Slashdot Mirror
Study Confirms No Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism
An anonymous reader sends word of a new study (abstract) into the relationship between the MMR vaccine and kids who develop autism. In short: there is no relationship, even for kids at high risk of developing autism. From the article:
[Researchers] examined records from a large health insurer to search for such an association. They checked the status of children continuously enrolled in the health plan from birth to at least 5 years old during 2001 to 2012. The children also had an older brother or sister continuously enrolled for at least six months between 1997 and 2012. "Consistent with studies in other populations, we observed no association between MMR vaccination and increased ASD risk among privately insured children.We also found no evidence that receipt of either 1 or 2 doses of MMR vaccination was associated with an increased risk of ASD among children who had older siblings with ASD." ... [An accompanying editorial said,] "Taken together, some dozen studies have now shown that the age of onset of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, the severity or course of ASD does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, and now the risk of ASD recurrence in families does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children."
... Because this discovery was made by science.
They will just claim this is
1) Big pharma conspiracy
2) Jewish conspiracy
3) Both of the above
Antivaxers will only refer to science when it supports their own theories.
another study confirms that water is wet.
The normal people knew it already.
The conspiracy nuts will think it's just another layer of the whole conspiracy.
Bluntly, if it was just for them, I'd say "let Darwin win at least sometimes". The problem is that they're a threat to everyone around them, too.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My mind's made up, don't confuse me with the facts!
for me. for you, there is a link since you believe one to exist. sorta like string theory.
http://howdovaccinescauseautism.com/
The problem were not the people which trusted medical research to begin with. the problem was always the mccarthy of the world which distrust "big pharma" and their "research" and all of them, those anti vaxxer "know" that MMR vaccine make their kids have autism and they have even anecdote to boot.
Good luck convincing the faithful. Some rare one may be, but if it was that easy, there would be no major religion by now.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
How many studies do you need? Every single legitimate study shows not only that vaccines do not cause autism, there isn't even any correlation between the two at all.
Then it was the vaccine itself - So0 thte stupid fucks stopped vaccinating their children - No change.
Thn they listened to a porno princess whoo's qualifications were? none.
Then it was proven that the "researcher was operating in tandem with a lawyer to make money off sympathetic juries. A lie based on lies, but they still believe.
Then Autism speaks sychophants started foaming at the mouth when certain people were removed from the "autism spectrum", because they really needed and demanded that rising epidemic.
You are as likely to change these people's minds about vaccines as you are to convince a fundamentalist Christian that the world wasn't created in 4004 b.c.e.
In fact, anti-vaxxers are just the liberal version of creationists.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Maybe click the link first? Thank you!
Perl Programmer for hire
Aargh! Wrong thread, my apologies!
Perl Programmer for hire
No worries.
It would be more accurate to say "12th study confirms no link between MMR vaccine and autism", with a subtitle of "versus no studies showing a link"
But did anyone ask Jenny McCarthy about it?
Do you have ESP?
I found an interesting article about autism. And I'm treating it just like the anti-vaxxers. I found it on Facebook. I'm applying no scientific analysis of the contents. I'm spreading it around without putting any real thought into it, expecting everyone to just mindlessly forward it to as many people as they can find.
Is it even about autism anymore? I'm lucky enough to have some family members that are anti-vax and post about it frequently on Facebook, and it's never about autism. Now everything is about "chemicals" and "toxins" and staying natural and how measles didn't kill our grandparents. They've made up their mind, so it won't matter if science shoots down an excuse that was never in doubt to anyone that cared about science. They'll just come up with another excuse that is just as baseless.
Did you read the article?
Think of it this way. You're living in your mom's womb, then you get born. Your mom's womb is pretty darn sterile. Suddenly, you're born and you're literally being assaulted by every germ around you, with probably thousands of them being encountered by your immune system every day.
How are a *few* shots (7 may seem like a lot to you) going to compare against thousands of things all hitting the naive immune system of an infant all at once, starting from birth, every day?
Or is it the fact that the particular antigen is injected into a muscle supposed to make it more scary?
It just seems to me that the amount of antigens presented to someone during a shot is just completely dwarfed by the natural exposure. It's just that the select few antigens in the shots just happen to be particularly helpful in helping you resist *actual serious disease*.
Also, I can't find your "varicella vaccine mortality rate of 1 in 30,000" information on the CDC website, Please provide source. What I found was this: "Other serious problems, including severe brain
reactions and low blood count, have been reported after
chickenpox vaccination. These happen so rarely experts
cannot tell whether they are caused by the vaccine or
not. If they are, it is extremely rare." I think we would hear about it if thousands of people died from the chickenpox vaccine.
Furthermore, they also say that only the FIRST dose has such an extreme reaction. So the "much higher than 1/30,000" claim you make is extremely dubious.
--PM
--PM
The mortality rate of the vaccine according to the CDC is 1 in 30,000. (The actual wording on the CDC site is that 2 out of 15,000 will have extremely severe reactions to the vaccine, and 1 of those will be fatal.
You are completely full of shit. From the CDC site:
I await your retraction before calling you out as a shill.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
"Normal people" are not sufficiently technically skilled (probably you included) to be able to "know" except by appeal to authority, ...
That's how this whole controversy started - by fraudulent science by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. What are people supposed to do? Say nevermind, I'll wait for his studies to be peer reviewed and in the meantime, I'm going to risk my kid's health? And don't get me started on Jenny McArthy's total irresponsibility and our society's worship of celebrity.
And regular folks see how something is "bad" for you and then "good" for you and then "bad" again and on and on and on. Science reporting in the general media is irresponsible and I really think the scientific community needs to be a little more careful in their announcements to the public. Actually, I do not think reputable scientists should announce their findings directly to the public. It's one thing if a science reporter sees a paper in a journal, it's another when the scientist(s) calls for a press conference. And they should follow that guideline to protect their own reputations - does anyone remember the first Cold Fusion announcement? Those guys ended up with a lot of egg on their faces. That wouldn't have happened if they waited for the peer review.
