November 1-6 to be “Vaccine Awareness Week”? Not so fast, Barbara Loe Fisher and Joe Mercola!

Sounds good. I’ll try to make time to write up some posts over at Silenced. Also remember antiantivax.flurf.net (linked in my name) as a resource for information.

[thumbs up graphic] Orange Lantern likes this.

And then people wonder why vaccine-proponents end up getting thimerosal-free vaccines. It’s because dumbkopfs like Commissioner Brooks work so hard to waste money on the thimerosal-free ones. (Note: it’s not a waste to use the thimerosal-free injections for people who are allergic to thimerosal. That’s what the expensive ones are *for*.)

Sounds like fun. I managed to report a homeopath for health fraud last week (selling homeopathic vaccinations in Canada, when no licensed homeopathic vaccines exist*), so perhaps I’ll spend the week of the 1-6th finding others and reporting them.

*Yes, it sucks that the issue is that the product isn’t licensed, rather than the fact that homeopathy is fraudulent from top to bottom. Fortunately, since it isn’t licensed, the claims are unsubstantiated, and thus can be termed fraud. For those in Canada wanting to take action about those cancer cures, weight-loss supplements and so other quackery, reports can be made through the Competition Bureau, as they target internet health fraud.

because investigators couldn’t detect signs of cancer in Egyptian mummies there must not have been cancer in pre-industrial times

That’s because they all died from polio.

As part of the activities that week, I plan on spending more time than usual–perhaps all my blog time and posts–emphasizing the dangers of the anti-vaccine movement and providing science-based rebuttals of the lies of the anti-vaccine movement intrepidly demonstrating my utter and total ignorance of vaccines and infectious agents

Isn’t the anti-vax cartel *already* celebrating Vaccine _Injury_ Awareness Month ( see Mike Adams, NaturalNews; “October is Vaccine Injury Awareness Month”, 10/13/10)? I suppose a month just isn’t enough when you’re friggen vax *otaku*.

Things like this must make pediatricians’ blood boil…more wasted time countering anti-vax crap. While checking my kids’ pediatrician’s website for word on flu vaccines, I found their vaccine policy statement.

http://www.jdcpediatrics.com/FormsHandouts/VaccinePolicy.pdf

Does anyone know if this is boilerplate? Either way I like it, particularly:
“Finally, if you should absolutely refuse to vaccinate your
child despite all our efforts, we may ask you to leave this
practice to find another health care provider who shares
your views. We do not keep a list of such providers, nor
would we recommend any such physician.”

Why don’t you guys dress up in needle costumes and have a parade?

Why don’t you guys dress up as dead children and have a parade?

Todd’s worked his tuchis off but now he has fellow travellers

http://www.historyofvaccines.org/

http://vaccinecentral.wordpress.com/

And don’t forget our fellow travelers across the pond

The Nightingale Collaboration

http://www.nightingale-collaboration.org/

Sense about Science

http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/143/

This needle phobic, at least, is all for vaccines. Just let me lie down, whimper, and bite my thumb- as much as I fear the jab itself (not what’s in it, the physical insertion of a needle scares the bejeezus out of me), the alternative (vaccine preventable diseases or being ill because of something not spotted on blood tests) is far worse. In fact last time I needed vaccinating, I let them do three in one go (MMR because I was moving to the UK and the university I was moving to had recommended a booster, tetanus because I was close enough to needing another one, and my final Gardasil shot).

“Again, Sid with the ad hominem attacks, which is about par for him on the course.”

That’s what happens when you regard vaccines as a bogeyman.

My woo-loving sis in law just posted one of the “flu shots are evil baby killer” notes on FB. In the past I tried to show her statistics and reason but she will have neither and we had to agree to disagree on her medical postings. Can I just vent here, among mostly like-minded people, how furious it makes me to see her spread this propaganda crap? …and I can’t comment on it because it seriously turns into a comment war, where all her friends defend her and complain about how doctors aren’t God. Oh, and of course she thinks Mercola’s word is the be all end all. Suffice it to say her kids have had far more illnesses that mine, and guess whose kids are vaccinated?!

SC, sometimes, people are just set in their ways so much that no amount of reasoning or medical studies will convince them.

…because investigators couldn’t detect signs of cancer in Egyptian mummies there must not have been cancer in pre-industrial times, the further implication being that all cancer is “man-made.”

When I was in Egypt, I had a “backstage tour” of the Cairo museum and saw their stack of mummies. Given the stage of dessication, I’d have been amazed if the investigators had found cancer. Solid tumours would have been difficult to detect unless they were massive; leukemia and lymphoma would be – I imagine – impossible.

Besides, weren’t their internal organs removed prior to mummification? I know that some mummies have their internal organ preserved in jars, but many of the ones I saw in Cairo had been separated from their “organ jars” for decades (if not centuries – many of the tombs were looted by the Romans). Also, the brain was removed in pieces and not preserved, so an absence of brain tumours can’t be demonstrated.

Remember, too, that even the elite (those who would have been mummified) were much more likely to have died of disease or trauma before they were old enough to be at serious risk of cancer.

I’m reminded of the writings of a 18th century explorer in South America who noted that the people living along the Amazon River were almost all “young and healthy” and that he rarely if ever saw signs of infirmity, disability or old age. The explorer attributed this to the natives’ “natural” lifestyle. I’d attribute it to “survival of the fittest”.

Seriously, how much weight can you give to a survey of mummified remains from at least 2000 years ago? After all, they weren’t buried with paraffin-embedded H&E slides of their organs. The investigators took pieces of the mummies, rehydrated them and then examined them under a microscope.

Before I give any credence to their conclusion, I’d like to see how often they correctly diagnose a modern case of cancer with tissue slides made from dried organs.

Prometheus

because investigators couldn’t detect signs of cancer in Egyptian mummies there must not have been cancer in pre-industrial times, the further implication being that all cancer is “man-made.”

I saw this story on CNN’s web site, in all its full credulity. However, the bright spot was in the comments, where several well-informed posters made short work of this “study.” In fact, I’d say they eviscerated it. I just wish everyone who read the story had also read the comments, but we should be so lucky.

I’m the guy that spends way too much time at Huffington-Post, under the username of sheldon101, fighting off, in my own humble way, the lies, distortion, ignorance hubris, confirmation bias and misleading and simple factual errors in comments of bloggers and other who comment at Huff-Po.

Sometimes that means I, violating rule 14 of the vaccination opponent handbook, correct those I agree with when it comes to our conclusions. For some reason, even though I follow Huff-Po policy, there are people who dislike me. However, they do dislike the mighty Orac more. And of course, Dr. Offit is the devil incarnate.

If there are any ongoing discussions on Huff-Po, I’ll be sure to announce that why and how this week is special.

[I’m the guy that spends way too much time at Huffington-Post, under the username of sheldon101]

Another example of egotistical atheist science bloggers. “I am so and so the mighty blogger. Hear my wrath.”

You’re so cute sheldon. Keep up the good fight.

“jab me”, interesting you should ask. The parents are saying that there was a safer vaccine, the DTaP, available when their daughter got the dreaded DTP. The problem was it was not approved for children her age.

Also, it was determined through epidemiological study that the seizures she experienced were not correlated with that vaccine, so that particular table injury was removed prior to their first filing.

Actually, it is not so interesting when you have more facts at hand.

jab me, chris has a knack for cherry-picking his info.

Some reading for the trolls.

Though who am I kidding? They will neither do the free registration, or understand the words. Especially these:

The harm, moreover, may not have been unavoidable, as the parents believe, because the alternative vaccine was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use on children as young as 6 months until years later.

“”Finally, if you should absolutely refuse to vaccinate your child despite all our efforts, we may ask you to leave this practice to find another health care provider who shares your views. We do not keep a list of such providers, nor would we recommend any such physician.”

This violates the AAP’s official recommendations. These doctors should be disciplined. (Throwing out the bait. Take it or leave it.)

Here are the goods for aspiring pharma shills. Not a single one in this crowd. I know that.

http://n.pr/aW1mXl

38 comments! C’mon friends. Even Pablo couldn’t muster much of an insult here:

“I guess Jay Gordon will just have to continue to be a mediawhore to recruit new patients.”

There are honest researchers and doctors who create, study and administer vaccines because they care deeply for children’s health. But there are also unethical business people involved who don’t give a rodent’s posterior about kids.

Jay

[Chris:Then if someone gets one of those known vaccine injuries (which occur much less often than injuries from the real disease) they get compensated.]

really? It’s that simple and that easy?

“Encouraging parents to miss vaccinations also violates the AAP’s official recommendations. What should we do with those doctors, Dr Gordon?”

Bait taken!

Give them badges for the courage to speak out for individual parents’ rights to do what they feel is best for their children!.

We work well together Jack. Thanks.

Jay

Jay Gordon @42

Give them badges for the courage to speak out for individual parents’ rights to do what they feel is best for their children!.

Does “individual parent’s rights to do what they fell is best for their children” include treating their child with prior instead of insulin as the child dies of untreated diabetes. Just curious as to far this goes. The way I read you statement it sounds like you consider children to be the property of their parents.

I also do not consider pandering to the irrational anti-scientific “feelings” of parent’s to be particularly courageous. I think lucrative is a more appropriate adjective.

