“Vaccine Awareness Week”: Barbara Loe Fisher dupes Delta Airlines into running an anti-vaccine PSA

What?!! The whole of October was Vaccine Injury Awareness Month! Why do they need another week on top of that?
I managed to put up five pro-vaxx posts on my blog during October to counteract their, ummm, horse elbows. Looks like I’m going to have to do some more.

Speaking from my experience as a public health nurse in the Division of Communicable Disease Control of a large County health department, I can unequivocally state that all domestic and international airlines have had instances of passengers with communicable diseases aboard their flights.

There have been instances of patients with sputum positive tuberculosis who have been diagnosed after their arrival at their destination, as well as instances of patients diagnosed with bacterial meningitis or measles, who were aboard flights when they were asymptomatic, yet highly infectious during their time on the plane.

Our clinical staff have been involved in investigations of these passengers with communicable airborne or droplet borne diseases because of the geographic area we practice in…at the nexus of two large international airports and one regional airport.

During intensive case surveillance, one of the first questions posed to patients or their families is history of recent travel aboard a common conveyance (buses, trains and airplanes).

The head office or a local administrative office of the airline is contacted to secure the passenger manifest and the airline is directed to immediately contact each exposed passenger at home or at the passenger’s destination.

Staff at the airline is provided with educational material to distribute to any “exposed” passenger and the exposed passenger is told specifically which communicable disease they might have been exposed to; the identity of the ill passenger is never provided.

If a passenger was seated near a person with tuberculosis they are instructed to notify their personal physician for 2-step Mantoux skin testing. If the passenger was exposed to a person with bacterial meningitis they are also directed to go to their physician for prescribing of prophylactic antibiotics to greatly lessen their chances of contracting this serious disease. Measles-exposed passengers should check their immunization records to see that they are protected and receive either an MMR vaccine if they are not fully immunized or receive immune globulin. If a passenger does not have a primary care physician, then prophylactic treatment is provided in a county-run health department clinic.

Whenever a patient with these diseases was located within our county, we, along with our state health department were the lead investigating agencies. At other times, we participated in the investigation, but the health departments where the case was located was the lead agency, whether it was in another state or another country.

News stories and press releases rarely identify the actual airline airline or the actual flight where a communicable disease exposure took place….but again, speaking from experience every airline including Delta has had instances of passengers with highly communicable infectious disease aboard their flights.

Fortunately, there rarely are cases confirmed of these serious diseases that have been communicated to other passengers and influenza usually is nowhere as serious as infections by the measles virus or meningitis or tuberculosis bacteria.

I still cannot understand how Delta or any other airline would permit a notorious anti-vaccination group to run their biased and unscientific PSAs aboard their flights. It is such a disservice to their passengers.

Laura, you are aware, aren’t you, that newborn children are exposed to more antigens in their first day outside the womb than are contained in a full vaccine schedule? So how does this fit with your ‘too many, too soon’ mantra?

“Frozen human brain tissue (front cerebral cortex) of 8 autistic patients and 8 age and gender matched normal subjects…” As a purely naive observation, isn’t that an awfully low n?

@Laura –

The beginning of the study suggests to me they are looking for differences between normal controls and ASD spectrum patients for easier diagnosis confirmation and that inflammation within the brain is visible because of these various markers.

No cause for this inflammation is speculated or suggested within it, so why do you suggest this study says that vaccines cause autism? Have you read the study or at least the abstract, or was this listed as a ‘reference’ in one of the misleading rants by an anti-vaccine advocate? Confirmation bias makes them find relationships where there are none proven and then use those imagined relationships (i.e., if inflammation is present obviously it was vaccines that must have caused it) to insist that what they are saying is true.

Maybe you should step back objectively and look at what is really said in the literature and realize that the millions who don’t react badly suggest that vaccination is on the whole safer than exposure to the disease it hopes to prevent.

So, Delta doesn’t want you to get the flu vaccine before getting on their airplanes? That should really help their business around Christmas time. Maybe I get the shot anyway and check for some open seats later on.

I saw the video yesterday. To someone who does not regularly follow the antivaccine movement, it is a perfectly reasonable sounding PSA.

Exactly. It’s very clever, actually. The video starts out with a lot of (mostly) uncontroversial health advice. (The vitamin C claim is dodgy, but other than that…) Then, about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way in, the flu vaccine is mentioned as an “option” (note the choice of words) along with (again, seemingly uncontroversial) advice to read the package insert and ask your doctor questions. Then, the NVIC starts hawking its website as an aid to the viewer becoming an “educated, informed health care consumer.” Then, it’s only when a viewer visits the NVIC website that he will be exposed to the unfiltered, unvarnished anti-vaccine message, including claims that Gardasil is “killing girls,” that the flu vaccine is harmful and unnecessary, that vaccines cause autism and other neurdevelopmental conditions, and that vaccines are chock full of “toxins.”

Somewhat off-topic for a flu vaccine thread but this morning’s CBC news reports that Quebec has a measles epidemic (700+). The anti-vacciners appeared to have scored another hit. The province is still reviewing immunization rates.

I hope the anti-vacciners have not killed anyone.

de-lurking

@13 As someone who survived measles (rubeola) but was left with lifelong eye problems, and barely survived whooping cough which came close to killing me at age 9 months, I say a resounding yes! I can assure you, had vaccines been available way back then, my mother would most certainly have taken advantage of them. Every time I had aches or pains in my legs, she was certain I was coming down with polio and made sure as soon as that vaccine was available, I received it. I had the smallpox vaccine and all the “boosters” and have the scar on my arm to prove it. Childhood was dangerous before vaccines, even though, contrary to the nonsense spouted by some people, we did know how to wash our hands and keep our houses clean. This year, I had both a flu shot and a shingles shot, the latter of which I wouldn’t have needed if I hadn’t had a severe case of chicken pox as a child. So yes! Let’s have this Vaccine Preventable Diseases Victims Week.

going back to lurk

@Laura: I DO post under my “real” name, just like you do. The “MI” before my name simply lets the regulars know me. Back in the day, there was another Dawn who posted (who became known as ‘Crazy Dawn’ so I added the MI to differentiate). Orac knows who I am; we have met in person and are from the same state originally, and when we met. He is now back in our original state while I remain – for now – in the other state.

Now, if you would kindly give REAL information about how vaccines are more dangerous than diseases. Oh, and your age would be nice. I’m 50, and recall the fears of the days when measles, mumps, chicken pox all caused many days of missed school, days stuck in bed, some hospitalizations and deaths. And when Rubella was horribly feared by all women of child bearing age. If you aren’t my age, you’d not understand WHY those of us are so glad vaccines prevent those days and don’t want to see them again.

I note that Laura is the 25th most popular name for American women in the past century, given to more than 740,473 women born in this country. (“More than” because the database is incomplete before the 1930s.) So what does “real name” mean here, even assuming that Laura is the name you use offline (whether or not it’s on your birth certificate)?

More to the point, we’re mostly posting either checkable facts, in which case our “real” names don’t matter–if I point you at the CDC website, you can trust or not trust the CDC, but it doesn’t matter what my real name is–or opinions, in which case I’m no more or less a stranger if you think my parents named me Vicki rather than Marisol or Arthur.

Oops, the IBR referred to in my first sentence above should read “The Institute for Basic Research In Developmental Disabilities”

*ignore* (sigh)

I particularly like how so many of the people who believe that there’s this massive government-sponsored conspiracy which has somehow never leaked or come to light, ALSO believe that the government is staffed solely by incompetent idiots who can’t manage the simplest of tasks.

Can you say “cognitive dissonance?”

If I didn’t mess up again with my posting that I referred “laura” to, early this A.M., you would understand why I post using a ‘nym. Like Rene Najera, I worked for a County department of health and know only too well, the consequences that might ensue should I post under my real name.

Unlike Rene, I also post extensively about my experiences raising my deceased son who had a rare genetic disorder, who deserves, even in death, to remain “anonymous”.

