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."

Comments

Negative headlines sell better

[Zironic]

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.

Re:Negative headlines sell better

[Anonymous Coward]

My daughter got the MMR a month or two ago and she ended up with a week of 106F fever.

So the doctor told you that the fever was a result of the MMR or did you come up with the diagnosis yourself?

I'm just saying that it could have been a coincidence. Perhaps it wasn't the vaccine but some other cause after all kids do tend to get sick.

Re:Negative headlines sell better

[marsu_k]

Breastfeeding certainly has benefits, among them improved immunity against various diseases (immunologic defenses aren't fully developed in infants). However, the benefits (immunity-wise) start to decrease after six months or so - as the MMR vaccine is usually administered when the child is about a year, it's certainly not unheard of that the child could get sick, vaccine or not. Taking care of an ill child can be very stressful - as a father of a two year old who has spent several days hospitalized due to severe allergies and asthma there are many weeks I could have lived without. Still, until I'm presented with real, _scientific_, evidence of serious adverse effects of popular vaccines, I'll get them for our daughter even if it could result in nasty, but non life-threatening or permanent, conditions. Having said that, some vaccines are unneeded in my opinion; chicken pox, for example, is irritating but better to "experience" as a child.

Re:Negative headlines sell better

[samkass]

Having said that, some vaccines are unneeded in my opinion; chicken pox, for example, is irritating but better to "experience" as a child.

Are you kidding? Shingles is a potentially disfiguring, often extremely painful event that happens at one time or another to many people who get chicken pox as a kid (shingles isn't acquired... it's a re-surfacing of the virus from within your body). I am glad that a couple of small shots my kids had as an infant will prevent him from ever getting shingles.

Re:Negative headlines sell better

[rtfa-troll]

Unvaccinated, breastfed kids don't generally get sick. (very rarely)

Yes; that's so true. In fact in the past, say 1000 years ago, when there were no vaccines and all kids were breast fed, there used to be no infant mortality at all. </sarcasm>

Re:Negative headlines sell better

[Chris Mattern]

NO, that is not true. Breastfeeding improves the baby's immune system, but it does NOT provide the same kind of specific immunity that a vaccine does. Please stop spreading lies that endanger the public health.

Re:Negative headlines sell better

[aurispector]

If you're so certain you're correct and can back it up with reproducible data, why not submit your study or meta-analysis to a major journal like JAMA, NEJM or The Lancet? The basic idea is that the risks from vaccination are outweighed by the risks of getting the disease your are vaccinating against.

If you can conclusively prove that the risks associated with vaccination outweighs the morbidity and mortality rates of the the disease itself, you should have no problem persuading the medical community at large. Personally I sincerely doubt that this is the case and as a such have had my own children fully vaccinated.

Re:Negative headlines sell better

[Xaria]

Whereas I've had Mumps and Rubella, and the fever was worse and I felt horrible and missed school for over a week each time. 2 days, 2 weeks ... my kids are immunized, thanks.

Parents ARE to blame

[tannhaus]

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*

Re:Parents ARE to blame

[Samschnooks]

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*

Or why not ask your physician who, I would think, knows a bit more than a writer who does the bare minimum of research, if any, to meet his deadline.

Re:Parents ARE to blame

[ultranova]

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.

Unless you happen to be a medical expert of sufficient calibre to run the experiments yourself, you rely on others to supply you accurate knowledge about the subject. Unless you are an expert in every subject, there are bound to be potential decisions regarding the welfare of your child where you have little choice but to go off half-cocked, since you simply have no way to know for sure what the results of each choice might be, and at what probability.

If you're not up to that responsibility, then you shouldn't have custody of your kids. Plain and simple.

No one is up to that responsibility. Nothing short of a god could possibly be. But don't let logic get in the way of making grandiose declarations - in the name of the children, of course.

*Father*

Ah yes, that would explain it. There's something about children which seems to turn people's brains off, allowing them to both spout and believe unbelievably stupid statements without recognizing them as such. Must be some kind of hormonal thing.