See? The science of Astrology explains it all!
In the US, with proper care and diet, measles is about .5% fatal or less to someone who was not vaccinated. Even if you don't die you've got a significant (~1%) chance of having some sort of brain damage (I'm including deafness/blindness in "brain damage".)
If you have a vitamin A deficiency, though, measles can be up to 25% (or so) fatal.
Measles isn't a joke and like polio, we should eradicate it if we can.
--PM
There are some valid questions regarding our vaccine policy and it's impacts on health, which you can't find because shills on both side drown out any discussion.
The same problem exists with gun control, abortion, and a hundred other subjects...
Too often, the extreme sides prevent any rational conversation from happening.
It's a pity we have to spend research money on crap like this.
It diverts resources from useful things, so that stupid people who think Jenny McCarthy is a fucking credible source of medical information can still choose to be stupid people and not listen to facts.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I am a medical professional, a pediatrician to be exact. I don't share your concerns about the rising number of vaccines and the prevalence of autism. First, although the number of vaccines has increased, the number of epitopes that the immune system responds to has actually decreased. Look at page 126 of this article:
https://www2.aap.org/immunization/families/overwhelm.pdf
Secondly, its not clear that the prevelance of autism is increasing:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9495906
It is true however that both of those facts make it much harder to not un-separate vaccines into a "proper" discussion.
T 1. Why have vaccines and autism rates both grown exponentially in the last 25 years? (no, detection does not come close to answering)
According to at least one study, changes to the diagnostic criteria and including outpatient diagnosis accounts for much of the rise. In essence, creating an autism spectrum diagnosis resulted in more diagnosis. That doesn't mean actual cases are on the rise since there is no way to rediagnosis those prior to the change. As for vaccines, correlation does not imply causation, something the recent study on the vaccine / autism link proves yet again.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The first question is related to how in 1989 Kids up until age 18 received 7 vaccines. [...] Today, it is 72.
You're so full of shit. According to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, in 1989 the CDC recommended 8 vaccines for kids (the same 7 it recommended through the 70s, plus Hib). The 2010 schedule includes the 8 from 1989 plus hep A (dangerous in kids, lethal in adults), hep B (40% lifetime risk of liver cancer in 95% of newborns who contract it), flu, varicella (not the innocent, cute little illness antivax wingnuts claim it is), pneumococcus (lethal), and rotavirus (potentially lethal).
The evil drug companies took the 8 vaccines from 1989 and added 6 more potentially lethal or crippling diseases, for a total of 14. One-four. Maybe the 72 number is an innocent mistake reflecting the total number of shots, although I sincerely doubt it's that high as DTaP and MMR are each 3 vaccines combined into 1 (as they have been since the early 80s). That narrows it down from 14 to 10 unique vaccinations, and they simply don't take an average of 7 shots each per vaccine.
Yes, I get testy about this. As many times as antivaxers tell me to "do my research!", it seems that none of them can be bothered to.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
There is also something particular to Chicken Pox which makes the vaccine even less desirable: length of immunity. If you actually catch Chicken Pox you get immunity for life. However if you vaccinate against it you need to continuously remember to get boosters - I believe currently every 10 or 20 years - otherwise your immunity may lapse. What is bad about this is that Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox. So in this case taking the vaccine to protect against a very mild childhood disease may lead to an increased chance of a more serious disease later in life...unless you set a 20 year alarm so you never forget a booster shot!
You're full of shit too. You speak as though getting chickenpox will prevent shingles which it won't and there's other things that you have claimed that I find to be...less than accurate but don't have the time to find sources so I won't claim them.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
What is bad about this is that Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox. So in this case taking the vaccine to protect against a very mild childhood disease may lead to an increased chance of a more serious disease later in life...unless you set a 20 year alarm so you never forget a booster shot!
As far as I know, this is very inaccurate. Shingles is a neurological disorder which only affects people who have generated Chicken Pox antigens. Chicken Pox itself has two or three strains, which can be contracted at any point in your life. For instance, the common Chicken Pox (the one with the vaccine now) is something I might have been exposed to when very young, but I've never officially got it (no pox) and eventually I figured I was immune and was tasked as the person to take care of anyone who had it. However, as an adult, I got a secondary strain of Chicken Pox -- symptoms are pretty much identical to the common variety. Result? I'm now susceptible to shingles. If a vaccine had been available back when I contracted it (and I'd had the vaccine instead), that would likely prevent me from getting shingles, as I would never have developed the requisite antigens. However, since there's still no vaccine for the second strain as far as I know, had I taken the vaccine (which was pretty much the same as my existing immunity), I still would have contracted Chicken Pox and then been susceptible to shingles. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox"
Wrong to an extreme.
Shingles is a resurgence of the virus which causes chicken pox. Once you get chicken pox, the virus is dormant in your body, your immune system continues to fight it. When your immune system is weakened, you get shingles.
Vaccination against chicken pox not only reduces chicken pox, but never being infected with the wild strain of chicken pox reduces the probability of contracting shingles when older:
" the risk of getting shingles from vaccine-strain VZV after chickenpox vaccination is much lower than getting shingles after natural infection with wild-type VZV" http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/varicella/
And you are exactly right. The OP does have one reasonable point in his post - now that we've knocked out the 'big' childhood infectious diseases (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and haemophilus) through vaccinations, we are working on immunizations where the cost - benefit ratio is much less clear.
Hepatitis B, Varicella (Chicken pox), pneumococcus, rotovirus and Hepatitis A are all safe and effective. Whether or not they need to be given to everyone is an interesting question. Hepatitis B is certainly reasonable for persons living in areas where the virus is endemic (South Asia in particular) and is reasonable for persons who plan on being drug addicts or health care workers. The problem is that most people who end up in the former life style aren't the type to seek medical attention early on. Varicella immunization, as you point out, wanes after a decade or so (as does tetanus, diphtheria and especially pertussis) and chicken pox is a largely benign illness (although complications do occur). The pediatric community has decided that a nuanced approach to this won't work so it's "everybody gets everything all of the time".