Crud, too late at night… it should read:

3: Therefore vaccines are bad.

And Dr. Jay shows his double standard. Take a hard line stance on giving vaccines or giving the boot that violates AAP recommendations (according to him…haven’t looked at the AAP’s official recommendations yet) and the doctor should be punished. Actively dissuade parents from getting their kids vaccinated, which may also be against AAP recommendations, and the doc should be given an award?

Jay “Double Standard” Gordon in his own words, folks. They’re right upthread, unedited, for all to read.

I got my flu shot yesterday. No autism, fever anything but a little soreness in the arm. The nurse brought in a syringe all filled so I don’t know whether it was thimerosol free or not. I didn’t bother to ask because it wasn’t important to me that it be thimerosol free. I don’t have any allergies. Strange, now that I think of it, though…I didn’t have to sign a consent for the shot. Maybe because I asked for it rather than them having to offer it.

@jabme, etc (why do I think this is one morphing troll?): So, the court is awarding about 60 $1,000,000 awards a year for vaccine injuries. Out of HOW many vaccines a year? And you think this proves your point? All it says to me is that the system is working. Kids with TRUE vaccine injuries are being compensated. Just like they should be. Exactly how the court was set up. This is bad why? (and once again I reiterate that NO ONE here claims that vaccine injuries never occur or that vaccines are 100% safe).

@Dr Jay: talk about a double standard.

ANY doctor can release a patient, as you well know. You cannot abandon a patient but you can certainly ask a patient to leave your practice. This isn’t against any standards that I am aware of.

While the AAP may not want their practitioners to ask patients to leave because of vaccine beliefs, I think you would get more flack from them about the doctors who don’t vaccinate (age 2? REALLY? FOR THE FIRST VACCINES? your own words, Dr Jay..)over those who ask anti-vax patients to find a new MD (and there is NOTHING in that statement that they would abandon the patient or refuse emergency care, only that they MAY ask the patient to find a new physician).

MI Dawn

Jay Gordon makes me happy I neither live in his city or have a young child for him to attempt to use for his PR campaign. My attitude towards vaccinations on my (now 17-year-old) son? As I told the doc:

“Like a dartboard Doc. Like a dartboard”

No autism. He is a smartass, but that’s a given growing up in my house.

Ol’ Doc Jay just can’t handle that science keeps giving him the finger. I imagine in another decade, he’ll be pushing homeopathy.

Also: WHO KEEPS LETTING SID GET LOOSE? I told you, you HAVE to attach his chain to the restraining hooks when you clean his cage. He may be dumb as a dumb stump, but he’s a clever little monkey, and damned fast too.

Give them badges for the courage to speak out for individual parents’ rights to do what they feel is best for their children!.

Parents do NOT have a right to do what they “feel” is best for their children if they are demonstrably, factually, wrong and what they “feel” is best will actually harm the children.

The RIGHT answer, by the way, is to sue their asses off for malpractice and preferably lock them up for reckless endangerment.

Jay Gordon quotes a pediatric practice’s policy regarding parents who refuse vaccines for their children and says:

“This violates the AAP’s official recommendations. These doctors should be disciplined. (Throwing out the bait. Take it or leave it.)”

Gordon’s comment is a distortion of the AAP’s “official recommendations” on dealing with vaccine refusal. Here’s an excerpt from a position statement by the AAP:

“Continued (vaccine) refusal after adequate discussion should be respected unless the child is put at significant risk of serious harm (as, for example, might be the case during an epidemic). Only then should state agencies be involved to override parental discretion on the basis of medical neglect. Physician concerns about liability should be addressed by good documentation of the discussion of the benefits of immunization and the risks associated with remaining unimmunized. Physicians also may wish to consider having the parents sign a refusal waiver (a sample refusal-to-immunize waiver can be found at http://www.cispimmunize.org/pro/pdf/RefusaltoVaccinate_2pageform.pdf). In general, pediatricians should avoid discharging patients from their practices solely because a parent refuses to immunize his or her child. However, when a substantial level of distrust develops, significant differences in the philosophy of care emerge, or poor quality of communication persists, the pediatrician may encourage the family to find another physician or practice. Although pediatricians have the option of terminating the physician-patient relationship, they cannot do so without giving sufficient advance notice to the patient or custodial parent or legal guardian to permit another health care professional to be secured.” (bolding added)

So while the AAP encourages pediatricians to work with and keep trying to educate parents about the need for immunizing their children, it recognizes that there are situations where the pediatrician justifiably feels that alternative action must be taken, including potentially terminating the patient-physician relationship (with adequate notice).
What the AAP does not do is carve out an exception for Brave Maverick Pediatricians to ignore the recommended vaccine schedule or to create an “alternate” schedule in which virtually no vaccines are given to children under the age of 10 (the “vaccine schedule” that Dr. Gordon has admitted recommending). So Gordon’s attempt at tu quoque falls flat.

Speaking of AAP recommendations, Jay, how about the recent one that calls for all health care workers to get immunized against influenza to protect vulnerable kids from getting infected? (the AAP calls the recommendation “ethically justified, necessary and long overdue to ensure patient safety”). Are you planning to comply? Or do you have an alternate ethics schedule that will serve your purposes?

There are honest researchers and doctors who create, study and administer vaccines because they care deeply for children’s health.

Thank you, Dr. Jay, you’ve just admitted that the antivax loons are flat-out wrong to attack the motives or the competence of doctors who administer vaccines. So…What kind of results do these caring doctors get with their patients?

But there are also unethical business people involved who don’t give a rodent’s posterior about kids.

Yes, but it’s the doctors, not the business people, who decide which vaccines to administer and when. And you’ve just admitted those doctors are both competent and caring. So what’s your argument against vaccines again?

PS: I also have to note that longtime trolls augustine and Sid et al don’t even care enough to try to act like grownups anymore. If they don’t care enough to address the substance of what’s being said here, and don’t even care about their own image or credibility, then why are they here at all? Their consistently empty and babyish conduct says a lot about the antivax mindset.

“”Finally, if you should absolutely refuse to vaccinate your child despite all our efforts, we may ask you to leave this practice to find another health care provider who shares your views. We do not keep a list of such providers, nor would we recommend any such physician.”

This violates the AAP’s official recommendations. These doctors should be disciplined. (Throwing out the bait. Take it or leave it.)

As per Dangerous Bacon’s post (#61), I see that you have managed to warp the actual AAP’s recommendation into something unrecognisable to validate your own wonky, evidence-free vaccine recommendations. Colour me surprised.

Here are the goods for aspiring pharma shills. Not a single one in this crowd. I know that.

http://n.pr/aW1mXl

Oh look:

But an investigation by ProPublica has uncovered hundreds of doctors receiving company payments who had been accused of professional misconduct, were disciplined by state boards or lacked credentials as researchers or specialists.

Sounds like the exact same type who takes up the DAN! mantle and take to the internet will alt-med sales. I don’t know what type of point you are trying to make, tu quoque perhaps? They have been exposed, what could possibly be wrong with that?

There are honest researchers and doctors who create, study and administer vaccines because they care deeply for children’s health. But there are also unethical business people involved who don’t give a rodent’s posterior about kids.

Spare us the platitudes Dr. Jay, when you don’t even follow the honest researchers advice and practise medicine that is counter to the health and safety of some of your patients. You are more interested in being Dr. Feelgood than advising your clients appropriately.

The AAP is a trade organization. As a trade organization it is concerned about one thing above all else. It’s paying members and their professional status. Everything else is secondary.

It is not a scientific body. Their word is merely the consensus of their leaders.

@Dr. Jay

A note from one of us on the here in California: Pertussis is not “going around.”

There is no more whooping cough than in a usual summer/fall season.

Uh, from what I’ve heard, there are more cases of pertussis this year than usual. From the California Department of Health:

* As of 10/12/2010, there have been 5,658 confirmed, probable and suspect cases of pertussis with onset from January 1 through October 12, 2010 reported to CDPH for a state rate of 14.5 cases/100,000.

*This is the most cases reported in 60 years when 6,613 cases were reported in 1950 and the highest incidence in 51 years when a rate of 16.1 cases/100,000 was reported in 1959. Previously, the peak was in 2005 when there were 3,182 cases reported (Figure 2).

So, you were saying, Dr.?

There is not enough science in here to fill a thimble. Just perseveration and nastiness.

I agree. There is not enough science in your office to fill a thimble. Just perseveration and nastiness.

Yes, my job is to treat and protect one child at a time. I do it for a living and have for . . . guess how many years? 🙂

Treating children, for quite a while. Protecting them, umm…how long have parents forced you to give their child a vaccine?

Oh, and Jay? You know what would have done a lot to keep those incidence numbers down? The DTaP for kids and Tdap for adults.

@Science Mom, your post is weak. Please edit and repost when you have the time.

Your post is weak Dr. Jay, normally when one chooses to rebut, specific criticisms are made. I’m sure that some of your patients will benefit from your absence.

OK. Those doctors had been disciplined. Did you bother to read the reasons, Dr Jay? I’m not saying they didn’t deserve the discipline for their mistakes, by the way. But (as an example), a doctor disciplined for inappropriate exams of women can still talk knowledgeably about a drug that he’s trying to sell. Keep him away from patient contact, sure. But why would you say he can’t do the job he’s now doing? It has nothing to do with the reason the state board disciplined him.

