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What the Papers Don't Say About Vaccines
jamie tips an article in The Guardian's "Bad Science" column which highlights recent media coverage of the MMR vaccine. A story circulated in the past week about the death of a young child, which the parents blamed on the vaccine. When the coroner later found that it had nothing to do with the child's death, there was a followup in only one of the six papers who had covered the story.
"Does it stop there? No. Amateur physicians have long enjoyed speculating that MMR and other vaccinations are somehow 'harmful to the immune system' and responsible for the rise in conditions such as asthma and hay fever. Doubtless they must have been waiting some time for evidence to appear. ... Measles cases are rising. Middle class parents are not to blame, even if they do lack rhetorical panache when you try to have a discussion with them about it. They have been systematically and vigorously misled by the media, the people with access to all the information, who still choose, collectively, between themselves, so robustly that it might almost be a conspiracy, to give you only half the facts."
No one is interested in reading positive news like the fact the vaccine isn't actually harmful so there's no money in printing it.
When it comes to something that may seriously harm your child, whether it be vaccines or the illnesses the vaccines prevent against, it is your responsibility as a parent to not go off half-cocked and to make extremely sure that you have all the facts before you make a decision regarding the welfare of your child. If you're not up to that responsibility, then you shouldn't have custody of your kids. Plain and simple.
*Father*
Since when is this nebulous entity called "the media" the only group that "has access to all the information"? If people decide to shirk responsibility for their own lives, and blindly accept conventional wisdom, that is their choice and they have freely made it, whether or not they consciously acknowledge it.
Am I the only one who had to google MMR Vaccine to find out that this is talking about the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine given to chlidren?
...to read the last sentence.
They have been systematically and vigorously misled by the media, the people with access to all the information, who still choose, collectively, between themselves, so robustly that it might almost be a conspiracy, to give you only half the facts.
Six commas...
Contrary to popular opinion, newspapers, radio stations, television stations, news sites, podcasts, and blogs are ALL in competition with one another. Each of them tries to find the stories that sell best to their readers. Its called a free market.
I know its popular to blame everything on "the media" (or here in North Carolina, "The Liberal News Media"), which apparently includes everything from Slashdot to FOX to the BBC, but it is simply bullshit. It is as realistic as saying that icecream makers insist on making unhealthy foods. No... They make what people BUY.
I know this is going to be viewed somewhat as flamebait, but to put it bluntly, doctors are mechanics for the human body. No more, no less. The vast, overwhelming majority of doctors have little to no true scientific training, any more so than a business person or Joe the Plumber. Even those doctors doing active medical research have limited scientific faculties IMO, having heard about this stereotype from others, read about on the internet, and dealt with it myself. Therefore, when it comes to scientific interpretation, anything coming from a doctor's mouth should be taken with at least a grain of salt, if not a shakerful.
Not that I'm saying there's a link, but my son suddenly started suffering Cold Urticaria right after having his second MMR jab. When we saw the doctor about it, I mentioned the vaccination as a possible trigger and the doctor immediately launched into a defence of MMR without recording it (she wrote down everything else I mentioned). While I'm aware that the previous arguments about links to autism were based on poor use of statistics, I did find it strange that the NHS is not interested in recording such incidents so that they can do proper statistical analysis and find any real links that exist.
Just gotta give up some respect to Ben Goldacre.
In the face of the standard shrill anti-science which permeates western media, he's a guy who tells it straight. A high class myth-busters, if you like.
A geek. The man.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
"Make extremely sure that you have all the facts"? I'm a continuous skeptic about everything, and from what I've read, I'm 99.99% sure that autism and vaccines are not linked in any way - but the cause of autism is not known, so it would be irresponsible for me to run out and declare that I'm 100% sure. I'm not sure, and neither are you, and if you claim you're 100% sure, then you're being religious instead of scientific.
A parent who is less sure, say 90% sure, now has to balance the effects and probabilities that on the one hand, that the kid will get the almost-never-lethal-or-disabling measles; and on the other hand a minute chance that the kid will get the disabling malady of autism. It's their kid, so I find it unsurprising that parents are simply skipping the vaccines as long as there's the shadow of a doubt.
The only way to get the parents back on vaccine schedules is to determine the cause of autism.
Too many people are ignant. That's the real issue...ignance.
There are studies showing more people buy more media when the news is out of the ordnary. That's another issue...ignant people leading ordnary lives.
Vaccines helping children is ordnary. The ignants get no excitement from it.
Now, vaccines harming children is exciting. The ignant want to read more about this.
But to really get the issue to the forefront, you need to get it on daytime TeeVee, like Oprah or something.
If you can add maternal instinct to the mix, then you have the potential to really give the ignant something out of the ordnary.
I've long said that the internet would turn the world upside down as much as the printing press did 500 years ago, and this is one of the ways.
People are smart enough to know that our entire ruling class - the first, second, third and fourth estates, all slant information to suit their own ends. No one trusts their leaders and the constant bickering among the different classes at the top only serves to amplify this distrust. But, before, this distrust meant that people could only be isolated, with a few prayed on by the conspiracy industry.... but now that everyone can talk to anyone, this distrust of institution has exploded. You don't have to worry that the media, government, and scientific community might call you a crackpot, when you can find an easy 10,000 people that agree with you.
This is my sig.
This, again, props up the new trend to say "I/We" are not to blame... "THEY" are! Since when did a parent lose any responsibility to to do the homework and figure out what is or is not best for their child? Since when do we believe EVERYTHING we read?
It's a societal issue. Once a critical portion of the population is not immunized against a disease, then a widespread epidemic is more possible and likely. This could have severe economic impacts that go far beyond the goals of individual parents. This is why most immunization is mandatory unless there is a specific religious or health related exception. People invoking these exceptions trivially are endangering the functioning civil order. These vaccines have proven to be quite safe -- and, even if there is a risk of infection (say for example, with live polio), if the negative side-effect rate in the population is low-enough, its still something that should be mandated in order to ensure that the population as a whole is resilient to some of the Big Nasties.
You must be new here, for if you were not, you would know that us, the readers of slashdot, enjoy reading summaries which, when read slowly and carefully, provide some great meaning that, fortunately, could not have been presented to us without all the deliberately, refreshingly placed commas, all of which brighten our sad, lonely days in these dank, windowless basements which, for many of us, have been our homes for decades and, comma-willing, will continue to be for many more decades to come, for we would be distraught should our parents, who gave birth to us, of course, were to boot us out into the "real world", the simple notion of which frightens us beyond belief, really.
Sincerely, yours,
Reader, who is anonymous, for various reasons, none of which concern you, the reader of this comment.
Do we really want to take medical advise from amateurs? This isn't backyard car modding we are talking about.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
I highly recommend Dr Sear's vaccine book if you are a new parent. The doses of mercury and formaldehyde included in most vaccine is concerning to most parents. As most parents will tell you, your kid feels and looks like crap after getting a single vaccine. Dosing him with multiple ones really knocks 'em down for a week or more until they return to normal.
My wife and I chose to space out the vaccines we gave our child to 1-2 a month instead of 3-4 every two months. This keeps a "mostly normal" vaccine schedule while trying to avoid overburdening the kids body.
That's funny, when I was like 2 I had to take a vaccination and I had some horrible reaction to it and almost died and they were 100% sure that was the cause. I also didn't react real well to my 17 year old tetanus shot but that was a bit more common. So don't go thinking they're completely and utterly safe either.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I am a med student, but I'm not from the USA. I am from Austria, Europe or as some would say 'Old Europe' ;)
And I have to agree.
In my country med school takes 6 years and you don't have any other college level education beforehands.
Med school is somewhat scientific here, but I don't think most people learn to really think like a scientist. You have to write a scientifical paper but most students are just lab assistants or call center agents during this.
To be honest I get sick when I talk to coleagues who think homeopathy actually works. People who at least were exposed to most of the concepts behind microbiology, biochemistry and so on.
There are actually courses about homeopathy, etc. at my university.
I can deal with doctors who do homeopathy for the money. I can't deal with those who really belive in it.
I think a really good doctor should have scientific thinking skills. He doesn't need to be an actual scientist. It's enough if he knows how to interpret scientific papers. Sees their merit and apply them.
Remember when power lines were giving our children cancer?
I'm glad they fixed that.
Parents who don't get their kids the MMR vaccine put their kids at higher risk of getting those diseases. Kids who get those diseases are less likely to have children of their own. So as soon as herd immunity breaks down, the number of stupid people breeding drops.
Best Slashdot Co
Recently here in NY we had a law passed to take the mercury out of vaccines (diff. kind of mercury used and not in dangerous amounts). The mother who they put on the news to hail the bill was, like me, a parent of an autistic child. However, the reason she gave for the bill was that "infants' immune systems are not well formed enough to fight the mercury". I was laughing so hard I nearly ripped something. That's what's wrong. You protest so hard you get a bill passed and go on the news to defend it, and you lack any basic understanding of the human body. If all these people think the vaccines are harmful, so be it. But I wish they would gain some basic understanding of the body first.
The age old debate about whether the flu shot can give people the flu. And the odd reaction to other components...I'm looking at you, thimerosal. Most of the discussions tend to be more heat than light.
My opinion is the fear is far greater than the actual risk would indicate. Even if the reaction rate was extremely small, litigation and the internet are going insure the stories spread far and wide. Combine a very small number of actual problems with a lot of publicity, add a dash of anecdotal evidence and I think the fear factor of vaccinations is over done.
Complicating the discussions are the number of times we've been collectively lied to by big business and big pharma. Even if they were telling the truth, we have reasonable grounds to remain suspicious. And the Bush administration installing an incompetent religious frootloop as head of the FDA hasn't exactly inspired public trust that the safety of medications and vaccines are being adequately monitored. It's easy to suspect that oversight of medication safety is every bit as good as the SEC's oversight of the financial markets.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It "might almost be a conspiracy?" Perhaps it looks that way due to the fact that stupid people are easily led astray when given an incomplete set of information. In truth, individuals are responsible for maintaining their own sufficient understanding of reality. As many others will surely tell you, "the media" (read: people) only disseminate the bad news because bad news sells.
When parents of my pediatric patients say they're skipping vaccines, they talk more about what they read on the Internet than what they see on television or read in the newspaper. The second most common source of information cited about how vaccines are dangerous is "people [they've] talked to." Only a small percentage make a distinction about specific vaccines; most who refuse the MMR refuse everything. So, do I have to wait until we prove another negative - autism isn't caused by DTaP - to prevent common (and sometimes fatal) whooping cough? Proving that the MMR vaccine doesn't cause autism (NEJM 347:1477-1482) hasn't been enough for my vaccine refusers so far. This is a parental issue. I think the solution is basic education in the scientific method and statistics for everyone, beginning in elementary school.
I would be a bit cautious about this part. As the saying goes, never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.
Sadly, I can not imagine my life without last.fm.
Consider the story about the dangers of germ-free environments. Specifically, excessive attempts to elminate germs can, in addition to creating super-bugs, cause our immune system to malfunction. Without the constant exercisng of our immune system by germs, our immune system goes into overdrive by generating an immune response to things (e.g., pollen) that are not germs.
The above story appeared for a brief moment in the news and then disappeared. Meanwhile, the quantity of advertisements for anti-bacterial products (containing triclosan) has exploded. The public prefers to watch pseudo-science commericials instead of genuine-science news stories.
The anti-science public does not care about science. If the public did care about science, it would have dramatically reduced its purchases of anti-bacterial products (thus protecting the health and lives of Americans). So, when the public does not care about science, science-related stories appear briefly in the news media and then quickly fade away in favor of stories about, say, Paris Hilton.
During a big outbreak of the measels in the netherlands 2961 people were infected.
Twenty percent of the infected people developed serious complications.
Three kids died, 53 had to be hospitalized. 130 had pneumonia. 152 otitis media.
If you don't vaccinate your kid because of an extremly vague at best and realisticaly unplausible chance of your kid getting autism you are a bad parent. No discussion.
My rule of thumb on vaccines is to look at how bad it'll be to get whatever you're vaccinating against. Generally they fall into three categories:
The first two are things to get vaccinated against. The third... don't bother. I'm a firm believer in letting your immune system handle normally everything it's reasonable to let it handle. It's good excercise for it, and it'll teach it not to over- or under-react to threats. Reserve the external help for the things where you can't risk having it make a mistake. It's the same as any kind of excercise: you get some pain and effort up-front, but reap far more in benefits over the long run.
Caveat: talk to your doctor before you decide which category something falls into. Some things that're not normally a problem can be a big problem for certain people.
Usually, one can rely on the cock-up theory. However, in the case of the MMR vaccine there really was a conspiracy.
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/bc1114td.html
Because such self-reported anecdotes are not relevant in a proper statistical analysis.
If there were a correlation to be found, then the epidemiologists would be able to find it just based on the fact that a significant number of children came in with cases of hives shortly after coming in for their MMRs. Your records would support that, based simply on the objective facts that you had the MMR on date x, and came down with hives on date x+n. That's all the evidence your son's case can provide.
Your armchair analysis on a sample size of one is not evidence, and has no place in a medical record.
Really, this crap has gotten so bad there are some subjects that just CAN'T be discussed with 'ordinary people' anymore. Vaccines, ADD/ADHD, Corn Syrup, Aspartame.. the list goes on and on. (And not too seldom, the conspiracy theories run together - "vaccines cause ADD!")
It's a sad state of affairs.
The only way to get the parents back on vaccine schedules is to determine the cause of autism.
Um, no. That's not the only way.
There are two public interests here. One is preventing the outbreak of infectious diseases. The other is protecting vulnerable members of our society who are unable to defend themselves against their parents' superstition and ignorance. For either or both reasons, we can and should use the law to force parents to vaccinate their children.
Parents are prosecuted for withholding other forms of medical care from their children. For example, 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann died from diabetes while her parents prayed over her, and those parents are now charged, as they should be, with reckless homicide. Why not meet deliberate failure to vaccinate a child with, say, a charge of child endangerment?
Here's my reasoning: Once in a while, an article covers a subject that I am knowledgeable about. Almost always, I will find something wrong in the article. Sometimes it's just a minor mistake or a gross over-simplification. More often than not, however, the article gets it hopelessly wrong and completely misinforms the reader.
I can only conclude that the same happens in articles that cover stuff I know nothing about.
So, I pulled the number in the headline out of my ass. Kinda like the average newspaper author.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Dosing him with multiple ones really knocks 'em down for a week or more until they return to normal.
. . . or they would have vaccinated me more often.
. . . Or maybe they did, and I still haven't returned to normal.
Yes, that's it.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Writing this column really scares me because I wonder whether everything else in the media is as shamelessly, venally, manipulatively, one-sidedly, selectively reported on as the things I know about. But this week the reality editing was truly without comparison.
