they are even capable of thinking about anything that doesn’t fit their pre-concieved views. And doctor Jay, who gave me a good laugh recently at P&T, obviously enjoys all the fame and attention he gets from standing out from the crowd of science based MDs… and all the money he gets from overprotective and plainly scared parents who do not understand what’s best for their (and everyone elses!) children. Shame on you, scumbag!
Thank you all for your feedback.
Bacon, I’m not unsure about the vaccine/autism connection, I just don’t think that it’s been proven to the satisfaction of most scientists. I think the evidence is there and my observational data and that of others is valuable, but the rigorous studies needed for proof have not been done. (I intentionally avoid quotation marks around the word proof.)
No, Dangerous Bacon, I don’t expect you to work for free. Seriously, though, your feedback is valuable and if you really want to stop giving me something for nothing, stop talking to me. I hope that doesn’t happen.
However, I would not miss Pablo’s vulgarity, Todd’s insults and lack of science nor some of the others’ comments completely lacking in civility. K0ilar, you stand out nicely in that offensive crowd. And you’ve also managed another fact-free post. Why?
Best,
Jay
but the rigorous studies needed for proof have not been done
I think they have; Madsen, Honda, Fombonne etc, large scale epidemiological studies that failed to find a link. If there is a link, it is vanishingly small.
best
c
Stop it gang! You’re upsetting Dr Jay, and he’s just been misrepresented on Penn & Teller, and it’s a travesty that you’re all making him out to be anti-vaccine, whereas all he does is not recommend them to his clients (his dog gets them though!)
So let’s all be nice to him, not call him a disreputable peddler of nonsense to rich parents, not call him a denier of public health responsiblity, or suggest that he puts personal celebrity above the real health of his charges.
And let’s really really, and most sincerely hope that one of his young patients doesn’t get sick from one of the disaeses that he says he thinks are so harmless…
Or if not, he may never come back to play again.
Besties!
Dr. Jay: “I’m not unsure about the vaccine/autism connection, I just don’t think that it’s been proven to the satisfaction of most scientists. I think the evidence is there and my observational data and that of others is valuable, but the rigorous studies needed for proof have not been done.”
I love how you just KNOW there is a connection even though “rigorous studies” have not been done. Maybe that’s why you are a crappy scientist… you have your conclusion determined before the experiments are done.
And where is this evidence that you speak of? Ancedotes on the web? Buried in a Hong Kong journal somewhere?
@Science Mom
I also noticed that you haven’t bothered to respond to measles-mortalities under-reporting. Try addressing the assertions at hand rather than trying to deflect attention from your ignorance of the literature.
———————-
Stop making things up!
Dr. Jay,
I was wondering if you had an estimate on the odds that a vaccine might cause autism (assuming that each child is equally likely to get autism from a/some vaccine/s). Also, in your personal experience, have you noticed any particular vaccine/s that you feel are more likely to cause autism than any others?
@Science Mom
I also noticed that you haven’t bothered to respond to measles-mortalities under-reporting. Try addressing the assertions at hand rather than trying to deflect attention from your ignorance of the literature.
———————-
Hmm, statements supported with relevant citations that you can’t be bothered to read. I guess you also reside in the alternate universe of stupid. Too bad, you were ~1/8 interesting.
Citations or figments of your imagination? If they exist let’s see them.
@ 337 moron.
@Dr Gordon:
HiB is so rare now precisely because of the vaccine, and unlike smallpox it hasn’t been eliminated from the wild, so reducing HiB vaccination would lead to a resurgence.
@Science Mom
Sorry I missed them. I did review all your posts looking for the blue text indicative of a link before questioning their existence. Apparently hxxp links donât appear in that way. Anyway they donât address anything about the pre-vaccine era.
Jay Gordon on HuffPo 2/16/09: “Vaccines as they are now manufactured and administered trigger autism in susceptible shildren.”
He’s sure!
Jay Gordon in post #424 above: “I think that vaccines and other environmental âtriggersâ may lead to large side effects in genetically susceptible children and adults. I think that autism is one of those possible side effects. I abjure the concept that the connection between autism and vaccines is proven”
Whoa, he’s not sure, it’s just possible.
Jay Gordon in post #449 above: “I’m not unsure about the vaccine/autism connection, I just don’t think that it’s been proven to the satisfaction of most scientists.”
Oops, he’s sure again! It’s those nasty scientists who are slow to grasp the significance of Jay’s anecdotes and those “bits of formalin”.
Remember that sidebar they used to run on the Rocky & Bullwinkle show, with a grand parade proceeding across the screen? After it had passed, there’d be an irritable janitor type cleaning up the ticker tape, elephant dung and other garbage.
Jay Gordon leaves behind so much refuse when he’s talking trash about vaccines, you’d need a whole army of maintenance men just to police his website and usual Internet hangouts and get his statements in some remote semblance of order and consistency.
Facts and logic – forget about it.