Oh GASP! And some of the doctors aren’t board certified! How horrible. Board certification is a good thing, but I know lots of doctors who haven’t bothered to do it outside of their primary specialty. Yes, I think they are good doctors. Some doctors don’t bother to get board certified in all the fields that they practice (subspecialties of their specialty). I can’t find anywhere that they say the doctors are not board certified at all, or if they just are not board certified in the specialty they are identified with at this time. My old OB/Gyn started to specialize years ago in infertility. He is not board certified in infertility. Does that make him or any of the others bad doctors? No. (By the way, Dr Jay: what are you board certified in?)

Doctors are not perfect beings (except, as we all know, Dr Jay). They make mistakes. They make major lifestyle mistakes – abuse drugs, alcohol, steal money. They get disciplined. But I don’t know why, if they have made amends, that they can’t work for pay, even for the EBIL DRUG COMPANIES or EBIL HEALTH INSURANCE. Should everyone who does something stupid in life never be allowed to work again?

And finally, Dr Jay: if you want to rebut Science Mom’s excellent post, it would behoove you to be specific about where you feel her errors are. This allows her to research and correct her errors (if any), or, on the other hand, gives her more information to rebut your errors.

A few points, opit:

1) “Primitive” doesn’t mean “wrong” or even “bad”. It gets used as some sort of epithet, but it’s not really much of a criticism. Take Archimedes’ Screw. It’s been used for thousands of years to raise water from one place to another. It’s still used today, and works just as well as it did then. Primitve? Absolutely. Also highly effective.

2) The people who first used inoculation to prevent smallpox did not understand why it worked; they were working purely off of observation. It is only in the 20th Century that the principles of vaccination have been really understood. So it’s not really based on primitive principles anymore, apart from the principle that many people only get various highly contagious diseases just once. And that observation is just as valid today, when we know what a lymphocyte is, as it was a thousand years ago in Asia.

3) Just because a discovery is old doesn’t mean it’s outdated. NASA is sending spacecraft around the solar system using basic principles established centuries ago. The SOHO spacecraft sits at the Sun-Earth Lagrange-1 point, named after the man who deduced its existence in 1772. (Note: the inverse is also true: just because a discovery is old doesn’t mean it is right. Truthfully, the age has very little to do with it. It should stand or fall on its own merits.)

4) It is true that some microscopic organisms “vary their composition” but there isn’t any intent to it. Also, the rate of evolution is variable, depending partly on selective pressures and partly on the rate of mutation in the species. Influenza mutates famously fast. Others are more stable; to date, there is no evidence that measles, for instance, has evolved to evade our antibodies against older strains. This can complicate making a vaccine, but it’s not as bad as it might at first seem. Two strains of influenza are different, but may be similar enough that both will still be targeted by the same antibodies. 2009 H1N1, for instance, has a strong antigenic match with a strain that was circulating in the 1960s, which is believed to be why older folks weren’t coming down with such bad cases — they had some lingering immunity to it, even though it wasn’t exactly the same strain. There is a lot of research going on trying to work out a vaccine for influenza which will target the stable portions of the virus — not all of it mutates at the same rate, you see, and it has some basic equipment that it simply isn’t infectious without. Target such a fundamental part of the virus, and it really has no more evolutionary options. This is obviously a good deal more sophisticated than what was done in the old days of variolation, but the basic premise is the same — prepare a sample of something that resembles the pathogen in a critical way, and then provoke the body into mounting an immune response to it.

5) Scaremongering to promote sales certainly happens, and you are wrong that the debate never turns to that. It’s just that unlike the antivax movement, there’s nobody mobilizing on blogs to defend Big Pharma and its excesses, so you don’t see so much of a hullabaloo. (Mostly, I think, because Big Pharma doesn’t tend to consider blogs much of a threat. I hope they are merely underestimating us.) Truthfully, the biggest money isn’t in vaccines. Even ones like Gardasil. The big money is in basic care, because you need it again and again. Once you complete the MMR series, for instance, you will never need treatment for Measles, Mumps, or Rubella, and probably won’t need another MMR. But if you don’t get MMR, and later contract one of those diseases, you’ll be spending money on doctor’s visits, painkillers, fever reducers, antivirals or antibiotics, treatment for secondary infections, and, if you’re really unlucky, hospital care. Big Pharma makes way more money off of sick people than well people. Just look at oseltamivir (Tamiflu) or zanamivir (Relenza).

Note: one interesting thing is that vaccination has not been shown to add much selective pressure. It probably does add some, but it’s not any more than natural infection does. (Influenza didn’t start dodging our immune systems because of vaccination. It’s doubtless been doing it for millenia.) Antivirals are another story, and I am a little concerned about the push on some quarters to suggest prophylaxis with antivirals. The cynic in me wonders if Roche and others aren’t pushing that as increased flu vaccination leads to a decline in cases of people needing Tamiflu.

Quick note on vaccines as a money-maker. I added a new section to antiantivax.flurf.net on the costs of treating diseases. I’ve only completed diphtheria and pertussis, so far, and tetanus is almost ready to go up (just need to find time to finish researching), but it should give some indication of just how much the medical complex makes from vaccines vs. how much is makes from treating diseases.

Yes, my job is to treat and protect one child at a time. I do it for a living and have for . . . guess how many years? 🙂

I would say … you’ve never protected a child, just lied to parents.

Scare mongering to promote sales? Perish the thought.

Signed:
Antivaccine authors selling books, adspace on their blogs and hood winking parents into their alt-med junk.

That’s an old hat

15) Can’t evem quote cliches properly [no indefintie article here].

16) Responds to great posts like Calli’s with a wanky whine, semi-literate, as always.
17) Consitently adds negative intelligence to a subject where a positive IQ score would seem, if not mandatory, at least advisable.
And all this after a smarm-by post by the anti-paedritician to the spineless rich, Dr Jay. Big boys playing here, augie. Your mom’s wondering where you are…

Incidentally, speaking of Jay Gordon, did he not previously include one (or both) of the honorific Dr or the certification suffix MD in his identifier tag on previous comment threads at this blog?

Or am I falling prey to my bad memory?

My clinic still doesn’t have its VFC influenza vaccines. It’s getting annoying.

Todd, some information for you about immunizations and the revenues they generate. If I’ve read any of the following reports incorrectly, my apologies.

http://media.pfizer.com/files/annualreport/2009/financial/financial2009.pdf

Pfizer’s one vaccine listed made up 0.574% of their total revenue. In contrast, Lipitor made up about 22% of total revenue. Page 23 has the most relevant details.

http://www.astrazeneca-annualreports.com/2009/directors_report/therapy_area_review/infection/index.html

AstraZeneca’s immunizations, antibiotics, and anti-virals made up 4.98% of their total revenue, but one immunization, Synagis, accounted for more than half of that revenue. Synagis (in the US) is only given to former premature babies with known lung problems (stupidly expensive stuff-I like to call it liquid titanium). Of note, AstraZeneca is based in the UK. In further contrast, one antibiotic, Merrem, made $872 million in revenue last year (used for infections caused by highly resistant organisms like hospital-acquired MRSA) compared to $534 million total in Flumist and H1N1 vaccine revenue.

Merck’s financial statement was giving me fits. I stopped. They are based in the UK I believe. If anyone wants to try to find any relevant information on them, knock yourselves out.

http://www.gsk.com/investors/reps09/GSK-Report-2009-full.pdf

GSK, another UK company, has 8 different vaccines (yeah Pediarix) which made up 16% of the company’s total revenue (which they call “turnover”). Skip down to page 31 for the more relevant section.

Sanofi-Pasteur is the vaccine division of Sanofi-Aventis. They are a French company. My work computer won’t let me get to their annual report. So it goes.

Incidentally, speaking of Jay Gordon, did he not previously include one (or both) of the honorific Dr or the certification suffix MD in his identifier tag on previous comment threads at this blog?

I think I remember on a previous thread a few months back that someone noticed Dr. Jay didn’t sign off with his credential. He possibly goes back and forth on this? Either that or there is one real Dr. Jay and one impostor. I think they are one and the same (they “sound” the same) but only Orac knows for sure.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20091117/articles/911179870?Title=Vaccines-on-horizon-for-AIDS-Alzheimer-s-herpes
“Even if a small portion of everything that’s going on now is successful in the next 10 years, you put that together with the last 10 years (and) it’s going to be characterized as a golden era,” says Emilio Emini, Pfizer Inc.’s head of vaccine research.
“Vaccines are now perhaps seen to be more attractive than drugs,” says Dr. Stanley Plotkin,

@93

Way to quote mine and place comments out of proportion, Sid….

@94

Even if those diseases do not require hospitalizations, the risks of complications from those diseases, especially for children, such as cataracts and congestive heart defects, can be devastating.

Besides, I think you miss the point. Getting vaccinated for the prevention of a disease, in the long run, is more cost effective in the long run than catching the disease and paying money for doctor’s treatments and medicine,as well as time missed from work/school.

Getting back to the topic on hand, I will also be blogging about vaccination from 1 to 7 November (whoever heard of a 6-day week?). The problem is, a lot of people get a 403 error when trying to view my site, so I can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to readit.