“laura”, should she opt to post under her real name, would not be subjected to any threats by the regular (non-troll) posters here…and she is aware of that. So why doesn’t she pierce her own veil of anonymity?

One thing I can say for Mercola and Fisher is that they typically don’t attack vaccine advocates in a childish matter by using words like, “loon” and “quack”.

Nice. Ignore the facts in favor of insults. Remove the words “loon” and “quack” and Orac still has a valid argument.

One thing I can say for Mercola and Fisher is that they typically don’t attack vaccine advocates in a childish matter by using words like, “loon” and “quack”.

The people in question are not, by any meaningful definition, “vaccine advocates.” Their goal is the abolition of all vaccination, and they’re willing to lie extensively to accomplish that. “Loon” and “quack” are overly kind, in most cases. “Attempted mass murderer” would be perfectly accurate.

I will note additionally that you apparently are unable to provide actual evidence that they are correct, and are hence reduced to whining that Orac’s not being nice.

Jim, you’re right that the anti-vaccine crowd doesn’t use childish language to attack their opposition. They merely accuse them of torture, maiming and murder.

I can appreciate the importance of terminology and phrasing in communication. Take political discourse, for instance. No one has ever been convinced by an argument phrased in terms of “Nobama,” “Democrap,” or “Republitard.”

That said, semantics has little impact on fact. Say what you like about the delivery of the message; it doesn’t change that the anti-vaccination people are factually wrong and the “pro-“vaccination people are factually correct.

Orac, has gotten my post out of moderation (See # 3 above). Thanks Orac.

I just tried the link Orac provided to the YouTube NVIC/Mercola PSA and this message came up:

“This video has been removed by the user”

It’s a known fact that mortality rates for most vaccinated diseases declined by over 90% prior to the introduction of the vaccine.

[citation needed]

Jim, can you please tell us why the morbidity (rate) of measles went down 90% in the USA between 1960 and 1970? Please provide actual citations in your response. Here is the data:

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

@Chris: but we all KNOW that it’s only the mortality rate that counts to people like Jim. It doesn’t matter if fewer people are also getting the diseases (which also means fewer people are suffering from the consequences of the diseases). It’s only the death rate that counts. And obviously, we had an amazing improvement in public health between 195 and 1970 to have the disease rate drop so fast. Right? /sarcasm

@Jim: No one denies that the improvement in medicine, public water supplies, etc have helped with the decrease in some diseases. The improvements in medical care have certainly helped with the death rates. But why should we even suffer from the disease if it can be prevented? And, like smallpox, measles COULD be eradicated in the world if enough people were vaccinated, since it has no non-human vectors. Why are you against that?

As for “loon” and “quack”: it’s better than being called murderers, Pharma Shills, cannibals, and other lies like that. Show me ANY vaccine post by Mercola or Adams that doesn’t imply that doctors only give vaccines for the money, and I’ll apologize for using loon and quack myself.

(And why would doctors want to give vaccines to make money, which is, at most, a 3 time hit, when they could make a LOT more money on office and home visits with sick children? Same with drug companies. Vaccines aren’t high on any companies profit list, but boy, can they make money on antibiotics, painkillers, fever reducers, other medications used during vaccine-preventable illnesses. And a lot of drug companies also make supplements – which Mercola and Adams LOVE – I don’t hear you calling Mercola and Adams Pharma Shills….)

Beamup:

They SAY choice, but then proceed to lie their heads off claiming that vaccines have no benefit, cause every ill known to man, etc.

I used to criticize NVIC’s whooping cough page because it only talked about the DTP vaccine and all of its references were old. Then they revamped the site, and I looked at it again. They added some stuff, but it is full of cherry picking and often lying though by omission. Plus its bibliography of references is just full of fail (it looks like it was formatted by a fourth grader).

On NVIC’s pertussis (whooping cough) page are these words: “Other Serious Reported Adverse Events:…., encephalopathy, headache, hypotonia, ear pain, apnea, cough, angiodema, pruritis, rash, fatigue and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).”

Then I click on the link that information apparently came from above, the link labeled “About INFANRIX Vaccine in Brief.” It is an FDA page about the vaccine. That list of adverse events is listed after this paragraph:

In addition to reports in clinical trials, worldwide voluntary reports of adverse events received for INFANRIX since market introduction are listed below. This list includes serious events and events which have a plausible causal connection to INFANRIX. These adverse events were reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size; therefore, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequency or establish a causal relationship to vaccination.

Why was this omitted? It makes it seem that the vaccine is more dangerous than what the data show. Which is why it is called lying through omission.

The DTaP has been used for over a decade, so there should be fewer references to the dangers of the DTP vaccine. Also, it would be more honest to actually refer to the proper vaccine on the line that says: “Pediatrics – August 2005 study on effectiveness of DPT vaccine.” The link goes to a paper titled “Pertussis Vaccine Effectiveness Among Children 6 to 59 Months of Age in the United States, 1998–2001″, and is about about 3 DTaP and 2 DTP vaccines, not the non-existent “DPT” vaccine.

That is not the only reference that NVIC poorly formatted, one is just a title of a book (Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine). If NVIC is to be considered a top notch organization, it should at least use a standard reference format. Also it would be more professional to use the proper name of the whole cell diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis vaccine.

Also several pertinent papers have been ignored. Jim, that is called “cherry picking.” Here are just a few that NVIC misses:

Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story

Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2006 Sep;25(9):768-73.
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.

Vaccine. 2007 Jun 21;25(26):4875-9. Epub 2007 Mar 16.
Do immunisations reduce the risk for SIDS? A meta-analysis.
Vennemann MM, Höffgen M, Bajanowski T, Hense HW, Mitchell EA.

Expert Rev Vaccines. 2005 Apr;4(2):173-84.
Acellular pertussis vaccines in Japan: past, present and future.
Watanabe M, Nagai M.

MI Dawn:

@Chris: but we all KNOW that it’s only the mortality rate that counts to people like Jim. It doesn’t matter if fewer people are also getting the diseases (which also means fewer people are suffering from the consequences of the diseases).

I now have the opinion that folks like Jim who want children to suffer through measles, pertussis, mumps, chicken pox and even the real flu are sadistic. They want children to suffer and really don’t care if they suffer permanent disabilities.

Calli Arcale, I found this a while ago. I’m not positive on how accurate it is:
http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/ihii_useofmed_report.pdf

Jim@30:

One thing I can say for Mercola and Fisher is that they typically don’t attack vaccine advocates in a childish matter by using words like, “loon” and “quack”.

I believe that they prefer to infer, rather than state, that “vaccine advocates” are murderous or cannibals or homicidally greedy. Your tone argument is invalid.

As to the use of pseudonyms, I use this one because my True Name™ could lead people to mistake me for a great many other people including a comedian, an authour, and a past president of a major bank. Thanks to the quirk of having a fairly generic name, this pseudonym identifies me far more uniquely than the one listed in the phone book.

(That using a ‘nym also cuts down on telephone harassment by cranks and avoids implying that my place of employment endorses my views are but pleasant side effects.)

— Steve

Jim…I anticipated your remarks about sanitation and safe water supplies with my posting at # 3 above. You do know, don’t you, that TB and measles are spread through “airborne transmission”. Bacterial meningitis for which their are preventive vaccines are “droplet transmission” diseases. No amount of sanitation or safe water is going to protect you from getting these serious diseases.

And, no modern sanitation and safe drinking water will “save you” once you acquire TB, bacterial meningitis or measles.

Most cases of Tb are curable with a prolonged course of three antibiotics taken simultaneously…of course if you were exposed to and and actually contract multiple drug resistant TB, then you may succumb to TB.

The bacteria that I referred to in my posting that cause bacterial meningitis and/or the more deadly bacteremia are treated with IV antibiotics and the patient usually is on a life-sustaining ventilator during their hospitalization. “Curing” meningitis and bacteremia is not the sole goal here, because “cured” patients are frequently left with severe lifelong neurological impairments, limb amputations and major organ damages leading ultimately to organ failures.

