Oct 16 2009
9 Reasons to Completely Ignore Joseph Mercola
Some of our more astute readers may have noticed that we are paying influenza slightly more attention than other topics of late. That’s because this situation is new, rapidly changing, and covers more areas of science and medicine than one can easily count. It’s also a subject about which the general public and media are keenly interested. This is an outstanding learning and teaching opportunity for us as a professional community. Unfortunately, it is also fertile ground for confusion, fear, and misinformation, and a playground for those who would exploit such things.
Mercola.com is a horrible chimera of tabloid journalism, late-night infomercials, and amateur pre-scientific medicine, and is the primary web presence of Joseph Mercola. Unfortunately, it is also one of the more popular alternative medicine sites on the web and as such is uncommonly efficient at spreading misinformation. I am not a fan, and have addressed his dross in the past.
Joseph Mercola has recently posted an excerpt from an individual he evidently holds in high regard, Bill Sardi. Bill published “18 reasons why you should not vaccinate your children against the flu this season.” Mercola chose his nine favorites (one would assume the nine best reasons), and re-posted it on Mercola.com. There are so many mistakes, so much misinformation in so little space, it’s almost a work of art. You know, like that crappy art that you might expect to find on the wall at an hourly motel. Without further delay, let’s examine Mercola and Sardi’s nine best reasons for you not to vaccinate your children against influenza this season:
1. The swine flu is simply another flu. It is not unusually deadly.
“Not unusually deadly.” Oh good, then we can expect only ~36,000 people to die from it this year! Why does that number not reassure me?
One could do an entire post on just this single misleading claim. Oh wait, we have. Suffice to say every influenza strain has unique characteristics, some subtle (like the differences between seasonal strains from 2005-2007), some glaringly different (like the pandemic strains of 1918, 1957, and 1968, or the H5N1 “bird flu”). Saying something is “simply another flu” is nearly meaningless.
I’ll be charitable and assume he meant 2009 H1N1 is behaving like the average seasonal influenza. Let’s see, it circulated during the Summer, when flu doesn’t circulate, is uncommon in the elderly, is disproportionately infecting and hospitalizing younger people, it has a much higher incidence of ARDS requiring mechanical ventilation and heart-lung bypass (ECMO) than its seasonal counterpart (Australia reported 68 cases requiring ECMO vs. 4 the prior year), and it has a population which under the age of 60 is nearly 100% susceptible. Yep, sounds like any old flu to me.
Score: 0/1
2. This is the first time both seasonal and pandemic flu vaccines will be administered. Both seasonal flu and swine flu vaccines will require two inoculations. This is because single inoculations have failed to produce sufficient antibodies. This is an admission that prior flu vaccines were virtually useless. Can you trust them this time?
Yes, this is the first time they will be co-administered because pandemic 2009 H1N1 didn’t exist before now. Neither seasonal nor 2009 H1N1 vaccines will require two doses; both have been found to generate a sufficient immune response without a second dose. The exception to this is in children 6 months to 9 years of age, who require a second dose of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine separated by 4 weeks, and two doses if it is their first time being vaccinated against seasonal influenza.
Even when vaccines do require a second dose, this is not an admission that the vaccine is useless. Basic (and I’m talking 101-level basic) immunology explains why some molecules and microbes are more immunogenic than others, and require repeated exposures to generate an adequate immune response.
Furthermore, administering multiple vaccines against multiple strains of influenza simultaneously isn’t exactly pushing the boundaries of science. In fact, it’s status quo: the seasonal influenza vaccine is a trivalent vaccine, meaning that it has three different influenza strains in it. This has been true every season since the last major shift in circulating seasonal influenza viruses.
Score: 0/2
3. Adjuvants are added to vaccines to boost production of antibodies but may trigger autoimmune reactions. Some adjuvants are mercury (thimerosal), aluminum and squalene. Why would you sign a consent form for your children to be injected with mercury, which is even more brain-toxic than lead?
Adjuvants are indeed added to some vaccines, and that’s a good thing. But it isn’t needed in this one, so it’s not there. I think someone both wise and handsome covered this somewhere on this blog before… Aluminum and squalene-containing compounds are the adjuvants most commonly used, and both are safe. However, thimerosal isn’t an adjuvant, it’s a preservative to prevent bacterial contamination of the vaccine and keep it safe. There is a subtle difference between a preservative and an adjuvant. For those with sarcasm impairment, by “subtle difference” I in fact mean “blatantly obvious and inexcusable difference.”
And while we are on the topic of influenza vaccine and thimerosal, the single-dose syringes have no thimerosal. Only the multi-dose vials contain any thimerosal, with each dose containing 25 micrograms of ethylmercury. This 3.5 times less than what you would get from eating a single can of tuna (~87 mcg), is a form of mercury far more rapidly cleared than most environmental mercury exposures (methylmercury), and has been exonerated from suspicion as a cause of autism.
Score: 0/3
4. This is the first year mock vaccines have been used to gain FDA approval. The vaccines that have been tested are not the same vaccines your children will be given. (Emphasis Mercola’s)
Wait, what? “Mock” as in “fake?” You are going to claim something like that and give no source? None? Awesome. Were that to be true, it would be beyond a scandal, it would be criminal, and I’d be right there beside you calling for prosecution. Were it true. Which it’s not. The 2009 H1N1 vaccines were approved as a “strain change” to the seasonal influenza vaccine. We change the strains almost every year, and the 2009 H1N1 vaccine that your child will be given has been subjected to the same testing as the yearly influenza vaccine prior to release. Oh, and I’ll provide sources.
Score: 0/4
5. Over-vaccination is a common practice now in America. American children are subjected to 29 vaccines by the age of two. Meanwhile, veterinarians have backed off of repeat vaccination in dogs because of observed side effects.
Over-vaccination! Don’t you just hate it when you just aren’t susceptible to quite enough diseases? Children are not subjected to 29 vaccines by the age of two, not even by adulthood. There are 17 discrete vaccines (including 2009 H1N1) against specific viruses and bacteria on the routine schedule. Some are combined together in a single injection (like Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis) to reduce the number of injections.
Where did this number of 29 vaccines come from? If he meant 29 exposures to individually targeted viruses or bacteria or counting individual antigens he significantly undercounts. He might come close to the highest number of individual injections a child could get if one avoids most combination vaccines, though given number of different combination vaccines available, the actual number varies. No matter how you slice it, his number is wrong and misleading.
What about the veterinarian story? He’s referring to “vaccinosis,” which is more or less “vaccines cause autism” for animals. That veterinary vaccination schedules have changed is primarily due to a lack of good data in animals and the fact that vets care for widely varying species. As vets learn more about the immunologic response in a particular species, they follow the evidence and alter their schedules. This has no bearing on vaccination of humans.
Even if it were an accurate or relevant piece of information, the vets would not be alone in stopping the use of a vaccine due to observed side effects. Emphasis here on the word “observed,” and not “imagined.” For example, due to our standard post-licensure surveillance, within a year of its release the original rotavirus vaccine was found to cause intussusception in 1/10,000 children, and was rapidly pulled from the market.
Score: 0/5
6. Modern medicine has no explanation for autism, despite its continued rise in prevalence. Yet autism is not reported among Amish children who go unvaccinated.
Ignorance of medicine, autism, vaccines, and the Amish, topped off by a non sequitur. Wow.
Though the causes of autism are incompletely understood, modern medicine is making continual progress. Studies of twins with autism, along with an increasing number of implicated genes show that autism has a very strong though complicated genetic basis. Given autism’s heterogeneity, it is unlikely that a single cause will be found that explains all cases of autism, and it is possible that other factors beyond genetics may play some role. Regardless of what etiologies are eventually found, some potential causes have been ruled out, including vaccines.
The apparent rise in autism prevalence is largely explained by a broadening in diagnostic criteria and increased recognition and diagnosis. This explanation is further supported by studies like the one just published in the UK demonstrating equal numbers of autistic people in all age groups.
As far as the Amish are concerned, they do vaccinate, and they do have children with autism.
Score: 0/6
7. Researchers are warning that over-use of the flu vaccine and anti-flu drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza can apply genetic pressure on flu viruses and then they are more likely to mutate into a more deadly strain.
So close! Antiviral drugs do place selective pressure on replicating viruses, and resistant strains can be produced. However, drug resistance is not equivalent to virulence, and so his implication that use of antiviral medication will induce more deadly strains is unwarranted.
It is also irrelevant to his topic of “Why you shouldn’t vaccinate your children against influenza.” If anything, his fallacious argument would support vaccination, because fewer children infected will mean fewer children taking antivirals.
It seems to be asking a lot to expect internal consistency.
Score: 0/7
8. Most seasonal influenza A (H1N1) virus strains tested from the United States and other countries are now resistant to Tamiflu (oseltamivir). Tamiflu has become a nearly worthless drug against seasonal flu.