Come offit, Sid, you can’t expect anyone to believe that absolutely no costs of treatment are the rule for those contracting measles, mumps and rubella, even if we consider children only and ignore the financial resources strained in caring for them (do caregivers magically appear in Sid-world to take care of kids out of school in households where two parents work?).

And for those with lingering or permanent sequelae from those diseases, they’ll undoubtedly be reassured by Sid’s saying that they’re just a minority.

“(Can you HONESTLY tell me, Sid, that you haven’t EVER asked for antibiotics for an illness?)”

Of course he hasn’t. He’s never had an illness. And if he did, he’d be part of the “vast majority” who don’t suffer complications or death from it, so he’d have no worries. If he has health insurance, he should opt out so that others who are weaklings could benefit from the savings.

Wooohoo!! Just took care of the annual flu shot, complete with da eeeebul thimerosal, so I should be rendered incomprehensible any moment now…

*waiting* 🙂

Orac, are you going to include the new science based Mott’s poll that shows vaccine safety to be parents’ number one concern. That’s right. Number one. Ahead of cancer and environmental causes, even. You people in children’s health and research really have to open your eyes to the fact that people aren’t buying your phoney pharma “science” with all its biases, omissions,and sleight of hand bullshit. I hope the pharma symposium is going well. I’m off to a Liberation procedure fundraiser soon, myself.

Jen:
You wouldn’t happen to have a link, would you? I’d be interested to know what the question was — parents’ number one concern about *what*. Context is important.

As far as general worries go, I find that vaccines and other health-related concerns are actually not that high on the list. More pressing worries include bullying and whether or not their school has enough funding to do its job.

@ Calli, When jen posts, you need to look no further than AoA for the most recent drivel. This being the inflation of this poll’s importance and how it reflects real world actions. You can also wager that jen hasn’t even read the actual poll but rather relies upon AoA’s interpretation of it for her.

The poll is here: http://www.med.umich.edu/mott/npch/pdf/101110report.pdf and what jen and her ilk fail to see is that the response rate was only 57%, and given the questions asked, will undoubtedly bias the poll results in favour of those who these topics are important to. Not only that but concern with vaccine safety and efficacy does not translate to ‘I won’t vaccinate’, which is what jenbots need so desperately to believe. As ‘bringing the U.S. vaccine programme to its knees’ has been a rallying cry for the Age of Ignorance for quite some time.

i know this off topic but

wtf the Egyptian’s didn’t get cancer. OMG they a world for it and descibe it. so did the greeks the romans and everybody else that had a freaking writing system that came down to us. great now i will have the bozo’s telling me life was so much better in the good old days. oh and sid pollio didn’t kill egyptains it is a product on clean water oh the irony.

@jen

Your link does not appear to work. At least not for me. Got another one?

Uh, Jen: The rotavirus vaccines are ORAL vaccines. Not shots. And my kids are too old for them anyway. But they both elected to get Gardasil vaccines.

As for most parents aren’t stupid…sometimes, yes, they are. Parents who fall for AOA’s line of fearmongering are stupid. Parents who listen to your lies are stupid. Parents who talk to their doctors about their concerns and read the research aren’t stupid.

@jen:

Most parents actually aren’t stupid and realize that the research thus far on vaccine safety has been minimal at best.

So, vaccines receive less research then other FDA approved drugs? Or are all FDA approved drugs minimally researched?

Whatever the response rate, the results are the results.

Oh why does this ring so familiar? It does matter what the response rate was and it also matters what and how the questions were asked. As I explained, that low of a response rate is going to skew the results because parents who are concerned with the questions posited, will be more likely to respond. The poll questions were leading and should have been more open-ended.

Most parents actually aren’t stupid and realize that the research thus far on vaccine safety has been minimal at best.

Yes, parents can be quite stupid, even while patting themselves on the backs for their ‘educational status’ and the ‘research’ they have done. You are a prime example of how far down the rabbit hole one can go when you limit yourself to biased sources of information.

Most parents actually aren’t stupid

They soon become so once they read the drivel at AoA. I mean, you haven’t always been prey to those dumb ideas, right?

but the whole premise that vaccines have been thoroughly investigated?

They have, but for the anti-vax, pro-disease crowd, no investigation will ever be enough, since properly done studies will never confirm the nonsense you believe in.

Now go get your kids their Gardasil and Rota shots

You do realise that science mom, and all the other posters on the rational side, will do just that? Or do you actually think that we don’t practise the common sense we preach? Oh but we’re all pharma shills, I keep forgetting…

Whatever the response rate, the results are the results.

Saith the statistically-ignorant.

[Gray Falcon: Reality is not determined by popular vote.]

Or scientific consensus.

@Baconator

Of course he (Sid Offit) hasn’t. He’s never had an illness….If he (Sid Offit) has health insurance, he should opt out so that others who are weaklings could benefit from the savings.

But I’m paying premiums without using services. Therefore my dropping out would actually harm the weaklings

Read the new information about MD Pharma Shills.

It will answer all your questions.

Science Based Medicine my ass. It’s dollar-based medicine and you all know it.

Liz, look up the data on PCV7 revenue. Billions. Pure profit at some point.

Jay

@Dr. Jay

And what are the costs to treat pneumococcus infection? I haven’t researched it, yet, but if it is anything like pertussis, lots more money to be made treating the disease than preventing it.

Jen–

The question “What do you think the largest dangers are?” is a useful snapshot of public opinion, but useless otherwise.

People worry a lot more about terrorism than about car crashes, for example. Ten times as many Americans died from vehicle crashes in 2001 as from terrorism. (Yes, that year is carefully selected: take any other year, and the ratio is more extreme.)

This isn’t because people are stupid. It’s because “dog bits man” isn’t news, and neither is “teenager killed in single-car crash.” Terrorist attacks and plane crashes are news precisely because they are unusual: vehicle crashes aren’t, because so many of them happen. They get mentioned on the traffic report, if that particular death also delays enough other people’s trips.

But we think more about the dangers we hear about.

That’s before we get into the skewing by people who want you to be afraid of specific things: vaccines, or terrorist attacks, or immigrants, or communists.

@Chris:

He lives in the same fantasy world as Th1Th2 on SBM does, where toddlers can walk perfectly well plus they know to stay on sidewalks and away from dirt!

That sounds entertaining. Do you remember which post it was under?

@Jay:

Read the new information about MD Pharma Shills.

If you want us to read it, it would be useful for you to provide some sort of link.

AnthonyK @ 88:

My nickname for augustine is not based on any impression I have of his physical appearance.

It’s more to do with, whenever I see him lay down some new eye-searing stupid or outright bizarre BS (the whole trans thing, for example), the fact that my typical reaction is to take off my glasses, gently massage my forehead to ease the pain, and mutter ‘ugh’.

Hence: ugh troll. I think it ascribes less juvenile qualities than, say, Augie, while still capturing the essence of his contributions at this blog.

@Sid

But the vaccine manufacturer doesn’t make any money from a hospital stay so your point eludes me.

Notice that hospitalization is not the only cost. Antibiotics (like Zithromax, made by Pfizer) are also prescribed to kill off the infecting bacteria. In the case of pertussis, there is also the likely outcome of asthma, which will likely require some manner of meds (such as Alvesco, made by Sanofi-Aventis, which also makes a pertussis vaccine) to control.

And if people in the medical field are only interested in money, then wouldn’t hospitals advocate against vaccines so they could have more admissions?

@Matt

He lives in the same fantasy world as Th1Th2 on SBM does, where toddlers can walk perfectly well plus they know to stay on sidewalks and away from dirt!

That statement is actually an urban myth. Here’s what Sid actually said:

@Jenn

I don’t know what your feeding your kids but mine don’t eat dirt

Posted by: Sid Offit | August 1, 2009 1:51 PM

Neither playing in dirt nor putting things in ones mouth equate to “eating dirt”

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/20/why.not.vaccinate/

an interesting story to consider for the upcoming vaccination awareness week. It tells the story of a family that decided not to vaccinate and their child ended up in the hospital from hib.

In the case of pertussis, there is also the likely outcome of asthma, which will likely require some manner of meds

PEDIATRICS Vol. 102 No. 6 December 1998, pp. 1496-1497
Pertussis in Infancy Does Not Increase the Risk of Asthma

[The association between pertussis during infancy and childhood asthma]
[Article in Hebrew]
CONCLUSIONS: Our study did not show that pertussis during infancy significantly increases the prevalence of childhood asthma.

Sid, further down that comment thread is this: “There’s nothing edible on my floor”

Guess what, childless Sid, kids don’t particularly care if it is edible or not. Hence the choke warnings on toys.

I thought that Jay Gordon wasn’t going to come back here….

And sid again with the quote mining.

@Sid

Do you have a link for the paper you cited? I would like to see what was said in context, considering your penchant for quote mining things to suit your needs.

Sorry cbe posted this already. ADHD
My apologies…

Matthew Cline, I plan to post a link to those series of comments anytime I see Th1Th2 at SBM. I am highly amused by the “parental” advice from people who live in fantasy la-la land and have no clue on how children behave (like Sid thinking kids only eat food, and whose floors have never had a kid throw food on to the floor)!

jen @ 106 & Science Mom @ 107: thank you for the link. As I suspected, it was specifically about health concerns, so more pressing concerns such as the quality of the child’s education would not be relevant. But it wasn’t just health concerns in general, and it wasn’t an open-form question. They were asking parents to rate the importance of different types of medical research.