“jim” should be looking at the reports of recent measles outbreaks and perhaps he could inform us how many of the “index cases” are associated with indigenous measles and how many “index cases” are imported from overseas. (Hint, the overseas measles “index cases” traveled to the United States on planes.)

Perhaps “jim” could enlighten us about his expertise in immunology, vaccine-preventable communicable diseases and his “treatment” recommendations. Why not contact the WHO and the CDC about your “expertise”, Jim? The WHO and the CDC are always interested in new innovative ways to protect the public.

Jim @36

You do understand the a difference between a disease’s mortality rate (the number of deaths due to infection) and its incidence rate (the frequency of new infecton in a population)? There’s a reason why anti-vax advocates cite statistics for mortality rather than incidence–to mislead their audience regarding vaccination’s proven efficacy and afoten to also make a false claim that better hygiene, cleaner water, improved nutrition, etc., will serve in lieu of vaccination.

But while deaths due to infection did decrease prior to the widespread introduction of public health vaccine programs, principally due to improved medical care received by those people who became infected, disease incidence did not. People still became ill and still suffered all the significant adverse consequences of infection short of death, including all the birth defects associated with rubella, paralysis associated with polio, etc.

It wasn’t until vaccines became both available and widely administered that disease incidence decreased. For example, in the US incidence of measles decreased 90% in first five years following the licensure of measles vaccine in 1973. (see http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/reprint/70/11/1166.pdf)

Ok, so I typed up a big post and lost it because I forgot to put in name/email. It contained links to published studies.
Basically it refered to Vitamin A and reduced mortality from measles. Google it…
It also referred to mortality rates in the developed world as compared to the developing world. Measles mortality is much higher in individuals with inadequate nutrition.
And there were many studies on how natural exposure to measles resulted in lower incidence of asthma and a host of other allergic disorders..
I have no more time here..but appreciated the discussion.

AKA “I’m going to just make up a bunch of BS with some bogus excuse for not providing any actual supporting evidence.” Doesn’t fly; without the evidence the claims mean less than nothing.

I might be inclined to take you more seriously if you did [use your real name]

Oh joy, an anonymous person on the Internet might be inclined to take me more seriously! I am validated and gratified!

“Has anyone actually tried to contact Delta Air about this?”

Of course I have!!!. I telephoned corporate headquarters to get the email addresses of Delta’s CEO Richard H. Anderson and/or the Chief Medical Officer. I spoke to the switchboard, got transferred to two other people and was told that email addresses are not given out.

I was also told that a person could lodge a complaint at their website Delta.com and that it would be forwarded to an appropriate person.

Meanwhile, I have an email composed earlier this morning, addressed to the CEO sitting in my “drafts” folder, awaiting any other suggestions from you guys.

Has anyone located the “disappearing You Tube Delta PSA video” that was taken down earlier?

@ Narad: I just finished posting a “complaint” at Delta.com and requested an email reply:

“A friend who is a physician took a flight on Delta Airlines and told me about a Public Service Announcement video which was shown on his flight. It was sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center…a notorious anti-vaccination internet website, that dispenses pseudoscientific medical information and discourages immunizations.

This particular PSA about influenza is quite offensive and I am amazed that Delta condones the advice offered about this anti-vaccination group. Isn’t Delta concerned about transmission of communicable diseases and the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control to be immunized each year against influenza?

I am a public health nurse who has investigated disease transmission aboard airplanes.”

Thanks so much for the email address…I’ll try it now with the email in my “draft” folder.

@baglady

You do know, don’t you, that TB and measles are spread through “airborne transmission”. Bacterial meningitis for which their are preventive vaccines are “droplet transmission” diseases. No amount of sanitation or safe water is going to protect you from getting these serious diseases.

Good one baglady. Haha:

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9837#description

Tuberculosis emerged as an epidemic in the 1600s, began to decline as sanitation improved in the 19th century, and retreated further when effective therapy was developed in the 1950s. TB was virtually forgotten until a recent resurgence in the U.S. and around the world-ominously, in forms resistant to commonly used medicines.

@Laura

Alright. There’s my name. Your move.

@JGC

principally due to improved medical care received by those people who became infected

Citation needed

I have a comment in moderation giving the link to the NVIC IMA video on youtube–it is still up, but the Every Child By Two video is down.

Here’s an extract from the pitch letter from In-Flight Media Associates (IMA) for the fall “Cold, Flu and Fall Allergy Season” segment of Lifestyle365″

·Delta Air Lines: Segment to air for a full calendar month on over 17,375 flights in front of an average of 2.5 million passengers
·Delta and Virgin America’s fleets are equipped with WIFI, passengers watching the program can log into your website right from their seat using their laptops or smart phones and instantly make a donation and learn more about your cause

The pitch also had some price figures for a 5 minute video on both Delta and Virgin. I’m guessing production and placement for the video cost somewhere around $20,000-$30,000.

What I want to know is where does NVIC get its funding? Nickel and dime contributions

No Offal, I am a recently retired public health nurse who actually was educated in immunology and disease transmission. My clinical experiences in the division of communicable disease control in a County health department and in public health clinics trumps your experiences as a “commodities investor” or whatever, as well as your experiences as a failed blogger.

I have a BSc-Nursing degree and am licensed as a registered nurse. What would your university-conferred degree be…and what would your particular professional license be?

@baglady

I am a recently retired public health nurse

Yes, I know. You waste no opportunity to subject us to that fact any time an opportunity presents itself. But I’m surprised they didn’t teach you that sanitation played a large role in the decline of TB during the time you were acquiring your degrees, licenses, credentials and clinical experience.

@baglady

What would your university-conferred degree be…and what would your particular professional license be?

Bachelor of Science (Fire Science), City University of New York, 1988.

No license to think required.

@69:

Citation needed

A curious demand coming from the same person parroting the following ad nauseum without even quoting a historical treatise, let alone a scientific study:

By the time vaccines did get around to wiping out smallpox the disease was, due to “better sanitation and refrigeration”, a largely harmless shell of it’s former self

Posted by: Sid Offit | October 30, 2009

In case of measles, I am confident Sid will vindicate himself by producing a text detailing great advances in refrigeration and sanitation that took place between ’66 and ’67.

BTW, was that an implicit admission that vaccines wiped out smallpox, albeit in its weakened state?

@ Offal: Thanks for providing your “fire science” degree credentials…I assume that is from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice-CUNY. Why didn’t you take the NYC Fire Department civil service exam? It would have provided you with a steady income and a chance for advancement.

Of course, a “fire science” degree confers a special knowledge about the epidemiology of human diseases…sure it does.

P.S. My brother got that same degree, retired as a lieutenant from the NYCFD. He furthered his education with a masters degree and taught in a suburban school district….and he knew nada, zilch, bupkes…about immunology and disease transmission.

@ Narad: Sid is licensed as a chicken inspector?

Is he a “specialist” in inspecting chicken innards?

Did his name “Offal” give him an “in” with the chicken licensing board? Inquiring minds want to know!

Kae, you must have had protective parents. I know when I walked in on my mother in the kitchen talking to a neighbor I only heard that some issue with some child due to measles. But they stopped when they saw me.

Of course, our anecdotes are nothing compared to the actual data, which I have posted twice in the form of tables.

@19 MI Dawn
I am 68- remember having chicken pox, measles, mumps-not pleasant. Had the small pox vaccine. I am not anti-vax but really question the current schedule of vaccine administration and get called a troll when I want solid facts. 1 in 6 children are developmentally disabled-(CDC stats) I am not convinced that it is because of better diagnoses. I am not convinced that the current schedule of vaccines are safe -there are many MDs who agree-Dr. Jay Gordon’s practice is trashed here however-
As for the antigens that a newborn is exposed to- a total unnecessary Hep B shot?