Again, half-truths. Here’s the actual data: Seasonal influenza A (H1N1) is 99.6% resistant to Oseltamivir. However, seasonal influenza is typically comprised of three circulating strains, and the other two, A (H3N2) and influenza B, are 100% susceptible to Oseltamivir, as is 2009 H1N1. That’s hardly “nearly worthless.” Furthermore, seasonal influenza A (H1N1) is highly susceptible to the Adamantanes (though H3N2 and type B are resistant), and we have no resistance of any influenza to Zanamivir. This is well known to physicians. We are able to type the influenza a patient is infected with and tailor their therapy when necessary, and continually monitor the susceptibility of circulating strains as you can see on the CDC site.
And again, what does this have to do with vaccination?
Score: 0/8
9. Public health officials are irresponsible in their omission of any ways to strengthen immunity against the flu. No options outside of problematic vaccines and anti-flu drugs are offered, despite the fact there is strong evidence that vitamins C and D activate the immune system and the trace mineral selenium prevents the worst form of the disease.
“Strong.” I do not think that word means what you think it means. While it is true that deficiency in Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and selenium can make you more susceptible to infection, (unlikely in a developed country, but possible), there appears to be no benefit in further supplementation in the general population. Furthermore, we have reason to suspect that blanket recommendations of the use of antioxidants like Vitamins C and D and selenium may cause an increase in mortality.
Public health officials do make recommendations other than vaccines and anti-virals to avoid contracting influenza. You can find them right here. The problem (from Mercola’s point of view) is that they only endorse effective interventions based on proper evidence. When there is limited plausibility for an intervention to work, little evidence in favor of it, and significant evidence suggesting futility or even harm from its use as is the case with these supplements, the appropriate action is to not recommend its use. Which as Mercola points out, is exactly what public health officials do. Responsibly.
Score: 0/9
Ooooh, swing and a fumble, 9 strikes, you’re out! Swing and a line fault? Whatever, I’m rubbish with sports, kind of like Mercola and Sardi are rubbish at medicine. Out of their “9 best reasons not to vaccinate your child,” none of them are valid, and two of them don’t even concern vaccination. Every single point here is utterly wrong, wantonly ignorant, and one would almost think intentionally misleading.
If I sound upset, it is for good reason. For while Mercola and Sardi, drowning in their arrogance of ignorance, spread their misinformation with the expressed intent of undermining the public trust in vaccination and modern medicine, my colleagues and I will be forced to deal with the aftermath. This season has already been an unpleasant one in my pediatric ICU. During what is traditionally the slowest part of the year, we are running at near our capacity of 26 beds. The fraction of our patients who are in the ICU with 2009 H1N1 has steadily increased since the school year began, from roughly 5-10% of our census being flu positive over the summer (which is odd in itself), to now between 30-50%. The need for prolonged mechanical ventilation is common in these patients, we have needed to place three children on a heart-lung bypass machine (ECMO), and tragically we have had deaths.
My ICU experience is typical rather than exceptional. If you have any interest in following this influenza season, the single best source of up-to-date information is the CDC’s FluView Weekly Update. There you will see that the percentage of visits to the ED for influenza-like illness is markedly elevated above the expected baseline, that the number of lab-confirmed influenza hospitalizations has tripled in the last 5 weeks, that at the present, the very beginning of the traditional influenza season, the age groups between 2 and 64 years of age have met or exceeded their average total number of influenza cases usually seen at the end of the season (~May). Most depressingly, you can see the number of influenza-related pediatric deaths is growing, and growing rapidly. Furthermore, this month’s JAMA has released studies from Canada, Australia/New Zealand, and Mexico describing their experience with critically ill patients with 2009 H1N1 that are similar to my own.
Most people who contract influenza are miserable for about a week, but recover, usually without the need for medical care. The ICU experiences I relay here thankfully do not represent the population at large, but are meant to serve as a reminder that while you may not suffer from influenza this season, your neighbor may not be so lucky. Influenza is a real threat, it deserves our respect, and our fellow citizens deserve to be properly informed and empowered to protect themselves and their loved ones. Influenza is not benign, and neither is the medical advice being distributed by Joseph Mercola. The stakes are measured in human suffering and human lives, and Mercola bears responsibility for undermining the public health.
238 Responses to “9 Reasons to Completely Ignore Joseph Mercola”
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“Not unusually deadly.”
i.e. not more than one death per person.
At the risk of being called pedantic,
- vitamin D is pre-hormone not an anti-oxidant
- there is *more*risk of vitamin D deficiency in a developed world, because a ‘developed world’ lifestyle means less sun exposure.
- ‘… strong evidence that [vitamin D activates] the immune system..” – from Mark Crislip’s blog entry (www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1455): “Vitamin D has many immunomodulatory effects and is an important vitamin for immune function”
It’s hard to get people to take Influenza seriously.
When you tell them that “Spanish Flu” killed more people than the world war that preceded it, they think you are making it up.
Yet it is not even close: my country (New Zealand) had a very high death rate in WWI, yet the Spanish Flu hit much harder.
Why do Mercola and Company never give the deadly history of this disease? They surely know about it.
Great article, again! I’ll be making a note of it to pass along to some of my vaccine-fearing friends, those who aren’t too delicate to handle a little righteous anger. For the delicate types, I refer them to the CDC site or WebMD.
Geez. The old Amish antivaccine lie. That lie is so….2005, which is when the clueless UPI reporter (now ex-UPI reporter blogging for the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism) Dan Olmsted first came up with that myth. He went to Amish country and somehow missed the fact that most Amish do vaccinate and that there is autism there, a cluelessness that Prometheus rightly ridiculed in a blog post entitled How to seek and not find.
Mercola is one step above Whale.to, but he’s sure enough working on closing that gap and becoming Whale.to.
As has been pointed out, I mistakenly associated Joseph Mercola with Natural News. Joseph Mercola is of course primarily associated with Mercola.com, not Natural News. I have corrected the text above to reflect this fact, and apologize for the mistake.
Another outstanding post, Joe.
The NYT today did a brief piece on how anti-vax groups are taking advantage of swine flu vaccine fears to promote their agendas.
KGelling:
Lets see if we can agree on this:
While it is true that recently the AAP bagan recommending Vit D supplementation in the US, the actual overall risk of Vitamin D deficiency in much higher in the third world due to malnutrition than the risk of deficiency in the “developed” world due to lack of sun exposure.
Also, while Vit D does modulate the immune system at normal level of intake, I believe the authors point was that there have been no studies showing that additional intake of Vit D, beyond that which corrects deficiency, will give you a resulting proportionally stonger immune system.
KGelling,
“vitamin D is pre-hormone not an anti-oxidant”
Wiseman H. Vitamin D is a membrane antioxidant. Ability to inhibit iron-dependent lipid peroxidation in liposomes compared to cholesterol, ergosterol and tamoxifen and relevance to anticancer action. FEBS Lett. 1993;326:285-8.
Re: #4 – Did you miss the article on the WHO website admitting to the mock vaccines? Here you go:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/h1n1_safety_vaccines_20090805/en/index.html
Some excerpts:
Ways were sought to shorten the time between the emergence of a pandemic virus and the availability of safe and effective vaccines. Different regulatory pathways were assessed, and precautions needed to ensure quality, safety, and effectiveness were set out in detail.
and
Also in Europe, some manufacturers have conducted advance studies using a so-called “mock-up” vaccine. Mock-up vaccines contain an active ingredient for an influenza virus that has not circulated recently in human populations and thus mimics the novelty of a pandemic virus. Such advance studies can greatly expedite regulatory approval.
Yep – there you go. I simply typed in “WHO admits mock vaccine” in Google and found it.
Anyone here want to sign up to be the next test vaccination receivers on the next “mock” vaccine in Europe?
Th1Th2,
Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble prohormones with antioxidant properties and many other effects. It is more correct to refer to it as a pro-hormone than to call it by one of the many things it does. Scientists understand that the title of your citation means “Vitamin D [is a pro-hormone that acts as] a membrane antioxidant.” When you don’t have the background knowledge to understand the concepts involved, you can be badly misled by taking snippets like this out of context.
moderation,
“risk of Vitamin D deficiency in much higher in the third world due to malnutrition”. I presume you mean poor diet. It seems highly unlikely. Can you cite some evidence?
The average intake of vitamin D from diet (in the UK) is in the range of 3-4ug (120-160 IU). A portion of oily non-farmed fish contributes 600 IU. Moderate (30 minutes) body exposure to sunshine generates about 10,000 IU.
Vaccines are dangerous to a certain population of children. Anyone who continues to ignore this puts every child at risk. I have never had the flu. And I have never had the flu shot, nor will I get one this year or any year. Vaccination is no excuse or exemption from good health.
If Mercola is so far off, why do we now put DHA in infant formula? Have commercials for probiotics all over the TV?