Maybe there’s a career to be had as Internet Woo Manager. You could sell your services to a variety of cranks and quacks, offering to police their sites daily to clean up grossly bizarre and conflicting statements before critics can preserve them in screenshots and the like, and embarrass them publicly.
The problem with this potential career angle is that for the most part, the cranks and quacks’ followers devotedly lap up even the most ridiculous and offensive arguments without appearing to notice the absence of logic and decency.
It’s probably an unbelivably rare occurrence, but every time one of Mike Adams’ groupies says “Mike, you’ve gone too far this time”, an angel gets his wings. 🙂
“To the satisfaction of most scientists”?
¿Qué??
@Jay
Let’s see, the only place that I lobbed an insult at you, Dr. Jay, was saying that you should do stand-up instead of pediatrics. And that, really, was rather tame. Other than that, all I’ve done is correct you on the name of a vaccine (it’s DTaP, not DPT…two different vaccines, y’know) and point out that you cherry picked a quote.
Oh, and then I asked some questions. In fact, since you hadn’t answered them, that was pretty much all that was in my last post. And I even used bullets to make them easier to read and answer. But, instead of actually answering questions, you choose to whine about people being mean and insulting (which is rather hypocritical, looking at some of your recent behavior here and in other threads).
So, Dr. Jay, how about being constructive for a change and answering these questions:
* What is your definition of a “vaccine side effect denialist” (VSED)?
* You say that VSEDs exist here at RI. Please provide a concrete example of VSED behavior.
* What is your definition of “those at highest risk”?
* Am I correct that your recommendation is that except for people who meet that definition, everyone else should not bother with the vaccine?
I did some checking in NC for vaccine requirements. I have an elementary-age child.
I’m so happy to say that there are no “personal belief” exemptions allowed. Religious exemptions require “bona fide” religious reasons for exemption. The state only has forms for medical exemptions, not religious–so those people need to write a letter.
So now, I’m going to try to find out if the state exemptions rules are really followed, or are they just “suggestions”.
Sometimes I’m proud to live in NC.
Do you also think that the sky is pink, 1+1=3, and the earth is flat? These positions are just as defensible.
Also, given the number of times you’ve been presented with the incontrovertible proof that you are grossly and completely wrong on all of these points, the only credible interpretations are (a) you’re deliberately lying through your teeth or (b) you’re so obsessed, with such a profound God complex, that you simply cannot conceive of any possibility you might ever be wrong and therefore cannot process any evidence to the contrary.
Which is it?
I’m not unsure about the vaccine/autism connection, I just don’t think that it’s been proven to the satisfaction of most scientists.
On the contrary, it’s been disproven to the satisfaction of most scientists. See references others have posted or just go to Medline. The studies are clear: no currently available vaccine has any connection to autism.
I think the evidence is there and my observational data and that of others is valuable, but the rigorous studies needed for proof have not been done.
Anecdote and uncontrolled observation can be useful but they can also be extremely misleading. I would urge you to treat your own observations with extreme skepticism and be wary of making any change to practice based on your own anecdotal observations alone. This is not meant as an insult to your abilities: I’d say the same to any practitioner or scientist. Including myself.
Better; next time please just ask.
Not only are you shifting the goalposts, but you are doing so to your own detriment. It is known that measles (diseases in general) reporting is much lower when it is circulating at higher rates. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/17240285 So, the most recent large U.S. outbreak is going to have had better morbidity and mortality reporting than pre-vaccine. If you were also better acquainted with measles pathology, this would make sense.
You seem to be taking a quite circuitous route to support your assertion that there were many more than the 500 measles related deaths per year in the pre-vaccine era. A such your is thesis remains unconvincing
Sid, you provide nothing more than unsupported drek. You haven’t even bothered to read the studies I cited and are taking this ridiculous tactic to deflect from that fact. You want just the facts, neatly provided for you in an abstract, ain’t going to happen. You also try to use the literature as a shotgun, it isn’t, it’s more of a roadmap. In order for you to be correct, measles reporting would have to have been better pre-vaccine, than post. Do you really believe that to be the case, even though we know it not to be?
I think we’ve reached an impasse – besides everyone else has moved on. Let’s pick this up during the next vaccine-related blog.
Trans: My butt has been thoroughly kicked.
Trans: Everyone else has moved on because they’ve seen this movie many times before.
Trans: With any luck, you’ll all have forgotten about this little exchange and I won’t have to answer any awkward questions..
@ TBM, for the win, yet again. Spot on mate, spot on.
I think this summarized Sid’s experience nicely
Trans: My butt has been thoroughly kicked.
yeah, take that you goalpost shifting twat.
@Science Mom
I was trying to be nice by letting you off the hook considering you had no support for your assertions. My mistake. So this is what you’ve said:
It is actually true Dave, measles cases (and deaths) were vastly under-reported in the pre-vaccine era and even post.