@baglady

Why the scare quotes around fire science?

@laura

I am not anti-vax but really question the current schedule of vaccine administration

Why? What gives you cause to question the current schedule?

1 in 6 children are developmentally disabled-(CDC stats) I am not convinced that it is because of better diagnoses.

Is this the reason? Then I’d have to ask, why do you think that vaccines are to blame? What evidence do you have that points to vaccines as a cause?

laura (via Todd):

1 in 6 children are developmentally disabled-(CDC stats) I am not convinced that it is because of better diagnoses.

Oh wow, I missed this. No it not better diagnostics, it is basic statistics. On a normal distribution you will have about about 16% on either side of the mean past one standard deviation. That works out to about 1 in 6.

Todd W-
The cumulative effects of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20553758

laura, it says “Evidence for the neurotoxicity of extended exposure to low levels of aluminum salts is described using an animal model treated with aluminum at low levels reflecting those found in some water supplies.”

Um, this article is about vaccines, not drinking water. You do there is a difference, especially in the volume used.

The cumulative effects of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines

Do you know why some may rightfully come to a comclusion that you are anti-vax and not interested in an honest inquiry into the causes of neurological disease? Because you take a study titled “The neurotoxicity of environmental aluminum is still an issue” and claim it talks about the cumulative effects of aluminum in vaccines, without even reading the study.

Let’s see what the study actually says. First, if you actually read the first paragraph of the study, you would know what “environmental aluminum” refers to. Let me give you a hint, it’s not aluminum in the vaccines, but rather aluminum in virtually everything we consume from drinking water to foods. The study concludes:

While the potential of aluminum for promoting neurodegenerative disease remains controversial, the following statements, which form the headings of the some of the above discussion, are indisputable.

Aluminum is environmentally prevalent and ingested by humans.
Acute exposure to aluminum can cause clinical neurotoxicity.
Elevated levels of intrinsic inflammation are associated with neural aging and this is exacerbated in several neurodegenerative diseases.
Low levels of aluminum in drinking water of experimental animals, elevate basal levels of inflammatory activity within the CNS.

The study looks at lifetime exposure to aluminum in our environment, which is orders of magnitude that of all the vaccines combined, and its role in accelerating the onset of neurological diseases associated with aging.

Surely you can understand how some could be confused by what appears to be intellectual laziness at best or misinformation at worst.

Yeah, basically that is it.

(I hate it when I read a comment I made while in a rush and find some basic silliness)

@Igor

I’m glad you can read baglady’s mind through your computer. Anyway, I’m waiting on those miracle medical treatments that reduced pertussis and measles mortality.

Sid – let’s see, perhaps increased access to modern medical care, more & better doctors, better treatments for the symptoms of the diseases, antibiotics to treat secondary opportunistic infections / diseases, and the whole host of other advances in modern medical science over the past 100 years.

You are a complete and utter tool. Vaccines prevent disease, while modern medical care means less people die when they do get the disease.

Your insults towards llilady are unneccesary and obscene – if you don’t have actual facts to convey here, why don’t you crawl back under your rock and go away.

Larry, the antibiotics came 60 years after the decline started. You would have been better off imitating Igor and evading the question entirely. And the oh so specific grasping at straws in the form of:

“increased access to modern medical care, more & better doctors, better treatments for the symptoms of the diseases”

Mr. Schecter:

Larry, the antibiotics came 60 years after the decline started.

[citation required]

Macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF), a condition newly recognized in France

Stay out of France and you’re safe. It doesn’t seem to have spread.

Sid is licensed as a chicken inspector?

Not No. 23, to be certain.

You would have been better off imitating Igor and evading the question entirely.

I resent that, having observed years worth of your responses on this blog, if anything Larry would be imitating you. When my five year old asks are we there yet for the 50th time in 3 minutes, a couple of “Nos” were quite responsive despite the fact that he was not satisfied with the answer. I didn’t avoid the question, I avoided the 5 year old.

@igor 101
I did not claim it was about vaccines.
I answered the question Todd W asked in @93- What gives you cause to question the current schedule?
This was in the study-
“Aluminum salts can increase levels of glial activation, inflammatory cytokines and amyloid precursor protein within the brain.”
I am concerned about the developing newborn brain receiving the aluminum adjuvants plus other possible neurotoxins in the vaccines and the possible cumulative effect which may not show up until a later age.

I did not claim it was about vaccines. I answered the question Todd W asked in @93- What gives you cause to question the current schedule?

Oh my bad. I didn’t realize a study talking about aluminum ever present in everything we consume as one of the naturally occurring elements made you concerned about it ALSO present in vaccines in insignificant quantities. Since this was about environmental aluminum then this study should make you concerned about water you drink and food you eat becing the cause of neurological disorders. I’m glad you clarified that the study had nothing to do with the vaccines.

Aluminum salts can increase levels of glial activation, inflammatory cytokines and amyloid precursor protein within the brain.

If you bothered reading the actual study instead of picking words out of the abstract the significance of which you are barely qualified to comprehend, you would be referred to my original point that the study is of chronic exposure to environmental aluminum. Notice how we don’t put oxygen masks on all infants despite the fact that over the course of their lifetime they will inhale large amounts dust and harmful particles.

You cherry pick one sentence out of an Abstractof a study designed to test long term exposure to aluminum on an aging brain being either too lazy or too ignorant to read the entire article and then you claim that you are not an anti-vax. If that’s how you find points of concern I’m surprised you managed to get out of bed this morning and are actually touching the keyboard. The fact that you are only this lazy and careless with respect to vaccines and not all the other sources of aluminum infants can’t avoid shows you are a liar.

@igor – O brilliant one-cite me some evidence that the current vaccine schedule is safe.

@Igor-vaccines did injure. Why?
@Gray Falcon -the current vaccine schedule is not a few. It was not in effect 20 years ago. Read @56 only 2 measles deaths in 1981.

Igor…I think it is way past Laura’s bedtime. I have noticed on all of the many blogs that she posts on, a decided sundowning effect as the day progresses.

@lilady- I’m not impressed by your degree.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/229286/20111011/dr-kimberly-lindsey-thomas-westerman-dekalb-county-police-department.htm

The anti-vax film “The Greater Good” opens at NYC’s IFC Center on Nov. 18 for one week. Any suggestions on countering it? Are there particularly good pamphlets that could be passed out? Or does anyone have any suggestions on alternative activist approaches?

Or does anyone have any suggestions on alternative activist approaches?

Completely ignoring it seems promising. Sometimes you just have to hope that the Jodorowsky audience can figure out things for themselves.

Should you get a flu shot?
http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/10/19/david-brownstein-md-vaccine-mercury-thimerisol-should-you-get-a-flu-shot/

@narad-you haven’t posted anything besides your ramblings.

Laura (@ 119) – did you actually read what previous commenters said? Aluminium is found in pretty much everything we eat & drink. Even breast milk contains it (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/112/6/1394.full). So why do you think it’s the Al in vaccines that’s harmful?

This is what happens when I post so early – was supposed to say, denying that people today have access to more and better medical care than in the past….

Pretty stupid statement their Sid – but then again, you’re just a troll.

Just loved this quote from laura’s latest citation (by “one of the foremost practitioners of holistic medicine,” says the bio snippet at the end):

“Mercury…is the third-most toxic element known to mankind.”

Wow, that sounds all science-y and stuff. A ranking of elements according to “toxicity” – where can I find this ranking, should be great fun. If mercury ranks third, that’s ahead of a couple of dozen highly radioactive elements, which implies that anyone who’s ever come near a mercury thermometer should be dead.

I don’t know whether I’m up too early or too late, but this really caught my eye.

Plutonium is definitely the most poisonous element—never mind its radioactivity. During the Manhattan project, if you got a crystal half the size of a grain of salt in a cut on your finger, they could maybe save you if they amputated your arm at the shoulder within 20 minutes.