This appears to be pretty safe (again, the number of distinct antigens in all vaccines is dwarfed by the number of different proteins presented to your immune system every time you go out in a crowd) but there are theoretical concerns. You can make the argument that antigens presented by a vaccine are qualitatively different from your garden variety protein. You can also note that autoimmune diseases (where the body overreacts to antigens) is common, sometimes severe and undoubtedly increasing in the Western world. Thus, one can be concerned that pissing off the immune system could cause problems.
It, however, has never been demonstrated that vaccines are causally related to any autoimmune phenomenon or disease.
So, in the best of all worlds, one would have an informed discussion about the risks and benefits of all 14 recommended vaccines. Which would take a couple of hours. Which, of course, doesn't happen.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
1. Why have vaccines and autism rates both grown exponentially in the last 25 years? (no, detection does not come close to answering)
Oh for goodness sake, are you claiming these are the only things that have grown rapidly over the past 25 years. Sugar consumption has grown rapidly. Maybe, just maybe, the mother's freakin' diet has something to do with autism. Why, yes it does. That one study does not explain the majority of cases of autism but it is a big red flashing neon sign pointing in a direction to look. In addition to eating too much sugar, which we now know can trigger autism, there are many many other things mothers are exposed to on a daily basis in modern societies that may also be detrimental to the health of their babies such as: an overabundance of drugs (in food and water), other highly processed foods, chemicals from plastics that get into food and water, and many forms of pollution. Perhaps it is related to increased stress or lack of sleep.
Many years ago, some shyster dickhead of a scientist made a bunch of money (from a firm that was already planning a law suit over the MMR vaccine) by concocting lies about a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. The science system worked, the lies were caught, the paper was retracted and the shyster lost his "scientist" badge.
What baffles me is that so many people cling to the results from the exposed shyster who truly was only in it to make a bunch of bucks while they ignore all the reputable scientific studies that don't agree with the conclusion they have already jumped to. I'm reminded of Feynman's description of cargo cult science. One problem with your completely irrational position (on the fence or not) is that it causes us to waste valuable and limited resources following up on things we already know are dead ends so we can't use those resources to look for the real cause of the increase in autism.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Are you counting Andrew Wakefield as one of these "medical professionals"?
You whine about shills and them spew the talking points from the anti-vaxers. Seriously? Regarding point 1. You do realize causation does not imply causation, right? The most likely and confirmed cause is later age of parents, which has also risen. The fact that parents are older when they have kids than in the 80s has nothing to do with vaccines.
I'm pretty sure that causation does imply causation.
Interesting how it wasn't until various drug companies started pushing their "anti-autism" drugs that the medical community started diagnosing (actually, misdiagnosing just about 'brain development' related issue as ) autism. As far as I have read, autism is not a "disease", but a cluster of symptoms indicative of a misconfiguration or incomplete growth of the brain - at birth - that the sufferer occasionally is able to grow out of. The chances of a person being able to outgrow this condition are dependent on several factors (not ordered in any rank):
1. How severely the misconfiguration is - Under-development vs not present. Runs the gamut from a slight mis-wire to a meth-high spider monkey with a punch tool.
2. How stupid their parents attempts are in "treating" it - Give the kid drugs in order to be an "absent" parent vs. force the kid to be active.
3. Nutrition - If your kid doesn't eat right, the brain won't grow right.
4. Mental Stimulus - Ignore your kid, don't pay them any attention, and see what you get.
5. Generic health care.
Real diseases (mumps, chickenpox, etc) can be prevented/treated.
Autism is a bunch of conditions, not a disease. Only some forms of autism are permanent, most is temporary.
Mental Diseases that have no basis in fact (Anti-Vaxxers, Conspiracy Theorists, etc) are self-inflicted.
Actually, if you think detection can't come close to answering, you're probably mostly buying the antivaxxer accounts--and I'm being quite charitable there. Admittedly, a good part of it also comes from changing the diagnostic criteria, which is a Problem because as my dev psych professor brutally put it, it's the end of the goddamn bell curve--literally so, as a certain amount of autistic behavior is within the range of normal, which means that if you want to increase the number of people with autism the easiest way is to literally lower the threshold.
This folds into the fact that, frankly, the US school system has a perverse incentive to have as many students as possible diagnosed with a disability--they get money for it--and it's one of the easiest ones to game this way. (Yes, this qualifies as practicing medicine without a license and is harmful but since when did that ever stop the public schools?)
The least nasty player in all of this is that we've lost the perverse incentive to avoid diagnosis, as the stigma's decreased and, well, forced sterlizations & euthanasia is no longer anywhere near a problem as it was around 90 years ago. (Some of these court cases are still being settled though.)
Now, on the rest of it? If the clinic fails to check the health before giving the vaccine, GTFO. Vaccines should never be given to somebody not healthy. This is why I was delayed on one of mine when I had to get mine redone--I walked in and was bounced to the ER for a serious infection.
I don't know what you mean by the '17 vaccines,' but then I live in an area where the list is...about five, all of which are cheap and out of patent. I don't actually trust Gardasil, but that's because the way they did the challenge in testing it is absurd. (This is basically the gold standard, and is deliberately infecting somebody who has gotten the vaccine with what the vaccine is supposed to be against. Very few diseases are so bad as to warrant using a faux antigen--arguably, none are, as if they're dangerous enough to make it ethically doubtful to deliberately infect somebody who volunteered and knowingly consents to doing this test, it ought to be also unethical to sell it as a vaccine because it'll still get tested this way, just on people who did not knowingly volunteer to do so...and you can cover for it a lot more easily.)