But where’s the evidence to support this recurring fantasy of yours??? And please don’t use a study of 11 people with SSPE in 1991 to support the idea that there were in the 60s vastly underreported measles deaths. And how do you define “vastly”
No, you weren’t being nice, you were being the usual shifty Sid. You don’t bother to read citations and then shift blame to the provider because it isn’t spoon-fed pabulum.
Shit you are thick. Read the citations I provided and follow their citations. The SSPE paper was included to demonstrate that SSPEs were ALSO underreported and have never been included in measles mortality estimates, they have a separate registry.
So please paste portions of the studies (that do not appear in the abstracts) that you have a problem with.
See, the below is an example of what scientists like to call a “citation”. Citations are used to support a point of contention arising during a debate or disagreement. Ideally the “citation” should, in some way, pertain to the aforementioned point of disagreement.
http://www.edcp.org/html/measles.cfm
In the pre-vaccine era in the United States, an estimated three to four million cases of measles occurred annually, and approximately 500,000 cases and 500 deaths were reported annually, with epidemic cycles every two to three years
Let’s try this. How many measles related deaths do you believe occurred each year prior to vaccination? And show your work.
Funny you would demand that, especially in light of the fact that I provided relevant citations with the methods included, when your own citation didn’t ‘show the work’. That is where you will fail each and every time when you just mine for something that you think supports your biases.
Again, provide excerpts from the citations I provided that you don’t believe are relevant to the pre-vaccine era that don’t appear in the abstracts. Would pre-vaccine measles mortality rates, say 1960 be a.)less than b.) equal to or c.) greater than those in say, 1990?
They’d be lower since the group affected in 1990 was poor and the age at which children were infected was younger – and those young children had inferior maternal antibodies due to universal vacciantion.
See Epidemiology & Prevention of Vaccine Preventable Diseases 3rd ed 1996
Page 95
Science Mom’s question needs a bit of clarification before it can be answered. By “mortality” rates, do you mean “deaths per ten thousand population”, “measles deaths as a percentage of all deaths in that age group” or “case fatality rate”?
The first two are probably pointless, since measles is not (yet) endemic in the US (and probably not yet in the UK, either) and certainly wasn’t in 1990. As a result, the number of measles cases – and thus measles deaths – will reflect random chance (a contagious case entering the country and encountering other susceptible individuals).
More important is the case fatality rate, which is 2 per 1000 cases in measles. Just to round out the figures, measles also has non-fatal complications like pneumonia (6% or 60 per 1000 cases) and encephalitis (1 per 1000 cases).
Sid and others of his ilk like to pretend that measles is a completely benign childhool illness and that it’s the vaccine that is the danger, but the data don’t support that conclusion. Measles is a “benign childhood illness” to the ~94% of children who are “only” sick for a couple of weeks, not to the 6% who end up with pneumonia or the 0.3% who die or suffer permanent neurological sequelae.
Sid may argue that the death rate wasn’t anything like 2 per 1000 in measles’ prime and maybe it wasn’t. It could be that recent outbreaks in the US and other developed countries have selectively affected the “weak”, artificially elevating the case fatality rate.
Certainly, one large group of people who don’t have immunity to measles are those with immune deficiencies, who would also be more likely to die from measles. Add to that the very young and the very old – always more susceptible to disease – and there is a plausible argument that the case fatality rate in a population where everybody – not just the sick, aged and infirm – gets wild type measles would be lower than what we’ve seen in recent outbreaks.
Still, whether measles has a case fatality rate of 2 per 1000 or 2 per 10,000, that is still higher than the fatality rate from the vaccine – currently less than 1 per 1,000,000.
Of course, there are those still clinging hopefully to the dead-parrot hypothesis that the measles vaccine causes autism.
Here’s something that Sid and “Dr. Jay” and the rest of the dead-parrot deniers apparently haven’t thought through (imagine my surprise) – if the vaccine is capable of causing serious side effects in children, imagine what full-on measles will do.
If – as “Dr. Jay” suspects, based not on “observational data” but his recollection of what that “data” might be if he ever bothered to go through his records – the measles vaccine causes autism in “susceptible children”, what would be their reaction to the actual disease?
Children currently get their first MMR vaccine at between 15 and 18 months of age. In the days of endemic measles, it wasn’t uncommon for children that age – especially if they had school-age siblings – to get measles. If these “susceptible children” that “Dr. Jay” hypothesises are becoming autistic from the vaccine strain, what will happen to them if they get measles?
Isn’t it at least possible that there is some outcome worse than autism?
Prometheus
Prometheus – I think the chemistry illiterate (ischemistic?) “Dr. Jay” would blame “toxins” in the vaccine – you know like formaldehyde or aluminum or maybe he would play it safe and not specify which one.
Science Mom, you cannot comprehend your links in context. Sid has shown you. Your friends know it. They are embarrassed for you . Promotheus is trying to help you out by steering the conversation away from your argument into something other argument.
I read your links. You’ve confused yourself.