Mercury (in certain forms) may be toxic, but certainly not as toxic as arsenic or thallium, so there goes third place right there. It couldn’t be that this idiot doesn’t know what he’s talking about, could it? Perish forbid—he’s a Doctor™, after all!

Fans of crank magnetism will enjoy knowing that laura‘s source for the horrific dangers of the flu vaccine (Dr. David Brownstein) is also anti-water fluoridation:

“If the U.S. government was concerned about our health, it would remove fluoride from our water supply. Ingesting fluoride through our water supply has never been shown to prevent cavities.”

ht_p://drdavidbrownstein.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

He also has a website called thesoydeception.com

I didn’t think “holistic” meant “touting multiple kinds of paranoid craziness”, but I guess that means I lack holisticity.

If mercury is the “third most toxic element” and he’s also an anti-flouridation crank, I have to wonder where he ranks flourine. As long as he’s inventing toxicity data, that is.

I’m recalling my childhood and all the mercury in my mouth contained in amalgam fillings, because there was no fluoride in the water, back then.

We had a lively discussion here a while back about all the open cuts and scraped knees we had, that our moms swabbed mercurochrome and merthiolate (thimerisol) on, from those little brown bottles.

Of course we all have histories of DPT shots and boosters that had the dreaded thimerisol as did the hepatitis B vaccine and all those yearly flu shots. I must be loaded with mercury.

If I begin to show signs of dementia (sundowning), like some of our posters here, I’m depending that the “regulars” here will (gently) let me know. We can then discuss chelation for my mercury and aluminum toxicities.

For Sid at @71

While it seems to me demanding a citation to support improved standards of medical care reduced mortality due to measles over the period from 1912 to 1963 (prior to the introduction of measles vaccines) is no different than requiring a citation in support of the availability and widespread use of the Emerson iron lung (invented in 1931) decreased subsequent mortality due to polio prior to the availability of polio vaccines in beginning in 1955, here’s your cite with relevant excerpted text.

“Another factor comes into play, and this is the knowledge of how to care for children while they are ill. Historically, the treatment of measles, and many other diseases, consisted of cupping, bleeding, purging, and similar empiric remedies. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the importance of nutrition, hydration, and good general nursing care during any illness came to be appreciated and, along with the improved nutrition
of children, led to better survival from measles.
The Natural History of Measles, Axton, J. H. M. Journal Zambezia, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1979 (pp 145)

@JDC:

“Laura, did you read the paper you cite? Did you even read the first sentence from the abstract?”

Do cranks ever? When they see something that looks like it supports their cooky theory they get so excited that finishing the actual sentence is sometimes optional. Unfortunately, the problem with Laura’s misuse of the paper has been addressed thoroughly and she managed to dodge making an honest admission of error by citing to the very thing paper tries to explore, to wit, Al neurotoxicity. It’s only a matter of time that someone spells out the entire paper for her and what it means, at which point she will fall back on “injected is worse” gambit.

@Chris: This is hilarious. Even if cranks were ultimately correct, the methods used to prove it should make any impartial observer weary of anything they say. I always said that the political spectrum is not a line but a circle, with the fringe extremes on both sides converging. They all believe in similar nonsense, they just take a different approach to reaching their conclusions.

And in other anti-vaccine insanity putting the public at risk: mail order disease (H/T to @EdYong209 on twitter).

I stand corrected. The full thing finally loaded in Windows Explorer, it never did load fully in Firefox. It is a crappy website design. Thank you.

If you look at it, you will see that there is no one in that state.

Huh? I count 11, all in cities that can be found in Washington (state). Browser issues, maybe?

I love that many of the listings are NDs (Not a Doctor), and most of the phone numbers are “unknown.”

Actually, when I first tried the website it actually went from Virginia to Wyoming, and loaded quickly on Firefox. I am sure that there have been additions. Or it is a crappy website that only really works in Windows Internet Explorer.

@ Reuben: Did you see this gem from the Fire Science Degree vaccine specialist?:

“One other thing, I don’t know how long ago the shot was but the MMR, being a viral vaccine, never contained mercury/thimerisol.”

Offal was replying to “Heather” who had just stated her son was presently 4.5 years old. The MMR vaccine never contained thimerisol “being a viral vaccine….”

We should be grateful that Offal now knows the basic differences between viruses and bacteria, but he is still as dumb as can be about the reasons why thimerisol was used as a preservative in multi-dose vials of vaccines against viral AND bacterial diseases.

I think we may just as much fun with Offal’s facebook advice as we have had with Dr. Jay’s “tweets”.

Sorta off topic – – – dead child warning.

Looking at another of my favorite sites, I came across this:

http://www.shorpy.com/node/11595

Note the post on that site by the user ‘chrmer’.

I can’t believe people want this to come back as a fairly common occurrence. Stupid anti-vaxers.

For those not familiar with Shorpy, the web masters take high res scans of old photos in the National Archives (and a few personal pictures from back in the day), clean them up a (very) little (brightness and contrast, mostly), and post them.

Plutonium is definitely the most poisonous element—never mind its radioactivity. During the Manhattan project, if you got a crystal half the size of a grain of salt in a cut on your finger, they could maybe save you if they amputated your arm at the shoulder within 20 minutes.

Did that actually happen to someone? Wow.

“But “we had to amputate his arm immediately to save him” im an impressive story/sound bite, and removing contaminants mechanically or by chelation isn’t.”

Just had a great idea – for parents convinced by antivaxers that toxic mercury and aluminum are lurking in their vaccines, how about setting up a clinic where kids get the shots and undergo simultaneous chelation to remove the metals?

Then again, chelation wouldn’t remove the antifreeze, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, aborted baby parts and monkey pus. You’d need plasmapheresis for that.

Anyone wanting to invest in a great business opportunity, e-mail me.

@ Dangerous Bacon: I could use some of that money derived from an immunization/chelation clinic. We need a business plan including a budget line for advertising our “clinic”. Can anyone provide some internet sites which would accept our advertising money?

I wonder how long we could keep the “clinic” in operation before the recurring memes of greedy doctors and Big Pharma chelation sales would appear?

I’ve undergone donor platelet apheresis and I now know that all the antifreeze, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, aborted baby parts and monkey pus from the vaccines I’ve received, must have been removed…that’s why I felt the finger tingling. Rotten lying nurses fed me Tums and told me that the anticoagulants used during the procedure were binding up my blood calcium.

laura, Dr. Bob is not an expert on vaccines:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/cashing-in-on-fear-the-danger-of-dr-sears/

Good night laura…you are sundowning again. Sweet dreams.

Hi Chris: I consider it a compliment to be called a fascist…by someone with the intellectual capacity and critical thinking ability that “our” laura has displayed.

Both of your comments have showed me your extreme bias. You have not read the
whole article.
No where does he state vaccines are given IV- He talks about the total burden of
aluminum in the # of vaccines given and questions the safety of this.

Read the whole article…..

@ laura: Yes I am extremely biased toward science-based research and I read the full article that you linked to.

Sears article extrapolates (misinterprets) the research about aluminum in IV solution and its effect on certain humans, to incorporate it into his bogus theory of aluminum toxicity caused by vaccines. He plainly states he doesn’t know how much of the aluminum adjuvant in vaccines gets into the bloodstream… and the table he provided about the amounts in vaccines is completely wrong, wrong, wrong.

And, laura you did not read the article I referred you to, that explains the metabolism of the aluminum adjuvants in vaccines and provides the actual amount of aluminum in each vaccine.

laura, I thought you said bye-bye after you called me a fascist…uh uh “forgetting” is an ominous sign for your condition.

Good night laura.

Sorry, Ms. Duchon, I do not believe Dr. Bob is a valid source of information on vaccines. I’ve seen all those sources he discusses, and they are not on vaccines. The scaremongering on “total burden” is pointless when you get more from eating, breathing and even skinning your knee on the sidewalk.