Yes, as a matter of fact, the situation with the Palestinain terroist governments in Israel is just even more biased against Israel than the press was against MMR this week.
People are always looking for The Explanation to various problems, troubles and ailments. So it is easy to blame vaccines for causing Autism; instead of accepting that it could perhaps be a multitude causes behind it.
For instance, as an example, no one fully understand the accumulated effects of all the pollution we pump into the air, the toxins we dump into the ocean, and rivers, and the additives and preservatives added to food and drinks. Various chemicals could by themselves be harmless, or even of benefit to society, but combine variations together in a person at random (especially children) and the effects are unknown. Perhaps it's not the cause of anything, perhaps it is; all I know is that very little substantial research is being done. And the sentiment presented by manufacturers and retailers seem to be; "If you don't die at once; it's not a poison. Besides you're all just a bunch of doom saying crybabies."
Personally I try never to form a convolution based upon a lack of evidence, however in these cases there seem to be almost fundamentalist zeal in ignoring or suppressing any research and trials to document fully the effects of Everything for an extensive amount of time (enough time to make a rational conclusion one way or the other).
Basic point is, question everything. As a specie we have a tendency to use, abuse, package and sell all kinds of stuff that we don't fully comprehend yet. Like radioactive toothpaste being marketed as extra healthy.
The Long Now Foundation
They already KNOW some causes of autism. It's a spectrum, and the symptoms that cause it are a list of behaviors, some of which have known triggers. Rhett's Syndrome, Fragile X syndrome are two that come to mind off the top of my head. I know another child that had a surgical injury that caused autistic behaviors. If autism were a disease, then it would be easy to say 'let's find the cause'. But given the scope and definition of autism, I would find it very hard to say that we could find 'the cause'. Maybe we can find more causes, which would be great. They suspect a few different things for my own child. Oh, and it isn't just the media. I've gone to seminars and conferences, with doctors and PhDs who are still spouting 'it could be the shots'. It couldn't have been that with my son, though. That much we DO know.
If it were just the media causing this one could expect a good portion of even the most gullible to hear enough contradiction to finally ferret out the truth. The real problem is people in positions of trust that respout biased media coverage again and again to the small groups of people in their sphere. You get enough of these grass-root level fear-mongers telling the same tale and pretty soon you really don't need the big media. These anti-immunization crusaders spread their stupidity much like religion does, and quite often in the same buildings (hint hint)
You might want to discover that the world, and people, aren't black and white.
Sure != proof. "Sure" is like "trust". It is a continuous spectrum. The original poster never said 100%. He simply said "extremely" sure; indicating that the parent should feel, believe or can justify strongly that their decision is the correct one.
Please read what was written, exactly as it was written, before knee-jerking a reaction.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Since the cause of autism is unknown, but the incidence of it is up the last few decades, it seems quite likely that at least one of the assertions regarding what supposedly doesn't cause it may be wrong. Maybe the experiments that have "proved" MMR to be safe didn't reproduce the right conditions or test against the (unidentified) group most at risk of side effects... Maybe it's DTaP that's really the cause, maybe it's the cumulative effect of so many vaccines that does it (or maybe it is indeed unrelated to vaccines, and our source of ignorance lies elesewhere)..
In the meantime, until science has identified what is causing autism, it'd be better to have a bit more humility over what we don't know rather than asserting that for sure MMR/etc are safe. It may save you from a lawsuit to later be able to tell the parent of an autistic child ("but all the tests at the time said the vaccine was safe"), but that doesn't help the parent or the child at all. I'd say err on the side of caution and weight the risks. Don't just mindlessly vaccinate against everything possible, and use the most convenient multi-disease shots (MMR, DTaP).
I was born in the UK in 1961, and so grew up in the era where we weren't vaccinated against things like measels and chicken pox, and so of course we caught them, and we were fine. There may be rare side effects of these diseases, but the coincident rise in autism coupled with the rise in vaccination at least doesn't indicate autism as one of the side effects. As it happened I also almost died as an infant as a result of the DTP vaccine, and consequently wasn't given the 2nd shot of the series. I did subsequently catch whooping cough, and although it was unpleasant, it's sure better than being dead.
Since my wife is due with our first child in January, the topic of vaccinations has much personal relevance, and while I certainly intend to vaccinate our child in general, I will be looking for a pediatrician who isn't too blase about the potential risks given our lack of knowledge about what does autism.
Vaccines are dangerous. They contain a toxic chemical called thimerosal, which metabolizes as methylmercury and does nerve damage.
Information from experts in your life is how you make decisions on which video card to get, which new TV to get, which video game system to buy, which new game to get for it.
Nobody alive is an expert in all fields, and everyone has to put trust in others. That trust is sometimes misplaced, sometimes misplaced in authority, sometimes in lack of authority.
Blaming people for listening to 'other people' and not doing their own research is just stupid -- there's no possibility, and I mean _NONE_ that any human being can do the necessary research to make anything better than an educated guess in 90% of basic life situations.
Should you call a plumber or put baking soda and vinegar down your sink? Should you leave a cover on your AC unit in the winter or not? Should you have your carpet steam-cleaned or not?
Assuming unlimited money to pay for experts in each case, you still won't get all the right answers, and you'll have missed out on most of your life being paranoid.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
This is really a story about the Yellow's - Fever and Journalism that is - and a collective fever of the social psyche that allows reports like this to flourish
Media have ALWAYS played up the sensational, ignoring the good, and marginalizing their own mistakes. In the US, the concept of free speech keeps the governmant from suppressing communication, but there is no such thing as "free speech". Those with the means of traditional puiblication are bound to readership, advertisers, shareholders, and profitibility - the "truth" is only that which sells the most. "Remember the Maine", the Spanish American War, and the media wars of Pulitzer-vs-Hearst. Media reports like this survive and thrive on FUD. It is the basis of YELLOW JOURNALISM. The nice thing about Slashdot and similar blogs, Usenet, and the like, is that this is a genuinely free and democratic forum for the exchange of news and ideas.
FUD-mongering is much easier to spread and manipulate when it comes to technical subjects that average people do not understand - like medical and technology things. The original newspaper stories in this report were no different than the late-night TV ads by lawyer sleaze-buckets who advertise for medical malpractice and medical device liability. All that BS is easy to sell to Joe Sixpack.
The follow-up reports and references, like the one showing decreased asthma episodes and expense among MMR vaccinated children, show the value of public health programs and medical technologies. People need to see the BIG picture, but sadly, many cannot see beyond the ends of their noses. The problem is that many people today are the recipients of public health benefits that they have no idea about. For instance, who today worries about being crippled by polio, dying from smallpox or pertussis, becoming neurologically impaired by measles? Scourges of bygone centuries are all but forgotten by the average person - thanks to vaccines and public health programs, the doctors and scientists who developed them, the companies and governments that made it all possible, and the public who funded them. Nothing is perfect though, and there may in fact be the occasional complication or death from a vaccine, but we do what we do because 3 deaths a year from a medical treatment that saves 100,000 deaths a year from the disease is a good thing. Any newspaper reporter, editor, publisher, or owner who wants to "stick their money where their mouth is", ought to NOT vaccinate their own kids for any of these diseases, then see what happens.
If people had as much fear of Yellow Journalism as they do of Yellow Fever, we wouldn't see nonsense like this. Sadly, most people have no more appreciation of Yellow Journalism than they do of Yellow Fever, and they can be easily infected by both. Yellow Fever is not prevalent in most parts of the worls, but Yellow Journalism is. Slashdot and similar community forums are a good vaccine for FUD and false reporting, but sadly, they do not have the wide reaching cirulation and readership that fudpapers do. On the other hand, MANY traditional newspapers are downsizing because of competition from modern internet media - let's hope that more truth and less FUD prevail as time goes by.
Has Jenny cured her sons supposed vaccine induced autism yet?
The media is eager as hell to hope on board whenever she opens her ignorant mouth.
Seriously, who the fuck in their right mind would take medical advice from this nutbar? And shouldn't spewing such nonsense somehow fall into the realm of practicing medice without a license?
http://www.stopjenny.com/
In order to understand autism, you have to understand what it is. It is a type of congitive/developmental disorder of the brain. People with it have extraordinarily poor social skills. Frequently they have other disorders as well, but not always. If you think of it as a type of learning disability or mental retardation for social skills or interaction with other people, it makes much more sense.
As you can imagine, there is not one cause of mental retardation or any one learning disability. We still don't know most of the causes of these things. The same holds true for autism. It is a very generic diagnosis for certain pattern of clinical manifestations. I can assure you it has many causes, and vaccines are not one of them.
We may not know what causes autism, but we do know what causes measles, and whooping cough, and we know that both of these can cause death. We also know how to prevent them. Also there is a bigger connection with autism rates and cable television expansion, and the rise of the internet, I hope you think carefully about letting either cable television or a high speed internet connection in your house.
As I watch, for example CNN or read the FT one of the things that most annoys me are the lies that are told by the main-stream media about the financial crisis:
The mad fluctuations in corporate value are a consequence of a US accounting mistake: The mark-to-market rule, which causes the value of real commodities eg gold, houses, oil to evaporate over night, and
The continued tolerance of Naked-short-Selling, and Short-Selling, at all, without the up-tick rule, are the reason for the vast market volatility ie +-5% daily swings. The only purpose of this is to drain tax-payers money as profits and fees, and is why the 'bail-outs' are not working.
The media are either knaves or fools and liers and most likely all three. We urgently need a free, non-corporate press and honest competant regulators in business, the market and scientific endevour.
Correlation != causation. There are data that suggest that a moist climate can bring about autism, or at least many came from most climates. My brother has autism sprectral disorder. Yes, we lived in a climate with 44+ inches of rain a year. So? I think a number of my family members going back generations had touches of Aspbergers. Is it in the genes? Can autism changes to the brain be triggered somehow, or by something?
Do we know if the MMR vaccine has quality control problems? That maybe there's more to the MMR than what it's supposed to prevent? Do we know any of this stuff?
No. We do not. It's sadly anecdotal except that we know more about ASD than ever before, in terms of post-diagnosis treatment. But because it's a spectral disorder, there are many conditions and variants to consider.
I had the measles. Both kinds. Didn't die. Mumps? Yes. No after-effects. But a classmate of mine had the mumps and nearly died; lost vision and hearing, and subsequently had lots of cardio issues to deal with from a damaged heart. Rubella? Haven't heard of a case in years. But I gave MMRs to both my children. They turned out ok. What might happen if I had a different batch? Dunno. Currently, the science behind all of this is very immature.
I vote for MMRs and additional research on all of the issues, especially drug dose QA and QC.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
What amazes me is their complete inability to compare risk factors (tho this is much the same as Schneier talks about re perceived risk).
Chances of a mild reaction to whooping cough vaccine runs somewhere around 1 in 10,000, with the chance of a fatal reaction about 1 in 1 million (but in that case, the child's immune system is a bomb waiting to go off, and sooner or later something will get 'em).
Chances of death if the child contracts whooping cough: about 1 in 4 with modern hospitalization, or 1 in 2 without.
To me, that's a no-brainer.
The same bullshit is permeating the dog breeder community too -- "Vaccinosis" is now blamed for everything that can possibly go wrong! How about not breeding animals whose immune systems can't handle the trivial stimulation of a vaccine? And if they can't handle vaccine, how on earth are they expected to handle a realworld exposure, at hundreds or thousands of times the strength of vaccine??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Well, yes. The law might have to step in, particularly given that, though it's good for society to vaccinate everyone, sometimes it makes sense for specific individuals *not* to get vaccines.
It's game theory- the more people who get vaccinated, the less important it is for you to get vaccinated. If not getting vaccinated means you have a 20% chance of getting measles, then of course it's rational for you.
But if the vast majority of people in your society are vaccinated, and so not getting vaccinated means you have a .002% chance of getting measles, and getting vaccinated may carry with it a .03% chance of serious autoimmune complications... then it's entirely rational to not get vaccinated.
I'm paid up on vaccines. I would vaccinate my kids if I had any. But the part of the blogosphere that makes a big deal about vaccine myths needs to face up to the fact that sometimes it's *rational* for parents to not vaccinate their kids.
My experience matches yours, quite closely.
Ben Goldacre is actually an excellent journalist, a phrase that is increasingly becoming oxymoronic. He's happy exposing the BS of the big pharma companies, the alternative medicine quacks, and most importantly the media themselves.
In a media filled with "science correspondents" who either mindlessly reprint press releases or scaremonger to drive sales this is a breath of fresh air.
I really wish I could attribute the ignorant scaremongering of the media on issues like the MMR vaccine to the fact that most journalists have never even seen the inside of a science textbook. But I think the malaise runs far deeper.
The simple fact is that fear sells papers. Print a headline that strikes fear into the hearts of parents and they're likely to buy the paper to read the article. Printing a headline stating the opposite ( new study finds vaccines reduce asthma deaths ) just doesn't have the same emotional impact.
This extends beyond reporting on science to a wide range of topics. Look at the coverage given to vanishingly rare child abduction/murder cases for example. If you can generate fear you can shift product.
In a wider sense I'd also say that the atmosphere of fear this kind of media coverage generates is tolerated and even encouraged by owners and advertisers because it doesn't threaten their interests, and in many cases aligns with them.
If a paper was to start scaremongering to the same extent(i.e. fearmongering multi-page spreads several times a week) about the (very real) threats to it's readers from global warming, foreign wars or lax regulations, it would be branded as a crazy left wing rag and rapidly ditched by advertisers, assuming the owners didn't fire the journo's responsible first.
Actually, what they proved is that the correlation between living near power lines and cancer rates, etc., cannot be attributed to the power lines only. E.g., people who live near power lines tend to be economically disadvantaged, live in old houses with lead paint around somewhere in them, work at jobs with a higher risk of cancer, and so on. The power industry basically funded a bunch of studies to show it is very complicated -- so complicated nobody can say it is their fault. There is nobody to pay the megabucks it would take to do a definitive study, yes/no on the power lines cause cancer issue. So, all you can presently say is no definitive positive correlation has been shown in spite of anecdotal evidence of a correlation.
I am old enough to recall back in the 1950's and 1960's, if you ever published a single result showing radiation was bad for you, or that fallout could accumulate in food, you simply were blacklisted and would never get another government grant to do research again. So, you went and sold refrigerators instead... Literally!
With regard to thimerasol, I also recall that nobody worried about lead in gasoline until they had a definitive study (and you can bet your last cent neither the government or industry funded it). The result of the definitive study is that if they can measure lead in the child, then can quantify the IQ loss in direct correlation to the lead measurement. Now, there is every reason to suspect that virtually all of what we call heavy metals are similar in their effects, but the dental industry doesn't want to even consider the possibility that the amalgam in your fillings might be bad for you (but nevertheless the dentist keeps taking his chelates for mercury), and any adverse conclusions about mercury would leave the public health vaccination folks (and vaccine makers) SOL.