No matter how many links you provide, if there were 4 million measles cases (prevacccine era) and the death rate were 1-3:1000 then there would be 4000-12,000 deaths not 500 per year. There would also have been over 600,000 thousand hospitalization from measles per year. Didn’t happen. Not even close. You have no evidence to support your fantasies. Zero. Zilch. It’s your own personal theory. Nothing wrong with that but you should expect to have your feet held to the fire just like those you burn yourself.
@430 The HIB vaccine did that for us all just as the small pox vaccine did it’s job well. Now, the possible side effects of the vaccines have to be measured against the extreme rarity (non-existence of small pox) of those two illnesses. Not a perfect parallel by any means.
The smallpox virus is extinct in the wild.
Is Haemophilus influenzae type B equally extinct, or is it still around in asymptomatic carriers? It’s an active disease in much of the world, so what’s to prevent someone from bringing it back and passing it on to an infant or toddler.
Ummm…ummm…sorry, Sid (and I say this with extrememe prejudice) but….
[wordfail]
Source: http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snsg-2581.pdf
Utter moron. You haven’t been taking your education boosters, have you?
And, of course:
Why could that be, do you think?
Or not, according to you.
Thought I’d repeat that. And the prevelance of autism is…
But how many of those 4.3 million were rich and white, the only people who really matter in Sid’s world.
Big fat 0 (+or – 0.001%) correct? Numbers exaggerated for idiot.
Correct?
Sorry, only half correct.
AnthonyK
Are you feeling alright?
Not necessarily. Did poor people not exist before the administration of widespread measles vaccination? What emphasis do you place on the poor and why? Also, why are you using a reference that is 14 years and 7 (almost 8) editions out and not quoting the relevant passage?
As for transplacental immunity, very short-lived and did not seem to have an impact upon infant case-fatality rates (per 1000 cases) as evidenced by a survey done from 1971-1975 (plenty of pre-vaccine maternal antibody) which was 5.38 as opposed to 3.90 from the 1987-1992 measles outbreak. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1619577/?tool=pubmed and Acute Measles Mortality (link in post 337)
The highest case fatality rate (per 1000) was not in infants less than 1 year old either, see Table 3 in Acute Measles Mortality in the U.S. 1987-2002. Now Sid, how many measles fatalities have there been in the U.S. in the last decade?
@449 Dr Jay
You see, I wasn’t very sure about my post and the offensiveness it contained myself and felt a bit bad, especially if it should be enough for you to leave this conversation, which was never what I intented. I didn’t have a lot of time to write it though and was already enfuriated with the thickness of some other posters here (augie, I’m looking at you) and that made me lose it a bit.
Anyways I want to explain why I do hold a grudge against you as well:
In this conversation, as in so many others I witnessed, we have two opposing fronts: Science and Conspiracy.
We have brilliant people here, like science mom, who argue on the bases of facts and concordance. And we have indoctrinated fanatics, like augustine, who wont have any of it but rather fall back on hearsay and conspiracy. Now, fortunately, professionals are usually agreeing with the rational group, a fact which keeps the irrational group rather small and unimportant, but they in turn always have THE ONE (or few):
THE ONE historian who says the holocaust didn’t happen.
THE ONE ex-NASA official who says nobody ever went to the moon.
THE ONE geologist who says the world is 6000 years old.
THE ONE ex-Air Force guy who says he knows about UFOs.
THE ONE biologist who says evolution is fake.
THE ONE… do you get the pattern?
Unfortunately it seems to me, that you became (at least in the US) THE ONE MD who says that Vaccines are bad. And some people actually believe you! Now what makes you stand out from the crowd is this: Although creating a more rational society would be much easier without the loons, it doesn’t really matter what people believe about the moon-landings, evolution, UFOs etc. But it DOES matter what people believe about vaccination! I don’t care if somebody goes to the super-market with a tin foil hat on, but wearing tin foil hats is not contagious for crying out loud!
That’s why (and this time in a much more gentle tone) I want you to really think about your position on vaccination again and please think hard! Because if you publically stated a change of views on vaccination, you could save lives.
So, I hope I made my point clear and would be happy to apologize for my offenses if came to a more science based point of view.
Not necessarily. Did poor people not exist before the administration of widespread measles vaccination? What emphasis do you place on the poor and why?
The outbreak was almost entirely in a poor population while pre-vaccine outbreaks occurred in a more socioeconomically diverse population.
————————-
Also, why are you using a reference that is 14 years and 7 (almost 8) editions out
Is the edition in error?
———————-
The highest case fatality rate (per 1000) was not in infants less than 1 year old either
In 89-91 it was. 21% of deaths occurred in those under one
Not necessarily. Did poor people not exist before the administration of widespread measles vaccination? What emphasis do you place on the poor and why?
Predominantly and almost entirely aren’t the same Sid. Now you seem to be using ‘poor’ synonymously with ‘poor health’. Lower socioeconomic classes were disproportionately stricken due to barriers of access to prevention. That pretty much flies in the face of your beliefs.