That said, we actually do have some pretty strong proof that autism is probably a defect in brain development--last I checked we'd pushed back the earliest age at which we can diagnose it to before you should be getting any vaccines, namely six months. At least some cases can be traced to exposure to diseases at the prenatal stage, as the whole idea that the womb is a sterile, clean environment is hilariously wrong--let's take rubella, for example.
People exposed to it in the womb can end up with autism.
Ever asked what the R in MMR is for? I did, or rather I read the info sheet the clinic had to give me before accepting my consent to get it (again). It's rubella. Oh, and it turns out the vaccine is not for-life, regardless of what was previously thought; herd immunity just covered for a lot of people's immune systems 'forgetting,' sort of the equivalent of nobody noticing if antique computer viruses are no longer protected against by antivirus programs because there's little chance of somebody encountering an infected system anymore...
Sorry, mortality rate for getting Chicken Pox is 2 - 4 per 100,000.
You've also go associated problems with having Varicella, like arthritis, osteomyelitis, hepatitis, and intracranial vasculitis. Along with secondary bacterial infections in the blisters.
30% of new born babies who's mother has chicken pox around delivery time can pretty much kiss their short life goodbye.
http://www.immune.org.nz/disea...
"unless you set a 20 year alarm so you never forget a booster shot! "
So, go see a doctor at least four times during my adult life? That's a standard that I can meet. When you see a doctor, they check your immuno records. For those who don't currently see a doctor once every five Presidential terms, let's find a way to get them more medical care.
Awesome. Well done.
Today I had someone arguing that circumcision causes autism (I know, I know, but they said it). I told them circ rates are declining while autism rates are apparently rising. They said "Correlation does not imply causation!" and I scratched my head before saying "Yeah, but causation does imply correlation". They then went to special pleading, so I considered the point won.
In a way, you are correct, but unintentionally so.
There is a correlation, but the causation is one layer higher.
Vaccines are safe, and save lives. And that's the problem. Whenever a young life is saved, that is one person who would have been culled from the pack that now grows up and likely will procreate. Nobody can deny that.
That means that genes that earlier were weeded out now survive and spread in the population the next generation. Including genes that code for weaker immune systems, which appears to be a common factor for both propensity for dying from childhood diseases if catching them, and propensity for becoming allergic.
In short, it's not the children being vaccinated that causes autism, but their parents having been vaccinated if they survived as fertile individuals as a result of the vaccination.
Until we obtain the genetic know-how and competence for how to fix this in individuals, that's the price we have to pay for taking action in saving lives that otherwise would have been lost. The consensus (except for crackpots) seems to be that as a society, we are willing to pay that price.
That there are negative side effects to saving children's lives is not a popular thing to mention, though, so I'm waiting for the down-votes to start.
1. Why have vaccines and autism rates both grown exponentially in the last 25 years? (no, detection does not come close to answering)
Changes to the definition and protocols for diagnosing it account for the rate changes just fine.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You don't get 72 vaccines.
You get 49 doses of 14 vaccines by 6 and 69 doses by 18 if you follow the recommended schedule.
http://www.nvic.org/CMSTemplat...
Part of the reason we do the vaccines this way is because we now know more about the immune system and how effective the shots are / how long they last.
Part of the reason we do the vaccines this way is because the less-toxic versions that have been developed since the 1960s are also less effective and must be administered more often.
Part of the reason we do the vaccines this way is because its the best way to give immunity for life. After six, you shouldn't need a booster for polio, measles, varicella, or several others.
Either way, nobody gets 72 vaccinations.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As of right now, the count sits at 8,973.
http://www.antivaccinebodycoun...
No, the correct headline is "Study finds immunized siblings of autistic children not at higher risk of developing autism than non-immunized siblings of autistic children."
Additionally, this study says the precise opposite of what you said the headline should read, finding that siblings of autistic children were almost 8x as likely to develop autism as children who did not have an autistic sibling, regardless of whether those children were vaccinated or not.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
As someone who was diagnosed a number of years ago as autistic, I can't help but be slightly offended at the notion
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I know what works! Evidence! Maybe if we stop repeating that it doesn't work, it'll start working! Why do you write the exact posts that you expect to read? I'm very happy for evidence, even if it ony helps convert a tiny number of people! I wish it worked better, but.. YAY!
Neither of the two pages you link to put any figure on fatalities caused by a vaccine that covers chicken pox. The second page mentions "4 per million" this this context:
"These include severe allergic reactions (fewer than 4 per million), and problems such as:
Deafness.
Long-term seizures, coma, lowered consciousness.
Permanent brain damage.
Because these problems occur so rarely, we can’t be sure whether they are caused by the vaccine or not."
Note where it says "fewer", where it says "can’t be sure whether they are caused by the vaccine or not", and the lack of any mention of death.
Maybe those upper middle class parents associate vaccination with third world countries, and they're dark skinned and/or poor and filthy children sitting naked in dirt. Anti vaxxers children are superior to those halve humans. Watch this: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...
http://www.theatlantic.com/hea...
http://www.latimes.com/busines...
Did you mean to reply to me? I'm a little confused by what you said. I can't connect my comment to your reply.
Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox.
No, chicken pox for adults is known as chicken pox. In my 30s, my eldest toddler got chicken pox, then a week or two later my youngest toddler got chicken pox. Then a week or two later I got chicken pox. I had never had it as a kid, so I got it as an adult. It was standard chicken pox, and I was off work for 2.5 weeks.
My wife got shingles when she was pregnant with our first child. She had had chicken pox as a child, so she was the only one to miss out when our household had its chicken pox epidemic.
So chicken pox for adults is chicken pox - these are adults who never had chicken pox before. Shingles is for adults who had chicken pox as a child.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Hepatitis B is certainly reasonable for persons living in areas where the virus is endemic (South Asia in particular) and is reasonable for persons who plan on being drug addicts or health care workers.