@ Laura, Dr. Bob has never conducted a second of research and I have debated him many times about his completely false assertions. He came out looking very foolish every time, save for his adoring, dim-witted acolytes. He cherry-picks data, uses abstracts instead of full text studies and doesn’t know the first thing about pharmacokinetics, aluminium species, doses and routes of administration.

And you pit this man as an expert against, you know, actual experts? Just goes to show you would rather follow a silly celebritrician because he tells you what you want to hear instead of what is true.

@ Narad: Is this what your French means?:

“The CBeurs often said that before leaving the airwaves, it simply meant ‘goodbye’. Often, they said ‘to doll-doll chowwwww’ in the amount of echo mike-modulator in the background and is more special than thought other !!!”)

(Google Translate)

@ Rene: I’m reminded of the mailing of anthrax spores, the many telephone calls from contacts of contacts of contacts…and the selling of Cipro on the internet, during that scary time.

Laura:

People calling you out for spouting nonsense and supporting it with garbage is not fascism.

This is what you get with fascism.

If you are going to start characterizing as fascists people who are engaged in nothing more than demonstrating, with more or less asperity, the falseness of several of your claims, then you need to get a clue.

@ Composer 99:

Whenever I encounter anti-SBM talking points ( …ummmmm.. perhaps I should say “shrieking points”) and subsequent insults I usually get that, “Oh, I’ve heard *that* before”- feeling and I know exactly where to go to check out my suspicions: epithets like “fascist” and “n-zi” are tossed about as frequently as are the spurious mercury-autism link, brain inflammation memes, and Pharma conspiracies. It’s sometimes so obvious who our trolls are reading that I can easily trace out “where they’ve been recently”- and it’s an extremely *limited* set ( double entendre) of “information” providers. You know the list.

Excuse me, Ms. Duchon? First, when have I ever spoke poorly about disabled children? And what evidence do you have that they are “vaccine injured”?

My son was had seizures due to a now vaccine preventable disease, and he is disabled. Yet you show no compassion towards me. You choose to only call me names, and totally ignore the points I make correcting your errors.

If you want to talk about choice, my son had no choice every single time he was admitted to the hospital. I had no choice but to make sure that the children he was around as a baby were vaccinated because he only had the DT vaccine due to a history of seizures, and our county was having a pertussis outbreak.

Now, please stop being irrational. Come up with some real references, and open your mind to new factual information.

Well, I can only plead that I’ve read the “immediate high amputation for plutonium poisoning” thing dozens of times over the years, but that was in the primitive dead-tree era. If the innertubes say it’s an urban legend, who am I to question it? So I stand corrected.

My point remains, however—with competition like plutonium, arsenic, and thallium, there’s no way mercury is in third place, toxicity-wise. Then of course, there’s the whole matter of chemical form…here’s a question for the bullshit artists: We call ourselves “carbon-based” life. but the real elemental bottleneck for our kind of life is phosphorous (the possibility of arsenic-based life seems to have been debunked). Sugars and phosphates form the backbone of DNA; we can’t exist without it. So how much elemental phosphorous can you eat without, you know…dying? Is it more than the amount of metallic mercury you could eat? Seriously, I’d like to know.

@168:
“Although most fire marshals I deposed couldn’t define kindling temperature, Sid brought Fire Science to new lows. Homeopathy? He must have slept through his general chem requirement while studying Fire Science.”

Let’s see… Homeopathic remedies are water, water puts out fire. So, “fire science” seems like a far more reasonable application than medicine.

If only you and lilady had more compassion for vaccine injured children and the concern of parents who aren’t so sure about the genetics, auto-immune issues that their children might have with the current vaccine schedule I wouldn’t be calling you fascists which can also mean authoritarian….

I rather doubt the latter bit, but go ahead: what test do you propose in order to rule out these “issues”?

parents should have the choice to do what they think best for their children without being bullied

Define “bullied.”

@Laura: The information that Dr. sears starts with is regarding the toxic dose of aluminum for those individuals with impaired kidney function or immature kidneys. Then he makes a generalization saying that thus aluminum at that dose is toxic to everyone. No mention of kidney function after that.

Again, the toxic dose that is mentioned is not about a single administration. Rather, it is about serial administration over several days. A vaccine is not administered over consecutive days. It is administered at intervals ranging in weeks to months. That interval maybe enough for the body to clear the aluminum from the system. He makes no mention of any observations contrary to this.

Again, the studies he quotes speaks of IV administration where the aluminum directly enters the blood. Parenteral vaccines are administered subcutaneously, intra dermal and Intra muscular. From here the vaccine constituents are slowly absorbed into the blood stream. He makes no mention of the rate at which this happens. The rate of absorption maybe too slow to cause toxic accumulation of aluminum.

Again, the toxic dose he mentions is in terms of mcg/Kg body weight. He then takes the birth weight of the infant and calculates the toxic dose (which has to be administered over several days, IV) disregarding the fact that the weight of the baby increases as he/she grows and as such the absolute toxic dose also increases i.e. the threshold for toxicity should also increase. This is important considering that the child receives vaccine doses at intervals ranging from weeks to months during which the weight increases significantly (the weight usually doubles by 5 months in the subcontinent with its poorer standards of hygiene and nutrition).

There are too many holes in Dr. Sears’ reasoning about aluminum toxicity through vaccination. He also does not cite any definite and properly conducted study on vaccination in support of his claims.

@chris: excellent article at science-based-medicine-dot-org. Thank you for the link.

Sorry for the multiple posts, was having connection issues.

So how much elemental phosphorous can you eat without, you know…dying? Is it more than the amount of metallic mercury you could eat?

You should certainly worry about organic mercury compounds, which obviously goes to show that carbon is the most lethal element of all. What are cyanide and tetrodotoxin, if not carbon with some other elements?

In terms of *elemental* poisons, mercury is`worth avoiding — with inhaling the vapour being worse than swallowing it — but it hardly begins to compare with polonium or phosphorous or umpteen others.

“To which I often ask, why would a child who is affected by vaccines fare any better with the real disease?”

But Chris…There are tens/hundreds of thousands of kids with autism who are vaccine damaged…according to “laura”. See the link that she provides to Dr. Blaylock from her posting on the NVIC Facebook page.

I really think she is in the throes of some sort of dementia, as she repeatedly and blatantly links to pseudoscience websites. Even when the fallacy of her arguments are pointed out to her, she returns to the same links, re-argues them…and then resorts to name calling.

Does she still claim to not be anti-vaccination…after the many months of posting her inanities here?

@T-reg
This is what Dr. Sears is concerned about…
“As a medical doctor, my first instinct is to worry that these aluminum levels far exceed what may be safe for young babies. But then my second instinct is to assume that this issue has been researched and that studies have been done on healthy infants to determine their ability to excrete aluminum rapidly. My third instinct is to go looking for these studies, and so far I have not been able to find any. It is likely that the FDA feels the kidneys of healthy infants work well enough to excrete this aluminum rapidly before it can circulate through the body, accumulate in the brain, and cause toxic effects. However, I can’t find any references in the FDA documents that show that using aluminum in vaccines has been tested in human infants and found to be safe. “

Laura, you don’t seem to have grasped the points made by T-reg. Particularly his point that vaccines are intramuscular & are absorbed s-l-o-w-l-y into the bloodstream, which would place less of a challenge on the kidneys’ ability to clear Al from the bloodstream. (Which they do rather effectively: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.119.9558&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

The problem is the right-parenthesis which has adhered to the URL.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.119.9558&rep=rep1&type=pdf

@Laura: My comment was on a theoretical basis to counter the theoretical basis on which Dr. Sears voices his concerns (and to some extent misrepresents the study).

However, the link posted by Chris @#177 has a section explaining a study on Aluminum metabolism and how Dr. Sears’ concerns and fear-mongering are unfounded. While Dr. Sears talks on a general theoretical basis without any sound facts specific to Aluminum metabolism (I cast a doubt his claims on similar grounds) this refutation has some sound and verified facts regarding Aluminum metabolism and excretion.