Re:Parents ARE to blame

[m.ducharme]

Why, because Western medical practitioners are conspiring against us, didn't you know?~

But a little more seriously, I think many people are getting suspicious of doctors who are too quick with the prescription pad, and don't spend much time actually doing preventative, or even curative, medicine.

Anecdotes factor in to the story as well. A friend of the family has a son who's autistic. The boy is 13 years old, handsome, has some artistic talent, and wears a diaper because he's totally incontinent. His mom swears up and down that she can trace the changes in him to the very day he got his 18 month MMR. Even if it's anecdotal, a story like that puts the fear into you when you have your own baby.

My wife and I thought about it carefully, and did consult with our family doctor, who is very strict about research-based medicine, and doesn't like to pull out the prescription pad for the least little thing. He recommended going with the shots, but also told us that he takes extra precautions with the vaccines (this was before the latest research). Him, we trust.

Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.

Re:Parents ARE to blame

[Teancum]

How do you possibly get "all the facts" when you are trying to raise a child?

Most parents (if you really are a parent) sort of muddle through the whole process of raising kids with imprecise information and an attempt to do the best we can with what limited information may or may not even be available to us at the moment.

Yes, reading first aid manuals, parenting guides, and other such books or websites may be useful, but more often you go on the advise of your own parents, neighbors and friends. There is often a whole lot of trust that happens too... sometimes misplaced trust at that.

As for "THE TRUTH" about vaccines, I don't really even know what the truth may or may not be here. Certainly it can be quantitized how useful vaccines have been in terms of the society as a whole, but as a parent you don't care about who a vaccine is generally saving the whole of society if it is your own kid that is the 1% or 1/10th% who gets screwed over with a bad reaction to a vaccine. All you care about really is how it is going to impact your own children.

I also don't think the medical community is being totally honest here, and that there can be some children who shouldn't be receiving vaccines. The trick here is to be able to make that decision... often with the medical community actively fighting against you or openly dismissing your fears without so much as even looking at any legitimate concerns you might have or even doing so much as even looking at your child at all, much less your child's medical history.

Muddling through is the best any parent can do anyway, and how dare you suggest that a child should be removed from a parent who is otherwise working in good faith to do the best they can for their own kids.

Re:Parents ARE to blame

[st0rmshad0w]

Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.

No, what will happen is that there will be a spike in previously preventable diseases due to unvaccinated kids, which will eventually bring about a mutation in the pathogen which will then infect your vaccinated child, or possibly you yourself, who is no longer protected because the anti-vaccine crowd gave the disease a breeding ground and place to evolve to evade the vaccine-created immunity.

Re:Parents ARE to blame

[m.ducharme]

Thanks for the insight. I live in Canada, incidentally, but the situation is similar. The government pays on a per-visit basis, not by time, and so it benefits a GP to squeeze as many visits into a day as possible.

There seems to be something else at work though. My doctor, who sounds a lot like you in some ways, is not very popular where I live (a small community of about 10,000). To some extent this can be attributed to his bedside manner, which isn't great, but also I think it's because people know he won't give pain meds at the drop of a hat. He's also been so indiscreet as to suggest that people with chronic pain disorders might benefit from seeing a psychologist, something that doesn't fly too well with the auto-accident litigation industry here.

I think that there is a strong push to prescription-pad medicine from the patients' side as well. People want the quick fix that makes them better. They don't want to hear that pain relief won't fix their problem. They don't want to hear that exercise and a healthy diet are really the only way to lose weight safely. They want magic.

Err...

[brian0918]

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.

Re:Err...

[gowen]

The problem here is that many British newspapers have spread wholly-untrue scare stories about the MMR injections, largely based on erroneous analysis by descredited scientists, Andrew Wakefield.

No-one can be be expected to follow every major medical story by reference to the original papers (and despite your noxious smugness, you don't either). We all rely on the media, both to alert us to potential medical risks, and to give accurate and even handed treatment to medical stories.

The papers and journalist in question (and. Melanie Phillips, I'm looking at you) have put sales-grabbings scare stories ahead of providing actual information -- acceptable if you're just gossiping about celebrities, but children have lost their lives because well meaning parents have been swayed by newspaper medical stories written with scant regard for the truth. Like people who shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre, they should be held to account.