PMID:1580601
PMID:1408483
PMID:1470100
————————-
Also, why are you using a reference that is 14 years and 7 (almost 8) editions out
Considering we are on the 11th ed. and that is what is available, the 3rd ed. was available in hardcopy only and my uni doesn’t even have that and you haven’t bothered to quote the relevant passage, forgive me if I don’t think that you are particularly factual or genuine.
———————-
The highest case fatality rate (per 1000) was not in infants less than 1 year old either
Completely meaningless without the proper context; try again. You have also completely dodged the rebuttal of your assertion that loss of maternal antibody contributed to a higher case-fatality rate of under 1 year olds post vaccination. You have also dodged the question of how many measles-related fatalities there have been in the U.S. in the last decade. Gee, colour me surprised.
I wonder if Sid actually has a copy, or just checked to see the most recent edition that was not available to subscribers online. Though I do recall that Prometheus had a hard copy of either Sid’s or Augie’s reference, and he noted that the claim was not in the copy on his shelf (I am sorry, this is from memory so I could be wrong).
As far as the three PubMed references, I noticed that after 1992 that my county would send reminders to vaccinate my youngest. I believe it also included locations of public clinics for free vaccines.
I believe that the reaction to that outbreak was to make sure under represented populations received vaccines. California is one state that did this, though with its recent financial problems there may be cracks in the program (plus the focus is on children and not adults for pertussis).
You know, if Sid keeps blathering until 500 comments are reached, Orac wins a pony.
This is nothing against you Jay, but you clearly have a hospitalist work for you if you haven’t seen a case of bacterial meningitis since 1982.
A followup for Dr. Jay:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/09/vaccine_injury_and_compensation.php
orac wins pony
@Guess who
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf
In addition, measles susceptibility of infants younger than 1 year of age may have increased. During the 1989â1991 measles resurgence, incidence rates for infants were more than twice as high as those in any other age group. The mothers of many infants who developed measles were young, and their measles immunity was most often due to vaccination rather than infection with wild virus. As a result, a smaller amount of antibody was transferred across the placenta to the fetus, compared with antibody transfer from mothers who had higher antibody titers resulting from wild-virus infection. The lower quantity of antibody resulted in immunity that waned more rapidly, making infants susceptible at a younger age than in the past.
@ Sid “goalpost shifting” Offit,
That does nothing to address your contention that case fatalities were increased in the infant population post-vaccination, that measles fatalities weren’t under-reported and the question of how many measles-fatalities in the last decade have there been.
You and augie are quite the pair. Maybe let him fight his own battles next time.
@Science Mommy
Dear you are digging. You NEED to move the goalposts on this one. read 483.
Pre vaccine error measles case fatality ~1:7000. After vaccine 1-3:1000.
According to the CDC numbers it appears that measles has become more deadly post vaccination era.
Augie, I’m beginning to wonder if you even possess a brainstem. The whole thrust of the argument is how measles-related deaths are also under-reported, along with cases. You keep using the same tired, unsubstantiated figure.
Tired of getting your ass kicked by a chick yet?
And because augie has set the tone, I will add some insult to injury.
Sid has shown nothing but his own ignorance of the subject. Prometheus pointed out the need for clarification and he was absolutely right, hence I did just that. He is entitled to his own observations, so why you would deign to twist that into a deflection is pathetic. Of course you need to believe that ‘my friends’ are embarrassed for me, how else can you compensate for your own ignorance. You remind me of a scene from Monty Python and the Holy grail
King Arthur:[after Arthur’s cut off both of the Black Knight’s arms] Look, you stupid Bastard. You’ve got no arms left.
Black Knight:Yes I have.
King Arthur:*Look*!
Black Knight:It’s just a flesh wound.
No, you didn’t read past the abstracts.
Such rookie mistakes. Measles case estimates roughly correspond with birth cohorts and occurred in epidemic cycles, this leaves us with a range of estimated cases, not a point estimate. No where have I claimed any estimate for pre-vaccine measles case-fatalities, that is a strawman, thus it is impossible to determine what the actual under-reported value is, only that we know they were under-reported. Although you seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to use an estimate of non-reported cases as the denominator for the reported deaths to calculate a case fatality ratio. Pure dumb. And you call my supported statements fantasy?
If what you think you did is holding my feet to the fire, I can’t see it. You’re great to have around though augie, your representation of the average anti-vaxxer truly is parody and you deserve to be marginalised. Now run along and play with your [imaginary] friends.
Yeah!!!!! Orac gets a pony!!!!!
[Momma: You keep using the same tired, unsubstantiated figure.]
I gave the reference. Its the CDC’s quote. It’s unsubstantiated because it is an estimate. Measles was so overwhelmingly widespread and mild that they knew they could not just use the 500,000 figure and pretend that were the only cases. Especially when they estimate that the real number of cases was 6-8x that confirmed number. Or… they just threw that number in to make it seem like measles was worse than is reported. The problem is they screwed the numbers up. They use 1-3:1000 case fatality but also use 3-4 million cases. They don’t go together. It’s CDC math.