This is a different question than what you were suggesting, jen. You said this showed that the number one concern for parents is the safety of vaccination; instead, the research shows that of the different areas of research that they asked parents to rate, the one most commonly marked as most important was vaccine safety. Some of this may be explained by the current anti-vaccination trend, which the study speculates about, referring to the “alleged (but later disproven) links between vaccines and autism”. I think some of it also explained by the fact that this is the intervention which parents are most likely to observe in their children, since even healthy children will be vaccinated. So of course it will be high on their lists.

You can’t really draw a conclusion about antivaccination tendencies from it, and so I disagree with the study’s suggestion that this is because of the alleged vaccine-autism link and concerns about mercury and other preservatives. Honestly, a person who is highly pro-vaccine is also likely to mark “safety of vaccines” high on the list, because that is something which absolutely needs to be studied in new vaccines, and a pro-vaccine person would want more vaccines to be developed.

jen, you are incorrect that the response rate is unimportant. It does matter. But there were enough respondents to draw some inferences, I think. One thing that stood out for me was that it was pretty much a dead heat between “safety of vaccines” and “effectiveness and safety of medicines”. The public (or at least the portion which was polled) evidently considers drug safety to be the highest priority for research.

Truthfully, I’m inclined to agree, at least out of these eight options. I’d rate treatments for common childhood diseases higher than the poll did, though, and I’d prefer to group “safety of vaccines” and “safety of medicines” as a single category.

Sid @ 132:

But the vaccine manufacturer doesn’t make any money from a hospital stay so your point eludes me. It’s like saying Sanofi wouldn’t produce a flu vaccine because Bayer would lose aspirin sales.

Of course that statement is silly. But there are far more things out there than just Sanofi and Bayer. Also, note how many companies make vaccines. Now note how many pharmaceutical companies there are altogether. No company is exclusively in the vaccine business, and many companies stay entirely out of the vaccine business.

Vaccine manufacturers do make money off of hospital stays.

BTW, on the eating dirt thing, more people eat dirt than they realize. That includes adults. In fact, the number of people who ingest soil particles is pretty darn close to the number of people on the planet. (The ones who don’t are the ones on feeding tubes who are in comas, and even then it can happen.) It is basically impossible to avoid dirt. You can avoid swallowing a large enough amount to taste, but it doesn’t need to be that much for any pathogens in it to be contagious. Same with poo. It’s everywhere. You can reduce your exposure, which is a very good idea, but it will never ever be zero.

@Sid

Ah, I see now. Their study was unable to show a causal connection between pertussis and asthma with statistical significance. There was, however, twice the rate of asthma in the pertussis group compared to the control group, but, because the study was pretty small and insufficiently powered, this did not reach the level of significance.

But then there’s this bit:

However, the rate of the combination of asthma and/or atopy in hospitalized infants was significantly higher in the SG (33% vs. 8.3%. p=0.03).

So there is, according to this study, a connection between pertussis in infancy and increased asthma and/or atopic illness.

Once again, we see Sid quote mining to mislead. Thanks for providing the links, though.

Quoth Jen:

Most parents actually aren’t stupid and realize that the research thus far on vaccine safety has been minimal at best. It hasn’t been “thoroughly investigated.” Don’t make me laugh. You pose some fair follow-up questions about research monies and allocation but the whole premise that vaccines have been thoroughly investigated? Nice try. Now go get your kids their Gardasil and Rota shots.

Quoth PubMed: 8704 hits on “vaccine safety”. Yes, obviously “minimal.”

Todd, you’re the one claiming that which appears nowhere in the medical literature and using a single study to justify it. Additionally your study makes no mention of the fact that the pertussis risk factor of second hand smoke and the pertussis treatment of antibiotics are both acknowledged risk factors for the development of asthma. The failure to account for these possible confounders makes your study’s conclusion tenuous at best.

@Sid

Todd, you’re the one claiming that which appears nowhere in the medical literature and using a single study to justify it. Additionally your study makes no mention of the fact that the pertussis risk factor of second hand smoke and the pertussis treatment of antibiotics are both acknowledged risk factors for the development of asthma. The failure to account for these possible confounders makes your study’s conclusion tenuous at best.

First off, “pertussis risk factor of second hand smoke”…huh? What do you mean?

As to smoking as a risk factor, the survey included (emphasis added):

questions on age, gender, socioeconomic status, type of residence, environmental factors such as dampness in the house, smoking exposure, and current pet ownership

Finally, I provided at least one bit of evidence that pertussis results in an increased risk of asthma. If I had more time, I could do a bit more digging and find some more for you, if you like. You, on the other hand, have not provided evidence that pertussis does not cause or lead to an increased risk of asthma, which I assume is your position, based on your earlier comment.

Sid:

How can Todd, on the one hand, claim something “which appears nowhere in the medical literature” and on the other hand use “a single study to justify it”?

@ Calli: “Same with poo. It’s everywhere.”

Ugh. I just had a huge argument with some anti-vaxers on a parenting site, who were claiming that polio isn’t very contagious because we “don’t drink poo water” in the USA in the year 2010. Apparently, poo water was all the rage back in the 1940s and 1950s when polio was endemic. And in their fantasy world, viruses like rotavirus (also spread by fecal-oral route) aren’t currently circulating.

@ Todd W.: LOL they should know, what with all the crap coming out of their mouths. 🙂

Enkidu, about poo being everywhere — there was a Mythbuster’s episode which addressed that, and found that, horror of horrors, fecal bacteria can be found on pretty much everything. Tied in to that was the experiment in dispersal of nasal secretions, which they did in their “Flu Myths” episode. That stuff gets around a lot more than you’d think. Or want to think, anyway. It was kinda gross, but it explained a lot. Avoiding exposure turns out to be very difficult — but interestingly, avoiding exposing others turns out to be doable. Which means that all of us with colds have a responsibility to uphold.

I just realized I didn’t finish my comment to Sid Offit before hitting submit.

Vaccine manufacturers do make money off of hospital stays.

I meant to go into more detail on this. When you are in the hospital with, for instance, influenza, a lot of supplies will be expended on you. Needles. Tubing. IV bags. Tape. Single-use tests (such as those for various strains of influenza). Antivirals. Antibiotics (possibly). Saline solution (very likely). Glucose solution, if you’re very ill and can’t eat adequately. Brochodialators (e.g. albuterol). Steroids (inhaled, oral, or IV). Single-use covers for thermometer probes. Electrodes for a monitor. Painkillers, possibly. Antipyretics. There’s more too, but that’s a taste. Just going to the ER ends up consuming a fair bit of stuff; this is why medical waste is such a problem for hospitals. They produce such a damn lot of it.

Now, GlaxoSmithKline is an interesting one to look at. Among their rather large portfolio of products are influenza vaccines. They also make Ventolin, a brand-name formulation of albuterol, a very widely used bronchodialator. They are the leading supplier of albuterol. They also make Advair, which they are heavily advertising at present, and which can also be used to treat the symptoms resulting from a respiratory insult like influenza or pertussis (but which is justifiably controversial — I won’t get into that at present, as it would probably sidetrack us; suffice to say, I have grave concerns about its widespread marketing as an asthma controller considering it is only studied for short-term use).

Party at Chris’ house!

May I come over?

LOL… now it is time to get child to the orthodontist.

(I think Orac is still recharging his batteries, or whatever powers das blinkenlights, from his wild skeptical weekend, so I’m making this post sans URLs)

Jay Gordon @127
In which Dr. Jay reveals his economic naïveté

It’s dollar-based medicine and you all know it. Liz, look up the data on PCV7 revenue. Billions. Pure profit at some point.

Let’s have a brief review on income statements, or profit & loss statements :

Gross sales (all the money you take in from that product) MINUS (cost of goods sold) = net revenue. Net revenue is notprofit. You still have to account for things like the costs of developing the product, the cost of marketing the product, and so forth.

So right away you can see the hole in Dr. Jay’s thinking: gross sales of a product, like a vaccine, that has an manufacturing process can never turn into “pure profit”, even after research and development costs are covered.

Dr. Jay is correct on one point: PCV7 (Prevnar)’s gross sales over the last ten years, worldwide, have been in the billions. I found one estimate at Bloomburg that indicated that for FYI 2006, world-wide sales (gross revenue) were about $1.5 billion, and that sales had been increasing steadily.

So why has has Prevnar sold so well? The vaccine is effective in preventing serious disease..

In Sustained reductions in invasive pneumococcal disease in the era of conjugate vaccine Pilishvili et al. (2010) reported that the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) caused by the seven strains in the vaccine declined 94% (from 15.5 to 1.0 cases per 100,000 population). Other reports have cited an associated reduction in ear infections by 10% and an invasive procedure, myringotomy (ear tubes) by about 20%.

Here’s Jay’s argument in a nutshell:

1. Medicine has been corrupted by the evils of money and profit
2. Vaccines provide revenue to the companies that manufacture them
3. Therefore vaccines are evil.

@todd “Quick note on vaccines as a money-maker. I added a new section to antiantivax.flurf.net on the costs of treating diseases. I’ve only completed diphtheria and pertussis, so far, and tetanus is almost ready to go up.”