As a middle aged dude with an enlarged prostate, I know there is science suggesting my enlarged prostate may be due to the tiniest imaginable traces of cadmium and arsenic totally bolluxing up a metabolic pathway for zinc. There can be other causes, and there are no definitive statistics (and nobody likely to fund anything related to heavy metals which might inadvertently show something else, like mercury, in a bad light.) I might take chelates privately to check it out, as there is enormous anecdotal evidence that this will work in easing the prostate enlargement.
To give another example, the first confirmation that smokestacks cause acid rain came quite inadvertently, when some smart alec here in Colorado put together two totally unrelated research programs: photographing clouds and precipitation, accidentally getting distant smokestack emissions in the photo, and correlating these with water quality measurements, and resolved decisively a bitter debate that had been going on for over a decade. There is an active mechanism within the federal research funding mechanisms which suppresses funding of obviously needed socially relevant scientific issues if the answers may displease anybody/any industry who/which is well connected and which doesn't want answers that could cost them a lot of money. I have seen forty years of this in action, so it is not just a recent administration trend, it is an American tradition (followed in most of Europe as well). I was told in the 1960's it went back to the beginnings of government funded research in the late 1940's, and to watch out, which I have.
This isn't a great example because half the people think that the press is vehemently pro-Israel and the other half think they are clearly biased in favour of the Palestinians. Where as MMR vaccine is unequivocally safe in terms of autism.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
What most parents fail to understand is that the vaccine schedule is designed to make it easy for people to follow. Parents have the right to ask for a titer test for each antibody that determines whether or not your child needs each vaccine. We've done this annually with our children to be able to make informed decisions about which vaccines to administer.
My seven-year-old hasn't had any vaccines or boosters since she was three because she hasn't needed anything - NOTHING - she had all of the antibodies that she was tested for. Armed with this kind of knowledge, how can you NOT be skeptical of just following rest of the herd to shoot up our kids with unnecessary chemicals?
Are at no risk even if most of the people around them aren't vaccinated. The failure rate for people who've had the full set of MMR vaccines is less than 10%.
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What gets me is that the media can report all this garbage, with no research, no medical training, and no scientific training, yet we as a society allow them to do this without making any attempt to make them act responsibly.
If reporters or newspapers regularly print scare stories without adequate research, or something like this which is practically designed to scare parents without giving them the full story, they should be prosecuted. They are making a profit out of playing on people's fears, why on earth do we allow that?
Surely there would be a case for Reckless Endangerment or Child Endangerment if papers create scares like this, but then make no effort to correct their mistakes when scientific testing proves them wrong? Yes, papers are sometimes made to print apologies, but they are tiny and hidden out of the way. In cases like this, it would be fairer (and safer!) to make papers print a big "We're sorry" article, given exactly the same attention as the original story. And if that means running it on the front cover for a month, with regular follow up articles, then so be it.
The media have a huge effect on the public, they need to take responsiblity for their actions.
Actually, given that one of the main symptons of autism is a lack of social and empathetic skills, I wouldn't totally discount that kids becoming less connected and spending so much time watching TV could conceivably have something to do with it. I would certainly anyway intend to limit the amount of TV my child watches, as most parents do.
Look up "herd immunity". I think you'll find that this phenomenon nicely kills your argument when enough people take the risk.
It's interesting to see how this sort of thing provokes these responses that can't be described as anything except petty individualism. "Well vaccination is my choice dammit and you'll pry it from my cold dead NRA-member fingers."
I keep hearing this, and it is really off base. If you give a pathogen a place to breed it may mutate into something that can bypass vaccince-created immunity.
So as much as you are gambling that you won't get infected because 80% of others have had the vaccine, those 80% are gambling on YOUR lack of immunity rendering their own immunity null and void if you give the pathogen a place to mutate.
The unvaccinated pose a greater danger to the general population than the vaccines pose to the individual.
This is not correct. Let me explain with an example I have right now with a cat, since I don't have children and have thus not researched similar fact on children. There is a roughly 1:10000 chance that a cat get a fibrosarcoma from being vaccinated. In other word 1 out of 10000 chance that it get cancer just by the fact he gets vaccinated (a particularity of cat skin which seem in some case to react and get malignant on the vaccination entry point). IF the illness I am vaccinating for has less than 1:10000 chance of killing my cat, then not vaccinating is a better way. If the illness has a higher chacne and is widespread vaccinating (taking the risk) make sense. Where does that bring us ? Worst case scenario let us imagine ALL autism are made by MMR. Then compare to the number of people getting a disability through MMR. It is actually a bit more complicated as there is a pool effect (the person non vaccinated are protected by the number of vaccinated persons since the illness cannot spread so readily/easily).
The problem right now, the study made, show NO LINK. OTOH there is a proved link between getting a disability from one of the three illness (measle rubelose and whatever the third was). Then the MEDIA come, make a circus of a VERY BAD study, and INSERT a doubt in all parents when there is none on the scientific side. What i come to, is if it was not for YELLOW JOURNALISM, you would not be unsure of the vaccination.
It all come down to a scare made up by the media.
What I find works (and not a doctor, the nick was whimsical, a public health scientist) is to tell people of the threat their first child will pose to their next child. "Vaccines protect other children. Your first child probably won't get X as an infant when it is most dangerous, but if he gets it as a two or three year old, that might kill his baby sister or give your unborn child brain damage."
It's not just an emotive argument that works on young mothers, it's true!
Helminthic therapy is the intentional infection of a person with a parasite. The parasite mitigates the immune response of the immune system. The idea is to choose a helminth (parasite) that 1) can't replicate in the body and 2) won't have any adverse side effects. Luckily there are two such species of parasite. These worms live in in the intestine and are well-tolerated by most individuals.
The effects of these buggers is reduces asthma, allergies, arthritis, and other issue from over-active immune systems.
The idea is that the human immune system evolved with these parasites, so they are factored into a balanced immune system. Clean societies don't have these, so the immune system overreacts, thus causing problems.
I plan to get it, (for my food allergies) but it is not yet accepted by western medicine.
PS. I am allergic to beef, chicken, egg (egg is used for the flu shot), all shellfish, corn, rye barley... the list goes on. I can't even drink beer, unless it is a special sorghum beer.
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Immunize the kids, sterilize the parents?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
If you are a parent, you will know what MMR is.
If you don't have children, you might not remember getting it; and therefore, might not know what it is.
If you applied to a university in the US, you might have been required to check an MMR box on a health form.
Regardless of all else, a few years back, there was an outbreak of one of the M's at a US university (mid-west?), despite that all involved had been vaccinated. There was talk of a new "super-M", or a "bad batch" of vaccine.
If you are a parent, and you don't know what MMR is, you shouldn't be a parent.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Maybe, reality has an anti-vaccine bias? No, can't be... It is too busy being liberal-biased, is not it?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"
A parent who is less sure, say 90% sure, now has to balance the effects and probabilities that on the one hand, that the kid will get the almost-never-lethal-or-disabling measles; and on the other hand a minute chance that the kid will get the disabling malady of autism. It's their kid, so I find it unsurprising that parents are simply skipping the vaccines as long as there's the shadow of a doubt.
The only way to get the parents back on vaccine schedules is to determine the cause of autism.
As a father I've been there, and the fact is that we can say something about the size of that "almost-never" in "almost-never-lethal-or-disabling" as we can about that "minute" chance of autism.
When my oldest had her MMR vaccine as I recall the minute chance of disabling maladies from the vaccine were around 1 in 1,000,000 (but not statistically significant)
The death rate in the traditional epidemics were around 1 in 1,000.
Even though there is a lot of doubt as to the accuracy of that first number, the conclusion is still clear.
I also figured that if any of my daughters turned out to be in the one in a million group disabled by the vaccine, they would also have been in the one in a thousand group killed if not vaccinated. That's jumping to conclusions, yes, but sometimes that's what you have to do.
Children DO die from diseases. The fact that you, as most kids, did survive, don't mean YOUR child will. Vaccines can have side effects, but studies shows it's negligible compare to the effect of the disease (which, again, include death).
Also, an awful lot of things have changed during the last few decades. Linking autism to one in particular is completely nuts. Women smoking and drinking more or having children when they are older are intuitively a far more probable cause than vaccines. I could certainly imagine hundred of possible link for autism, like pollution, pesticides, stress, whatever... and blaming vaccines in particular is simply irrational.
I just finished Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Science" and I can highly recommend it.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
Looking at list list of publications involved I can hardly find any papers, they're mostly tabloids.
Tabloids have an advantage, you find one that's maybe several months old and it's still fun reading, after all they don't contain 'news'.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Oh god, think of the children!
Jamie, close your eyes and pray harder.
I was born in the UK in 1961, and so grew up in the era where we weren't vaccinated against things like measels and chicken pox, and so of course we caught them, and we were fine. There may be rare side effects of these diseases, but the coincident rise in autism coupled with the rise in vaccination at least doesn't indicate autism as one of the side effects. As it happened I also almost died as an infant as a result of the DTP vaccine, and consequently wasn't given the 2nd shot of the series. I did subsequently catch whooping cough, and although it was unpleasant, it's sure better than being dead.
IAAP (I am a physician - specifically pediatrics). First off, "you" may have been "fine" when you "got measles," but the population of England wasn't. Measles isn't chicken pox - it's a LOT worse. It's pretty rare to die of pox, but measles will kill you, give you encephalitis, make you go deaf, or a lot of horrible, horrible things. It's not just a bunch of itchy spots for a month.
And second, as for your reaction to the DTaP vaccine, there is a widely known side effect of the vaccine (specifically the "P" part against Pertussis, aka Whopping Cough). We are well aware of the side effect and it is known. That is not the same as speculation about an unproven side effect believed by the public and rejected by most of the scientific community. Hmm, sounds a *lot* like the Global Warming denier community. Oh wait, but those guys are kooks, right? *You're* just being skeptical, right?
That being said, your physician is either an idiot, or to be fair, maybe this wasn't known in 1960s UK - the solution to the DTaP reaction you describe is to administer just the D and T portions and not adding the Pertussis part. Congratulations, you were not immunized against Tetanus or Diptheria.
Most journalists (not all) have a MA in English Lit. To most, science and their education in it parted ways as early as possible in school. They know what's sensational enough to sell papers, and can re-churn a press release into a story without the slightest knowledge of the science or medicine that's crucial to the story. Unfortunately, these crusading pieces against the established medical community make the journalists feel they're doing the world some good, and they're doing one over on all of those odd medics that do this incomprehensible gobbledeygook science stuff that they hated and don't feel a part of. More unfortunately, the few remaining scientifically trained journos are often not listened to by their editors-- never spoil a good story with disclaimers... or additional facts, eh? Tragically, most people still think that if it's in a good newspaper, it's fact. That's no longer the case (too few journalists and sub editors to waste time on that!) So when a juicy anti-MMR story comes along, many parents believe it. And when the retraction/ better evidence is published in a small article nowhere near the front page (or not at all)-- their opinions aren't changed. So MMR vax'ns drop below the level where herd immunity can exist. M/M or R levels rise, and disable many. So how many die from this process. Sometimes I think the media needs some... ass whipping over irresponsible stories.
Don't be so dogmatic. 1) There are certainly ALOT of doubts about the efficacy of giving vaccines to infants, especially in the first months, when their immune systems are not yet developed. There is societal pressure to give vaccines simply because this is when they have access to the children (soon after birth). Smart parents should opt out of most of those given within days or weeks of birth.
2) THere is no long term data about the effects of so many vaccines. This wealth of vaccination is relatively recent. There may be side effects such as autoimmunity, etc. There is no long term data, thus who can be an expert on this?
3) There are some vaccines that are more marketing than health oriented. For instance, the chicken pox vaccine may be exposing people to develop the disease late in life, given that the coverage given is not complete. Later in life chicken pox is much more dangerous than during early childhood. Given also that there is no talk about eradicating chicken pox at this time, not knowing that you are not completely protected by the time you are 30 is dangerous (and yes, I've seen cases of 7 year-olds catching it when they had full vaccination as 1-2 year olds).
4) Before the labels come, I support MMR and polio vaccination, because of the dangers these diseases pose, but chicken pox or vaccination of infants with hepatitus vaccine, no thank you.
The reason why this debate has been and is still going on, even with the evidence to the contrary, is the money trail.
The average cost of therapies for Autism is about $50,000 - $100,000 US per year for at least 2 - 3 years for those who end up being higher functioning and even more for those that are lower functioning. Health Insurance companies refuse to pay the costs calling it a mental health issue (will be interesting to see where mental health parity leads), the schools do not want to pay for it because they do not see it as a medical issue, and for those who never get the ability to survive on their own, the government is not real interested in paying for their care for the rest of their lives. I am sure that in some ways, athasma is in a similar area.
To make the situation worse, there is stress on the whole family. The parents cannot go out together because they cannot find someone to care for their kid. The other kids feel left out. There is the monetary stress. Simply put they want someone to pay.
Who better than a big bad corporation who has deep pockets. So of course, now they are going to be blamed. The lawyers pick it up for the money and the media picks it up because situations like that sell news. Even worse, if there is evidence that proves that this group is wrong, it is either ignored or there is a conspiracy. I remember a couple of months ago where we here on Slashdot where a mother and person with Autism did a blog against the whole MMR causes vaccines argument and was vigorously subpeonaed by a lawyer fighting for anti-vaccine parents. This occurred in the Dow-Corning fight with Silicone Breast implants too.
Add to the fact that in most cases, scientists cannot and will not say for 100% certainty that MMR does not cause Autism. This is because nothing is 100%. If 100 people jump out of a 3rd story window and all die, are you 100% certain that the 101st also will die when the jump out. In fact, the agent which is claimed to cause the issues has been removed from vaccines in many states in the USA and the expected drop in autism has not occurred. That should be enough proof for most people that they are looking up the wrong path.
I do not think this will die however until someone/thing comes up with a system to pay for the treatments of autism and other issues. This is all about the money.
The incidence of diagnosis of autism is up, but that doesn't necessarily mean the incidence of occurrence is up also. It could very well be that it simply went undiagnosed before -- instead of being called "autistic," the children were just called "slow" or "shy" or "retarded" or something.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Why not meet deliberate failure to vaccinate a child with, say, a charge of child endangerment?
The conspiracy nuts would really come out of the woodwork then. They'd say the government is in bed with big pharma to sell useless and/or harmful drugs ect. and force them on the poor children who would be perfectly healthy without any advanced medical science. Homeopathic/holistic 'medicine' sales would rise, scientist would be largely ignored.
Of course, that still doesn't mean you don't have a very good point, just that a shitload of people would be very much so against it and would make such a law very hard to pass.