As opposed to your personal theory? Do you believe your theory actually changes the case fatality that is so commonly used as a fear tactic?
[Science mommy: Tired of getting your ass kicked by a chick yet? ]
You’re a chick?
“Mama says that alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush”
“Well, folks, Mama’s wrong again.” Bobby: “No, Colonel Sanders, you’re wrong. Mama’s right. You’re all wrong. Mama’s right. Mama’s right!”
After all the claims regarding autism and vaccines I have to ask, just what the heck is autism and how is it diagnosed? Where is a good place to learn this?
I ask because I have been assessed with Aspergers and I’d like a good introduction to autism and autism spectrum disorders.
I don’t know why little Augie thinks there would have been that many hospitalizations pre-vaccine era. Most people didn’t go to the hospital if they could avoid it; it was expensive, had very limited visiting of your children (would you like to see your sick child for maybe 15-30 minutes a night, after having traveled 20-30 minutes? Or would you have wanted to be with them? Not allowed) and very strict rules. A lot of doctors kept the kids at home if the moms were at all willing. I can readily recall my brother being at home with pneumonia – oxygen tent, IV, antibiotics and all (in the late 1960’s).
So, no, you would not have seen
Hospitals tried very hard NOT to admit people during epidemics (and still try today) if the people can be treated at home. (Of course, we are rather out of the days when you would probably treat pneumonia at home with O2, IVs and antibiotics… but neither do you have the doctors making home visits and the neighborhood nurses who were more prevalent then.)
Do you REALLY think your doctor has YOUR wallet in mind when he tells you to go home, go to bed, rest, take plenty of fluids and antipyretics for the flu? Unless you are very ill, they want you at home so the hospitals have beds available for the really sick people.
@Alan Kellogg: there are a lot of books out there, but I am not sure I would recommend many. If you are near a medical library, a copy of the diagnostic criteria (DSM-IV) will help you. You can also google “dsm criteria for autism and asperger” and get several sites that give the DSM criteria for both Autism and Asperger’s syndrome.
@ Alan Kellogg, for a start, fire up the google and see : Autism Information Page, NINDS, NIH.gov and NIMH, Autism Spectrum Disorders. ( Also for a discussion about the differences between AS and other conditions see pages on NVLD.)
[I don’t know why little Augie thinks there would have been that many hospitalizations pre-vaccine era.]
In a piece by the CDC called
“What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations?”
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm#measles
they say:
“In the U.S., up to 20 percent of persons with measles are hospitalized.”
the propaganda assumption is that this is “what would happen if we stopped vaccinations.”
All we have to do is look back at what DID happen when we didn’t have the measles vaccine to see if what “will happen” did happen. It didn’t.
@Little Augie: yes, nowadays, probably up to 20% of people who get measles would be hospitalized because society is different now. You don’t have the stay-at-home moms, the doctors making house calls, the neighborhood nurses visiting daily that you had pre-MMR. More people are more likely to use the hospital for care. But hospitals don’t have the beds to handle up to 20% more people (many are running at 80-90% capacity NOW, without any major epidemics).
Again, Augie, you didn’t take societal changes in account between then and now. You are too young to know how things were back then, and too uneducated to understand when people point things out to you.
If we are going to look at the information, why look only at augustine’s excerpt? Here is all of the section on measles:
That is not stating that this is what would happen if we stopped vaccinating.
That is stating what is happening now, with vaccination.
In the U.S., up to 20 percent of persons with measles are hospitalized.
Part of reading comprehension is understanding the difference between are and could be expected.
If that is the percentage of people with measles being hospitalized now, why should we believe that things would be better without vaccines?
Oh yeah! The Good Old Days. Living in the past, that wasn’t as good as the nostalgist imagines.
Back when people had big families, because we needed to have some spares – if we wanted to have some children live long enough to take care of us in our old age, or just wanted some of our children to outlive us.
Why augustine is using a computer (and using Al Gore’s Internet/) if augustine is so nostalgic?
Back when a lot of bad things were just not reported. Priests and children getting Biblical! We can’t report that!
Better to pretend it never happened. It is a new development. Blame it on the women, or the immigrants, or the commies, or the transgendered.
So it seemed that things were better, that people were more moral, as long as you close your eyes and click your silver slippers together augustine, you can go to that home!
Home to the land of the illness/complication/whatever that is underreported/unrecognized.
.
That these waivers exist in the first place is a mockery of the Law.
Yes! You read that right: The Supreme Court of the United states decided this stuff is…1905!! See or ask any friend who’s a lawyer to pull up the Jacobson v Commonwealth case for your reading pleasure.
adelady begged, “I know you’re talking about MMR and pertussis here, but please, please tell me these people are vaccinating against polio. ”
Sorry adelady, but apparently Dr. Gordon doesn’t even vaccinate against polio:
You’ll notice he doesn’t vaccinate against rubella either, although even I, a non-doctor, know that rubella is “a little dangerous especially during pregnancy”. More than chicken pox, I believe.