Going to need a time machine Todd.

@triskelethecat “@Dr Jay: and you just see patients out of the goodness of your heart, not charging them and making a profit? How nice of you.”

Well, yes, like most honest doctors and good people, I do see many patients for free or reduced fees. And yes, I do have a niche as a pediatrician who encourages parents to actively participate in the children’s health care decisions. Because I work so hard and have delivered care to the community for so long, I think that I would still have a nice full practice even with a different medical philosophy.

@Liz Ditz “So why has has Prevnar sold so well? The vaccine is effective in preventing serious disease.”

Liz! You know the truth: I could most a dozen links, but this one’s good enough. The PCV7 increased the risk of dangerous illness as well as decreasing the risk of (some) non-dangerous pneumococcal illness.
http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/reprint/JCM.01200-09v1.pdf

I swear, listening to you non-pediatricians discuss pediatrics is like watching plumbers debate molecular biology. Actually, I think that more genuine wisdom and experience might be exchanged in that debate than above. You just don’t know what you’re talking about. ORAC, would you have any interest in my opinions or my version of the facts about your particular surgical subspecialty? No, and I wouldn’t think to offer them. Stop pretending you know so much about my specialty.

Jay

http://www.naturalnews.com/030074_Happy_Meal_decompose.html

Comic Relief from this heaviness.

Jay

Jen – your parody of antivaxxers is a bit too subtle. Sure, it’s obvious that no one who really believed that this was a pharma shill blog would bother posting such an accusation here, since a pharma shill blog would of course never permit any such posts to stay up (like the AoA blog redacts posts that question the benefits of the products that they support). But, while it may seem obvious to you that your accusation must obviously be tongue-in-cheek, you’ll find that a lot of people will take your accusation at face value (hard as that is to believe) and think that you’re being foolish.

Oo, three successive posts from Jay “I’ve got a job” Gordon, none of which address his misinterpretation of/questionable compliance with American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations (see post #162 if you’ve forgotten, Jay).

Instead, Jay has made a feeble attack on the Pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar, citing it as making money for the manufacturer (can’t have that) and claiming it’s made the problem worse:

Jay: “The PCV7 increased the risk of dangerous illness as well as decreasing the risk of (some) non-dangerous pneumococcal illness.”

At the risk of being yet another non-pediatrician to debunk Jay, I will note that a recent (2009) Cochrane review found that Prevnar (PCV7) was indeed effective in diminishing the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumonia. Perhaps Jay does not consider these “dangerous illnesses”, though they are a huge part of the pneumococcal disease that is responsible for 11% of mortality in children around the world between the ages of 1 and 59 months. You could look it up.

And while Jay is fussing over a study showing that Streptococcal empyema incidence increased in Utah after PCV7 went into use, he neglects to tell us that as of 2010
there is a new Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) that covers additional serotypes and should offer children even more protection against dangerous illness. According to the evil CDC:

“There are 91 strains (serotypes) of pneumococcal bacteria and the first pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) protects against 7 of them. Before PCV7 was introduced, these 7 serotypes were responsible for over 80% of severe pneumococcal infections among children. Now that PCV7 has been in use since 2000, there is significantly less pneumococcal disease. Even though there is less disease, other strains of pneumococcal bacteria have become more common – particularly one serotype, 19A. PCV13 includes the original 7 serotypes in PCV7 plus the 6 additional serotypes, including 19A. This gives us a vaccine that protects against the most common strains of pneumococcal bacteria responsible for severe pneumococcal infections among children.”

Possibly Jay failed to mention PCV13 because he is simply unaware of it. After all, Jay has admitted to us that he recommends no vaccine in children under the age of 10 except for “maybe a DPT”.

Jay: “Stop pretending you know so much about my specialty.”

Somebody’s got to make up for what you don’t know.

I promise to make at least two more data-free, science-free posts in the next few hours.

Who would notice?

Seriously, though, Dr. Jay. Please restrain yourself. I’m embarrassed for you. Really.

@Jay’s paper on PCV7:

The study is of a situation that might be unique to Utah, as noted by the authors that “in spite of vaccine uptake that was similar to the rest of the US, children in Utah did not realize the same degree of decrease in invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) reported in other parts of the US (27, 47).” The authors also note that IPD in Utah pre-vaccine was caused by non-vaccine strains ~60% of the time, higher than other parts of the USA. Once the vaccine was licenced, this trend continued, as the vaccine-strains were wiped out and non-vaccine strains continued to take over: “The limited effectiveness of the PCV-7 in Utah was in part a result of the rapid emergence of IPD, particularly empyema, due to non-vaccine serotypes (11, 12).”

So, Jay is taking a situation where Utah differs from the rest of the US, and using it to make a blanket statement about PCV-7.

The PCV13 may help to prevent more strains for a while but then some of the others will take up the slack. We appear to be chasing our tails with this particular bacterium. It’s not as amenable to vaccine prevention as HIB or viruses like measles and polio. The PCV7 really may have caused more harm than good, though.

Bacon, if you have a chance, please pull the other articles that show that the PCV7 set kids up for infection with 19A. (The PCV13 covers for 19A.) If you don’t to that over the next couple hours I’ll see what I can do. Thanks.

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/index.cfm?id=1695

Jay

OK, how about this one? @Enkidu, Alaska, Utah, elsewhere.

ORAC. Heh? (You may subtract the astounding number of comments I’ve made from the total.)

http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com/issue/2007/05_15/4_patients_practice03_9.html

Gone for a few hours. Talk amongst yourselves, please.

Jay

@Dr. Jay

Your view is that the PCV vaccine is bad because preventing infection with the 7 (or 13) strains covered by the vaccine allows non-vaccine strains to gain a foothold and cause illness.

This implies that in order to prevent that occurring, we should not use the vaccine. What you seem to fail to grasp is that if the vaccine is not used, then the more common strains will cause illness. The result is roughly the same, except that your implied course of action is rather sad and regrettable, in that the illnesses could be prevented.

So, which is better, pneumococcal disease caused by one of the rarer strains not covered by the vaccine or pneumococcal disease caused by the more common strains covered by the disease?

I, too, am curious as to Dr. Jay’s response to his misrepresentation of AAP recommendations, his incorrect assertion that the number of cases of pertussis in California is “usual”, and that, as shown, more can be made treating a disease than preventing it.

Dr. Jay seems to be skipping the fact, even pointed out in the Utah paper, that IPD has gone down in the USA as a whole since PCV-7 has been used.

And now he’s complaining because antibiotic-resistant strain 19A (whose resisitance to antibiotics was not due to PCV-7) has emerged as a replacement, but…. we have a vaccine to combat that now with PCV-13. So his point is… ?

@Sid

Asthma was defned as the occurrence of wheezing and/or a doctor’s diagnosis of asthma and/or use of asthma medication

Which is entirely in line with the general clinical definition of asthma.

Additionally the questionnaire depends on one’s memories over time to determine smoking conditions concurrent with pertussis illness. The questionnaire method of diagnosis also raises questions regarding diagnostic accuracy. Finally children already having asthma would have been more likely to receive a pertussis diagnosis since is the illness is more severe in asthmatics

The study I linked to used the International study of asthma and allergies in childhood (ISAAC [PDF]) core questions, which have been validated for assessing prevalence and severity of asthma and allergies. So, those questions, at least, are valid. As to any other questions that were on the questionnaires, yes, memory may be a limiting factor.

Regarding pertussis, the researchers, in addition to the questions, took blood samples and checked for pertussis-specific IgG levels. So, they did not rely solely on questionnaires for pertussis diagnosis.

As to smoking, I find it interesting that first you said the study was bad because you thought it didn’t take smoking into account, but when it was pointed out that it did, indeed, take it into account, that somehow the study is “even worse”?

Truly, Sid, your mind works in mysterious ways.

While the study I posted does have limitations, it seems reasonably sound. Would anyone else with a science background care to take a look at it and let me know what you think? The link is up at post 163.

You had a patient, with pertussis-like symptoms, during a pertussis outbreak. And you did not test for it.

Indeed. Considering Jay’s very public opposition to vaccination is a major draw card for his anti-vaxx customers,let’s sincerely hope this girl doesn’t have pertussis and that none of his unprotected patients have contracted it.

oh my God, Calli, per your post 202. “improve the vaccine’s coverage.” “we should surrender?”…I mean, really, how many vaccines do you think an infant or child can handle? Is it endless? Apparently.

how many vaccines do you think an infant or child can handle?

As many as real pathogens he/she can already handle on a daily basis.

“Are you going to include the new science based Mott’s poll that shows vaccine safety to be parents’ number one concern”

Jen, as others have pointed out, that’s not a scientific survey, and even my sophomore stat students could see that – they actually understand basic statistics and are learning more. That explains why sid, jay, augie, all incredibly stupid and even more dishonest, push it: they can’t, or won’t, put forth the work to distinguish good work from bad.

Since this post isn’t that old, I don’t think it counts as thread necromancy to post here (where it’s on topic) and mention I hope to write up blog posts to share with my family/friend social network each day of Mercola/Fisher’s ‘Vaccine Awareness Week’ pointing out the logical/moral/economic/scientific failures of the anti-vaccine movement.