Vaccines can and do kill. Talk to a parent with a child who died or became permanently injured within hours of vaccination (coincidence, I know). There are thousands upon thousands of them. And they are being ignored because of “science”. Thousands of sick children do not represent coincidence.
Thousands of children with seizures and GBS are not coincidence either.
Injecting an immature immune system with a live virus can not only be unsafe but deadly. No matter how many times you do it.
Those who turn their backs to reality often scare me.
Wonder what pharmaceutical company signs that authors paycheck?
You can argue about Vit D being an anti-oxidant or not but the article linked to does NOT say that Vit D supplementation increases mortality.
This blog post got it wrong – the author mis-quoted or mis-understood his own link…
The recent research about Vit D is important and while it isn’t a substitute for vaccination, it may be one of the most important advances in our understanding of health in a generation.
Dr. Albietz,
“we have reason to suspect that blanket recommendations of the use of antioxidants like Vitamins C and D and selenium may cause an increase in mortality.”
As pointed out by other commenters, vitamin D is not an antioxidant. Moreover, the meta-analysis you link to has nothing to do with vitamin D. From the abstract: “All randomized trials involving adults comparing beta carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C (ascorbic acid), vitamin E, and selenium either singly or combined vs placebo or vs no intervention were included in our analysis.” The researchers concluded: “Treatment with beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E may increase mortality. The potential roles of vitamin C and selenium on mortality need further study.” No mention of vitamin D.
Bjelakovic, et al., Mortality in Randomized Trials of Antioxidant Supplements for Primary and Secondary Prevention, JAMA. 2007;297:842-857.
Moreover, a 2007 meta-analysis did not find evidence that vitamin D supplementation increases mortality. In fact, there was evidence of a small decrease in mortality.
Philippe Autier, MD; Sara Gandini, PhD, Vitamin D Supplementation and Total Mortality: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials, Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(16):1730-1737.
From the conclusion to the abstract: “Intake of ordinary doses of vitamin D supplements seems to be associated with decreases in total mortality rates. The relationship between baseline vitamin D status, dose of vitamin D supplements, and total mortality rates remains to be investigated. Population-based, placebo-controlled randomized trials with total mortality as the main end point should be organized for confirming these findings.”
As it happens, NIH is funding a large RCT of vitamin D and fish oil supplementation. From the press release: “This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial will enroll 20,000 participants throughout the entire U.S. to determine whether moderate-to-high doses of [vitamin D and fish oil] can prevent colorectal, breast, prostate, and other cancers, as well as heart disease and stroke. Those eligible for the five-year trial, including women older than 65 and men older than 60 without a prior history of cancer, heart disease, or stroke, will be randomly assigned to take either one or both of the supplements or placebo.” It doesn’t sound from reading the press release like total mortality is the primary endpoint, but I assume that the investigators will be keeping track of total mortality in each group.
I am not advocating that anyone take mega-doses of vitamin D (unless prescribed by their doctor following a determination that they are vitamin D insufficient or deficient). But to say that we have reason to suspect that vitamin D supplementation increases total mortality does not seem to be supported by the available evidence that I am aware of. If you have evidence supporting that statement, I would be interested in hearing about it.
Thanks,
Marilyn Mann
Oops, here’s the link to the press release:
http://www.brighamandwomens.org/Pressreleases/PressRelease.aspx?PageID=508
“we have reason to suspect that blanket recommendations of the use of antioxidants like Vitamins C and D and selenium may cause an increase in mortality.” That is true for antioxidant supplements in general, but admittedly vitamin D has many other effects besides the antioxidant effects.
Whatever the effect of vitamin D, we have reason to suspect that following Mercola’s blanket recommendations to take supplements and reject flu shots may cause an increase in mortality.
Dr. Hall,
I agree. I hope it was clear that my comment was not intended to support Mercola’s recommendations.
Marilyn
Dr. Albietz wrote:
This morning I read in our local paper that eleven more children died last week from swine flu, making the total 86 children since last spring. Those numbers are sobering and very tragic.
The AP article.
Well, my post is being held in moderation possibly because I had the link to the AP news article.
Anyway, I found it very sobering and tragic to read in this morning’s newspaper that eleven children have died from swine flu in the past week.
The Maher / Frist interview (see http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/10/13/bill-maher-schooled-by-bill-frist/ ) rings the same bells as the “9 Reasons” article. It might be that the most effective way to get rid of this nonsense would be to cultivate through education the attention of a DA who would be willing to prosecute people who dispense medical advice without a license. Further, where we can show that their having done so has caused a death, tack on a charge of manslaughter.
I do not have the citation at hand but believe that there was recently a case in Australian where a parent refused to have his child vaccinated and his child subsequently transmitted the disease to another child who was too young to be vaxinated and who subsequently died.
My personal view is that when people who do not have the professional training to evaluate these issues and whose main business is entertainment (e.g., Maher) advocate to their largely untrained audience that they should avoid vaccination, they will indirectly cause deaths.
I’d welcome an opposing view.
Bob
Dr. Albietz,
Excellent post – I linked to it from my own post on the same subject. One thing you didn’t point out was that Mercola’s list of “9 reasons” is followed by a long list of his own recommendations, which include numerous links to his own articles. These articles in turn encourage you to subscribe to his newsletter, buy his supplements, and otherwise enrich Mercola himself.
-Steven Salzberg
Bob
I doubt a layperson’s opinion on a medical issue, where it is obvious to everyone that he is a layperson and not a physician, would constitute unauthorized practice of medicine. Now, if such a person was to set up an office and start seeing patients and calling himself “Dr. Maher,” that would be a different matter.
Maher may be a moral idiot but not everything that is harmful and immoral is criminally actionable. For one thing, there would be huge First Amendment problems with such a prosecution.
Marilyn
Speaking as a veterinarian, I agree that Mr. Mercola misrepresents the changes in veterinary vaccine practices. The discovery of a rare cancer associated withcertain vaccines in cats provided a big scare wich instigated re-evaluation of historical protocols. The data is mixed, but in general annual boosters for the primary viral diseases against which we vaccinate dogs and cats look to be unecessary, so the vaccination intervals have been extended to 3-5 years. Adverse events are likely under-reported, but estimated rates are extremely low, the overwhelming majority are self-limiting or esil treatable Type I hypersensitivity reactions, and much of the fear-mongering about cancer and autoimmune disease is unjustified.
For those interested, I have posted a lengthy survey of the current state of veterinary vaccine thinking (for dogs and cats) here:
http://www.skeptvet.com/index.php?p=1_19_Veterinary-Vaccines
The SkeptVet
http://www.sketovet.com
http://skeptvet.com/Blog
[...] then there’s the thought that H1N1 is just another version of the run of the mill flu and not unusually deadly. “Not unusually deadly.” Oh good, then we can expect only ~36,000 people to die from it this [...]
[...] scientist talks about 9 lies many anti-vaccination groups spread including autism rates are not rising among the Amish (lie) because they don’t get [...]
Periwinkleblue –
In the field of virology, “mock” and “mock-up” have very different and contrasting definitions. Please don’t confuse the two.
“Mock” is basically a negative control in which no virus is used to infect cells. From the link you posted, the “advance studies” (ie, NOT H1N1 clinical trials) used a novel influenza virus as a model system for a pandemic strain to test new vaccines before an actual threat emerged. Hence a “mock-up” of a pandemic virus.
That doesn’t mean that legitimate clinical studies weren’t performed on this novel H1N1 strain. That link was merely describing procedures that were already in place to produce a new vaccine as quickly and safely as possible.
[...] pan out and how safe it turns out to be. Toxicity is determined by the amount you're getting. The amount of mercury is what's important: And while we are on the topic of influenza vaccine and thimerosal, the single-dose syringes have no [...]
Wow I wasn’t expecting a lobby group for pharmaceutical interests when I signed up for this site. What happened to looking at all sides? This site is so biased it’s not funny. Any opposing view is dismissed as ignorant. Not all vaccines are safe. I had 2 cats and a dog injured by vaccines.I feel it’s responsible to examine everything you put into your body. To blindly accept either side of this debate is stupid and naive.
That’s what all the links to the sources of information are for. So that we don’t have to blindly accept what the author is saying, but can go look at what it is based on.
You are using your personal anecdote about your pets to decide that vaccines are unsafe. But I have vaccinated my dog as scheduled and he is perfectly healthy. Can I now decide that they are fine?
I’m sorry to hear about your pets, but I would suggest you read the veteranarian’s linked post about animal vaccines above to get a better understanding on the issue. One of the wonderful things about medical science is that they are continually improving things to be safer and more effective.
KT,
Let take your advice and follow the links and read carefully. If you do this you will find “9 reasons this article is full of misleading crap”
point 1.