The point I was trying to make is that there are several loop holes and unknowns in his line of reasoning. While the same can be said about unknowns in my line of reasoning, I have not gone ahead and published a book posing as an authority on vaccination and making baseless claims to the general public. This last part is what is to be condemned, in my view.

Since aluminum is only the third most common element on Earth, you better work on eliminating all exposure to silicon and oxygen first.

@ Laura, there are copious data regarding aluminium but Dr. Sears ignored the most relevant ones in favour of cherry-picked studies to support his “gut science” aka “intuition. Children do not receive toxic levels of aluminium via vaccines by any stretch.

Dr. Bob Sears isn’t a researcher why do you use him as an authority?

@Science Mom- Please rest my fears and direct me to the studies.

@Laura:

What you cite merely speculates from the previous data regarding the body burden of Aluminum.

Read the link posted by chris @#177 and see the graph which shows the results of a study done on the body burden of Aluminum from vaccination. No speculation here. Actual study data.

@Laura:

The concerns are not baseless- there might be a problem with the total body burden of aluminum.

If you read my comment carefully you would see that I was specifically attacking his reasoning and thus showing how it is baseless.

I have a comment in moderation (absolutely no links and not long). I noticed that they say the first year of aluminum via vaccines is ten times less than the daily limit. This does not seem to be a problem.

Could you copy the part that you find particularly worrisome so that we know what you are talking about?

@Laura:

Maybe I should have rephrased it as “What you cite presents a study and then at the end speculates on the presented data that implications maybe that vaccination may increase the body burden of aluminum.”

Contrary to this speculation is the actual study done on the body burden of aluminum through vaccination which you can read about at http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/cashing-in-on-fear-the-danger-of-dr-sears/ as cited by chris @#177.

Check the graph somewhere in the middle (and the text preceding and succeeding it).

This is perhaps the 4th time I’m referring you to the link.

Actually, looking back at that graph, it pretty much says the same thing the page Laura keeps referring to says.

@ArtK-
Apologies to all- You are correct-it was in the heat of anger….
but I am not suffering from dementia, delusions as lilady suggested.
I made an honest inquiry into some unknown facts.
I defended parents’ rights to make an informed decision. As stated before, my
grandchildren are vaccinated, one had a vaccine reaction though thankfully fully
recovered. After her reaction several months ago, I started to question. Also a grandchild of my cousin has autism-reason unknown. Another cousin also has an
autistic child.

@Science Mom- Please rest my fears and direct me to the studies.

I see that you have been given some materials to read. Now, are you going to follow the evidence created by actual experts or continue to parrot “gut science” ala celebritrician Dr. Bob?

Found the expert in the field- Dr. Offit

Yes, you’ve posted that twice. What do you infer from it?

Aluminum is considered to be an essential metal with quantities fluctuating naturally during normal cellular activity.

Aluminium levels do fluctuate but there is no known requirement for aluminium. So there is no evidence to support that statement.

@ Chris, I can’t fathom where he derived that statement from (there is nothing in that review stipulating Al to be an essential metal that I can see), ubiquitous yes, but no known requirement for Al.

@Laura —
…a grandchild of my cousin has autism-reason unknown. Another cousin also has an
autistic child.

Funny how autism seems to run in families. Almost like it might be genetic or something.

Did you click on the link in Luna’s comment?

ArtK:

The inability to put the term “fascist” into its proper context (and therefore understand its meaning) is the same as being unable to put the amount of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines in their proper context (i.e. far less than the proverbial roll of Tums.)

Well, I should hope so, seeing as how Tums are basically calcium carbonate, sugar, and flavoring. ;-P (They could possibly have other trace minerals; they’re made as a byproduct of the marble industry, marble being principally calcium carbonate.) You may be thinking of Maalox or other liquid antacids which contain aluminum hydroxide.

Urgh. That’s what I get for repeating someone else’s “fact” without checking it myself. Me culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

@Laura

There may well be environmental factors, and in some cases we know that there are — for example, one possible complications of brain damage from measles is ASD.

Which doesn’t take away from two things:

1. The rise in ASD is the rise in diagnosis:
http://www.exploringautism.org/news/label.htm (multiply confirmed in different studies in different areas by different teams)

2. There is no link, statistically or epidemiologically, with vaccines: autism incidence doesn’t track with numbers of vaccines at all, when you actually look at details of vaccine schedules at different periods in different areas, no matter what you may hear to the contrary on anti-vaccine sites.

The single exception to 2., is that (unsurprisingly) measles sequelae drop where vaccination rates are high, leading to fewer documented cases of ASD as a result of measles brain damage.

One simple idea behind the genetics research is to try to identify what the genes which play into autism do — which will in turn point the way to what they may be vulnerable to in the environment if there ARE any environmental factors. That does not mean we can’t eliminate possible environmental vectors simply on the basis of “no physiological plausibility and NO statistical link whatsoever”, though!

Laura: “I am not anti-vax but really question the current schedule of vaccine administration and get called a troll when I want solid facts”

After reading the comments that follow, I am reminded of the inimitable DNA:

“What we demand is solid facts!”

“No, we don’t! That is precisely what we don’t demand!”

“We don’t demand solid facts! What we demand is the total absence of solid facts!”

“…we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!”

@lilady-see 242

and Dr. Offit’s statement 245, 247, questions 248, 249, 250

Au revoir!

Laura, that article does not support your irrational fear of the most abundant metal element on this planet’s crust.

Chris, you can point out that aluminum is the third most common element in the Earth’s crust till you’re blue in the face, it will never register with some people. Aluminum is unnatural, and was just invented recently—like radiation.

I received the same email last week and last evening at 7PM I received this email…obviously the joint efforts of our internet community has led to success!

Dear (lilady)

Thank you for contacting Delta. We value customer feedback and appreciate you taking the time to contact us. Please allow me to share some background with you regarding the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) video spot running on some Delta aircraft this month.

Earlier this year, NVIC purchased video advertising space on some of our overhead in-flight entertainment systems. The three-minute segment, which ends its run on Delta flights during the month of November, is part of a show we call Lifestyle 365 and focuses on flu prevention.

Since the ad began running, we have learned of e-mails, online petitions and other social media channels pushing for the removal of the spot claiming that it is an anti-vaccine advertisement that discourages people from receiving the influenza vaccine.

Based on customer feedback, Delta felt it important to review the episode with the occupational health department to better understand perception of the video. After doing so, we acknowledge to you that the video doesn’t support vaccination as the key preventative measure for influenza.

Therefore, we have changed our internal review processes and procedures to help ensure that submitted content is vetted differently going forward. We recognize that while the views represented in Lifestyle 365 do not necessarily match those of Delta, we have a responsibility to our customer to ensure all programming is relevant, accurate and does not lend itself to interpretation.

Our December public service announcement topic is “Every Child By /Two (ECBT) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v+mx5bGepinjk&feature+youtu.be which encourages vaccinations at an early age.

Again, customer feedback is very important to us and we appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns. Please let us know if you have any further questions and as always thank you for flying Delta.

Very sincerely,

(name omitted)
General Manager, Occupational Health
Delta Air Lines

Note the particular sentences about specific to the NVIC, the new policy to vet all video ads and the placement of the “Every Child By Two” PSA aboard Delta flights.

I replied to email, thanking them for their quick response and suggested they look to other government sites such as Immunize.org for additional PSAs that are educational about vaccine preventable diseases

YAY! Now that IS a good outcome. 🙂

Wait. Not only are they taking off that spot, but they’re posting one about every child by two?

That’s almost like getting Glenn Beck off the air and replacing him with lectures on civility and honest discussion.

Almost.

