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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."
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
The problem here is that many British newspapers have spread wholly-untrue scare stories about the MMR injections
Stories don't spread themselves. People buy them, buy into them, and then "sell" them through word of mouth to others.
No-one can be be expected to follow every major medical story by reference to the original papers
Nothing is expected of anyone. If someone wants to make an informed decision about their personal life, they will have to inform themselves. There is no shortcut to that. Any perceived shortcut is just a means to a false sense of security. And in this specific case, it is not necessary to scour source material, because there is plenty of good, informative, non-scary material out there that summarizes the scientific understanding. Whether people choose to read that or just accept what they read in a 25-cent paper is entirely up to them.
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.
Any existing reliance on the media developed voluntarily. This "media" voluntarily sold information, and people voluntarily bought that information. If it becomes apparent that some paper has been misinforming the public, concerned individuals should persuade their friends/family/community members not to buy that paper. Vote with your wallet.
The argument I see developing instead is something involuntary - a government-backed requirement that the paper meet certain standards. The end result is a fundamental violation of individual rights, as realized through the restriction of content (ie, censorship) and the manipulation of productivity and wealth distribution.
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
And people have bought those stories.
Like people who shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre, they should be held to account.
The two situations are not similar. You cannot build the foundations of an ethical system on an emergency scenario (such as shouting Fire! in a crowd) in which people have no time to think and process their perceptual data, but must accept what little information they are given and act accordingly. The present situation is not an emergency - people have plenty of time to find and digest alternative information, and make a rational decision in their self-interest. Some people choose not to.
I've had a 106 degree fever once in my life. I had measles when I had it.
The thing that bugs me with all these arguments is, in my experience, the people arguing that they're fine have done NO RESEARCH AT ALL other than anecdotal. My wife and I have read innumerable books, research studies, ACTUAL FDA AND CDC data on the subject, listened to lectures from Doctors such as Sherri Tenpenny who backs up ALL of her lectures with actual data from official sources. Fully cited, and where available online, provides the links to FDA and CDC documents (on the actual government websites.)
The less educated people are on vaccines, the more they defend them. I've spent years reading medical texts, government documents, books, listening to lectures etc... Just how much time have you vaccine defenders spent researching the issue I wonder? Probably a few minutes on Google to come up with your internet assembled vaccine philosophy.
I find the fact that someone gets modded up as +5 insightful for basically saying vaccines aren't harmful extremely disturbing.
Newspapers are actually always reporting on how wonderful vaccines are. Yes they mention deaths because if it bleeds, it leads, but the majority of press for vaccines is extremely positive. I bet your local newspaper has been telling you to get a flu shot.