The swine flu is simply another flu. It is not unusually deadly.
read this carefully…the swine flu is not UNUSUALLY deadly. sorry i got to give this point to mercola. so far it seems less virulent than seasonal flu.
point 2. This is the first time both seasonal and pandemic flu vaccines will be administered. Both seasonal flu and swine flu vaccines will require two inoculations. This is because single inoculations have failed to produce sufficient antibodies. This is an admission that prior flu vaccines were virtually useless. Can you trust them this time?
I am not sure when mercola said this but if you remember the vaccine companies themselves were saying that it would take 2 shots to fully achieve immunity…they later said one dose, so again, this may be a simple case of “pick-and-choose to fit your case” Again on this point the authors case is questionable at best.
3. Adjuvants are added to vaccines to boost production of antibodies but may trigger autoimmune reactions. Some adjuvants are mercury (thimerosal), aluminum and squalene. Why would you sign a consent form for your children to be injected with mercury, which is even more brain-toxic than lead?
this disturbs me…
“and has been exonerated from suspicion as a cause of autism.”
When Dr. Paul Offit was asked about studies of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children this was his response…”No studies have compared the incidence of autism in vaccinated, unvaccinated, or alternatively vaccinated children (i.e., schedules that spread out vaccines, avoid combination vaccines, or include only select vaccines).”
Is this some sort of new science where we compare things to nothing? maybe it is called biascience? This is all speculation until these studies are performed…which will be never.
4. This is the first year mock vaccines have been used to gain FDA approval. The vaccines that have been tested are not the same vaccines your children will be given. (Emphasis Mercola’s)
i’ll claim the 5th on this one, not sure it really matters anyway so maybe i should say 8 reasons this is crap not 9
5. Over-vaccination is a common practice now in America. American children are subjected to 29 vaccines by the age of two. Meanwhile, veterinarians have backed off of repeat vaccination in dogs because of observed side effects
if you follow the link it pulls up the vaccination schedule. by my count there is a total of 29 separate shots given on this schedule (not counting flu more than once and not including “Certain
high-risk groups” category) i will concede that this chart goes up to age 6 and only 25 dose are administered to age 2 but i bet if you include chickenpox it goes back up. either way i am not sure you can call it “wrong and misleading” after all mercola simply say 29 vaccinations, not 29 different vaccinations. there is a difference especially when you pull the misleading card.
6. Modern medicine has no explanation for autism, despite its continued rise in prevalence. Yet autism is not reported among Amish children who go unvaccinated.
see response to point #3
7. Researchers are warning that over-use of the flu vaccine and anti-flu drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza can apply genetic pressure on flu viruses and then they are more likely to mutate into a more deadly strain.
the author states…
“So close! Antiviral drugs do place selective pressure on replicating viruses, and resistant strains can be produced. However, drug resistance is not equivalent to virulence, and so his implication that use of antiviral medication will induce more deadly strains is unwarranted.”
uuuuuummm? ok? since when do things mutate to becoming MORE susceptible to being defeated by drugs? call me stupid, but when things mutate into drug resistance this leads to less treatment options which in turn leads to more sickness which in turn…i think you can see where i am going with this. Again the author seems to be just as misleading, and i am not sure why he even fought this point. it is just common sense.
8. Most seasonal influenza A (H1N1) virus strains tested from the United States and other countries are now resistant to Tamiflu (oseltamivir). Tamiflu has become a nearly worthless drug against seasonal flu.
again the author needs to read carefully before he speaks. notice mercola simply states Most seasonal influenza A (H1N1)
he never mentions any other strains. the author goes on to say “Here’s the actual data: Seasonal influenza A (H1N1) is 99.6% resistant to Oseltamivir.” It looks to me like he proved mercolas point pretty clearly.
9. Public health officials are irresponsible in their omission of any ways to strengthen immunity against the flu. No options outside of problematic vaccines and anti-flu drugs are offered, despite the fact there is strong evidence that vitamins C and D activate the immune system and the trace mineral selenium prevents the worst form of the disease.
this is where the author just really starts to piss me off. he sites this study…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19296870?ordinalpos=6&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
The problem with is study is that they are comparing 2 vitamin D deficient groups to each other. this study is akin to saying lets see who dies more frequently cancer patients or cancer patients. I hope you see the logic or, illogic here. first we need to know what “normal” 25(OH)D levels are. This must be the starting point or the studies make no sense.
according to this study…
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/135/2/317
“normal” is…”In sun-rich environments where clothing or cultural practices do not prevent sun exposure, circulating 25(OH)D ranges from 135 to 225 nmol/L (54–90 µg/L)”
so based on these numbers lets be conservative with right around 160 nmol/L. In the study the author cited the HIGHEST levels were 88.5 nmol/l this is half of normal. How can you expect to see real results when your starting point is so far off. a REAL study would compare 88.5 nmol/l vs 160 nmol/l and URI’s
here is commentary on one study…
http://www.virologyj.com/content/6/1/121
but until more rigorous studies with real 25(OH)D levels are performed the author really should just keep his trap shut. The science simply isnt there.
Backer,
You are repeating myths that have already been debunked. The Amish do have autism. The flu vaccine does not contain any adjuvants and thimerosal is not an adjuvant, but a preservative. Etc., etc. A detailed response to your points is not indicated, since it has all been covered before on this blog.
excuse me harriet,
But i never commented on ANY of the things you mention. Please feel free to show me were i mentioned the amish or adjuvants. A detailed response in not needed in my case either because you arent a careful reader just like the author. And again please feel free to show me the debunking of my so called “myths”
backer, I cut and pasted these from your earlier post:
“Adjuvants are added to vaccines to boost production of antibodies but may trigger autoimmune reactions. Some adjuvants are mercury (thimerosal), aluminum and squalene. Why would you sign a consent form for your children to be injected with mercury, which is even more brain-toxic than lead?
this disturbs me”
“Yet autism is not reported among Amish children who go unvaccinated.”
You also said the swine flu is “less virulent than seasonal flu.” Please look at the CDC weekly report and graphs at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/
•All subtyped influenza A viruses being reported to CDC were 2009 influenza A (H1N1) viruses.
•The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) was above the epidemic threshold.
•Eleven influenza-associated pediatric deaths were reported. Nine of these deaths were associated with 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus infection and two were associated with an influenza A virus for which subtype is undetermined.
The graph comparing pediatric influenza deaths by week of death for the last 4 seasons is particularly impressive.
again harriet, you failed to read carefully….I didnt say this, Dr mercola did in the original article.
You said…
“You also said the swine flu is “less virulent than seasonal flu.” Please look at the CDC weekly report and graphs at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/”
•All subtyped influenza A viruses being reported to CDC were 2009 influenza A (H1N1) viruses.
•The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) was above the epidemic threshold.
•Eleven influenza-associated pediatric deaths were reported. Nine of these deaths were associated with 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus infection and two were associated with an influenza A virus for which subtype is undetermined.
The graph comparing pediatric influenza deaths by week of death for the last 4 seasons is particularly impressive.”
this is just silly…and POOR science
Did you for get about the rest of the world? you are looking at data from one tiny slice of the world. poor, poor, poor, science. To get real numbers you need WAY more data than this. Again you prove my point, Doctors see what they want to see, and are way to proud to admit someone else might be right
But lets look at the numbers regardless of what data you show me simple math can figure this out really quick. I will start by using CDC’s own numbers 36,000 die from seasonal flu every year so lets say the flu season is 6 months long. that means 200 people would need to die PER DAY to match the seasonal flu. I challenge you to show me a chart that reflects these numbers.
2,623
186
backer, you repeated what Mercola said with no indication that you didn’t believe his lies.
While getting data from the entire world would be more meaningful than US data alone, looking at US data does not consitute poor science.
The chart I cited from the CDC shows that the number of cases of flu is already higher than what is usually seen at the peak of the flu season, and they are predominately H1N1 cases. Your ad hoc math can’t compete with the facts. http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm
Harriet,
i don’t mean to beat a dead horse here but i can honestly say i don’t trust Medical Doctors or practitioners like Mercola. Why you may ask? because you both stand on soapboxes with little or no relevant information to drawn from. to prove my virulence point (even though my ad hoc math does STRONGLY prove that it isnt more virulent). here you go lets look at Australia. they had…
186 people die of the swine flu of 2009
2,623 people die of the seasonal flu in 2007
there, are you happy? less virulent in black and white.
like i said BAD science. you looked at one single data subset and drew a conclusions based on one data point? almost any conclusion can be drawn from science done this way. you should know better than this.
Here are some question you SHOULD be asking instead of standing on a soapbox about vaccines.
what, if any, correlation is there between vaccines and death?
Is our country (particularly the young) being hit particularly hard because vaccines could lead to immune suppression?
Why arent potential alternative therapies being used to treat patients (sambucol, garlic, vitamin D). All of these have great potential for therapies but we don’t know that much about them.
why not try them? this is a great time to learn especially when you are limited to tamiflu as your only option. It can’t hurt anything to try these so why the hush about it?