What is ‘Dr’ Jay thinking of? When I was child in the very early 1970s my mother took us to meet an old friend of hers – in an iron lung.I have NEVER forgotten that experience and I thank God – or would if I was religious – for the wonderful gift of vaccines. My kids are fit as fleas – in fact the youngest had her first ever sick day from school (aged 9)last week, and it was really just an excuse to hang out with Mum and do some baking!
Jeez! I go away for a short holiday and when I come back I find that “Augustine” has been distorting my statements again (or has severe reading comprehension “issues”).
Augustine claims:
Ummm, no. What I was trying to do show that attempts by “Sid”, “Dr. Jay” and “Augustine” to compare measles death rates today and measles death rates prior to vaccination are not valid unless you compare case-fatality rates. Since we don’t have a good handle on the number of cases prior to the vaccine – since there were certainly more cases than were reported or even diagnosed – all we can know is the minimal case-fatality rate for that time.
The “problem” with Science Mom’s question was that it had multiple “correct” answers, some of which would have been highly misleading (and which I predicted would be provided by “Augustine”, “Sid” and others of their ilk.
“Augustine” further shows his/her true nature by quoting a CDC “What if?” paper out of context (and, apparently, not reading it very carefully”):
The little word “are” is in contrast to “were”. People with measles in the pre-vaccination era weren’t hospitalised as often for several reasons, not the least of which is simple logistics.
If 20% of people with measles had been hospitalised in the prevaccination era, that would have been between 30,000 and 150,000 people per year, based only on the reported cases. Since the number of measles cases per year would actually have averaged out to to the number of births per year (figure it out for yourself – if 95+% of all people had clinical cases of measles in their childhood, the number of cases over any length of time will be roughly equal to the number of births – new victims – produced in that time), those numbers would have been even higher.
For example, in 1960 there were 441,703 cases of measles reported. That year, there were 4,257,850 births – a number in keeping with the preceding decade. So, if the number of reported measles cases is accurate, we are left with the conclusion that only about 10% of the population ever contracted measles, a conclusion completely unsupported by the data (which, to remind, indicate that 95+% of the population had measles in their childhood prior to vaccination).
Now, plugging in the “new” numbers, it looks like hospitalising 20% of measles patients would result in about 800,000 admission per year. Even if these were spread evenly throughout the year (they wouldn’t be), that works out to almost 2,200 measles admissions per day, 365 days a year.
It would appear that “Augustine” needs to take a “reading for comprehension” class.
Prometheus
” Since we don’t have a good handle on the number of cases prior to the vaccine – since there were certainly more cases than were reported or even diagnosed – all we can know is the minimal case-fatality rate for that time.”
You can’t possibly support that with scientific evidence, Prometheus.
Jay
Well anecdotal evidence rates higher than scientific evidence in your world…doesn’t it Jay?
I’ve spoken a large number of people whose children suffered through measles prior to vaccine availability and their experiences of the outbreaks support Prometheus. According to this same stream of anecdotal evidence, there were only a few cases where there was a medical diagnosis.
In fact, those I’ve spoken to on this issue all appear that they would be only too willing to recall their experiences of such diseases for a public record. Perhaps I’ll start seeking permission to record such conversations on my little you-beaut mp3 voice recorder.
Of course he can support it.Â
1) it’s been pointed out more than once that upwards of 95% of Americans over the age of 18 showed immunological evidence of having had the disease. Therefore, on average, in each year the number of cases was at least 95% of the number of births, whether or not all those cases were recorded. Â
2) you’re old enough to actually remember when measles was endemc. Do you seriously contend that only one person in ten got the measles in their whole life?
3) Measles was a “childhood disease” when it was endemic, not beause it is only contagious to children — it isn’t — nor because it is more dangerous to children than to adults — it isn’t — but because it circulated almost exclusively among children.  Whenever an endemic disease is highly contagious, like measles, and produce lifelong immunity, like measles, then it becomes a “childhood disease” precisely because all the adults have had it and are immune, and it circulates almost exclusively among the non-immune children.  The mere fact that measles *was* a childhood disease proves that nearly all adults had had it, whether their illnesses were recorded or not.   Â
“Dr. Jay” comments (at #518):
Ummm, I think that my point was that there wasn’t any scientific evidence available for the time period.
The problem (as I stated) is that measles was clearly under-reported in the pre-vaccination era (as LW puts so succinctly above). Additionally, it is reasonable to assume that – in those days prior to interlinked computer databases and mega-conglomerated insurance companies and HMO’s – that the same under-reporting was also seen in the attribution of deaths to measles.
Finally, given the measles case-fatality rate we see today (2 per thousand cases), we are left with two alternative interpretations of the historical data:
[1] Children today are much more likely to die from measles, despite significant improvements in pediatric critical care.
[2] Deaths dues to measles in the decades prior to the introduction of the vaccine (when about 10% of measles cases were reported) were more often attributed to “pneumonia” (the most common complication of measles, affecting up to 6% of cases, and the proximal cause of death) rather than “measles”.