I work in a global company and I had the following conversation at the healt care facility provided by the company:
-Hi, I received the Hepatitis A vaccination before my last trip and since I could not get the combine A&B then, I would like to have the B vaccination now.
-Well, Hepatitis B is only a risk if you want to use drugs with shared needles or have unprotected sex with new people. Or plan to have a blood transfusion in a third world country. I don't think you need it.
-I travel a lot with a taxi in China...
-Here you are, please reveal your left arm.
(I was later wondering if I should be more worried when entering a taxi in China)
> Whenever a young life is saved, that is one person who would have been culled from the pack that now grows up and likely will procreate. Nobody can deny that.
You do realise that proximity and exposure is the biggest factor in determining who develops antigens to any given disease?
ie, chance?
You're a proud member of that breed of social darwinist which personifies the saying 'A turkey voting for Christmas'.
Congratulations.
You still never provided a citation to your claim of 72 vaccines. Way to miss the point.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Eh? I had 1xMMR as a child and 3x polio/tetanus/diphtheria (not once as you've mentioned). In addition to that there were smallpox (yep, the actual vaccine) and BCG.
My parents unfortunately forgot about Hep A + B, so I had these as an adult paying them out of my own pocket.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
If you're talking about Accutane, it cured me after 20 years of severe cystic acne.
Cured. No more drugs, no more blood on my shirts, could go swimming and even get my first massage.
Medical science is pretty clear about what they dont know. You always have to read carefully.
You do realise that proximity and exposure is the biggest factor in determining who develops antigens to any given disease?
ie, chance?
Um, yes? But the diseases we vaccinate against aren't 100% lethal or 100% sterilizing.
It's not chance that determines whether someone who does catch the disease will survive as a reproductive individual. It's the overall strength of the immune system and fitness of the individual.
As long as some catch and survive a disease, evolution selects for the genes those individuals have versus those that die, become sterile or never catch the disease. Take away the risk of catching the disease, and those genes no longer have an advantage. With vaccination, those with weaker immune systems have an increased chance of surviving until reproduction, and as a result, the next generation will, on average, have weaker immune systems than if the culling had taken place.
If your father would have died from measles as a child had he caught it, due to him having a weak immune system, and he survived because he or those around him got vaccinated, chances are higher for you to have a weak immune system than the child of someone from an area without vaccinations. And if you have a weaker immune system, the risk of allergies is higher.
Of course, your father might have had a strong immune system and laughed off measles. But the reason we do vaccinate is that not everybody does. There will be lives saved, or we wouldn't do it. Even if just some survive that otherwise wouldn't have, this will have an impact on the next generation.
We choose to save lives now, and accept the genetic costs of the weakest not being culled from the herd. This isn't something that is disputed. It's a moral choice we make, but we don't get to escape paying the price - at least not until we reliably can make genetic repairs.
If it can be shown the kid infected and damaged another kid. Maybe peole will respond to money.
Your whole "profit" argument is nonsense, as we can see in more developed countries where charging ludicrous amounts for vaccines doesn't happen. You sound like a conspiracy nut! Of course those companies have issues, but the research performed outside those companies, show their vaccines are safe and effective. It really would help you to learn about this instead of spouting someone else's opinion - with every post you make you make yourself sound more and more like APK. It's embarrassing, as I know you are intelligent.
So you are doing "hefty research", yet are making mistakes that anyone having performed such research would not make. So either your research approach is fatally flawed, you are lying, or you have forgotten the research you made. Pick one :)
So your awesome researching ability doesn't include reading the pages you cite. Please tell us again why should anyone pay attention to you?
But your numbers have repeatedly been shown to be inaccurate, or describing something different to what you think... Again, really - why should anyone discuss this with someone who gets so easily confused and who is frequently mistaken or flat-out wrong?
Going through my vaccine history was literally the second thing my doctor did when visiting. First thing was asking if I was in good health right now. This was after moving between cities and visiting the doctor for the first time. Their computer system has all my suggested booster shots scheduled until the day I die.
Well that's that then. All of the autistic children that I know - but I'm no database, I'm a teacher - are over 12.
Quite obvious trick to search in a group where they have not been labelled autistic yet.
OK, here for reference what that page says:
How... magnanimous of you. Why not just a simple, honest admission that you were completely and utterly wrong, then leave it at that before you make an even bigger fool of yourself? Oh wait, too late:
Before I start, I am not an antivaxxer but I do believe them to be one of many immune system stressors that help trigger an auto-immune disorder called NIDS (Neuro-Immune Dysfunction Syndromes) that makes kids "act" autistic. In other words, autism would happen with or without the vaccines but in my son's case the vaccine was the last thing to occur before the knock-out punch happened. This happens so often, it's why the vaccines get blamed despite whatever study results are posted. My son developed normally until 18 months and then shut down the evening of his MMR. He also had two additional vaccines that day along with it. This was years before anyone talked about autism vs vaccines. That night he behaved like he had the flu (but this was in August) and his personality was different which is normal when you feel like crap. We called the doctor and she said he probably had a mild reaction to it and it should pass otherwise come back in. The flu like symptoms went away but his bubbly personality was gone and he was now sensitive to sounds. His stats were normal so the doctor sent us to some specialists to try to help us figure out what was going on. To make a long story short, it took 5 long years to get an autism diagnosis. A similar situation occurred to an old classmate of mine with his step-son. At the time we were convinced it was the vaccines because it was the last thing that changed before he "turned off". We hit the internet and found a doctor in Tarzana, CA (Dr. Michael Goldberg) that spoke to Congress about the rising rates of autism. He explained that traditional autism is a neurological disorder so it is unlikely the cause of the increase that is seen. It makes more sense for it to be viral and there is a type of herpes that lives in the brain in most of the population (HHV6 and HHV7). The thought is the immune system goes sideways and the virus that normally coexists starts to affect the temporal lobe where it lives and then comedy ensues. My son's HHV6 levels were 300% higher than normal levels. Dr. Goldberg prescribed Kutapressin (the old school anti-herpes medicine) and his autistic symptoms decreased along with the levels. Unfortunately, the immune system has to win the battle on it's own and auto-immune disorders don't always give up easily so my son is now improved to moderate on the spectrum. A couple of my son's classmates and my coworkers daughter have completely snapped out of autism which should be impossible if it's a neurological disorder but makes sense if it's viral and the immune system was able to find a way to co-exist with the virus again. Anyway, I wrote this because when families see their kids turn off just after the MMR shot it's hard to wrap your brain around why science is saying the two aren't even loosely related. To add insult to injury, you have people on the outside of your Hell mocking you because you say you saw what you saw. If that's you, hopefully you can now see how what you saw and what science is saying can both be true.