No, preemptive medical care should not be forced (your example is acute). Regardless of any discussions about rights, stupid paranoid people are humanity's insurance policy. If some of them ever turn out to be correct on a massive scale, at least someone will be left to breed.
In the meantime, if their children die more often, that's just good for the overall gene pool. We can't save everyone from themselves.
My Sig: SEGV
Whatever the issue is here and no matter how unscientific and loony some anti-regular-medication crackpots are, there is one thing I'd like to note:
Let's not forget that Pharmacorps *do* have a vested interest in the increase of widespread vaccination for every little pissy childhood bug and other oh-so-dangerous disease in existance - even for those our immune system today can actually handle quite well and also use as a training for more severe diseases - as it's a very cheap revenue booster. For example: the rise of measles vaccination in the last 3 decades has absolutely zilch to do with the medical need for it, and all to do with pharmacy corporations looking for some huge wads of extra cash scored on the backs of taxpayers and public healthcare here in Europe and whereever else such vaccinations are sponored by the public.
Bottom line:
No matter which side voices its opinion in this debate, I don't trust either further than I can throw them.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Heh, talk about complete inability to compare risk factors!
You forgot to multiply that "chance of death if the child contracts whooping cough" by the chance of contracting the disease (without having been vaccinated) in the first place. If the chance of contracting whooping cough is less than 1 in 250,000 (and we assume that the child has access to modern hospitalization), then it's less risky to forgo the vaccine than to take it!
Chance of death with vaccine: 1/1,000,000 (according to you)
Chance of death without vaccine: I * 1/4, where I = incidence of disease. If I = 1/250,000, then 1/250,000 * 1/4 = 1/1,000,000
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I almost died from the MMR vaccine as a child (yes, I received it). There exists an actual allergic reaction to it - and it's pretty serious.
The fear is that you don't know your immunity until you get the vaccine. That's the trouble...
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Slashdot charging others with selection bias? LOL.
Yes big newspapers like the NY times and Washington Post etc are all competing to release the next big whistleblowing investagative journalism story but there is alot of junk.
With the FCC rules small and even medium sized cities can have only one newspaper (my city of 75,000 is such a city). Also even with competition most newspapers are mostly AP and chicago tribune syndications and lack much substance.
And they save many more lives than those lost due to adverse reactions to vaccines. The risks that a vaccine pose to an individual are far outweighed by the benefits gained by society. One need only look at the 20th century and compare that against any time before that.
And you miss out the prisoner's dilemma.
If you're the only one that doesn't get vaccinated then that's fine, but the moment it becomes popular then whooping cough rapidly becomes more common.
I agree. As a family doc I have these discussions all the time. The biggest progress we have made in medicine is really the vaccines and public health measure that our society has developed. Trying to explain the seriousness of the diseases that DON'T happen because of the vaccines is frustrating, especially since most of the patients are totally clueless about biology and science in general. We need to cut out the sports and cheerleading and teach more science at all levels of school. docbob
Good to know that about measels. I may have been confusing german measels (which we did have, along with chicken pox) with real measels. Obviously we didn't have MMR back then, but maybe we were vaccinated against M&M.
Interesting also to know that about DT(a)P. I don't know if my childhood doctor was an idiot, but at least he made house calls! ;-) As it happens I was later vaccinated against tetanus and diptheria as part of a school trip to the middle east.
My brother received the MMR vaccine in the early 80s and was perfectly healthy up until that point. Silent seizures soon followed and the beginning of many hospital stays. He was on Depekene for years and was we were told by doctors he was unlikely to be able to walk. Today he is able to walk and function although he has many symptoms of autism will never be "normal".
If there is no connection why do we see so many stories similar to mine? Kind of like all the corrupt cop stories. Why do you hear about them constantly if they aren't true?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Because children get 20-30 now over much of childhood. So anecdotally most parents are correct to presume cause and effect. However, most statistically studies say these are bad coincidences when you look at large numbers of children.
You misunderstand me: I wasn't advocating not getting vaccinated; I was pointing out that Reziac himself committed exactly the statistical fallacy he was complaining about!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Clearly you don't understand that if we don't vaccinate against innocuous infectious agents, then they are LESS likely to change into something more serious. It is when we put pressure on an agent through limitation of susceptible pools that they become more infectious, easily transmissible. Also, many newly evolved pathogens are the most dangerous, because they haven't learned to live with their new hosts. Examples of this are influenza and possibly syphilus (which was much more deadly a couple of hundred years ago, but now, it mostly just hurts when you pee). So the sword cuts both ways. It is really a matter of how we want to spend our time and research dollars. Chicken pox does not equal polio or HIV.
I think the solution is basic education in the scientific method and statistics for everyone, beginning in elementary school.
This is wrong. People don't care. Teaching about the scientific method and statistics won't make them care. It's too many steps removed from the vaccine issue for the average attention-span anyway.
We have a cultural problem. It's not about the scientific method. People believe in conspiracy theories. People believe in shadowy corporations who are secretly out to get them. People believe in secret cover-ups. People believe everyone's got a hidden agenda or a conflict of interest. But, most importantly, people believe they're the exception. They have it figured out. They're wise. They're not going to be fooled like everyone else.
It's a self-esteem problem -- too much self-esteem. It's a lack of respect for others. It's laziness. It's irresponsibility. It's self-focus and emotional self-investment. It's not being completely grown-up.
The scientific method won't help because it's only useful if the answer it leads to fulfills some emotional need you have. Otherwise, it can be discounted in favor of the process that leads to a more fulfilling answer.
I don't know what the solution is. Removing some of the societal rewards for making bad choices would help.
As long as I provide my children with love, care, food, clothes and shelter, I'm the one who is deciding what happens with them. And if you, law enforcement or whoever else will try stopping me from doing so, then I'll fight back. The only situation when you would be have right to handle my children against my will, is if my actions will restrict your rights. However the problem is that proving that would be problematic. Especially because medicine is not exact science. It is all about probabilities. The probability that vaccination helps is something. The probability that my decision to skip vaccination will hurt you is different thing. Unless you can turn those probabilities to certainty, I'll not agree with using force to interfere with my right do decide what is best for my children.
Having said that, my children get vaccination. But it is my decision.
good points, I know that I look at the vaccines individually. The MMR, I concluded would at least be a wash, and and more likely was beneficial. The polio vaccine I concluded was ABSOLUTELY a must have, but the chicken pox vaccine seems to be a total scam. Looking at the data published by the CDC, it looks like the chances of dying or being severely injured by taking the vaccine is actually greater than if you don't. It doesn't seem to be the vaccine itself that is dangerous, but instead it is that the vaccine pushes may off infection of the disease to an older age where the disease is literally 10X more likely to kill or maim you.
Call me insensitive but I like to think that the parents stupid enough not to get their kids vaccinated because of something they heard on the intertubes about autism are about to get dealt what they deserve when their kid gets sick. People forget about the fact that there are immigrants coming in from other countries who may not be vaccinated and could be carrying something that you don't see in North America anymore. We used to have wolves to deal with the stupid..
I find it miraculous that anyone of us over the age of 40 survived at all. There is so much hype about peanut butter allergies, laundry detergent allergies, supposedly deadly inoculations and the terrible dangers of dust and dirt.
In the 60's and 70's as elementary school students we all ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, played outside, ate dirt (not me but of of my younger siblings did), got scraped up, sunburned, poison ivy/oak/sumac and rolled around in the grass. If the prevalence of terrible medical conditions were so common as they are claimed of today, we would have all died before we were 11 years old.
How many children today are on Ritalin or other behavior modifying medicines? In my childhood if you acted up repeatedly you would be spanked with a belt or a shoe.
There is a common thread through all of this; more and more parents would rather assign some condition, allergy or psychological problem to their children, rather than accepting that their poor parenting skills and lack of oversight is the primary reason on why their children appear to have problems. So let's not get inoculations for our children, after all, smallpox, bubonic plague and malaria are all "natural" and we should live closer to nature.
The "victim" mentality is all pervasive and we are passing it off to our children. Should we really be surprised by the apathy and disconnection of our children from societal structures? This will be our legacy, civilizations who decline to these levels have traditionally collapsed after a few decades.
Tisha Hayes
Immune response is like warfare, and our system needs to be trained. But you want your children to train against germs that aren't ultimately that dangerous - not Polio or Scarlet Fever.
My amateur theory is that vaccines can be (more likely to be) a problem when given at too young an age. They should wait until after breast feeding is tapering off at least. There is always *some* risk to a vaccine. But the risk is much smaller than that of facing a deadly microbe unprotected. There is also a risk of exceeding a child's mercury threshold if too many mercury preserved doses are given too close together. (And combining multiple vaccines in one shot helps reduce that risk.)
Chicken pox is not dangerous. I think that is a clue that the industry has crossed over into selling us stuff we don't really need. But that doesn't mean I would stop all vaccines.
If you blindly followed the vaccination recommendations that existed when my first son was born, and the doctors happened to use vaccinations that were preserved with compounds containing mercury (which was common as it saved the doctor money to buy in bulk), you would have give your child unsafe levels of mercury. The same people that defined the levels of mercury considered unsafe were telling you to give your kids the vaccinations that resulted in this unsafe level. Once this was discovered the government quickly discouraged the use of this preservative agent, but it is still completely legal. Most doctors were then made aware of the problem and asked to dispose of the vaccinations, but they didn't have to. They didn't want to admit to fault, but at the same time they created a government fund to help alleviate the medical complications of people who's children were affected. As a parent, I take umbrage to the attitudes that some have for parents that choose not to blindly follow the counsel of those whose motives might be suspect. As others have pointed out, your local doctor is most likely not a specialist and can only pass along his education, which he has received from the drug companies. Japan, after much research decided to not give infants vaccinations until the age of 2. They subsequently became the nation with the lowest infant mortality in the world. After continuing their research, they changed their policy recently to start administering vaccination earlier in life, but still none at birth. This is just an example of some of the information that a parent might me able to obtain on the internet. My family has decided that we will do vaccinations, but not on the schedule recommended to us by our physicians. My wife is blessed to be able to stay at home, so we don't have our kids exposed to daycare etc. Our chance for exposure is greatly reduced during their first few years of life so we wait until they are a little older to receive the vaccinations. Everyone's situation is different. If it ain't broke, don't fix it (and prevention should always be measured in terms of risk). It scares me when people (like John Edwards on his campaign trail) start talking about putting parents in jail that don't vaccinate their children when told to do so.
I think the solution is basic education in the scientific method and statistics for everyone, beginning in elementary school.
Ok, if nobody asks, I will: tell me why would basic education in the scientific method be a solution? Just because someone is a scientist doesn't make them correct, and scientists disagree about scientific things all the time. The scientific method is great for problems that can be pulled apart to their smallest components, but there is a large class of problems that are known as "wicked": problems that defy solution by scientific method because they have multiple causes that interact in different ways, making analysis impossible. If the causes of autism are interrelated and sometimes contradictory, why should I even ask a scientist?
Perhaps the rational stories just need *better headlines:
Exclusive Report: Sensationalist headlines could kill your child!
*For certain definitions of "better"
Wow, that's sticky moral ground...
Imagine if we didn't live in a secular nation, and you were charged in court for endangering your child by not praying hard enough...
The really hard part of tolerance is allowing people to do things you believe are wrong, even if they have tragic consequences. The right of self-determination is more fundamental than that.
Not "my right", someone else's right. And your children also have rights, you know.
Your starting sentence is also a great indicator of how messed up you are. Let's replace a single word in it and see how well that flies: "As long as I provide my slaves with love, care, food, clothes and shelter, I'm the one who is deciding what happens with them."
The age old debate about whether the flu shot can give people the flu. And the odd reaction to other components...
As someone who got guillain barre from a flu shot I would say the risks are not zero and are significantly higher than what is currently established by the industry and the government. Next time you get a flu shot read the form you are asked to sign. The powers that be definitely know there is something there.
My opinion is the fear is far greater than the actual risk would indicate. Even if the reaction rate was extremely small, litigation and the internet are going insure the stories spread far and wide.
You will find that you cannot sue them due to federal laws and regulations so everything is kept neatly under wraps and no one is the wiser.
Basically many people who do not need or should not be getting vaccines are being encouraged to do so to increase the number of people who should get one. Which on a societal level is good but at non-zero cost to a number of individuals. Proper research cannot be performed or sanctioned or acknowledged by the powers that be for fear that the people who should still get vaccines will stop getting them causing trouble for the society at large. It's a catch 22 situation.
Yes, very good observation. This is a typical example of a conservative bias in the media. But don't cheer yet; the article makes it pretty clear that the bias is unfounded. Reality, being the raving liberal that it is, does not agree with the media on this one.
But hey, at least we can finally put to rest the myth of the "liberal media"!
Well maybe if they did, as standard, pre-vaccine allergen and genetic testing (according to some studies, some autism is being caused by a genetic predisposition that the vaccine may accidentally trigger), then I'd feel safer giving vaccines to my kid. We didn't find out until he was 1.5 years old that my son has a milk and egg allergy. Severe enough we have two EpiPens just in case. And thankfully we DIDn't vaccinate - if we had he could be dead, as egg protein is used in vaccines (Flu, some MMRs). Sadly insurance doesn't cover allergen testing until AFTER exposure that causes a rash/etc. Really, we need MORE testing for our kids, so that we can safely see what is safe and what isn't for them. We are planning to do some catchup vaccinations for him once he's outgrown the allergies (probably about 4-5 according to our doctor). It's scary how some people say we should vaccinate all kids regardless of what the parents think - absolutely scary.
No, it's really easy when the tragic consequences happen to the person who makes the bad decision.
When the tragic consequences happen to other people it gets difficult, especially when those other people are children.
Exactly. At 66 I'm too old to have gotten the diagnosis as a weird kid in school, but I'm pretty sure I have Asperger's syndrome - albeit not so bad that I don't function at all socially. But I am in fact an undiagnosed autist - on the low end of the scale.
Not really, because it only takes one case to generate an epidemic among unvaccinated subjects. So the very low odds of catching it in the first place only apply to the first case.
In a given population, about 85% must be vaccinated to achieve a "herd immunity" effect for unvaccinates (that is, a *lack of opportunity to be exposed* to active disease). But when the vaccinates drop below about 85%, you have conditions conducive to an epidemic.
So yes, the very occasional unvaccinate is not really at risk. However, if they become the norm, then the risk of infective exposure becomes very high, and the associated risk of death becomes everyone's problem, rather than a rare few's problem.
We have already seen this principle at work with several localized lepto epidemics since vaccinating dogs against lepto fell out of favour due to fear of imaginary "reactions" -- and lepto had previously been pretty well vaccinated out of existence.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
For either or both reasons, we can and should use the law to force parents to vaccinate their children.
Whoa there, buddy. I'm going to have to call bullshit here. The law has no business forcing me or any member of my family to take any medicine, vaccine, food, drink, or anything else for that matter.