Since many states only relatively recently expanded their death certificates to include multiple causes or contributing causes, logic suggests that option [2] is more likely.
Of course, I can’t guess what “Dr. Jay” might think – for all I know, he’ll favor the idea that humans have become “weaker” because of our exposure to “toxins” and vaccines, none of which were present back in the pre-industrial 1950’s and 1960’s.
Prometheus
I know Dr Jay is a very busy doctor who probably doesn’t have a lot of time to read old books. But, I can point out numerous books where measles is greatly feared (one book obviously reflects the fears that measles brought, when the characters were(paraphrase)rejoicing that the children were recovering and did not suffer from the consequences so frequently seen with the disease.
Yes this was written in the late 1800s, but the characters were presented as wealthy, well-fed, healthy individuals. So, fear of measles was prevalent.
@Sauceress: I have to dig through the letters, but if you would like written memoirs of children ill with mumps and measles, I can send you the letters my grandmother wrote to my overseas during WWII grandfather about the events when my mother (age 7) and uncle (age 3) had them. My uncle was quite ill and my grandmother was unable to get his fever down. My mother’s report card for that marking period had a comment that no children (in the entire school!!) would receive grades due to excessive illness (mumps, measles and chicken pox decimated grades K-6 for several months). And the boy across the street from my mother, had pneumonia and other problems after the measles. (My grandmother’s comment – if he hadn’t been a strong, husky child, she doubted he would have lived; as it was he was now quite frail).
My grandfather LOVED vaccines; he gave his patients every one that he could. Sure, he had fewer home visits to make, and less money, but healthier patients. He happily made that trade.
So Orac, if the Cochraine Collaboration in England concluded after a 96 season study that the flu jab had no evidence base to support its use where do you get your stats on vaccine efficacy? All vaccines are exempt from RCT placebo follow up studies, there are none that show efficacy.
It’s not about anti or pro it’s about evidence, and there isn’t any as it is not required to go to market. The Amish community in the US has total non compliance, where are the death stats to support your position? The WHO studied measles fatalities in Africa and found at autopsy that the ones who died invariably had very low vitamin A reserves in the liver. In a trial all the kids and adults in one village were given a carrot a day, when the disease struck the region not one child or adult in this village died, the surrounding region the stats stayed unchanged. The WHO concluded that measles is fatal only in the malnourished, plenty of them in the western world living of the Maccy D.
Ok eating a carrot a day is not sexy, granted, but selling the idea that all these disease states can only be fought with knights is the sort of conspiracy that ordinary citizens would get locked up for under the new terror laws, shame on you.
Oh and maybe you heard of the ‘Wakefield effect’, the measles rates in the uk 10 years before compared with 10 years after Wakefield show a 85% fall in the rate of measles in England, that’s with the vaccine rate falling to the lowest on record.
Just where do you get your facts from? And what is this silly red dot map thing below?
I *heart* trolls who dredge up six month-old threads and spew a bunch of ridiculous nonsense. But I’m not sure if “smoky mirror” is a new troll, or a familliar one under a new handle. This is about the only intrigue.
And I see it is still leaping from one old post to another. I wonder when it will come back here to spew some more now that someone has responded.
vacinnes are bs straight up. If there was a thing as evolution we wouldnt need vaccines. If God wanted us to be born with all that shit in those needles we wouldve been. Scientifically the avg person cant test what is going in their kids arm so you are surrendering all your faith to someone you do not know to inject some poison into your kids. Face the facts we all live to die its not like you can stop that fact of life and if you only extend your life till the point when you cant even take care of yourself is it really worth living. Luckily we live in America and even though the media says you dont have rights untill we are all brainwashed the people who still fight for thier rights will always win the battles vs the zombies who can only obey without using thier own brain.
vacinnes are bs straight up. If there was a thing as evolution we wouldnt need vaccines. If God wanted us to be born with all that shit in those needles we wouldve been. Scientifically the avg person cant test what is going in their kids arm so you are surrendering all your faith to someone you do not know to inject some poison into your kids. Face the facts we all live to die its not like you can stop that fact of life and if you only extend your life till the point when you cant even take care of yourself is it really worth living. Luckily we live in America and even though the media says you dont have rights untill we are all brainwashed the people who still fight for thier rights will always win the battles vs the zombies who can only obey without using thier own brain.
I wonder who “the truth” really is.
He could be a government agent masquerading as a troll…
Well we have a poop storm of troll posts and sock puppet posts today. Just ignore (Rule #14) all the posts.
Well, it is kind of humorous where “the truth” totally screws up how evolution works, that everyone here lives in America, and that God really cares about kids — because the last time I looked it wasn’t any god that reduced child mortality from less than a century ago when almost every family had a funeral for child.
I think the zombies already got the poster who signed as “the truth.”
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@535 – Since when is spam “traditional botanical medicine”?
“Since when is spam “traditional botanical medicine”?”
Since about 4 hours ago.
The Vikings used it.