The job of academia is to inform people, the job of (at least an american) citizen is to make their own choices and live with the consequences.
IF your consequence is that your child isn't allowed into some private schools.. well then, that's your choice. BUT public schools should not have the right to require a parent to "be a parent in whatever way the government currently sees fit" it's BS.
I really don't understand why this whole issue is suddenly EVERYWHERE in the press.. OMFG some people make bad decisions despite research, news at 11! Think of the children!.. the ones that were vaccinated and not at risk, or the ones who's parents made a choice on? Cause, i get the basic feeling that there isn't even an actual problem here..
the only REAL possible problem is the vaccinations themselves. since they aren't 100% effective, if you are in public you get a slightly more weighted dice roll on wether or not the thing even worked.. you get that by traveling to another country too.. soo should we be banning that?
it's enough to make a person go all tin-foil hat and wonder why the novaccies are being attacked in the media so urgently..
S. Petry could be the poster child for the Dunning Kruger effect.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Oops, apologies, a thoroughly derpy error on my part: the death rate from chickenpox is actually a teensy smidgin higher than 1 in 3 million, ranging from 1 in 100,000 in children [1], to 1 in 4000 in adults [2]. From CDC's Pinkbook:
My guess [3] is that s.petry took the US's 100 deaths per year and divided it by 300M population to arrive at 1 per 3M death rate, but of course that calculation would only work if the entire population was catching chickenpox every year, whereas only only few percent of the population actually do: those catching it for the first time, those who failed to develop an immune response after catching it previously, and those whose immune systems are compromised for other reasons.
--
[1] or "acceptable losses" in antivax-speak
[2] a.k.a. "they deserved it anyway for not getting sick sooner"
[3] Actually, I know this is what s.petry did, 'cos I made the exact same mistake doing a quick back-of-the-envelope conversion from CDC's description of chickenpox killing 100 people per year prior to varicella vaccine introduction. But it had that "off smell" to it, so I went back and researched further till I found the right numbers, posted them publicly apologizing for any confusion caused, and moved on. Self-correction, it's the nuts.
I await your retraction of false allegations and apology for shitty research..
I'm sorry for you that your antivax agenda results in you doing shitty research.
Your first citation shows only severe reactions to chicken pox vaccine, none of them fatal, and no rate is given other than "very rare".
Your second citation also only refers to severe reactions. The word "fatal" is not on the entire page.
Go away, shill.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Varicella immunization, as you point out, wanes after a decade or so (as does tetanus, diphtheria and especially pertussis) and chicken pox is a largely benign illness (although complications do occur). The pediatric community has decided that a nuanced approach to this won't work so it's "everybody gets everything all of the time
That's an interesting difference between countries. In Sweden we don't have much of an anti-vaccer movement, though the mishandling of the bird flu didn't help, so let's say "not yet" at least. However, while we vaccinate children on schedule for most of the above, Varicella is not on the general schedule yet.
The schedule here is, wait and see if you get it, and if you haven't had it by your late teens, then we'll talk immunization. So we're still holding chicken pox play parties, to expose our children at as young an age as is practical (it usually is worse the older you are).
The profession says themselves that given the severity of the disease, you could perhaps make an argument for vaccination on economic grounds; having people stay home from work (on the governments dime) to care for sick children has a non-neglible cost, but from a pure medical perspective they don't feel it's justified, and hence it stays of the recommended list. For now at least.
Stefan Axelsson
Yes, Shingles is something you get when you are older if you had Chicken Pox earlier in life. It still makes no sense to get the Chicken Pox vaccine. The vaccine has possibility of side effects, however small they may be. If you get vaccinated you have to get new ones every 10 years for life. If you get the Chicken Pox, you are immune for life from getting them again. As an older person you can prevent getting Shingles by getting. . . wait for it. . . the Chicken Pox vaccine. So even though you had Chicken Pox as a kid and now have the threat of Chicken Pox you can prevent it by getting shots. So you either get shots your whole life, or you just get them when you get older. If you never got the Pox you can then get the vaccine when older. If you did have the Pox, you can get the vaccine to prevent Shingles. So what's the point of getting the shot when young then if you need to constantly keep getting more of them. Oh yeah, I know, they get more money out of you that way!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
If you go to a walk-in clinic and just get whatever doctor is on staff, they probably will not ask you about your detailed history unless it pertains to whatever issue you are visiting them for. A walk-in doctor is their to help with your immediate problems, it's your family doctor that should be concerned with your long term health. And yes many doctors push the flu vaccine, it brings the clinic the money AND it's good for you and the community (it IS possible for both of those to be true). If you have a family doctor who you are registered with, and they have never asked for your immunization history, that strikes me as being rather lazy. However, and this may be shocking, you can be the one to bring it up.
I'm sorry, but there are quite a few diseases out there that will kill the strongest, yet the already sickly might survive. Very frequently a "strong" or "weak" immune system has little to do with whether you catch a disease.
For example: The highest rate of mortality for Chicken Pox is 100 out of 300Million. This was what could possibly be attributed, which means that most of these people were already fatally ill with things like Leukemia when they contracted the Chicken Pox. The mortality rate of the vaccine according to the CDC is 1 in 30,000. (The actual wording on the CDC site is that 2 out of 15,000 will have extremely severe reactions to the vaccine, and 1 of those will be fatal.