For either or both reasons, we unfortunatly can, but under almost no circumstances should we use the law to force parents to vaccinate their children.
There, fixed that for you.
I was born in 1955. Back then, we had a DTP vaccine, and a polio thing we took on sugar cubes at school. However, I contracted all the other "childhood diseases" in due course: measles, german measles (rubella), mumps, and chicken pox. My mother actually sent me to play with my best friend who had chicken pox so I would get it over with. I was lucky - I had no complications from any of these. But then again, I don't know anyone in my cohort who had any complications, either.
BTW, I have no allergies, no asthma, no autism, no ADD, etc. But like I said, it's all anecdotal.
The child abduction thing is the canary in the coal mine, methinks. I'm the father of a 15 month old, and if she were ever abducted I'd be going insane. That being said, the media overplays these incidents and hypes them way, way too much. Case in point is the Caylee Anthony case and CNN's Nancy Grace (among others) covering it constantly. It's been the subject of Grace's hour long daily show for MONTHS. That's insane, and completely out of proportion.
I am waiting for the stories blaming the scare for the disease to come out. It has to happen eventually. The media just needs to make sure that they don't make the dumbass parents look like dumbasses for being dumbasses about not vaccinating their kids.
Sort of a "i know we sold you on not doing this thing, but now that you aren't doing this thing and your kids are dying, we decided to tell you that the people who made up how bad this thing was were dumb and we were just following the press coverage heard, so get mad at them."
It'll happen. You heard it here first.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
>Since my wife is due with our first child in January, the topic of vaccinations has much personal relevance
It may help to be aware that while the incidence of austism is rising, it is a totally different statistical curve to that of MMR usage so any connection on that basis is unlikely. Furthermore, there may be many reasons for rising incidence such as better diagnosis - it is a spectrum after all and kids are probably being lumped in now that would previously have been thought of as difficult or super-shy etc.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
No such law is necessary. It is already on the books. All it would take is to convince a judge that failure to vaccinate constitutes endangerment. That is the way common law systems (like the US and UK) work.
Seriously, have you read the numbers on Chicken Pox? The chicken pox vaccine is one of those "everyone has to get it" vaccines. Schools will try to illegally bar children from entering if they don't get it. It would certainly be on the list of law enforcement vaccines if the law was going to get involved.
The problem is that if you look at the data supplied by the CDC, getting the chicken pox vaccine is likely to INCREASE the chances of your kid dying or being seriously injured by the disease. It will make it less likely for your kid to get chicken pox WHILE THEY ARE A CHILD. Which works great for the 'think of the children' crowd. The problem is that the vaccine is not permanent. That means that instead of a person getting the disease as a child when it is a major inconvenience and being permently immune from that point forward, they get it as an adult when it is a serious life threatening disease.
Now, I'm all for the polio vaccine, as we saw what was happening prior to the vaccine, so the risks were clearly less with the vaccine than without, but data from the CDC seems to point to exactly the opposite with chicken pox.
Drug companies would be fucking doing jigs around their nicely-appointed offices if they didn't have to make any fucking vaccines, which are dirt cheap and used only three times per person per lifetime. Big pharma would much rather have you get chronic illnesses you have to take pills repeatedly for. I mean, if you don't get the MMR vaccine and get the mumps and end up needing some prescription drug for the rest of your life, THAT makes big pharma a whole shitload more money than the buck-fifty they sell the MMR vaccine for.
Few people understand that vaccines exist only because the government asks companies to make them and then has to insure them against the risk of lawsuits. Again, selling shots that cost a few bucks each and selling them to millions of kids a year is not a great business if you have to pay for the liability of one kid ending up with a nebulous disorder you cannot prove was not caused by your vaccine.
There are reasons to hate vaccines but most vaccines are not huge money-makers for pharma. Only the government cares because they have to come up with the standards and pay the insurance bills for it.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Good to know that about measels. I may have been confusing german measels (which we did have, along with chicken pox) with real measels. Obviously we didn't have MMR back then, but maybe we were vaccinated against M&M.
You definitely want to have your doctor check your records and make sure. Also, keep in mind that Peanut M&M is a totally separate vaccine.
Fnord.
As long as the decisions of profit-motivated insurances companies can over-rule the decisions of health-motivated doctors, American's quality of life will stay well behind every other industrialized nation's.
I have read through a number of replies here and find it amazing that during all the talk about lack of knowledge of the scientific method, nobody once was curious about why the toddler died.
They said the toddler's death was not caused by the vaccine. Applying the scientific method, I find it rather curious that one reason was given for the child's death and another reason was given without any more evidence (actually less evidence than the first, in the first case an action occurred followed by what seemed to be a reaction). And yet a large number of people side with the last reason, citing that the first group had no understanding of the scientific method.
Me thinks that there is a much larger group that doesn't understand the scientific method.
Should the papers have printed the article? That's a tough one. Maybe the paper should have said "Parents questioning child's death after receiving vaccine.". Maybe they were trying to incite a question in their readers about why the child died. Maybe they were trying to report the news with the facts they had. Child given vaccine and child dies.
I mean, I'm still curious about why the child died and what evidence led them to believe that there was a break in the line between the hypothesized cause and effect.
This, I believe is more along the lines of the scientific method.
Since the cause of autism is unknown, but the incidence of it is up the last few decades, it seems quite likely that at least one of the assertions regarding what supposedly doesn't cause it may be wrong. Maybe the experiments that have "proved" MMR to be safe didn't reproduce the right conditions or test against the (unidentified) group most at risk of side effects.
Maybe what is defined as autism has changed, resulting in more "diagnosis" than before without any actual change in the population.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You may be the one having problems with statistics: Teenagers and adults usually recover from whooping cough with no complications.
Most babies treated for whooping cough overcome the condition without lasting effects, but the risk of complications exists until the infection clears.
My daughter had whooping cough. We went through a miserable but manageable six weeks or so of coughing, but it was never suggested by any doctor that her life may be in danger.
(it seems that preview thinks "http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/whooping-cough" is "[slashdot]" but I'll submit and let's see)
The law has no business forcing me or any member of my family to take any medicine, vaccine, food, drink, or anything else for that matter.
If you withhold important medical care from your children, the law should (and will) step in to force it on them.
This is so obviously a good thing, there is no point in arguing it. Anyone who thinks it is a good thing for parents to put their children in clear danger with no legal consequence is outside the realm of rational discourse and should be ignored.
(Sadly, there are many exemptions on the books where parents can specifically claim "religious beliefs" as an excuse for endangering, or even just plain killing, their own children. These are exemptions that needs to go away, and the sooner the better. I don't care if consenting adults want to tell each other silly make-believe stories, but when that game makes children suffer, it's time to come back to reality.)
We all know that Airborne cures all!
I head that doctors are all athiest liberals and that vaccines will give your child the gay.
People should have the right not to vaccinate their children.
And as that is rightly child endangerment, we should take their children away and give them to someone who will vaccinate them.
It's very simple.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Even if all people were immunized, most pathogens would have hosts in which to breed and evolve - animals. Smallpox is a notable exception, and that is why it has been "eradicated" (still existing in labs), whereas other diseases preventable by vaccination are still around.
Another, smaller problem: not all vaccinations result in perfect immunity, and most immunity does not last forever. Luckily, having 80% of the potential hosts immunized may in some cases be enough to prevent transmission and eventually have the pathogen die off.
Slightly differently, smallpox was eradicated only after they quit trying to immunize 100% of the population and targeted immunizations to known hot-spots.
I also figured that if any of my daughters turned out to be in the one in a million group disabled by the vaccine, they would also have been in the one in a thousand group killed if not vaccinated.
That's a very good point. If someone has a bad reaction to a vaccine, then they're especially susceptible to that disease, and thus it's almost dead certain they'd be one of the people killed by the disease if they happened to get it, and they're probably even slightly more likely to get it at the same level of exposure as other people.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
But if the vast majority of people in your society are vaccinated, and so not getting vaccinated means you have a .002% chance of getting measles, and getting vaccinated may carry with it a .03% chance of serious autoimmune complications... then it's entirely rational to not get vaccinated.
You make a good point, though I don't think the thought experiment should be taken too literally until it's fleshed out with actual numbers.
The problem is that infectious diseases are a different story. The risk of epidemic increases with each person who acts individually to refuse their vaccination. The risk of measles is not constant (as your example suggests), nor even linear -- it is exponential.
If this is allowed, there is a tipping point at which individuals refusing vaccination by doing what is best for their child will put those around them in much greater total danger. This is true even if we assume they act rationally and with full information, as this story's news article clearly shows they will not.
John F. Nash would suggest that there is a stable equilibrium, at which n% of the population goes unvaccinated -- where the risk of a measles epidemic affecting the individual exactly balances the risk of that individual's choice.
But if individuals acting rationally would put that society at unacceptable risk, it is the government's role to step in and force people to do the right thing.
If this seems unusual, consider the case where a real epidemic sweeps through a society. You'd better believe at that point the government will force unusual, even extreme, measures on its citizens to avoid catastrophe. (And the most hardcore libertarian will not say a word against it.) It's far better for force to be used to stop the epidemic before it can occur, before the morgues fill up.
By the way, since (for example) people have to travel to the doctor's office to get the vaccination, there is always a nonzero risk involved. I would guess the risk of your child getting killed on the highway on the way to the measles shot is the same order of magnitude of risk as the shot. The thought experiment works even if the shot itself carries exactly zero risk.
A few weak individuals might see some harm, but the over-all benefit for a vaccinated society wins.
Has anyone died from the vaccination?
That's my take.
Blar.
http://www.physorg.com/news127915025.html http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a790823168~db=all Subtle and in long term cumulative gene regulation might give unexpected results, especially considering still partly unclear mechanisms causing autoimmune diseases. The effects are agreeably hard to test if time frame extends to 5-20 years. Also, vaccine boosters might have some immunomodulatory effect on immune processes that occur naturally in subject at time. Combined with endemic virus infections (known correlation with autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes) at random times might give range of conditions that are difficult notice statistically. Considering previous, one should do risk evaluation taking into consideration hereditary predisposition, antibody titers, current epidemiologic situation to name few of the aspects... There hardly is yes/no clearly defined options. Movement against vaccination seems to be more like movement against indifferent administration without asking any relevant questions that can be asked to avoid possible complications.
For the MMR defenders - when did the heavy metal Mercury become safe?
(Anyone with access to a spectrometer should be able to check Hg existence in the MMR. Latest flip flop claim would be Melamine in baby food as an example of why one should verify if one can.)
If those monkeys don't like it, then they shouldn't do it to their families. They used to have fire, but the inventory died. Go live in Nigeria where Polio is making a big big comeback,
I DARE YOU.
so what?
i was born in the ussr in the 1980. as you might know, there was compulsory vaccination in the ussr, but autism was unheard of.
the vaccination times were quite different, though:
according to my certificates, my first vaccination was against tuberculosis, a week after my birth.
the second vaccination was a combination of polio, diphtheria and tetanus vaccination, [b]at the age of 5[/b]
the third vaccination was six months later, supposedly against measles only.
nowadays the vaccination in russia isn't compulsive anymore and both diphtheria and tuberculosis came back.
maybe the current vaccination problem in the west is that all the vaccinations are done at the infancy and at a very short term of time. maybe you should let some time pass between each vaccination and try to get vaccines against one illness at time instead of combination vaccinations.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
You're not allowed to be weird anymore...everyone lies somewhere on the autism spectrum.
I recently did a lot of research on autism & ASDs for a class, and what I read stated that there was no evidence of a causal link between vaccinations and any ASDs. And these reports were from reputable sources (National Institute of Mental Health, scholars, etc.), so people don't need to worry about that. But vaccines can cause fevers, especially those that are made out of "dead" viral components. A good friend ended up having the flu after receiving the flu vaccine, so it does happen at times.
As someone who depends on a prescription medicine to remain productive (otherwise my back pain is such that it totally breaks my concentration and renders me unproductive), I can relate to patients who want the swiftest cure. It's not just feeling better or "learning to live with pain", it might be worth a lot more to them, like their job or family.
In fact, my doctor misdiagnosed my back pain at first, and sent me to a psychologist. I refused. Later it turned out that it would have been wasted time and money for no benefit, whereas a prescription medicine took care of the problem once the right diagnosis has been suggested -- by a doctor I happened to know, quite accidentally.
This is not about "wanting magic", it's about wanting an effective solution. Believe me, if you get a debilitating problem, you will want a solution, too.
Some vaccinated children will die of strange side-effects of the vaccine, some will remain maimed for life. This much is known. On the other hand, vaccination will help protect the majority of vaccinated children from the worst effects of the actual outbreak. This is known too.
The choice that parents face is between protecting their child (who just might be a rare vulnerable case) and doing the right thing for the other children (which might also benefit their child, should an outbreak happen). This is not so much hard medicine, but ethics. With government-mandated problems, no one will test their child for abnormal sensitivity to vaccines; they'll just have to absorb the risk and hope.
Make of this what you will...
I propose liberal use of quarantine.
That's fine if you don't want to get but if you get you go into quarantine for a month, and your living space is decontaminated. At no cost to you, work can't fire you, etc, but its a month of your life you have to give up.
They'd have their cake, as in not having to be injected with icky disease-causing deadly fatal chemicals omg, and they'd get to eat it too, as in not having to be a biological burden to society.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
"The only situation when you would be have right to handle my children against my will, is if my actions will restrict your rights or the rights of my children.
You really do need to remember that there are more than two people involved, and that they all have rights.
The law has no business forcing me or any member of my family to take any medicine, vaccine, food, drink, or anything else for that matter.
So all child neglect laws are a violation of your rights? What about the rights of your children?
I couldn't quickly find evidence for this via Google. Surely we have some real dentists around. Do you take chelation drugs to avoid harmful effects from the fillings you install?
You're overlooking the fact that vaccines are not 100% effective -- they don't always take, and even if they do, they can wear off over time. If enough parents decide to abstain from vaccinations, not only are they putting their sprogs at risk, they're putting people who've had their shots at risk.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
It's their kid, so I find it unsurprising that parents are simply skipping the vaccines as long as there's the shadow of a doubt.
But that's just the thing. There's the shadow of a doubt both ways! Why is the one better than the other? Well that's easy, it's because measles sounds like something from a fairy tale, whereas autism immediately conjures up evening-news images of blank-faced kids spinning plates.
This is something that has annoyed me for some time now: the idea of "playing it safe" has been hijacked and now means "favoring the danger I'm more familiar with". 99% of the time, when someone tries to "play it safe" or "err on the side of caution" all they end up doing is accepting a greater but more familiar risk. Just because it makes you more comfortable doesn't mean it's the smart move!