I’ll be sure to link to here and to Science-Based Medicine as often as I can.

Boy do I need help. My wife’s mother stayed with us for 10 weeks or so last fall and over the winter, and she has obviously dumped much of this nonsense on my wife. I started noticing some odd behavior and then the absolute refusal to consider getting any vaccines for any of our 3 children (4,3 and 18months). Then I saw the Mercola website on the home PC and the email updates from the same. I did some web searches and thankfully came upon this site, where I can now see that my plight is not very promising. I can’t believe how many of these same arguments that are discussed here that I had to counter in a rather frustrating argument/discussion that pitted me against my wife and her mother. Their daily phone conversations–while I’m at work–are simply driving this whole topic further over the cliff.
Thanks to all who post the detailed rebuttals. My degree is in Computer Science, not statistics or medicine, so the details really help. Frankly, I don’t know how this is going to play out, but I fear the confrontations are not going to go well. If anyone wants to add any comments or thoughts, or make some further reading recommendations, please do.
Steve.
Cincinnati

The educated people are the ones who are NOT vaccinating their children. They see thru the “junk science” of vaccines. You have to go to school a long time to become stupid enough to think you can inject toxins like mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, antifreeze & human fetus cells into the body & think that the person will be ok as a result of it. Don’t think those toxins are in there? Go to the CDCs website & do a search for vaccine ingredients you will see that I’m correct. Mary Tocco is a 30+ year independent researcher on the dangers of vaccines. I have over 20 years under my belt. Vaccines did NOT save us. Better food, better water & better sanitation is what brought disease under control. The deaths from childhood illnesses came down at the same time for diseases that vaccines were produced for as diseases that didn’t have vaccines. Scarlet fever & TB are 2 such examples. http://genesgreenbook.com/content/proof-vaccines-didnt-save-us

Vit. D3 has been proven to be 800% more effective in preventing the flu than the flu shot. (naturalnews.com) How is injecting 25 mcg of mercury making you healthy? Using the exposure levels on the EPAs own website, a person would have to weigh 600 lbs. to receive that much mercury at one sitting.

Wake up people!! Big pharma is NOT out for our health, the sicker we are, the more money they make. They expect their income from vaccines to be at $34 BILLION per year by the year 2015.

They expect their income from vaccines to be at $34 BILLION per year by the year 2015.

Lori’s also a twoofer, just by the by. Seriously, toots, you might want to reconsider marketing as a career if this the best you can manage.

I should probably note that that’s just from the Blogger profile that she herself essentially spamvertised.

The educated people are the ones who are NOT vaccinating their children. They see thru the “junk science” of vaccines.

That’s the Dunning-Kruger effect talking, there; the people who know the least on a subject think they are the “educated” ones on the subject, and that everyone who follows the real science has been duped by “junk science.”

You have to go to school a long time to become stupid enough to think you can inject toxins like mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, antifreeze & human fetus cells into the body & think that the person will be ok as a result of it.

Out of the five “toxins” on your list, the last two are not even in vaccines.  Some vaccines contain polyethylene glycol; some people mistakenly assume that this is the same chemical as ethylene glycol, which is one of multiple components of antifreeze, but it is not, and anyone who did their research honestly would soon discover that it is not.  Some vaccines were developed by being cultured in fetal cells; some people mistakenly assume that this means that fetal cells are in the vaccines, but anyone who did their research honestly would soon discover that this is as ridiculous an assumption as claiming “Carrots are grown in the dirt, therefore, carrots contain dirt!”  Of the three remaining toxins, what an honest researcher would discover is that a can of tuna has more mercury in it than any vaccine does, and eating a pear puts more formaldehyde in your body than any vaccine.

Don’t think those toxins are in there? Go to the CDCs website & do a search for vaccine ingredients you will see that I’m correct.

Except of course anyone who does so will see that you’re not.

Mary Tocco is a 30+ year independent researcher on the dangers of vaccines. I have over 20 years under my belt.

So fifty years of “research” between the two of you and neither of you actually checked whether polyethylene glycol and ethylene glycol were the same thing?

Vaccines did NOT save us. Better food, better water & better sanitation is what brought disease under control. The deaths from childhood illnesses came down at the same time for diseases that vaccines were produced for as diseases that didn’t have vaccines. Scarlet fever & TB are 2 such examples.

Yes, we’ve heard that claim before.  We also know why that claim falls apart under real examination.  Did the iron lung “save us” from polio?  No, it did not, and neither did better food, better water and better sanitation; they reduced the deaths from the disease, but they did not reduce its incidence.  Vaccines reduce the incidence of disease.  An honest researcher would grasp that that, and not reducing the number of deaths, is truly bringing the disease “under control.”

Vit. D3 has been proven to be 800% more effective in preventing the flu than the flu shot (naturalnews.com)

Hate to tell you this, but Mike Adams and his website do not always purvey the truth.

Science Mom:

Oh yes, your little fact-free blog is quite entertaining.

Oh, wow, it is hilarious! On May 25th, 2011 she posted a website for Washington State parents to find vaccine friendly doctors to sign the new vaccine exemption form. So I went to the very poorly designed http://novaxdoctors.webs.com/doctorlist.htm and saw there were no entries for that particular state.

I guess her research did not even include reading the page.

Some more on her research, on March 11, 2011 she wrote: “Mark Adams at NaturalNews.com.” Along with not knowing how to use HTML, she has issues with reading.

I have one with a link hung up, but she’s also a “super-admin” at paltalk-dot-com by way of “Health for a Greater Exodus” by way of “Take Hold the Tzitzit.” This would be amusing if it weren’t a hair’s breadth away from Christian Identity.

Lori is apparently also a fan of Michael Rood, who was forced out of his own organization in a rather tawdry affair.

TB went away? Guess no one told the people around here, or I wouldn’t be getting those mandated TB tests.

she and her husband look so young by “following the dietary laws in Lev. 11”.

I personally preserve my youthful good looks by following the no-mixed-fibres parts of Leviticus. People are so aghast at the ugliness of my clothes that they never notice my face.

@ herr doktor bimler: So I located my King James Version of the bible and it discusses “what is unclean to you”. Apparently God spoke to Moses and Aaron and directed them to instruct their following about “whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat”. Camels, pigs and hares are verboten as are any creatures that creepeth, crawleth and slithereth. Fish with scales are okay, shellfish are a no-no. Fowl that hunt and eat carrion taboo. Further along in Leviticus I suppose are the prohibitions against mixing meat and dairy and prohibiting the eating of the hindquarters of the animals with cloven hoofs that chew their cud. Perhaps separate fibers are parve and mixed fibers are not

I read somewhere about “Jews for Jesus” and they are all Christians who snare unsuspecting Jews into believing in a mixing of the faiths. JFJ have an agenda to convert “non-believers” into accepting Jesus as the messiah. As Narad states, they are wrapped up in the illuminati and are sneakily antisemitic.

@ Narad: I’ve seen some of them “at work” in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods…perhaps they are among the fringe groups. I also know some very devout Jews and they are upset about the blatant proselytizing by evangelical Christians.

(A lot more evangelical Christians than “non” as of late in American society.)

@ Narad-
Since we’re talking “fringe”, how about “British Israelism”?

mall sampling of them –

Dr. Mayer Eisenstein – homefirst.com

Dr. Sherry Tenpenny – drtenpenny.com

Dr. Todd Elsner – exemptmychild.com

Dr. Gary Gordon – gordonresearch.com

Robert Scott Bell (naturalpath) – robertscottbell.com

There are many more out there.

And I’ve written about some of them, in particular Dr. Eisenstein and Tenpenny, two of the worst. Search this blog.

Medical mistakes are the 8th leading cause of death.

We’ve heard this one before. Citation needed, or you’re lying.

I know of many children that were injured by vaccines. This is why I spend countless hours every week helping parents opt out of these toxic substances being injected into their kids.

Have any of these parents gone to Vaccine Court? If not, why not?
Thanks for posting the names of Meyer Eisenstein and Sherri Tenpenny. They’ve been dismantled by Orac before.

I offer no apologies as to what is posted on my blog. The info is out there if you choose to find it.

Thanks, but we prefer not to listen to antivaxx liars.

Good day.

Buh-bye, and don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

I just went to the website of doctors who don’t push vaccinations. There are 11 doctors in the State of Washington that anti-vax friendly.

http://novaxdoctors.webs.com/doctorlist.htm#Washington

So who doesn’t have a clue now?

I’ll look into the measles thing later on today. I’m headed over to the college campus now to work on article for the health section of the college newspaper. (yes, I’m their health writer & have been getting compliments from the professors on my articles, including the one on Thermography)

BUT I will say this about Japan, Japan stopped giving vaccines to kids under the age of 2, their incidence of kids dying before the age of 2 dropped dramatically but skyrocketed once they started vaccinating kids at the age of 2 years. (confirmed by 4 students from Japan in one of my classes this past Spring semester)

The US is the most vaccinated country in the world but yet we are the sickest. We have the highest mortality rate for kids under the age of 5. Look at the vaccine schedule, enough said.

Did you actually read that website? It may have the pull down menu listing Washington, but absolutely no doctors in the state lists? Yes, you still do not have a clue.