Your claim of a 1 in 30,000 mortality rate is false.
Here's the CDC safety data for vaccines:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/va...
Here's chickenpox vaccine:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/va...
According to the CDC, about 1.5% of children in the US have autism. Of those, about 90% have had normal vaccinations. If you're one of the unlucky parents, you're going to be looking for a cause. Of course, it MUST be the vaccinations, what else could it be??? There is probably no way to convince these parents otherwise.
That's not what vaccines are for. They're herd protection, and are to decrease the number of possible hosts in a population. If everyone who CAN get vaccinated does, then that protects those few who can't get vaccinated for whatever reason (too young/old, react to the vaccine, forgot to get the booster, etc.).
That's the point of getting vaccinated. What possible side effects are there that are greater than contracting chicken pox without the vaccine?
It's kind of like wearing a seatbelt while driving a car. Same counter-arguments get used too. It doesn't change the scientific reality that belt enforcement saves more lives than not having belt enforcement.
a study finding no link does not confirm the absence of a link.
Execpt wearing a seatbelt does not increase risk to me only to give possible benifit to someone else. It is possible that you might start shooting random people some day. Does that make it ok to kill you now to possibly save people in the future. If I would rather get the flu than a shot, I have that right. I don't believe the vaccines work as well as we are told. We keep learning about the companies that make these and how the effectiveness is way lower than they have been telling us, or it turns out to cause cancer. I will get the ones I determine to be justified while you can get vaccine for everything including sky falling-itis.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Wearing a seatbelt does in fact increase risk to you of serious harm in certain kinds of accidents. It also protects those around you, as you are held into the driving position in your vehicle, so are less likely to lose/be unable to regain control of your car.
Vaccines protect the herd -- this is not "random people" but the people you come into contact with each day.
The next time a vaccine starts shooting random people, let me know.
You do indeed have the right to get the flu instead of a shot. However, by exercising that right, you are putting people in harms' way that would otherwise be more protected. That's a decision you get to make. Other people have made the decision to get vaccinated, which indirectly benefits you, as long as enough people get vaccinated.
We keep learning about the companies that make these and how the effectiveness is way lower than they have been telling us, or it turns out to cause cancer.
Who is we? I haven't been hearing these things. There are some non-approved vaccines that have side effects that are considered worth the risk in the middle of a pandemic -- are those the ones you're referring to? They have nothing to do with chicken pox, nor with the flu virus, nor MMR (the vaccines discussed in this thread so far).
Flu vaccines are a crap shoot -- I never used to get them, but now I do, as it costs me nothing. The reason they're a crap shoot isn't because they're not effective though; it's because they only target one strain. Vaccine companies look at what's brewing in China at the beginning of their flu season, and then inoculate against that in North America so by the time flu season hits NA, enough people are inoculated to the most likely strain, protecting the herd. This year, they guessed wrong, and a different strain made the hit list. Result? A greater number of child and elderly deaths due to influenza.
Everyone was still inoculated against the strain that went nowhere; nobody was inoculated against the strain that became pandemic. Was the vaccine effective? Not at minimizing flu exposure, but it WAS effective at minimizing exposure to the target strain -- in China, before it ever spread anywhere else.
The main reason vaccines don't work as well as we are led to expect is that what many people hear regarding vaccines is "get this shot to be protected from viral family X" when, as I originally stated, that's not what vaccination is about at all.
Vaccines are pretty simple; reviewing them is pretty simple, and delivering them without side effects is getting simpler as time goes by. Stay away from "live strain" vaccines, and at worst you're injecting junk into your muscle tissue that your lymph nodes have to collect and dispose of (or in a minority of cases, your body marshals its T cells and histamine chains, and the NEXT time you're exposed, you go into shock).
I am not officially on the Autism Spectrum Disorder. My son is, for behavior very much like mine.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The last thing that hit?
Quite a few years ago, my wife ate some Dairy Queen Dilly Bars, and then became seriously ill. She was blaming Dairy Queen, as the illness seemed to just follow from eating the stuff. Then I drank some A&W Cream Soda, and it seemed to upset my stomach, and develop into the same sort of illness. It would appear that we got sick, and associated what we ate or drank as the disease was starting to show up with the disease.
I still can't drink A&W Cream Soda, though (not that that's any loss).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Wrong to an extreme. Shingles is a resurgence of the virus which causes chicken pox. Once you get chicken pox, the virus is dormant in your body, your immune system continues to fight it. When your immune system is weakened, you get shingles.
Umm...so how is it wrong to say that Shingles and Chicken Pox are the same disease given that they are caused by the same virus? All you stated I already knew. Indeed Shingles often emerges when the immune system is compromised.
However if you had the vaccine and so never caught Chicken Pox. Then your immunity wears off (which does not happen with Chicken Pox since you have the virus inside you) then when you then get exposed to the virus again you will have no immunity and so end up with Shingles EVEN IF your immune system is fully operational.
You speak as though getting chickenpox will prevent shingles which it won't
Correct - once you have the virus you never lose it and shingles can emerge if something compromises your immune system. However if you have the vaccine and then the immunity wears off and you are exposed to the virus again then you can get shingles even without a compromised immune system.
So, go see a doctor at least four times during my adult life?
No, go an see a doctor fours times at 20 year intervals AND remember to ask for this shot because unless you go to the same doctor throughout your entire life it is unlikely that they will.
Contrary to your argument, those who receive the chickenpox vaccine seem to have proven to have a lower risk of shingles (scroll to "Risk Factors"). Stop posting lies and deceit.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
It also turns out there is another reason this vaccine is bad. Older adults in contact with children who have chicken pox get a boost to their immune response to the vaccine which helps prevents shingles. The vaccine prevents this from happening: see this.