The medical community is a lot more virulent that the flu virus itself. With that, I will be more fearful of the doctors than a poor immunogen in H1N1.
Backer said “186 people die of the swine flu of 2009
2,623 people die of the seasonal flu in 2007″
186 people have died in Australia so far in 2009. We are not yet into the peak flu season. See http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season.htm
Flu statistics are more properly collected by the flu season (2007-8, 2009-10) rather than by calendar year.
What is the source of your statistics? I am guessing the 2623 deaths were either for the entire year or for the entire flu season, not just for the deaths by October of 2007. So it is not a valid comparison.
Vaccines could lead to immune suppression? No, there is no reason to think that that could happen. Just the opposite: vaccination stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies.
Alternatives have “great potential”? Really? A PubMed search for Sambucol yielded one small preliminary clinical study, 14 years ago, never replicated. No studies on garlic for influenza. No studies on vitamin D for influenza. Certainly no plausible arguments for using alternatives in place of immunization.
To address the CDC and their reporting of flu cases.
Swine Flu Cases Overestimated?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/21/cbsnews_investigates/main5404829.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
CruchyB,
That news report is incompatible with the information at
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm which says that 9 out of the 11 most recently reported pediatric deaths were identified as H1N1 and the great majority of all cases have been identified as H1N1.
CrunchyB, that was addressed at CBS News on swine flu testing: Fail!
Also, do a search on the name of that CBS “journalist” at the Respectful Insolence blog (link listed under “Medical Blogs” on the right hand side of this page).
“I will be more fearful of the doctors than a poor immunogen in H1N1″
Especially if they haven’t been immunized. I’m glad to see you are finally learning something.
harriet,
“doctors” never cease to amaze me. this really is becoming laughable. I don’t want to come down too hard on you because i am want to give you the benefit of the doubt and HOPE that you are simply careless in fact finding.
you said…
What is the source of your statistics? I am guessing the 2623 deaths were either for the entire year or for the entire flu season, not just for the deaths by October of 2007. So it is not a valid comparison.
the reason i cited australia is because their flu season is OVER, i repeat OVER they are in the southern hemisphere not the northern. Seriously i am speachless.
Oh and the source…straight from australias dept. of health and aging
here you go…
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-surveil-ozflu-flucurr.htm/$FILE/ozflu-no18-2009.pdf
figure 3. is particularly interesting
you said…
Vaccines could lead to immune suppression? No, there is no reason to think that that could happen. Just the opposite: vaccination stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies.
until studies are performed you are speculating. i thought this site was about science not opinions. please site studies to back up your speculation. just the facts harriet, just the facts
you said…
Alternatives have “great potential”? Really? A PubMed search for Sambucol yielded one small preliminary clinical study, 14 years ago, never replicated. No studies on garlic for influenza. No studies on vitamin D for influenza. Certainly no plausible arguments for using alternatives in place of immunization.
i mentioned these thing for the treatment of flu, not in place of immunization.
again you failed to be careful in your research…and you wonder why i don’t trust doctors.
but here you go…
* 1995 (Zakay-Rones)- A double blind placebo controlled study was conducted during an outbreak of influenza B Panama. 93.3% of the cases treated with black elderberry compound saw a significant improvement of the symptoms. A complete cure was achieved within 2 to 3 days in nearly 90% of those treated with the black elderberry extract within two-three days, three days less than the placebo group.
REPLICATED
* 2004 –( Zakay-Rones) In a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled study, black elderberry extract was shown to significantly reduce the duration of the flu by around four days. Significantly less people who were taking the extract took pain relievers compared to the placebo group.
Vitamin D,
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/science/research/vitamin-d-and-influenza.shtml
oh and by the way Dr Canell form the Vitamin D council is a proponent of vaccines
garlic
http://www.fluwiki.info/pmwiki.php?n=Consequences.Garlic
harriet, formerly backer
apparently i am being blocked. this is suspicious to me, is someone afraid of an opposing view?
“doctors” never cease to amaze me. this really is becoming laughable. I don’t want to come down too hard on you because i am want to give you the benefit of the doubt and HOPE that you are simply careless in fact finding.
you said…
What is the source of your statistics? I am guessing the 2623 deaths were either for the entire year or for the entire flu season, not just for the deaths by October of 2007. So it is not a valid comparison.
the reason i cited australia is because their flu season is OVER, i repeat OVER they are in the southern hemisphere not the northern. Seriously i am speachless.
Oh and the source…straight from australias dept. of health and aging
here you go…
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-surveil-ozflu-flucurr.htm/$FILE/ozflu-no18-2009.pdf
figure 3. is particularly interesting
you said…
Vaccines could lead to immune suppression? No, there is no reason to think that that could happen. Just the opposite: vaccination stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies.
until studies are performed you are speculating. i thought this site was about science not opinions. please site studies to back up your speculation. just the facts harriet, just the facts
you said…
Alternatives have “great potential”? Really? A PubMed search for Sambucol yielded one small preliminary clinical study, 14 years ago, never replicated. No studies on garlic for influenza. No studies on vitamin D for influenza. Certainly no plausible arguments for using alternatives in place of immunization.
i mentioned these thing for the treatment of flu, not in place of immunization.
again you failed to be careful in your research…and you wonder why i don’t trust doctors.
but here you go…
* 1995 (Zakay-Rones)- A double blind placebo controlled study was conducted during an outbreak of influenza B Panama. 93.3% of the cases treated with black elderberry compound saw a significant improvement of the symptoms. A complete cure was achieved within 2 to 3 days in nearly 90% of those treated with the black elderberry extract within two-three days, three days less than the placebo group.
REPLICATED
* 2004 –( Zakay-Rones) In a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled study, black elderberry extract was shown to significantly reduce the duration of the flu by around four days. Significantly less people who were taking the extract took pain relievers compared to the placebo group.
Vitamin D,
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/science/research/vitamin-d-and-influenza.shtml
oh and by the way Dr Canell form the Vitamin D council is a proponent of vaccines
Harriet-
after digging a little deeper into your background it is becoming increasingly clear why you hold to the view that you do. i can see now that since you are an evolutionary biologist that you readily ignore facts on a daily basis. So why would it be any different when i present you facts.
People listen up!
If you take the advice of the Harriets of the world know a few things. they believe that…
1. Aliens created humans (just ask Richard Dawkins)
2. Nothing created the universe
3. They are Racists (Just ask Darwin, and Huxley)
@backer on 26 Oct 2009 at 10:22 pm and edaps on 26 Oct 2009 at 10:28 pm (Double post) “REPLICATED * 2004 –( Zakay-Rones)”
The 2004 paper seems to be free http://www.jimronline.net/content/full/2004/47/0445.pdf
It is a small, pilot study (60 subjects). One must wonder why 9 years after a pilot study (1995, which you cited), they are merely doing another pilot study. It is not like the condition (flu) is rare, or elderberry is a precious commodity. The 2004 claims are remarkable, and now, five years later, there are no better studies published.
Moreover, they claim that in vitro studies suggest that elderberry should be effective. In that case, it should be trivial to isolate the active ingredient(s) with modern methods. Herbalists like to say that it could entail more than one compound; but we know how to deal with that.
It is interesting, and reasonable, to think there may be an antiviral drug in elderberry; but the recent (14 year) history of the research does not lend credence to that notion.
@backer on 27 Oct 2009 at 2:56 pm
Dr. Hall can defend herself better than the average person can. But not to defend her, I must say that “backer” seems to need mental help, in all sincerity.
backer,
Your research skills are impressive!
You have dug far deeper into my background than I myself have been able to do. I had no idea I was an evolutionary biologist! Do I have a PhD? I also had no idea I believed your list of three items. How have I managed to keep those beliefs and that knowledge from myself? And which aliens do I believe created humans? Which aliens does Richard Dawkins believe created humans? Which races am I prejudiced against? And what are you smoking?
By this ridiculous ad hominem attack, you have forfeited your right to participate in a reasoned and civilized discussion. I will have nothing more to do with you.
Joe-
I agree that this study is small, there have also been in vitro studies done on elderberry as well. My suspicion is that…
1. there isnt the money available to a small university in Norway to conduct larger more proper studies
2. Just by judging the push back “natural” remedies get on this site I can’t imagine why someone would invest a ton of money in a study they may never be published by a reputable journal?
In my field of science (physics) papers are readily rejected for their implications. You can’t even get third rate journals to publish paper that could be controversial. This happens almost daily.
It should be trivial to isolate the active ingredient?
Why would anyone do this? it can’t be patented. If it works why not just do what they are doing, mash it up and sell it. I am sure it is much more cost effective this way.
All i am saying is that it is an option doctors arent using that does have studies, albeit small, however NO ONE is using it. there are no side effects so why not add it to the arsenal?
backer on 27 Oct 2009 at 3:33 pm
On this site, it is recognized that herbs may furnish useful drugs.