A great example of this when it comes to parenting is the current scare about child predators and the almost complete destruction of childhood independence. That article a few months ago by a mother who let her boy take the NYC subway alone shows exactly what I'm talking about. Everybody freaked out about this "dangerous" ride she let him take. But in fact the risk to him was absolutely minimal, and nobody was thinking about the risk should he be sheltered to the point where he grows up stunted and is thereby never able to accomplish anything with his life, something which I fear will start to happen to millions of children when they face maturity in another decade or so.
So don't let people take this cop-out. If the facts support one decision as being safer then that's reasonable. But refusing vaccines isn't playing it safe or avoiding the shadow of a doubt, it's cowardly destroying public health because parents are incapable of acting rationally.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
In case you haven't noticed, they already do fear-monger about global warming. And what they call "lax regulations", which in reality are oppressive government controls which just aren't oppressive enough for their tastes...
For example, 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann died from diabetes while her parents prayed over her, and those parents are now charged, as they should be, with reckless homicide. Why not meet deliberate failure to vaccinate a child with, say, a charge of child endangerment?
I'm not sure I get how one follows from the other.
In your example, the child had a known disorder with known treatment, and known consequences for withholding said treatment. Yet the parents refused to allow treatment (I don't know anything about the example, but Kara was 11 years old. I wonder what SHE thought?)
But the decision to withhold vaccinations is totally different (FWIW: we vaccinated all of our children and think it's stupid not to). Here you are putting your child at a small risk (thanks to high vaccination rates) for contracting some nasty, but in many cases treatable, diseases.
Again, I think that it is stupid not to vaccinate your kids, but I am unconvinced that a parent who withholds the chickenpox vaccine from his or her children is committing reckless homicide.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Right, and all that means is that I didn't accurately determine the risk factor either (of course, I wasn't claiming to have done so, so that's okay). My point that you still committed the fallacy still stands.
Let me reiterate that I agree with your conclusion! In fact, I never disagreed with it; I merely was trying to point out the irony of your statement.
You can still have incorrect reasoning and reach the correct conclusion, just like a kid that says "2 * 2 = 4" even though he actually added instead of multiplied.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What would you consider to be in your category 3 above?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I'm glad that you survived all of the "childhood diseases", but realize that they can lead to many serious complications, including death.
Measles and mumps, for instance, can be very serious. On the other hand, I'm not really sure why they vaccinate against chickenpox. The vaccine seems to protect children well, but the protection wears off in adulthood--when complication rates are much higher.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I can has newsletter?
Shenanigans. I was just curious about your animals as a reservoir host, so I check the first few that came to mind. Measles, mumps rubella, and polio are all caused by human-specific pathogens that don't have any other natural hosts.
this issue permeates all aspects of our lives these days. the media controls the general spread of information. thank god for places like slashdot.
This is a very good resources that presents both sides of the issue without assuming that either one of the crazy or criminal a priori: http://www.amazon.com/Vaccine-Book-Decision-Parenting-Library/dp/0316017507
And for the "science is great" camp out here - believe it or not, but not all of the people who may disagree with you on this issue are uneducated ignorant morons. In fact, if take your head out of your textbooks and look around, you might find the world is not quite as black and white as the letters on those pages lead you to believe.
Yes. Replacing a word in a sentence can change the meaning of the sentence. What a surprise. But let's play that game for a while: So the slaves that you heard about enjoy love and care, right? The only thing that the children do not enjoy is freedom. No they are not free to do whatever they want to do. Because that means they would not go to school and would eat only chocolate in front of a TV or PlayStation all day long. That would not be "giving them freedom", that would be "neglecting my parenting duties".
And yes, my children do have rights. Such as the right to get proper health care. Now the question is, what "proper" means in this context and who decides what "proper" is. They are too young and lack the information to decide that for themselves. At this age I do it for them. Now explain to me, why your definition of what is "proper" would trump my definition?
IANAP, but did catch chicken pox aged 33. It's a lot worse when you're older, much, much worse than the mild temperatures and chance of scarring in childhood. It kills on average 25 people in the UK each year, although most of these have compromised immune systems. It makes it our worst 'childhood' killer disease. There is, AFAIK, no national varicella immunisation programme in place.
Correct. But don't forget the context. We talk about children getting a vaccination. They are not themselves able to execute their right to decide whether they get the vaccination or not. Actually, given that the vaccine is administrated by injection, I doubt that they would voluntarily agree. I'm just arguing that until they do, then I have to execute that right for them and I don't want that right to be taken from me.
Before or after pickling? Ah, the Scandinavians and their plethora of processed piscine products... just don't pass me the lutefisk. ;)
(And don't even *open* the hákarl!)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Also, see Dr. Sears' blog with a lot of current information http://www.askdrsears.com/thevaccinebook/
The author has spent may years of his practice (he is a pediatrician) to study in detail how each vaccine is made, what variants are available, which ingredients are present, what are the side effects, and when does the vaccine need to be administered. For each vaccine, he summarizes the reasons to take it, reasons to avoid it, and then gives his own recommendation.
Overall, I feel he provides a great overview of the available information to allow parents to make an informed choice.
Regarding chicken pox, I'll look into it, but I've has the habit of following the local recommendations here (Finland); currently, chicken pox vaccination is not "mandatory".
When I was looking into the chicken pox vaccine for my kids (both of whom have been exposed to chicken pox a few times but somehow managed to avoid catching it), I read that the UK National Health Service's view is that it won't give the vaccine to the public in general. They say exposure to the virus by adults who had it as a child already, then acts as a booster to help prevent shingles (shrug). I guess it means that everyone would need to be vaccinated within a certain time period and then re-done at regular intervals. Of course, it could also be cost related but their argument does make some sense.
That some people feel that physical violence to a child is less harmful and more preferable than medication or other methods. I'm not saying every child should be medicated, but why is it that causing a child physical pain, and the accompanying mental anguish is held as such a good idea? If you don't think there's any harm in it then you should take the time to read some medical literature on it. Don't drag out the "Well I came out fine." For one a single point of data does not prove anything and for two, for all we know, no you didn't.
This is just something you might want to give a little thought to. People start crying on about or kids becoming sissies, and advocating violence to fix it, and yet never seem to have any facts. IT also might interest you to know there are nations that have outlawed physical punishment of children, and none of them have imploded.
Rather than dismissing "uneducated" critcisim you could try some simplistic cross-checking of Tenpenny's feeble publication list with just one reputable mountain of evidence, it will demonstrate how "out there" this woman is.
BTW: It's not compulsory to be educated to be a skeptic but it is cumpulsory to be skeptical to be properly educated.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Freedom of the children to make this decision for themselves didn't even enter into this discussion.
Because your definition of what is "proper" may result in serious maiming or even death of your children. If you beat your children, the society has the right and obligation to intervene and stop the abuse. If you refuse medical treatment for your children, when it is something they need (and it is generally agreed upon that vaccination is something they need), whether for religious or moral reasons, or because you're a believer in some conspiracy theories, then it is just another form of abuse, with the same consequences.
I consider myself a climate expert an I have to say the basis of human caused global warming is rather weak. Human does cause an increase in CO2 and Greenhouse theory is also correct. This however does not lend proof for climate change. As slashdotters often say correlation != causation. But in the context of climate change, we don't even have a correlation to talk about.
That aside, I do believe in vaccination on most cases. Vaccination is the best cure available for virus infections. The only concern I have is the age of children the vaccine is applied. High fever at an early age might be the cause of autism by impeding brain development. Breastfeeding at infanthood until 1++ years old may also reduce the reaction of the vaccine. I do not know however understand the implication if the vaccines are given at a later age. It is understood that the current vaccination age is ideal.
What we need is more studies on vaccination. Better yet, any volunteers?
I say, let society learn by trial and error. Even if vaccinated kids gets infected, the symptom is mild compared to non-vaccinated kids. That way we scientist can collect even more data on measles and might even be able to test some revolutionary new drug. :)
The scientific community will remember those who sacrifice their own kids for the advancement of science for a very long time
and yes, I've seen cases of 7 year-olds catching it when they had full vaccination as 1-2 year olds).
You're lucky they got the vaccination. Vaccination does not mean you will never get the illness. Vaccination is more like teaching the body certain martial arts to protect itself against tresspassers. You can get infected but you have better fighting chance.
Crap. If you want to know why people don't trust their doctors, then go to one. Doctors get inundated with information, it is a lifetimes worth of study to even keep up with the information they are being fed through multiple channels. If you go to a doctors, and look around a little, then you will realise that they are going with the people/companies who provided them with the best justified choice for their patients and themselves.
From my own experience, and as an example, I went to a mental health clinic and enrolled myself as a patient ten or so years ago. I spent an hour with the charge nurse and Psychiatrist who then recommended Aropax ( a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor) to me. I looked down to find that all the coffee mats were Aropax matts, two cushions on the couch I was sitting on were Aropax cushions, and so were a couple of the posters on the walls. I refused to take Aropax. I refused because I wanted to work out my problem in my own brain with their help, and because I couldn't trust their judgement to use what they recommended when they were so obviously biased. I have no doubt that they were trying to do their best for me. I also have no doubt that a company was feeding them overwhelming amounts of information and inducements to make me buy their product. If I can spot that in a seriously deteriorated mental state, how do you think normal people in a general practitioners feel when they get their five minutes?
Hello Physician, IAAP (I am a Physicist)
"Hmm, sounds a *lot* like the Global Warming denier community. Oh wait, but those guys are kooks, right? *You're* just being skeptical, right?"
I strongly suggest you stick to your field of expertise and leave climate science to us (the scientists). Not all scientists agree with the human-caused global warming "community".
But just because they don't know, doesn't mean that random crackpot explanation #1 is correct. It is the same sort of non-logic of creationists: Scientists can't say for certain how the universe was created. We say god created it. Since they don't know, we have to be right.
The relevant issue here is that man studies have been done on this issue. Long term studies, wide ranging studies, etc. In all cases they find that there is no link between vaccines and autism. Now while you can never be 100% certain of anything outside of math, this is about as certain as it gets. The vaccines are not the cause. It's something else. That they don't know what causes it isn't relevant.
After all, what if I claim that it is a magic invisible bunny that causes autism? You can't prove it isn't, so does that make me right? Of course not, I'd have to provide some proof this is the case.
Go read up on the doctrine of strong inference (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, by Karl Popper is the book where it is covered fully), that is how science is done. Basically what it says is you come up with a falsifiable hypothesis and then you test it. The more tests that fail to falsify it, the more sure you are it is true. Well that's been done in this case and it really looks like the case is that vaccines don't cause autism. So it's time for people to STFU about it.
I guess that this is not so clear cut for everyone.
It's all very well to talk about how those few vaccination sceptics are ruining it for "the rest of us". By extension what you are saying is that you believe in healthy people forcibly being injected with medications. You believe in parents being forced to allow representatives of the 'many' to seize their healthy children and perform treatments on them.
It's like people who complain about overpopulation. You have to face up to the consequences of your 'neutral' observation. Words have power. Malthussian 'observations' are about suppressing the procreation desires of 'others' - whether others in other countries or other social classes.
Create the precedent and the vehicle for forced medical treatments and it will not end with vaccination.
You have been warned!
Chances of death if the child contracts whooping cough: about 1 in 4 with modern hospitalization, or 1 in 2 without.
Can you please cite your source for these statistics? The Wikipedia article on Whooping Cough (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pertussis) states that the worldwide death rate from this disease is in the range of 0.6 to 1%. One would assume that a lot of these cases did not have "modern hospitalization".
The real problem is that too many members in the press are looking for that "ONE BIG STORY" and vilifying a major corporation, especially a drug company as health care can be expensive, is like having their cake and eating it too. They then will attach similar data and find names of scare monger groups with official sounding names to bolster their story. They are preying on the ignorant portion of their readership. They know they can load up an article with all sorts of buzzwords, throw in the official sounding but really just a representative of group X "research group name", and suddenly they have something which passes as credible to the majority of their readers who usually just skim anyways.
Parents would not have such a hard time if they weren't constantly being berated for being what used to constitute a good parent. Throw in the fact that we get so much tripe like this from the papers and how can you not excuse people from thinking "another boy cried wolf story".
If anything the papers and certain members of their staff are doing a great disservice because they are making us doubt every little thing they print and when something does come along many will probably ignore it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
While this is true, I'd just like to point out that if you don't follow the regular vaccination schedules, you'd better be willing to fight with school bureaucracies about providing antibody counts in lieu of proofs-of-vaccination at every step of the way.
This is a particular problem if you ever move between states (which often not only have differing requirements but will often force a retest of for all antibodies or more booster shots), and will definitely be a hassle if your daughter goes to college in another state.
You all seem to think that people who are against vaccines are some sort of Luddite. You go on lamely repeating myths about 'herd immunity'. You don't know what you are talking about. There is no such thing as 'herd immunity'. We are against vaccines for very good reasons. I was headed to med school myself until I trustingly received the MMR as an adult. Ever since then, I have been crippled with chronic myalgias and bone pain. Yes, it's a known side effect. Spend some time with the adverse reaction reporting system database. I now have an autoimmune disorder. As a mother, I started out vaccinating my kids. Their grandma observed that their father didn't have any allergies until he started getting his 'shots'. So I started watching. Sure enough, their allergies, behavior and ADHD was worse for 3 weeks after an immunization. As a biologist, I am not against immunization which occurs through natural routes, (nose, tear ducts, digestive system.) I am VERY much against injecting foreign proteins into he skin. That's just asking for immune system trouble. People need to do some research and stop mealy-mouthing repetitious Old Doctor Tales.
Wow, just imagine what the media could do, if it wanted to control something as important as a US presidential election...
If they have no shame in helping get their chosen candidate elected President, why should they hesitate to interfere with science?
Only Germ Theory is more important than vaccines for overall human health.
Vaccinations work for almost everyone. "Almost" isn't 100%. If you do a little math, even 99.999% working vaccines will still fail for 50k people out of 5B. That can be bad, if you are one of those 50k people. The other 4.9995B feel bad for you.
This doesn't mean that there aren't better vaccine deployment schedules or other ways to minimize the risk of side effects. It is up to the parents to work with their doctors to minimize the risks for their children with whatever knowledge they may have.
Sure thing, mister climatologist. Oh wait, you're not one, are you? Meteorologist? Nope. But it's ok: you're a scientist, unlike a physician who has nothing to do with science. Right?
No you won't ...
Mercury and Vaccines (Thimerosal)
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Statistically, if I shake out this revolver, 99% of the time, all 6 shells will fall out (no, you don't get to count them on the floor). Now, spin the cylinder, and you only have a 1 in 600 chance of a live round in the chamber. I'm not aiming at the heart, mind you, only the kneecap. If you let me pull the trigger, it will probably prevent some childhood diseases that are highly survivable with today's medical technology. It's your son's kneecap.