*The preceding constitutes only my opinion and not necessarily that on my (now three) employers, their other employees, my friends, family, the dog, the three cats, or the two Guinea pigs.*

*Oh, and the zebra. (Long story.)*

“I replied to email, thanking them for their quick response and suggested they look to other government sites such as Immunize.org for additional PSAs that are educational about vaccine preventable diseases.”

I received this email at 2 PM today:

Dear Ms. lilady:

I agree that the immunize.org site is an excellent resource. Thanks for this information.

Best regards,

(name omitted)
General Manager, Occupational Health
Delta Air Lines

How much did that ad cost for a one month run? I only hope that Babs was in the process of arrangements to buy more ad space to run the video in other venues.

^ That is, per quarter.

I’m wondering if Delta was aware of what NVIC stood for. Considering that a flu outbreak would put a serious crimp in air travel, probably not.

What an unexpectedly timely, reasonable, and overall positive outcome! Good on Delta.

I think it’s kind of cute that Dachel’s AoA piece from November 11 attempts to suggest that the AAP letter is some sort of fake:

LBRB also published a copy of a letter they say was written by someone from the American Academy of Pediatrics to Delta Airlines stating the AAP’s objections to NVIC’s educational video. In the letter, the “AAP” calls on Delta to remove the video…. Other websites and bloggers have also republished the LBRB article and “AAP” letter online.

Babs has been busy since this latest fiasco with the NVIC Delta Airlines ad. She has sent out a press release to the media slamming the AAP:

National Vaccine Information Center Calls Out AAP For Using Public Intimidation to Censor NVIC Flu Prevention Video Offered to Delta Travelers

I just love this one paragraph from the press release:

NVIC co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher responded, “Without cause, the AAP has used their considerable financial resources and political influence to intimidate Delta for simply showing a video that offers accurate information about ways to stay healthy during the flu season, including talking with doctors about getting a flu shot. Censorship and attacks on consumer advocacy groups working to institute informed consent protections in public health policies should not be tolerated in this or any society that cherishes free speech and the right to self determination.”

This sentiment brought tears to my eyes…while I was ROTFLMAO.

It’s a funny thing about airlines. In spite of their huge staff of flight personnel, mechanics and ground personnel in areas all over the world, their corporate staff such as human resources, department heads and legal staff all “know” each other…they are quite interconnected.

I happen to have a “close” relative who worked as in-house counsel for a large international air carrier and they all “know” each other and they know their legal counterparts in the FAA, the DOT and Department of Justice, as well. Whenever a situation such as this arises with one airline, the circumstances and resolution of a situation, quickly is discussed in other airlines.

Of course, Babs is not helping her cause by making it a “cause celebre” with her press release and her readiness to be quoted in popular media outlets.

Just to remind everybody what a vaccine reaction can look like

Like an easy settlement and 44 grand for the lawyer?

An update!

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2011/11/barbara_loe_fisher_cries_intimidation.php

Narad:

Like an easy settlement and 44 grand for the lawyer?

Do you mean like this and this?

And notice how the website lurker posted has not been updated since before that, and he/she skips over that the child had spent time in the NICU. It is more of a case of the dangers of preeclampsia.

Hello lurker: If the parents chose to blame the Hepatitis B vaccine, by posting the pictures of the baby on the website, they are wrong. The vaccine is not a live vaccine..it is a recombinant DNA vaccine and infection with the virus is impossible.

Did you read the parent’s “diary” (Ian’s Life) on the website? Baby was in trouble before birth, after experiencing aspiration of meconium in utero. Baby was also treated for MAS (Meconium Aspiration Pneumonia) which is treated by antibiotics in the NICU and did not receive the vaccine until he was 7 days old.

So, we have pictures of this infant who most probably had a severe case of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome from one of the antibiotics that he received or possibly an anti-convulsant that he received in the NICU. S-J Syndrome rarely can lead to septic shock and the resulting major organ failure and DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation) that the infant experienced that resulted in his death.

Perhaps the mother omitted the fact that Ian’s in utero distress and distress after birth was a result of exposure to maternal GBS (Group B Strep) infection which can lead to septicemia and the cascade of events that was reported in the diary and shown in the the pictures on their website.

Get a life, lurker, real doctors and nurses have treated children and adults with septicemia and septic shock.

@Todd W.
Gardasil vaccine victims-

Hey, if Laura Keegan, FNP (“Lifeforce is the vital impulse of life”), can provide a video from Universal Mysteries that says as much, that takes care of that.

@ lurker: You must not have read the actual vaccine court’s ruling about the case…link supplied by Chris.

The parents pursued the case in the vaccine court, because the court has a much lower burden of proof. The parents sought remuneration under the “table injury” that their lawyers claimed caused Ian’s illness and subsequent death.

There are no “antibiotic courts” or “anti-convulsants” court. Recourse is sought in the regular courts, where all the circumstances surrounding his birth…mom’s induced labor for pre-eclampsia, meconium aspiration pneumonia and maternal infection status would all undergo scrutiny. All the hospital records of the many medications he was given would also be subject to “discovery”, as well as testimony and physician’s notes from all the specialists who cared for the infant, would be part of the regular court’s records. The burden of proof of injury/death is much higher in “regular court”.

Too bad, you think that the “diary” is in fact, “fact”. The child died of septic shock, either from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome associated with medicine (antibiotics or anti-convulsants)to treat his infection…or from maternal infection in the days prior to delivery or at the time of delivery.

Had the child survived the septic shock, the gangrenous left hand would have been amputated and he might have had other partial limb amputations as well.

And having found that his “baby killed by vaccine” link leads to more questions with answers he/she cannot deflect, lurker does the most logical thing: change the subject to a painkiller.

Lurker:
Fact: An infant’s immune system is very weak at birth.
Fact: When statements are in fact factual, people do not feel so insecure about stating them that they have to prop them up this way.

You are showing real denial (psych definition)
You are evidently under the impression that psychology defines “denial” as “disagreeing with me”. Is this another of your “Facts”?

lurker, that is your professional opinion upon reading all of the medical notes and with your education as a pathologist, right?

I suspect that “lurker” gets all his YouTube “citations” from the NVIC…where his particular “YouTube Citation” is prominently featured.

I nominate “Chris” for today’s Internet Award for her link to the actual Vaccine Court case decision. Are nominations still open for “YouTube citations awards”?

first read the story
If it is all as ill-informed as the extracts you have regaled us with, why on earth would I want to do that?

I’ve seen the now dormant diary website that lurker linked to about three times in the last month or so. No one seems to notice that the blog link is dead, that the newsletter has not been updated or that several of the links are dead.

I have a feeling that the “unpublished” part of the US Court website means that none of the testimony is published, so the parents really don’t want all of the details online.

lurker, the only way that the “should not have given the vaccine argument” will fly if there was also a malpractice lawsuit. Not against the vaccine manufacturers, but to the health care providers who seem to have done what you think they should not have done.

@Chris-

Read CDC’s -who should not get the Hep B vaccine.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/should-not-vacc.htm#hepb

@Vicki-
My point is that if they had been educated about the risks of the vaccine and
the truth about how Heb B was added to the schedule (non-compliance by the
target population) they would never have allowed the Hep B to be given and their
child might still be alive.

Hey, if Laura Keegan, FNP (“Lifeforce is the vital impulse of life”), can provide a video from Universal Mysteries

I should note that I had the “as seen on” causal arrow reversed; Universal Mysteries picked up Keegan’s video.

@ Narad: She also has a “practice” in New York State. Here’s what she has to say about “conventional pharmacological care”:

“Illness Care by Appointment

I offer conventional pharmacological care when appropriate. However, more often than not, typical visits suggest holistic care that does not involve conventional medications. I primarily use homeopathy, but my approach is eclectic including therapeutic nutrition, herbal medicine, anthroposopical medicine and cranial sacral therapy. I consult with other practitioners and specialists when necessary or beneficial.”

Has she missed any part of “eclectic care”?

It was sarcasm.

Ooops.

But he really does not understand the direction his whinging is going.