Isolated, active ingredients can be patented.
You are continuing to be recognized as ignorant or delusional, not worthy of consideration.
Mercola is claiming that the figure of 1000 deaths might be grossly over-estimated.
http://products.mercola.com/swine-flu-article/20091027.htm
Any thought?
harriet-
I can understand why would want to have nothing to do with me. you seem to be close minded and arrogant in your views. When someone challenges that, it smarts a little. I simply want people like you to be open to the possibility of EVERYTHING. If something has a glimmer of hope chase it, study it, and learn. Your philosophy seems to be status quo fed by ignorance, coupled with denial of anything natural.
but let me answer your questions…
aliens,
Evolutionist are down to 2 choices aliens or God and we both know that you arent choosing the later. At the last ISSOL conference it was agreed that life could not have originated on earth, so the alternative presented….wait for it….directed paspermia, or aliens form another planet. HA!
here is what dawkins says when asks how life appears on earth
DAWKINS: Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.
wait did he say designer? doesnt that sound like God? Thats weird.
You are an inherent racist if you follow the evolutionary paradigm
In evolutionary theory, the survival advantage factor is the chief explanation for the existence of most differences. Because these differences result from the survival advantage that they confer upon an organism, an evolutionist must assume differences between or within a group likely exist because they provide some inherent survival advantage for the animal. Since the key survival advantage of humankind over “lower animals” is intelligence, consequently differences in this trait likely also exist between the races. This is exactly what has been assumed by many eugenicists, evolutionists, sociologists, and psychologists, both before and since the time of Darwin. This conclusion has justified a wide variety of governmental and scientific policies, not the least infamous were racial genocide programs.
so i guess since this whole flu thing is adversely affecting blacks and latinos it is evolutions way of getting rid of the dumb ones…right?
I am sad you want nothing to do with me. you might actually learn something. but hey if you ever want a formal debate i would love that just let me know. Maybe you and your buddy Shermer could tag team against me.
First, let me apologize for feeding the troll. But I feel compelled to correct some factual misstatements by Backer.
There absolutely is no scientific consensus that life could not have arisen on earth. In fact, the consensus of opinion is that it did arise on earth. Panspermia or some sort of seeding is a minority opinion alternative.
But this question is also irrelevant to evolution, which deals with later changes in life, not life origins.
Backer is quoting Dawkins out of context, just like Expelled did (which is most likely his source). Dawkins was asked if there were evidence for top-down design (not the kind of design that results from evolution) what would he think (i.e. would he reject it out of principle?) Dawkins response was essentially saying that IF the scientific evidence actually supported that kind of design (which is doesn’t) then scientists would generate hypotheses to explain the origin – such as his alien hypothesis.
Dawkins does not believe life on earth came from aliens – he was lured into a conjecture which was then presented out of context.
Evolution also does not demand racism. Not all evolutionary selection results from inherent superiority – that is an older discredited view of evolution. Rather, selective pressures simply apply to the local niche, not some abstract sense of superiority. There is also a huge element of luck and chance in evolution. Biologists are still debating about the relative importance of luck vs random genetic chances vs survival advantage in evolution.
And – this is also irrelevant. Describing how the world works does not necessarily imply any particular moral stance.
Backer’s comment is nothing more than a string of ad hominem attacks followed by profound scientific ignorance and misprepresentation and a couple straw men thrown in for good measure. I don’t blame people for being scientifically illiterate, and I am always happy and eager to teach others what I know of science – but I do object to the “arrogance of ignorance” being displayed by Backer.
At least it helps put his other comments into a broader context – as other suggested, the category of uninformed opinions that can be comfortably ignored.
I found the discussion interesting.
There is thankfully , a category for a large demographic that tends to be unrecognized in this polarizing climate.
Here is a one description below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
Evolution can exist alongside God beliefs.
And as stated above it is not racist.
joe-
the people on this site never cease to amaze me. You can call me me whatever you want but at least i do not spread falsehoods.
you said…
Isolated, active ingredients can be patented.
this is complete B.S.
Title 35 of the U.S. Code describes patentable subject matter as “whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.”
Guess what, the Isolated active ingredients are KNOWN. You would have to discover something UNKNOWN in order to patent it. I guess you could patent and extraction process for isolating that active ingredient but that isnt that same now is it. or you could synthetically engineer a better active ingredient and patent that, but sorry known active ingredient can’t be patented.
i am pretty sure they know the active ingredient of sambucol or big pharma would be making jillions by now peddling it to you
as the next cure
backer,
What unbelievable nonsense. Stick to Physics. Stay the hell away from evolutionary theory or medicine. It’s definitely not your field.
Steven-
you said…
“There absolutely is no scientific consensus that life could not have arisen on earth. In fact, the consensus of opinion is that it did arise on earth. Panspermia or some sort of seeding is a minority opinion alternative.”
maybe you are not familiar with ISSOL?
http://www.issol.org
only the brightest origin of life minds in the world.
way back in 99 Francois Raulin deduced…
that the most likely atmosphere for primitive earth (CO 2 + N 2 + H2O) will not support spontaneous synthesis of organic molecules. Given that the chemistry of Earth’s early atmosphere thwarts rather than supports production of life-essential molecules, researchers have begun to look elsewhere for the right kind of gas (rich in hydrogen and absent in oxygen).
Some hold out hope that such gas was exhaled from volcanoes, with volcanic lightning as the source of energy to synthesize the essential molecules. However, John Delano of NSCORT-NY and University of Albany (SUNY), reported that “volatiles” (gases) released from volcanoes as ancient as 4 billion years were identical to those exhaled today. So alas another dead end
Since Earth conditions consistently defy a naturalistic origin of life, researchers turned their hopes toward Mars. Early in Mars’ history, the planet was warm and wet. However, as Michael Carr of the U.S. Geological Survey reported, geological evidence and modeling studies indicate that warm early Mars rapidly transformed into cold arid Mars about 3.8 billion years ago. This change occurred right after the period of heavy bombardment, during which impacts would have effectively “sterilized” Mars, eliminating it as a candidate for the origin of life.
Some researchers look to interstellar dust in the proto-solar system as the source of life-essential molecules. Their hope is fanned by discovery of some building blocks of molecules in nearby early-stage solar systems. However, no nucleotides or sugars have been found. Nor has the problem of left-handed amino acids been solved.
Sorry pal, if it was presented at an ISSOL conference then it isnt minority opinion.
I am not even gonna get into evolution with you this isnt the forum for it and you are just like ever other evolutionist. blinded by naturalism. However to make my position known i am not talking about micro evolution just macro.
one paper at a conference does not make a majority opinion.
There is active research looking into possible scenarios for life to originate on earth. There is certainly nothing approaching proof or a consensus that life could not have arisen on earth. (You are making an argument from ignorance here.)
Even if it did not – panspermia is not aliens, as you suggested in your false dichotomy. Life arising on Mars and then seeding earth is not aliens.
You also failed to address your quoting out of context Dr. Dawkins.
And you coyly demurred from addressing your blatant misrepresentations of evolution.
whoa, whoa, whoa, weing. don’t send this nut my way. D:
I strongly believe there is nothing to loose but EVERYTHING to gain with having more than ONE voice speaking to the public. Thereis such an increase in allergies, ADD, ADHD, autism, countless cancers etc, there is a growing population that are beginning to see there is some merit in looking at the toxins in our world and how they effect our health (and this is over decades not weeks), and I for one believe before we line up like lemmings to have vaccinations administered that we should question the necessity and what exactly we are agreeing to as it is injected into our children’s bodies. I for one regardless of what Joseph Albietz has said or Joseph Mercola, believe that a more naturopathic approach with building our immune system to combat any foreign virus makes a lot of sense, and that it would behove the Naturopathic community and the Scientific community to start working together to heal humans, less we forget we are organic matter to begin with. Let’s stop focussing on discrediting each other and start finding a way to approach illness and virus together.
Bfair:
Your “beliefs” have no effect on the facts. If you (or Mercola) can provide real evidence that the vaccines are worse than the disease… then present it.
If you actually read what Dr. Albietz wrote, you might learn that Mercola was not using facts, but falsehoods. That is not real evidence (especially the big fat lie about squalene, which are not even used in the USA).
Science picks up on nature’s hint…
Scientists Discover Influenza’s Achilles Heel: Antioxidants
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091029125538.htm
I am scared sh**less of vaccinating my kids and can’t find anything convincing to do otherwise. If you do a risk analysis, you’re left choosing between shooting yourself in the foot and blowing your brains out… That’s how I feel in this whole debate. And all we have to go by is gut feeling.
Hope you like the article guys, thanks for the debate.
fatherseekingknowledge:
Please show us the calculations for the risk analysis, and where you got the data. Right now well over a hundred children have died from the H1N1 influenza, and several tens of thousands of people have been hospitalized due to the virus.