BUT I will say this about Japan, Japan stopped giving vaccines to kids under the age of 2, their incidence of kids dying before the age of 2 dropped dramatically but skyrocketed once they started vaccinating kids at the age of 2 years. (confirmed by 4 students from Japan in one of my classes this past Spring semester)

That is a lie. What actually happened is that after they stopped giving DTP to children under age 2, the numbers of babies who died from pertussis went up to 41. Because they were not vaccinated for pertussis, they could not claim they had SIDS due to a vaccine.

A couple of things to read: Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story:

They later allowed it only for children older than 2 years. Pertussis coverage for infants fell from nearly 80% in 1974 to 10% in 1976.13 A pertussis
epidemic occurred in 1979 with more than 13 000 cases and 41 deaths. Japan began replacing whole-cell with acellular pertussis vaccines in 1981, and a striking fall in pertussis incidence followed (figure 2).

And as about measles in Japan: Measles vaccine coverage and factors related to uncompleted vaccination among 18-month-old and 36-month-old children in Kyoto, Japan:

In Japan, measles vaccine coverage has remained low, and either small or moderate outbreaks have occurred repeatedly in communities. According to an infectious disease surveillance (2000), total measles cases were estimated to be from 180,000 to 210,000, and total deaths were estimated to be 88 [11,12]. Measles cases are most frequently observed among non-immunized children, particularly between 12 to 24 months.

I’ll look into the measles thing later on today. I’m headed over to the college campus now to work on article for the health section of the college newspaper. (yes, I’m their health writer & have been getting compliments from the professors on my articles, including the one on Thermography)

The Des Moines Area Community College’s Boone Banner, just by the by. Sadly, the search function is broken.

Because vaccination is a woo. Enough said.

Balefully and repetitively insisting upon being the May Queen is pretty embarrassing, Th1Th2. Especially in October.

BUT I will say this about Japan, Japan stopped giving vaccines to kids under the age of 2, their incidence of kids dying before the age of 2 dropped dramatically but skyrocketed once they started vaccinating kids at the age of 2 years. (confirmed by 4 students from Japan in one of my classes this past Spring semester)

This smells a lot like the old “SIDS incidence in Japan dropped dramatically after they stopped giving vaccines under the age of 2” story, which is a load of crap (warning: PDF):

In Japan during the period concerned there was in place a Vaccine Compensation System, and the data presented by Noble and Cherry relate to claims made through this system.28,44 Compensation was commonly awarded for events considered possibly due to immunisation, unless there was clear evidence that this was not the case. Approximately two thirds of claims submitted were accepted.

Noble and Cherry both report that when the minimum immunisation age was moved from three months to two years there were no claims made through the compensation system for vaccine related sudden death.28,44 They do not claim, as Dr Scheibner suggests, that there were no deaths from SIDS in Japan following the change in immunisation age.

Claims for vaccine related sudden death stopped, not because children were no longer dying, but because their deaths no longer occurred during a period when they were also receiving immunisation. How can you claim for a vaccine-related death if no vaccine was given?

This is actually one of my favorite canards, since it’s one that I managed to debunk with minimal research before getting at all involved in skeptical circles like here at RI. (It’s also almost incredible to me that Stephen Basser debunked that in 1997. How anyone can continue to spout off that idiotic claim is beyond me.)

Lori,

I spend countless hours every week helping parents opt out of these toxic substances being injected into their kids.

That’s appalling. Your misguided actions may very well result in the serious illness or death of a child.

Lori, here’s a project for you. Please find out how much formaldehyde is in the blood of a normal, healthy child, and how it got there, and compare that with the maximum amount in any vaccine. Then have a long hard think about how much of the other “information” you have read on Natural News and similar sites is equally inaccurate, and what damage you are doing spreading this dangerous nonsense.

I’ll look into the measles thing later on today. I’m headed over to the college campus now to work on article for the health section of the college newspaper. (yes, I’m their health writer & have been getting compliments from the professors on my articles, including the one on Thermography)

I see Narad has posted what I suspected. I’m sure the pats on the head you are getting are either figments of your imagination or indicative of the stellar quality of “professors” who are employed by your quaint little college.

BUT I will say this about Japan, Japan stopped giving vaccines to kids under the age of 2, their incidence of kids dying before the age of 2 dropped dramatically but skyrocketed once they started vaccinating kids at the age of 2 years. (confirmed by 4 students from Japan in one of my classes this past Spring semester)

BUT you would be wrong yet again; instead of parroting a micropaleontologist from the Jurassic era, try looking for original sources. Or is that too hard for Ms. “Health” writer?

Japan has a vaccine injury compensation scheme that is even more facile with regards to evidence than the U.S. system. They compensated for alleged DTP “cot deaths” in infants (that’s less than 12 months by the way). When they switched to the two year-old recommendation, parents couldn’t file for compensation for DTP cot deaths so it’s an artefact of the compensation scheme and vaccine recommendation change. And no, child deaths did not increase at two years old; you just made that up. What did happen was that morbidity and mortality due to pertussis disease increased in children less than two years old Braintrust.

The US is the most vaccinated country in the world but yet we are the sickest. We have the highest mortality rate for kids under the age of 5. Look at the vaccine schedule, enough said.

Oh if only you could actually support this with some evidence. Oh wait, you can’t.

I’m their health writer & have been getting compliments from the professors on my articles, including the one on Thermography

I have been receiving compliments from the staff at my institution on the quality of my basket-weaving.

“I’m their health writer & have been getting compliments from the professors on my articles, including the one on Thermography”.

Gee Lori, I asked you about your University degree and your work history and you didn’t reply.

You are a 41 year old student at DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College)-Boone Campus and you are the “health writer” for the student newspaper “The Banner News”. I saw the September, 2011 issue and two pictures of you. Your article “Raising Awareness and Promoting Safety”…an innocuous piece of fluff about preventing rape, had nothing to do with the health sciences that you claim expertise about.

Now on your blog (August 20, 2011) you touted Norman Marvin and the benefits of “Protandim” an anti-aging, anti oxidant supplement…manufactured by Life Vantage Corp., which is a MLM company. Is this the marketing/merchandising “career” that you made reference to.

Why don’t you check into that “measles thing” and come back to post here?

BTW, Get another picture for your column for the student newspaper, because in spite of following the dietary restrictions contained in Lev. 11 and promoting Protandim, you appear older than your years. (meow)

lilady, it gets worse. She wrote an article for Breast Cancer Month in the October 12th issue which is a blatant advertisement for the “The Thermography Center” in Urbandale. She quotes retired neurosurgeon and supplement shill Russell Blaylock.

@ Chris: Good for you for “catching” Lori “shilling” for the “therm” in lieu of mammogram.

Kudos to all the “regulars” here (not you Thingy)…for taking her apart. I missed all the fun; my usual Sunday visit to my “other” son and then a hospital visit with a close friend who thankfully did not have a stroke. She had a grand mal seizure, was in status epilepticus for several hours which led to left-sided Todd’s (postictal) paralysis. She’s recovering now and hopefully additional medication will relieve her symptoms (inoperable arterio-venous malformation).

@ Narad: I’m a Christian and I take great offense at the activities of these fringe evangelicals. My Jewish buddy thinks they are nuts and believes but for the coming “rapture”…these evangelicals would despise Jews.

Lori, where are you? Did you check out that “measles thing”?

I should also add: Wake up Lori!

You should actually use ctrl-f to find things in a website before you claim it is in there. Still waiting for you to list one name and city of a doctor in that webpage that is in the State of Washington.

And perhaps should take a few biology courses at your community college, and then actually find qualified medical personnel for information. Like an actual breast cancer specialist, and not a retired surgeon or the person whose business your are advertising.

(No, it was to be a costume for my daughter, some game character that has an orange hood, and she was sewing much of it herself. Unfortunately it turned into a “wadder”, the term used by those who sew as failures. I helped all I could, but it was a lost cause. Though she did create a very nice pair of tights, and learned some nice skills. Though I am still trying to deal with the odors from the “dying with onions” experiment.)

By the way, Ms. Harvey, I applaud you taking classes at a community college. I am a big fan of them. That is where I took courses in biology, statistics, physics and even learned how to use HTML for webpages. Two of my children are attending the community college. One of them is my oldest who gets disability services, and my daughter who is spending her senior year of high school at the community college.

But please take some science courses with an open mind. I would also suggest a class in statistics. And I am still waiting for you to actually read the webpage which you claimed listed doctors in the State of Washington.

So will Ms. Harvey come back and answer some questions?

Wow, I see now that one thing is very clear. Since I don’t subscribe to modern medicine, I get attacked.

And to those of you who are question why I haven’t come back. My net has been offline all week at home.

So, go ahead & take your big pharma drugs & enjoy them.

So sad that people can’t read. Good riddance to all of you!

Oh, Ms. Harvey, when you do join the fun on the more recent thread, show us you actually read the following web page:
http://novaxdoctors.webs.com/doctorlist.htm#Washington

Now list one in that list that is in Washington State, and which city.

By the way, have you read up on Japan yet?

Okay, I found out there were Washington doctors on that list. It is just that the HTML is so lame on that page it did not load properly in Firefox. So I admit I was wrong.

So, Ms. Harvey when will you come back to clarify the lie about pertussis vaccines in Japan?