C'mon, it's probably just fine, and besides, we're going to make you fill out a bunch of paperwork and feel like a social outcast if you don't let me pull the trigger - didn't you study statistics? It's going to be just fine.
Television, especially specific programs he is familiar with, has an obvious narcotic/stimulant affect on our autistic son.
For behavior improvement, we have cut television viewing down to about 2 hours a week, and we only include that because he WILL encounter television in the rest of the world and we don't want him to totally freak out when he does.
Video can't be the sole trigger for autistic development, and removing it doesn't reverse anything, but it certainly has a strong effect.
IAAP (I am a physician - specifically pediatrics). First off, "you" may have been "fine" when you "got measles," but the population of England wasn't. Measles isn't chicken pox - it's a LOT worse. It's pretty rare to die of pox, but measles will kill you, give you encephalitis, make you go deaf, or a lot of horrible, horrible things. It's not just a bunch of itchy spots for a month.
Take a moment, get out of your own head, and read your own writing. Do you come off as an overbearing self-appointed oracle of all wisdom? Please don't take personal offense, this is what physicians are trained to be. A lot of what is happening today is backlash against this perception.
Most people (not only physicians) who stand fast in positions of authority quoting absolutes are actually somewhat ignorant and afraid that their authority is being questioned.
I place a lot more weight behind opinions that seem to consider all viewpoints (even the wacko ones) and make a rational decision, rather than those that quote absolute truths.
and formaldehyde isn't an ingredient of vaccines, it's merely used during the production process.
also formaldehyde is a natural byproduct of the human digestive system, so OMFG my stomach is poisoning me!!!!!1!!!ONE ONE
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
The autism spectrum is a broad category. I think part of the dramatic increase in diagnosis is due to a threshold of severe cases being recently recognized, and now due to awareness, the whole spectrum is being caught.
In the past, most autistics weren't very severe and were simply passed off as "odd, shy, geeky, etc." Something seems to be ratcheting up the severity in those pre-disposed during the last 10-15 years. I haven't seen any good studies comparing industrialized vs non-industrialized areas - but my gut tells me it's somehow related to the modern environment.
No, my gut is not peer-reviewed, is yours?
Excellent point.
Same thing goes for the United States having a much higher rate of infant mortality than some less developed countries...it's because more high-risk pregnancies in the US make it to term, thus more high-risk babies are born. If the baby had died in-utero or been stillborn, or the mother died before the birth, the child would be just as dead but not classified as infant mortality.
Same thing with high cancer rates in the US. That's because *everyone* gets some kind of cancer if they live long enough not to be killed by something else.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
We have a cultural problem. It's not about the scientific method. People believe in conspiracy theories. People believe in shadowy corporations who are secretly out to get them. People believe in secret cover-ups. People believe everyone's got a hidden agenda or a conflict of interest.
The world isn't actually as actively evil as all that - but the net effect of current systems of political lobbying, regulatory (shallow) oversight, and confidential / protected information isn't far off.
People tend to simplify, viz. "God is watching you." Not really, but in a way the effect is the same.
When parents of my pediatric patients say they're skipping vaccines, they talk more about what they read on the Internet than what they see on television or read in the newspaper.
Our pediatrician in our last city was extremely popular and hard to get in with. We only managed it because his brother-in-law was a partner at my wife's practice. Before he'd accept new patients, he required their parents to attend an hour-long group session where he talked about his theories and how he ran his practice.
At one point, he asked parents to raise their hands if they were unwilling to have their children vaccinated. A few did so, and he told them that they should find another doctor. He'd done (and continued to follow) the research and was convinced that vaccines did much more good than harm, and that he would not treat a child without making sure they were appropriately immunized.
He also told us later that this weeded out the parents who would be fundamentally incompatible with his methods, because he was thoroughly science-based and wouldn't tolerate, for example, skipping necessary antibiotics for magnetic "therapy".
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Your link is bad either way. But consider that if every child came down with whooping cough, and if even half needed hospitalization, we'd soon be in big trouble (much as we were before modern hospitals). Remove modern hospitalization from the equation, which happens for a lot of people when the system gets overloaded, and watch what happens.
No thanks, I'll take the exceedingly small risk of vaccine, and thereby also learn whether the vaccinate has a normal immune system. Because an abnormal immune system is quite likely to have other issues... interestingly, per one of the research links someone else posted, measles vaccine is strongly associated with a LOWER risk of asthma -- because vaccine, being the right level of exposure to stimulate but not stress the immune system, leads to better coping in general -- hence less asthma.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I hereby award you the "Slashdot nitpicker of the day" medal of honour :)
And I'd say I didn't have a fallacy in the first place, but rather that I'd failed to state one of the conditions of the scenario, even tho I took it into consideration. So there! :D
(The "Slashdot award for quick and dirty proofs"? Why, thank you! :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The article says no such thing. (I think your stat is a fraction of total causes of death.) It does say that whooping cough is the leading cause of death among unvaccinated infants, and "Pertussis is the only vaccine-preventable disease that is associated with increasing deaths in the U.S." (Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with the decreasing level of vaccination!)
BTW, one of the risks with the bordatellas is secondary pneumonia. And the antibiotics used to mitigate bordatella tend to induce nausea unless taken in multiple small doses, with food. Not a good scenario in a small child.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
problems that defy solution by scientific method because they have multiple causes that interact in different ways, making analysis impossible. If the causes of autism are interrelated and sometimes contradictory, why should I even ask a scientist?
I had to undo moderation to post this, so listen carefully: Complex problems are not impossible to solve, just much more difficult. Every area of science has MANY such problems which have already been solved, so they're clearly not "defying solution by the scientific method." That's one helluva stupid statement you've made.
You obviously have a very poor understanding of the scientific method (and I'd bet poor problem-solving skills as a result), and judging by your criticism of a suggestion that education in this area could be a solution, you don't intend to improve it. There's a special place reserved for people like this - my foes list.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
How about the researchers do some actual SCIENCE for a change and look at those other causes?
The question is not whether vaccines are safe or not, but what is the cause of Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD)? In the absence of an answer to that question, parents will be scared and vaccines are scary things, ergo vaccines == bad. In part that is due to how effective vaccines have been in that the ravages of those diseases have passed from common memory.
Now back to the Science issues. Have you looked at the diagnostic criteria for ASD? Its a diagnosis of elimination. After you've ruled out everything else, ASD remains. That said, the range a symptoms is big enough to drive a truck through. It is my personal theory that ASD is actually multiple diseases that have similar manifestations, and I think that is why determining its cause has been so difficult.
Every study that seems to implicate something is refuted when they examine larger samples sizes. By way of analogy: Imagine if you where trying to find the root cause of a fever and thought that it might be caused by bacteria and treated some patients successfully with antibiotics. When studies were conducted on a larger "Fever" population the bacteria cause was dismissed,if the larger study population consisted of mostly fevers caused by a virus - a valid conclusion based on bad science.
Regarding mercury: One theory I've read was that the mercury is not necessarily from vaccines but from the environment as a result of a breakdown of the process that capture mercury in the body. In normal healthy people, environmental mercury is bound to special proteins in the surface of the small intestine, and shed into your stool. Perhaps this process is/was broken/damaged in Autistic individuals?
We need more science on both sides of the issue. And by the way, modifying a hypothesis in response to new experimental data is a perfectly valid step in the scientific method.
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
I am sure the Federal Government has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in Vaccine injury payments all because there is no truth behind the noise. I am certain this federal website, http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/table.htm, exists for no reason and rarely sees any traffic. I can't imagine that the Medical research community would ever accidently deliver harmful products with unknown side effects. That would be the same folks that brought us leaky breast implants in the 90's and pills that solve the pressing problem of restless legs with the side effect of sleeplessnes, nausea, chest pain and irregular heart beat.
A few notes on vaccination: * The two most significant public health efforts in world history are the advent of clean public water systems (before that, you either had to boil your water, add alcohol to it, or risk catching a nasty water-born disease like cholera) and near-universal vaccination of children. Polio + smallpox used to kill millions; today, both are nearly eradicated. The importance of vaccination in improving the health of the world is difficult to overstate. Better yet, vaccination against many diseases is a cheap and highly effective way to improve quality of life in less-developed parts of the world. * A common logical fallacy to which people fall prey is the one in which they find evidence to support whatever conclusion they favored in the first place. In this case, people hear rumors about vaccines. run a Google search, and find people saying that vaccinations cause problems. Hence, they make the statistically unsupportable conclusion that vaccinations caused the problems in question. * A common accusation is that vaccination causes autism. There is no evidence suggesting this, but there is ample evidence to suggest that advancing parental age is correlated w/higher rates of autism. Lo and behold, parental age in much of the world is higher than ever before. There's your correlation: older parents lead to autism, not vaccinations. -Z
-Z
This moderation system is a joke. How's that for trolling?
Well heck, if we're gonna take it too far then we may as well go the rest of the way and euthanize them.
My gut doesn't need to be peer-reviewed; I made no claims. I only pointed out the flaw in SpinyNorman's reasoning.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Oh, wow, thanks!
Man, this is such a surprise! I have so many people to thank... my parents, God, -- and oh yes, Satan!
(Note: that was a quote; I'm not actually a satanist.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Sorry, the gut call wasn't directed personally at you - actually, it sounds like a pretty good sig line.
I don't want to suggest that the National Post is a particularly trust-worthy source of information but here is a timely National Post article about recent Canadian vaccination programs.
This "breastfed kids don't get sick" line is BS. That would imply that the mother could never get sick because she has some uber immune system that she is passing to her kids. What happens when a mutated cold virus comes along? Or a rotovirus that is hard to develop immunity to? My first kid got her first fever while being breast fed and NOT in daycare. My guess is that time in daycare correlates better with sick days. It has in our two kids. Getting antibodies/proteins from mom certainly helps but there are nasties lurking out there that even mother has not encountered.
Not really, but in a way the effect is the same.
Especially if you believe your own exaggerations (because it fills some emotional need for you) and act accordingly.
Take a moment, get out of your own head, and read your own writing. Do you come off as an overbearing self-appointed oracle of all wisdom?
So? Go ask any expert in a field about something that is usually misunderstood about their field. Tell me if they sound like an overbearing self-appointed oracle of all wisdom. I'll give you a hint, it's human nature, not doctor-nature. To insinuate it's a problem with doctors that they have low patience for people that assume they know more than the experts is indicative of a problem that's unrelated to doctors.
Learn to love Alaska
sound like an overbearing self-appointed oracle of all wisdom. I'll give you a hint, it's human nature, not doctor-nature.
It is human nature, but the medical profession conspires to nurture this quality of Doctor as God, starting with the hazings in med-school and residency and continuing through practice.
That attitude and bearing might serve them well in an emergency medical situation where instant recognition of authority is a good thing. It can be counterproductive when arguing about a more slowly developing topic that has no clear answers.
You're welcome. Now get busy and clean my monitor! ;)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
...is quite unpleasant.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
Mother said "Wash your hands!"
And wash them continuously!
Can't do this?
Well. Read on:
My small company is now developing a convenient portable pouch for Americans, that will fit in the front of the trousers (or skirt) and will allow folks to keep their hands in there, instead of in their dirty pockets, or worse, caressing some filthy germ-infested doorknob!
Much like a Scot's Sporrin.
Our water-tight polycarbonate/polyethylene "sporrin" will be filled with a strong anti-bacterial detergent solution.
Attached to it will be a small disposable roll of towels, as well as an optional hi-intensity ultraviolet light, which will be attached to the belt-buckle.
Rechargeable batteries will fit in the user's pocket or purse.
The dream of continuous handwashing has been finally realized!
NO MORE GERMS!
We hope to bundle a copy of Shakespeare's Macbeth with the first 1000 orders.
-
.
- aqk
F U
Actually, there is a great deal of research going on. The evidence seems to be pointing in the direction of a genetic cause. That doesn't eliminate environmental factors entirely, but it does suggest that any environmental trigger would have to be fairly ubiquitous--the concordance of autism in twin studies is very high.
Two problems: Nobody has ever actually been able to measure increased mercury levels in autistic people, and while mercury can be neurotoxic, the symptoms of autism actually do not resemble what has been observed in verified cases of environmental contamination by mercury.
I keep hearing this, but is there any legitimate research to back this up? I mean, does having a few extra human hosts actually increase the incidences of dangerous mutations in pathogens? These pathogens do spring up from time to time, they already have some place to do their thing, can they not mutate in such an environment? I know pathogens are often times wildly different so the answer may vary, but the idea of super-measles showing up just cause some parents want to enforce their rights seems a tad bit like scaremongering to me.
If there's any decent research on this where is it (we have plenty of countries that are undervaccinated on this rock, there's plenty of available data)?
And second, as for your reaction to the DTaP vaccine, there is a widely known side effect of the vaccine (specifically the "P" part against Pertussis, aka Whopping Cough). We are well aware of the side effect and it is known. That is not the same as speculation about an unproven side effect believed by the public and rejected by most of the scientific community. Hmm, sounds a *lot* like the Global Warming denier community. Oh wait, but those guys are kooks, right? *You're* just being skeptical, right?
That being said, your physician is either an idiot, or to be fair, maybe this wasn't known in 1960s UK - the solution to the DTaP reaction you describe is to administer just the D and T portions and not adding the Pertussis part. Congratulations, you were not immunized against Tetanus or Diptheria.
If the reaction to DTaP was well known and preventable, but there was nothing done about it, is that practitioner acting responsibly by administrating it anyway? How reckless and irresponsible is that - to knowingly induce harm (albeit in a small percentage of cases) when that harm can be avoided by something as simple as a scheduling change and separate shots?
Knowing that practitioners have been arrogant and reckless in the past regarding a certain subject does not inspire confidence in their recommendations on that subject in the future. Hence the discussion around this subject we have today. If medical practitioners as a group have acted in a way that reduced their credibility to near zero it is their own damn fault that they have opened themselves up for anyone to comment credibly.
Relative to "unproven side effects", well, let me offer this. Speaking from personal experience, my brother Patrick (born in 1968) also almost died from the DTaP vaccine. He experienced seizures and a high fever within a day after receiving the DTaP vaccine. In the week following that vaccine these seizure recurred, and he subsequently started to show autistic behavior. In his case, he grew up severely mentally retarded. He has never developed mentally beyond that of a two year old. He can only say a couple of words, literally cannot wipe his own bottom, and has been a tremendous challenge for my parents, my brothers, and quite frankly for me.
Personally, I too have had some, but smaller, reactions to vaccines. I experienced a high fever and weird sleepwalking incidents immediately after receiving a booster shot in high school. I have no recollection of the event - my mother told me about it afterward.
So don't tell me that there's no connection. Bullshit. A connection exists and I've experienced it in a very, very personal way. The science just has not yet caught up with reality.