What are the equivalent numbers of bad reactions to the H1N1 vaccine during the past couple of weeks it has been used? What are the real risks of the vaccine versus that of the data?
Wake up people! Please show me a VALID independent study (not one done by the pharmaceutical companies) that proves vaccines are safe. Also most of the diseases that people vaccinate their children for are not deadly! It is RARE that you will die for measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, etc. or dare I say the flu. People die from underlying conditions. Also please explain to me why a baby just fresh from the womb needs a HEP B shot? Did I miss something or are minute old babies now having unprotected sex or sharing needles? Please help me I’m looking for sound UNBIASED evidence.
By the way, where did backer go? He’s seems to be the only person with good research.
Well, Bfair…you are sensible. someone mentions in an article on this site about “vaccine fear-mongering”….what about H1N1 fear-mongering?
Now, my dad always said “Follow the money…” and cui bono when it comes to which fear-mongering?
It seems to me that H1N1 fear mongering lines the pockets of the 4 big pharmaceutical companies. That is telling and should send up red flags all over the place.
This flu may be different…but keep in mind that viruses will get more virulent and humans seem to be getting weaker the farther from nature that they get.
So eat some dirt folks….just make sure it’s good clean dirt!
Cheers!
ajones,
Pharmaceutical studies are automatically invalidated? What is considered a valid study? Safe? Compared to what? Is water safe? If it’s clean, you won’t drown in it?
ajones asked why newborns need Hep B shots. That is a valid question and it has a science-based answer.
According to the Immunization Action Coalition website at http://www.immunize.org/askexperts/experts_hepb.asp#pregnancy:
Newborns get HBV from their mothers. Even when mothers are tested and are negative, there are errors in testing, and testing early in pregnancy can miss mothers who become HBV positive later in pregnancy. In a study of Southeast Asian refugee parents, 60% of chronic HBV infections were among children born to mothers who tested negative.
HBV transmission in early childhood also occurs. By one estimate, 16,000 children under the age of 10 were infected each year before vaccination. 18% of all persons with chronic HBV infection acquired their infections during early childhood.
Since implementation of routine immunization, 6800 perinatal HBV infections have been prevented in the US annually.
ajones,
Deaths from those “benign” diseases are not as rare as you might think. During the resurgence of measles after Wakefield scared people away from MMR shots, 100 children were admitted to just one Dublin hospital for complications of measles and 3 of them died. If you think these diseases are harmless, you can look up the statistics for yourself. How many dead children does it take before you will consider a disease deadly? I think even one vaccine-preventable death is too many. And death is not the only consideration: there are other complications, suffering, and economic costs to consider.
I don’t understand why you don’t want to include the deaths of people with underlying diseases. It seems to me that anyone who died after the infection who would not have died without the infection should be counted as a victim of infection.
Countryclassic49,
Cui bono is a good question to ask, but when used as an argument it becomes a logical fallacy. Just because someone benefits doesn’t mean they are part of an evil conspiracy. Farmers benefit from selling food.
ajones,
Harriet speaks half truths. yes, you can get it from your mother but ONLY if she is positive with Hep B. Otherwise it is completely unnecessary. There are simple tests to determine this. Harriet will lead you to believe that it is difficult to determine this because of “testing errors”. I would love to see her statistics on the number of “testing errors” there actually are. But notice she doesnt even touch “testing errors” when talking about vaccines. She contradicts herself when it suits her.
In 1996, only 54 cases of the Hep B were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the 0 to 1 age group. There were 3.9 million births that year, so the observed incidence of hepatitis B in the 0 to 1 age group was just 0.001 percent. And remember this is ONLY if the mother has it to begin with.
In the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) there were 1,080 total reports of adverse reactions from hepatitis B vaccine in 1996 in the 0 to 1 age group, with 47 deaths reported.
Again, Harriet says even one vaccine preventable death is too many, however she ignores the fact that 47 kids died BECAUSE of the vaccine. Even out of the 54 cases reported many of them could be acute cases or asymptomatic in the long run.
If you look at the logarithmic graphs associated with most of these diseases you will see that most all of them had dropped by 90% even before the vaccine was available. The estimate suggests that even without a vaccine that measles would account for about 1 death per year by 2010 in the US. I am not saying all vaccines are bad however i do think we are abusing their use.
backer,
If only 54 cases of Hep B were reported in the 0-1 year age group 1996 and 16,000 were reported every year prior to widespread use of the vaccine, that doesn’t show that the disease is rare – it shows that the vaccine works.
Deaths reported to the VAERS system are not the same as deaths caused by vaccines. It is not true that 47 kids died because of the vaccine. Please educate yourself about what the VAERS system is.
Better hygiene can reduce the risk of disease but can’t eradicate it. It is not reasonable to extrapolate to a rate of 1 death per year by 2010. Instead of looking at those misleading graphs, look at the ones that show the rates right before and after vaccination was introduced: they are really impressive! Anyway, all those arguments about diseases disappearing without vaccines are easily demolished by the many instances where vaccination rates dropped, the disease recurred, vaccination rates increased again and the diseases disappeared again.
Harriet,
Again i am not against vaccines. I am however against the use of unnecessary vaccines. To me the benefits do not outweigh the risk to vaccinate an entire population of children when the death rates prior to the measles vaccine were ranging in the 30-50 category. this is total not pediatric only. even on the WHO website it states…
“More than 95% of measles deaths occur in low-income countries with weak health infrastructure.”
this tells me it is a manageable disease in the US without a vaccine. Take rocky mountain spotted fever there is a median annual death rate of 37. Should we develop a vaccine for this? this is about the same amount as the measles kills. Point being there are thousands of diseases that can kill us, in comparison measles is very mild.
The graphs i am speaking of do show rates just before the vaccine was introduced. The data is sadly lacking. Also what about cholera and typhoid, they disappeared (just like the measles WOULD have) naturally without the use of any vaccine. So explain that.
I wasn’t aware that cholera and typhoid had been vanquished. News to me. The reason the death rates are low is because of the vaccines. As long as it’s your kids that die, it’s fine with me. I can then just say “I told you so.” But that’s not how it happens. Easy to play Russian roulette with someone else’s kids.
Also, are you saying the reason measles hasn’t disappeared is because we have the vaccine? So the reason the rates rose in England after the Wakefield induced scare was due to what?
backer,
Someone has kindly posted case and mortality data for measles in the 1960s, immediately before and during the early period of vaccination (with killed virus vaccine, not the attenuated live virus vaccine used as part of the MMR trivalent vaccine) on another post in this blog: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2733
The information is gleaned from the CDC.
In the first half of the decade the annual measles death toll in the United States was ~400.
So I am not certain where you are getting your numbers of 35-50 annual deaths pre-vaccine from.
This blogger – http://www.iayork.com/MysteryRays/2009/09/02/measles-deaths-pre-vaccine/ – has a graphical chart of measles cases and deaths which rather drastically show a positive correlation between the onset of measles vaccinations and a drop in cases and mortality.
Both cholera and typhoid were reduced by modern sanitation, basically make sure the bacteria that cause the illness are not in your drinking water and food.
There are vaccines for both (I got a typhoid vaccine as a small child when living in Central America in the 1950s), but in the USA, Japan, Europe and elsewhere with decent sewer and water systems they are not a concern.
Now, about measles… Even more dramatic than the return of measles to the UK and Ireland, is what happened in Japan. They made their version of the MMR voluntary instead of voluntary, and measles came back with a vengeance (it had something to do with the Urabe strain of mumps used in their MMR). A couple of years ago several college campuses were closed due to measles outbreaks, and several dozen people died from measles. Actually several measles outbreaks in the USA had originated in Japan:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18346240 …
Now Japan has made a Measles/Rubella vaccine mandatory (though they are having a resurgence of mumps).
backer,
Your risk/benefit assumptions are flawed. If enough people accept vaccination, we can permanently eradicate measles, and then we will never have to give any more measles vaccine to anyone, and no child will ever have measles again.
Weigh the most pessimistic estimate of the one-time risk of vaccination against all the children who would have died of measles throughout all the rest of human history. Not to mention the 1 in 1000 incidence of encephalitis and all the other morbidities. No contest.
Backer –
This is from WHO. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/
“Measles is a leading cause of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available to prevent the disease.
In 2007, there were 197 000 measles deaths globally – nearly 540 deaths every day or 22 deaths every hour.
More than 95% of measles deaths occur in low-income countries with weak health infrastructure.
Measles vaccination efforts have reaped major public health gains, resulting in a 74% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2007 worldwide – a drop of about 90% in the eastern Mediterranean and Africa regions.”
I guess my take away is different than yours. When I read this I can’t help but think that we folk from the U.S. were lucky to be born in (or come to) a country that has such wide access to vaccines and “health infastructure. Not only do we have the responsibility to support the public heath efforts of our country, but we also have the ethical (spiritual, moral…) responsibility to support the work being done to decrease preventable childhood diseases across the globe.
weignon said “Pharmaceutical studies are automatically invalidated? What is considered a valid study? Safe? Compared to what? Is water safe? If it’s clean, you won’t drown in it?”