Doctors != Scientists

[DrLudicrous]

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.

Re:Doctors != Scientists

[Luke has no name]

Not every computer scientist actually does scientic research on computation and data sets, many of them program. They are scientists ACTING as technicians or engineers, if you are familiar with the Scientist-Engineer-Technician hierarchy and its meaning.

In that, medical doctors are scientists, trained in the medical sciences, which act as technicians on the human body.

Re:Doctors != Scientists

[DrLudicrous]

Right, I see some of what you are saying. However, the point I was trying to make was that doctors don't effectively use the scientific method on a day to day basis. The way they approach research is fundamentally different from how a scientist in biology, chemistry, or physics would approach the same research. Basically, IMHO, calling doctors scientists is an insult to real scientists, and denigrates the work that they do. If you are going to call doctors scientists, you might as well call a biologist a neurosurgeon because they know the science behind how the brain works.

Props to the author

[Naughty Bob]

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.

That is impractical. I mean, impossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Power Lines

[bperkins]

Remember when power lines were giving our children cancer?

I'm glad they fixed that.

Re:Power Lines

[moosesocks]

Actually, there was a degree of truth to that story, even though it turned out that the power lines themselves were harmless.

It turned out that the pesticides used to clear the land surrounding the high-voltage lines were carcinogenic, and seeped into the water supply.

Other studies have concluded that any other correlation between childhood cancers and powerlines were either statistical noise, or due to other factors such as the higher likelihood that the lines would be located near industrial residential areas.

It's a debate that's been going on for a long time

[HangingChad]

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.

Re:Amateur physicians??

[squizzar]

Well, I'd suggest not, but there are plenty of people who take their advice from 'alternative' therapies, from the internet, from their religion and from spam email.

Of course with so many of these things it's what people want to hear: People would like there to be magical cures. People like a conspiracy - to feel that they know something everyone else doesn't - such as that MMR is actually an overall negative and hence they won't have their kids vaccinated.

Lack of Interest in Science

[reporter]

A more fundamental problem is a general lack of interest in science. Consider the news stories about American celebrities. Regardless of whether such news is postive or negative, the public loves reading about the lives of celebrities. "People" magazine is one of the most popular magazines in America. The circulation of, say, "Scientific American" pales by comparison.

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.

Re:Lack of Interest in Science

[Sen.NullProcPntr]

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.

Yeah, it's difficult to find soap that is not "antibacterial" today. Which is odd as just soap and water used properly will do the job.

But let's not forget it was science that taught us about germs in the first place. It's been hammered home since microbes were first discovered that bacteria and virus were to be avoided at all costs. Now the opposite is true?
I can see why most people would rather read about Paris Hilton than try to decide which scientific report to believe.

Then there's X-Ray Spex's take on the subject;-)

90% of all newspaper articles are utter crap

[he-sk]

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.

Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible.

[MushMouth]

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.

Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible.

[st0rmshad0w]

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.

Follow the Money

[LouisJBouchard]

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.

Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible.

[mrchaotica]

Since the cause of autism is unknown, but the incidence of it is up the last few decades

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.

Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible.

[Nursie]

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.

Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible.

[Kohath]

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.

Re:Vaccines save lives

[jjohnson]

The risks that a vaccine pose to an individual are far outweighed by the benefits gained by society.

More specifically, the risks posed to an individual are far outweighed by the same individual's benefit gained by living in a thoroughly vaccinated society. It's not a question of individual vs. societal benefits, it's that people who refuse vaccinations for spurious reasons are free-riding on the herd immunity (whilst simultaneously degrading it a tiny bit) of all the other individuals who properly weighed the risks and got vaccinated.

Re:Too many coincidences

[shrubya]

If there is no connection why do we see so many stories similar to mine?

Because the age that vaccines are given is the same age that the symptoms of autism (et al) start to manifest. It's as simple as that.

People have tried vaccines without mercury. People have tried giving vaccines at different times. People have tried forgoing vaccines. And guess what? The same percentage of each group of kids developed all the same awful conditions that are blamed on vaccines.

Could the Vaccination Scare KILL YOUR CHLDREN?

[IBitOBear]

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.