How much does a doctor earn for giving a flu shot? The cost is $20 cash (at the local drug store) so their profit must be less than $20, probably less than $5. I've never understood that criticism (which you didn't make, but I've heard a lot). Vaccination is the opposite of the profit motive; doctors would make WAY more treating sick people than giving vaccines.
I haven't had a consistent doctor but I've been reminded by almost every doctor to get re-ups on my vaccines. Like changing oil on a car, if it's a 20-year vaccine then it's not too hard to guess when people need them. If a 25-year-old walks into the office, it's probably time. If a 45-year-old walks in, it's probably time again. This is how it's seemed to work for me.
I'm sorry, but there are quite a few diseases out there that will kill the strongest, yet the already sickly might survive.
Measles, mumps and rubella do not fit that description. They have a very low mortality rate, and it's the weakest that tend to succumb.
Smallpox has a higher mortality rate, but also here, it's those with weak immune systems that tend to die.
This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective - diseases that don't kill its vectors are going to outcompete those that do.
I can't think of any disease which kills healthier specimens more than the weak. The avian flu scare a few years ago was initially reported as hitting the healthiest the hardest - that turned out to be misinterpreted results; it hit the most mobile part of the population more often due to a shorter than usual incubation window, not harder, which led to more young adults dying. And many elderly were already immune due to an outbreak in the 60s.
So I'm sorry, what are those "quite a few diseases out there" that you refer to?
Very frequently a "strong" or "weak" immune system has little to do with whether you catch a disease.
Very frequently, it has a lot to do with whether you survive it if you catch it.
And that is what determines whether your genes have an advantage or not. It only takes a small statistical advantage for successful genes to be selected for.
Shingles is not adult-chicken pox. Shingles is a remergence of the virus. Adults can get chickenpox. It's just that most have had chicken pox as children, or they're immunized.
You can only get shingles if you had chicken pox. It's far less likely to get shingles if you've been immunized to chicken pox.
This means that if you have a 'pox party' rather than immunizing, you're not only giving your child chicken pox, but they have a far greater likelihood of developing shingles later in life.
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/chickenpox-in-adults-and-teenagers
My girlfriend endured shingles, she was in agony for over a week and the symptoms are extremely different than chicken pox. She had chicken pox as a child.
Wearing a seatbelt does in fact increase risk to you of serious harm in certain kinds of accidents. It also protects those around you, as you are held into the driving position in your vehicle, so are less likely to lose/be unable to regain control of your car.
Yep, and making people wear a helmet causes more and worse head injuries than if you don't require them. Sometimes things are not the way you would think they should be.
Vaccines protect the herd -- this is not "random people" but the people you come into contact with each day.
Why should I care about "the herd"? I am not a cow or sheep. I will do what is right for me and my family. They used to tell you to use all the anti-bacterial solutions in you soap and sanitizers also. Only we now find out it is causing much worse bacteria that we can't kill off. Some studies show that being too clean makes your immune system overreact to things causing allergies and autoimmune diseases. I put vaccines into that category. Getting the disease does something different from getting the vaccine as is evident from the different length of immunity given. I'm not saying people should be getting the polio disease. But go on and ask all your older relatives how many people they knew as a kid that died of Measles and I bet you don't find any. Everyone got it, but they make it sound so scary today in the news and it's not.
You do indeed have the right to get the flu instead of a shot.
Only until people like you get the law changed to make it mandatory that everyone get every vaccine that the government mandates and get the flu vaccine added to the list. California is getting rid of the religious exception for vaccines for school children. I guess we just have to get fake medical records made up then. The situation does not really get better, does it. Plus, when you see these outbreaks in the news, they always fail to tell you how big a percentage of the outbreak is among vaccinated people. The Measles outbreak at Disney Land was mostly among unvaccinated people, but there were five vaccinated people that got it anyway. In New York in 2011 an outbreak was traced to a vaccinated 22 year old that gave it to 4 other fully vaccinated people. Did you know that getting the vaccine can cause you to shed fully contagious Measles virus and you can then make other people sick. You probably didn't know that either, did you.
We keep learning about the companies that make these and how the effectiveness is way lower than they have been telling us, or it turns out to cause cancer.
Who is we? I haven't been hearing these things.
They have nothing to do with chicken pox, nor with the flu virus, nor MMR
It seem to me that you people that want to be part of the herd of Sheeple always claim that us "anti-vaxxers" don't know how to think clearly and use scientific methodology and instead just listen to the wackos out there. I find the opposite is true. The people questioning the vaccines we are told to get are always a part of the highly educated demographic and some of the more intelligent people in the population. second paragraph in conclusion In this case you state you haven't heard about something that was discovered back in 2010. I can't help it if you choose to believe the lies spread by vaccine makers and the media, perhaps you need to read up more on the subject before you tell people they should do something when you are flat out wrong. It is in fact the MMR that lack the effectiveness. In particular it is the Mumps part of the MMR. Merk states it is 95% effective. If they don't meet that rate they loose their licence to be the only maker of the Mumps vaccine. So they just lie about it. When challenged and taken to court, their response is that the safety is fine, they don't even try to answer the actual accusation, rather they redirect.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I understand what you're saying; correlation does not imply causation. To explain my intended point using your analogy, it would be like my entire neighborhood showed up to Dairy Queen and all ate the Dilly Bars and got a similar illness. We all agreed it must have been the food because how else could so many people have the same experience from the same activity? After going to the doctor, we found out we all had a preexisting condition exacerbated by milk and the Kardashian family. Even if we hadn't eaten the Dilly Bars, Kim Kardashian was guaranteed to make us sick given her pictures are freaking everywhere. All I was trying to say was given the multitude of people experiencing the problem on the exact same day as the shots, it's very easy to fall prey to suspecting the vaccines when no other explanation can be easily found. If science can adequately answer the timing paradox, it would help the parents that experienced it to change their views.