I will only know my brother as the retarded brother. I will only know the embarrassment and difficulty of having my brother the way he is. The way this condition impacted my life is very negative, and very emotionally draining even to write this - years separated from my direct contact with him. To hear your cavalier response relative to side effects and separation of shots makes me want to reach through the screen and punch you. You'd never cut it as my doctor. If they knew they should separate these shots, why didn't they? If they are not separate now, why not?
The response to those rhetorical questions invariably boils down to doctors did not know everything back then, but they know more now. I will grant you that you know more now, but you still do not know everything around the topic. What you prescribe now may have its own side effects, but your calculus ultimately discounts that. It ultimately boils down to what is most cost effective and least effort for the broadest population. To me, with what I have lived with, and what I hope for my children, that is unacceptable. There certainly is the need to approach this issue at the macro level, but as the parent of a patient (two of them, soon to be three) I only care about my children, and your
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
Kids who don't get vaccines still get autism at the same rate.
That's what proves vaccines don't cause autism. Lack of correlation implies lack of causation.
"Since the cause of autism is unknown, but the incidence of it is up the last few decades, it seems quite likely that at least one of the assertions regarding what supposedly doesn't cause it may be wrong."
Or that we just don't know. It is perfectly poisible that we have correctly ruled a bunch of stuff out and still don't know.
I'd like to know what causes autism. I think it's important. A lot of people insist we spend a lot of our energy talking about one of the very few things we know for sure isn't the cause. They are slowing down useful progress, and assuming we ever find a way to prevent autism, their determined ignorance means more people will suffer from it before that happens. They disgust me.
This is a good illustration of the level of stupidity that one encounters from the antivaccine crowd. "Oh my god! FORMALDEHYDE! It's poison!"
Well, let's apply just a little bit of basic common sense. Almost anything is toxic at a high enough dose. People have died from drinking too much water. A whole lot of formaldehyde is certainly bad for you. But just how poisonous is the stuff? Well let's google it and see what it looks like. Wow, that's a really simple molecule--CH2O. That sort of structure is part of all sorts of molecules. I wonder if our bodies make the stuff? Back to Google. Sure enough, it's a normal metabolite. There's quite a bit of it in blood, in fact--normal blood levels are 2.5 mg per liter. How much formaldehyde could possibly be in a shot of vaccine? There can't be that much in the small volume of a shot. Let's google it just to check. The highest vaccine dose of formaldehyde is less than 0.2 mg.
So even in an infant, a vaccine dose would increase blood formaldehyde by less than 20%, and that only briefly. It's volatile, so you breathe it right out--it's half-life in blood is only 2.5 minutes (see previous links).
All it took was five minutes with Google to figure out that you don't need to worry about formaldehyde in vaccines.
Yet these antivaccine nuts have been repeating this "Ohmigod FORMALDEHYDE" canard for months. Just how stupid are they? Or how stupid do they think we are?
And no, there is no appreciable amount of "raw" mercury, either (which has comparatively low toxicity anyway). And organic mercury (thimerosal) has now been removed from most vaccines, greatly reducing mercury exposure--with zero impact on autism incidence. So much for mercury.
That would be worrisome if it were true. Except, of course that it's not. In fact, thimerosal (the form of mercury that has now been eliminated from most vaccines, despite the absence of any evidence that it is harmful) is excreted more rapidly than other forms of organic mercury.
Thimerosal has been out of vaccines since 2001 and autism rates have continued to rise. The horse is dead, quit beating it.
I'm a clinical laboratory student in immunology classes. I'm also a mother. My son is vaccinated. Not only is he protected but so are you because that's the way "herd immunity" works. You protect the bulk so that the virus has no where to hide...
Autism is horrible and it is also horribly misunderstood. The bottom line is that it is too complex to be linked to one, completely external cause. There is a possibility that is could be some genetic/metabolic disorder that is triggered by inflammatory response (a.k.a.-fever). The response could be the result of a natural illness or a vaccination, doesn't matter, the child could still become autistic. Mind you, this is only one of many, many theories floating around the med community... the problem has not passed them by, they are looking into it.
The question boils down to one thing, though: Would you rather be the parent of a child who, for unknown reasons, becomes autistic or the child who died because of a nearly perfectly preventable lethal childhood disease? That is the reason they push immunizations on such young children; these diseases KILL children.
IANAP, but did catch chicken pox aged 33. It's a lot worse when you're older, much, much worse than the mild temperatures and chance of scarring in childhood.
You're absolutely correct. I was referring to the more common pediatric chicken pox. Adult onset chicken pox (or adult recurrence aka Shingles) is extremely dangerous and can absolutley kill you.
Hello asshole,
I never said I'm a crapatologist. I am a scientist though and he isn't.
Plumbers have things to do with science, but they're not scientist.
Now shut the f**k up and run back into your little hole.
In the UK Guardian's story 'Recent Media Coverage" relating to vaccines and the mis-information the media conveys about it, the author absolved the public from any responsibility for discovering the available 'truth' by saying: Middle class parents are not to blame, even if they do lack rhetorical panache when you try to have a discussion with them about it. "They have been systematically and vigorously misled by the media, the people with access to all the information, who still choose, collectively, between themselves, so robustly that it might almost be a conspiracy, to give you only half the facts." I am sick of this kind of liberal-minded crap about the poor public who are not to blame because they have been systematically misled. Ever hear about doing your own research? What about developing an attitude that you can't believe anything anyone tells you in the media, or from governments, businesses, churches, or your old aunt Myrtle, for that matter. It is mostly laziness and a desire to believe that combines to perpetuate ignorance. Being critical, sceptical and applying scientific principles to examining the validity of anything is difficult because it takes effort.
It's worth pointing out when people say 'genetic', they usually really mean 'hormonal'. Genes are things that do things that make hormones that do other things and trigger other genes and so on. Our genes are our personnel department, and our hormones are the workers it hires. Hiring crazy people who mess up the production is basically the same as having crazy people wander in from outside via milk or whatever and mess up the production.
The point I am trying to try to explain the apparent increase in level of autism. Yes, it's possible that's just better diagnosis, but, honestly, that seems a little weird.
But genetics could render people susceptible to an environmental factor that is, at this point, ever-present in the environment, and wasn't earlier in history.
Something like PCBs or other chemicals. It's almost certainly not mercury, as that's been repeatedly checked. (Plus, we do, indeed, know how both mercury and lead poison people, as we've seen it throughout history. Whereas there are plenty of new chemicals we know are toxic in large amounts but have never seen the end result of moderate poisoning on people.) It has to be something that doesn't build up in the system, but is present at key moments.
Of course, something that is present at all moments is dietary changes, like corn syrup. I wasn't actually kidding with that one...I personally suspect that 'corn syrup' instead of sugar is partially the cause of the obesity epidemic because we process it differently than sugar. (However, it probably has nothing to do with autism.) Some trivial chemical could be interacting with some genetic difference in a small set of people.
And, of course, as the parent post said, it's entirely possible there are, say, five different causes of identical-looking autism. (And the whole thing is a 'spectrum' with ranges of symptoms anyway.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I consider myself a climate expert
And I consider myself a medical expert. Stupid judge didn't seem to agree after I performed surgery in my basement, though...
Not all scientists agree with the human-caused global warming "community".
No. Just most of them. Well, okay, more like almost all of them. But you're right, there's a few crackpots, corporate shills, and chronic contrarians who opt to buck the trend despite the evidence.
Like yourself, for instance!
No, that's not the way it works. If you want to stick with your office metaphor, the genes are the company's standard operating procedures and hormones are one form of communication--perhaps interoffice mail--but the office also has phones, intercom, postal mail, email, and conversation.
Biologically speaking, hormones can regulate gene expression, but they are only one of many types of biological signals that do this.
Certainly a possibility. There are obviously thousands of substances in our environment that weren't around years ago. But it is hard to know where to start, particularly when it is questionable whether there actually has been a real increase. Perhaps once the genes are better understood, it will provide a clue as to possible environmental culprits--if there are any.
Actually, this is another myth. Corn syrup is composed of glucose and fructose, same as table sugar (sucrose). Same molecules, same processing (sucrose has to be split to release glucose and fructose, but this is the first thing that happens; the enzyme is present in saliva). There have been some worries raised that fructose may not suppress appetite as well as glucose, but in fact the ratio of fructose to glucose in the most widely used corn syrup is not much different than in sucrose. It's also about the same as you encounter in fruit. So it might be that glucose (dextrose) would be better for you, but substitution of corn syrup for table sugar probably makes no difference.
More likely, people are getting fat because they are just consuming a lot more sugar in all forms.
No, that's not the way it works. If you want to stick with your office metaphor, the genes are the company's standard operating procedures and hormones are one form of communication--perhaps interoffice mail--but the office also has phones, intercom, postal mail, email, and conversation.
Yes, but most of the construction of a person, including their brains, is regulated with hormones, which tells what to happen when.
During normal operation, there are, of course, other communication methods going on.
If there actually is a genetic component to autism, I suspect it's because something somewhere produced too much or too little of a hormone at a specific time which altered brain development in a certain way.
I could probably think of an office analogy, but that's getting a bit silly. And anyway wasn't my point. I was just using hormones as something that can be very affected by outside sources yet are needed to operate our body correctly.
Yes, in theory, we could have some other things misregulating gene expression, but environmental factors couldn't be causing them. It would have to be purely genetic and internal, and if you buy the idea that incidents of autism are rising, that is not likely. (Unless there's some mutagen wandering around that very specific.)
Of course, if you don't buy the idea that incidences of autism have increased, that's not important.
Certainly a possibility. There are obviously thousands of substances in our environment that weren't around years ago. But it is hard to know where to start, particularly when it is questionable whether there actually has been a real increase. Perhaps once the genes are better understood, it will provide a clue as to possible environmental culprits--if there are any.
Hell, we don't even understand what's wrong with people with autism. We can MRI them and see part of their brain isn't working at the correct level, but we not only don't know why, we don't even know how.
First we have to figure out why, exactly, they are the way they are, and only then can we figure out why their brain developed that way. (Or whatever causes it) And then we can work on stopping it from happening.
All we have at the moment is the symptom. Or, more specifically, a bunch of people with a bunch of apparently related symptoms.
Actually, this is another myth. Corn syrup is composed of glucose and fructose, same as table sugar (sucrose). Same molecules, same processing (sucrose has to be split to release glucose and fructose, but this is the first thing that happens; the enzyme is present in saliva).
In fact, quite a lot of foods are acidic enough that sucrose is split in inside them. Like all soft drinks.
There have been some worries raised that fructose may not suppress appetite as well as glucose, but in fact the ratio of fructose to glucose in the most widely used corn syrup is not much different than in sucrose.
A 10% difference is still a difference. 55% fructose and 45% glucose vs. 50% fructose and 50% glucose might not seem like much, but considering we eat a hell of a lot of it, who knows.
But I think the 'appetite suppression' is sorta a dead end, and it's more 'triglyceride' we need to worry about.
It's also about the same as you encounter in fruit.
Yeah, but we don't eat anywhere near that much fruit. A single soft drink has six times as much fructose as an apple.
So it might be that glucose (dextrose) would be better for you, but substitution of corn syrup for table sugar probably makes no difference.
I, OTOH, suspect it makes little difference, but that it is making some.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Not really. Most of that seems to be regulated by contacts between cell surface receptors and short-range trophic factors, which mostly do not resemble hormones chemically. Hormones are necessarily limited because all cells are exposed to them via the circulation. Hormones do provide a degree of regulation, but they are hardly the dominant factor determining what happens where and when. Of course, all of these nonhormonal factors, as well as the intracellular signaling and gene regulation cascades that they link to, are potentially subject to disruption by environmental chemicals.
It is pretty hard to come up with biological mechanisms in which a 10% difference in an input makes a very large difference in outcome. Basically, the binding kinetics that underlie processes such as binding to receptors and enzymatic activity impose a certain slope to the concentration dependence. It is possible to get a dramatic effect of a small percentage change in concentration, but it requires involves specialized biochemical and receptor mechanisms that confer a high degree of nonlinear amplification. When one finds this in biological systems, there is usually a clear biological reason for cells to go to all of this extra trouble--some types of biological signaling for example. Most of the time, it is more advantageous to biological systems to be tolerant to modest percentage changes in inputs.
The bottom line is that a big effect from a 10% change in the amount of a nutrient is a fairly extraordinary claim, and would require extraordinary evidence.
On the other hand, it could well be that total intake of simple sugars by some segments of the population is several fold larger than it once was. It is much easier to imagine that having a large impact
If you read the journals that the American Medical Association has continually tried to suppress, then you would know that a virus can't penetrate a cell-wall when the host has a proper balance of 10-parts calcium to 1 part magnesium, 7-thousand(!) milligrams of properly-absorbed Ascorbic Acid per 24-hour exposure (pine-tree needle tea and Goji berries is better than citrus), and avoid "medicine" (in whole) and false-foods high in sulphates (like USDA animal flesh, soy bi-products, GMO'd garbage). Also, consider that fluoridated water weakens every organ in your body; look up the earliest lawsuits back in the 60's from farmers whose crops died and animals became lame; you'll find that fluoridated water was Nazi Germany's way of removing the biproduct waste from nuclear-enrichment of uranium, only the equivalent US'ian nuclear-enrichment mid-century was from the Manhattan Project. Consider the use of Hemp Oil and Colloidial-Silver dissolved into high-calcium water or "glacial milk." Keep your animal-researched monkey-puss to yourself. There are principles to the immune system that are regenerate in nature and only profitable to merchants when it is weakened with non-foods and placebos masquerading as disease suppressants that leave the original damage unammended.
Nowhere has anyone placed their liability to their own detriment; they measure everything in dollar signs. I stand with my research unashamed and that what I've written above has kept me alive this far without any insult and without buying Health Insurance "tiger rocks." I'm also an advocate of self dentistry and can attest to the efficiency of certain herbal remedies to pain and bad blood to optimize suture of flesh. Working on skeletons is a difficulty in itself, yet that's where high amounts of Ascorbic Acid have shown to keep clear the sloppiest of mistakes.
What's the chance of your child suffering significant harm if you don't immunise verses the chance of harm if you do. I'm sure the the greator chance of harm is if you don't immunise, unless you go the bubble child path ( just think of the film rights ).
I'm just arguing that until they do, then I have to execute that right for them and I don't want that right to be taken from me.
In general I'd agree with that, but those decisions would have to be made with the child's best interest in mind. If a parent is making decisions that are likely to put the child's life in danger, then at that point it's reasonable for the state to intervene.
Schools these days can barely teach reading and writing skills... I've seen 12 year olds who can't write their own name. Let alone science (For scientific method) or advanced math (statistics, which I had in HS). I think we need to do alot more than just trying to teach those subjects during elementary school....
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Chicken Pox is an uncomfortable illness and can lead to the very nasty shingles later in life. Why not spare your children these?