I didn’t say they studies are invalid. I asked for a valid INDEPENDENT study, meaning NOT THE PHARMACEUTICALS. I am a CPA and we are employed by companies to review financials and so on to give comfort to investors and joe public. There are also oversight boards for CPA firms to ensure independence. I ask, where is this in the medical world? Naturally, you can’t fault me for asking questions and wanting the truth. As an auditor I am a natural skeptic and if something doesn’t make sense to my mommy instincts then I’m not just going to take the word of the people profit the most. I don’t even get your water comment. It’s not even a good comparison.
Vaccines are a choice. I am not anti vaccine. They are good in places where there is poor hygiene, sewage issues and close living spaces. It is my choice not to vaccinate my child. It is MY opinion that they are filled with toxins and have the potential to cause more harm than good. There is nothing wrong with living a healthy lifestyle and not wanting to be scared into taking a shot. Until someone can explain to me why there is such a HUGE increase in autism, ADHD, Asthma, obesity and infertility, I won’t trust vaccines. I AM NOT saying that vaccines alone cause these issues, I believe it is a combination of a lot of things. I believe it’s primarily due to lazy, naive parents who don’t question what they feed, shoot up, put on their skin or let their kids sleep on. If you are convinced by the media and WHO then give your kids the shots.
I will say this, most of my friends vaccinate their kids. Out of the few of us who choose not, our kids are the only ones who are NEVER sick (besides a minor cold), don’t have asthma, ADHA or autism. To me that is the only study I need.
ajones said,
“if something doesn’t make sense to my mommy instincts then I’m not just going to take the word of the people profit the most.”
“It is MY opinion that they are filled with toxins”
“Until someone can explain to me why there is such a HUGE increase in autism, ADHD, Asthma, obesity and infertility, I won’t trust vaccines.”
Is this Jenny McCarthy trolling on our website?
Harriett you are funny! I am far from Jenny McCarthy. I just said my child doesn’t have autism and I didn’t vaccinate him. I respect your opinion to vaccinate, respect my position. I haven’t ever been to Jenny McCarthy’s website. If she feels the same way I do, then good for her for being a good parent!
And I should take back the statement that it’s MY opinion that they are filled with toxins. That is not my opinion, that is fact! I misspoke earlier.
ajones:
Are studies by public health departments from several countries independent enough?
ajones:
Then why did measles return to the UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and many spots in the the USA (like San Diego, Grant County, WA, Indiana… and these are not over crowded places with sewer issues!)? About Indiana:
Implications of a 2005 Measles Outbreak in Indiana for Sustained Elimination of Measles in the United States
Authors: Parker AA, Staggs W, Dayan GH, et al
Source: N Engl J Med, August 3, 2006, Vol. 355(5):447-455
ajones:
What are those toxins? Are they worse than tetanospasmin?
Do please share the data that shows that the MMR causes more harm than measles, mumps and rubella. Keep in mind that it has never contained thimerosal nor aluminum, and if you are under the age of 40 you may have been vaccinated with it yourself. Do produce real primary source material (no websites), much like I have provided (got them from PubMed).
ajones:
Can you also document the huge increase? Can you differentiate those that are actual increases instead of increases of diagnosis? How does obesity relate to vaccines? Has there really been a huge increase in infertility?
And really, why do you trust the diseases more? What do you think of the relationship between infertility and a young man getting mumps? So tetanus is all fun and games with the funny nickname of lockjaw? Measles is just a spotty fever (with this minor problem of one out of thousand cases causing encephalitis… do you really trust all is well when the brain swells)? Pertussis is just a nasty whooping cough (just happens to cause oxygen to not get into baby lungs). Do tell how you trust the diseases more (many of which you and your children are protected from due to herd immunity, basically you are being a leach on everyone else’s vaccine derived immunity).
Now please tell me which of these studies are not trustworthy:
Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study.
Hornig M et al.
PLoS ONE 2008; 3(9): e3140 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003140
*Subjects: 25 children with autism and GI disturbances and 13 children with GI disturbances alone (controls)
Measles Vaccination and Antibody Response in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Baird G et al.
Arch Dis Child 2008; 93(10):832-7.
Subjects: 98 vaccinated children aged 10-12 years in the UK with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); two control groups of similar age: 52 children with special educational needs but no ASD and 90 children in the typically developing group
MMR-Vaccine and Regression in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Negative Results Presented from Japan.
Uchiyama T et al.
J Autism Dev Disord 2007; 37(2):210-7
*Subjects: 904 children with autism spectrum disorder
(Note: MMR was used in Japan only between 1989 and 1993.)
MMR-Vaccine and Regression in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Negative Results Presented from Japan
Authors: Uchiyama T, Kurosawa M, Inaba Y
Source: J Autism Dev Disord, February 2007; 37(2):210-217
No Evidence of Persisting Measles Virus in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells from Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
D’Souza Y et al.
Pediatrics 2006; 118(4):1664-75
*Subjects: 54 children with autism spectrum disorder and 34 developmentally normal children
Immunizations and Autism: A Review of the Literature.
Doja A, Roberts W.
Can J Neurol Sci. 2006; 33(4):341-6
*Literature review
Pervasive Developmental Disorders in Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Prevalence and Links with Immunizations.
Fombonne E et al.
Pediatrics. 2006;118(1):e139-50
*Subjects: 27,749 children born from 1987 to 1998 attending 55 schools
Relationship between MMR Vaccine and Autism.
Klein KC, Diehl EB.
Ann Pharmacother. 2004; 38(7-8):1297-300
*Literature review of 10 studies
Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism. Institute of Medicine.
The National Academies Press: 2004
(w w w . nap.edu/books/030909237X/html) *Literature review
MMR Vaccination and Pervasive Developmental Disorders: A Case-Control Study.
Smeeth L et al.
Lancet 2004; 364(9438):963-9
*Subjects: 1294 cases and 4469 controls
Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children with Autism and School-Matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta.
DeStefano F et al. Pediatrics 2004; 113(2): 259-66
*Subjects: 624 children with autism and 1,824 controls
Prevalence of Autism and Parentally Reported Triggers in a North East London Population.
Lingam R et al.
Arch Dis Child 2003; 88(8):666-70
*Subjects: 567 children with autistic spectrum disorder
Neurologic Disorders after Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination.
Makela A et al.
Pediatrics 2002; 110:957-63
*Subjects: 535,544 children vaccinated between November 1982 and June 1986 in Finland
A Population-Based Study of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Autism.
Madsen KM et al.
N Engl J Med 2002; 347(19):1477-82
*Subjects: All 537,303 children born 1/91–12/98 in Denmark
No Evidence for a New Variant of Measles-Mumps-Rubella-Induced Autism.
Fombonne E et al.
Pediatrics 2001;108(4):E58
*Subjects: 262 autistic children (pre- and post-MMR samples)
Measles-Mumps-Rubella and Other Measles-Containing Vaccines Do Not Increase the Risk for Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Case-Control Study from the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project.
Davis RL et al.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2001;155(3):354-9
*Subjects: 155 persons with IBD with up to 5 controls each
Time Trends in Autism and in MMR Immunization Coverage in California.
Dales L et al.
JAMA 2001; 285(9):1183-5
*Subjects: Children born in 1980-94 who were enrolled in California kindergartens (survey samples of 600–1,900 children each year)
Mumps, Measles, and Rubella Vaccine and the Incidence of Autism Recorded by General Practitioners: A Time Trend Analysis.
Kaye JA et al.
BMJ 2001; 322:460-63
*Subjects: 305 children with autism
Further Evidence of the Absence of Measles Virus Genome Sequence in Full Thickness Intestinal Specimens from Patients with Crohn’s Disease.
Afzal MA, et al.
J Med Virol 2000; 62(3):377-82
*Subjects: Specimens from patients with Crohn’s disease
Mercury, Vaccines, And Autism: One Controversy, Three Histories
Baker JP
American Journal of Public Health, February 2008;98(2): 244-253
Continuing Increases in Autism Reported to California’s Developmental Services System: Mercury in Retrograde
Schechter R, Grether JK
Arch Gen Psychiatry, January 2008; 65(1):19-24
An economic analysis of the current universal 2-dose measles-mumps-rubella vaccination program in the United States.
Zhou F, Reef S, Massoudi M, Papania MJ, Yusuf HR, Bardenheier B, Zimmerman L, McCauley MM.
J Infect Dis. 2004 May 1;189 Suppl 1:S131-45.
Impact of specific medical interventions on reducing the prevalence of mental retardation.
Brosco JP, Mattingly M, Sanders LM.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2006;160:302-309.
I typed this yesterday, so I don’t feel like doing it again… and don’t want to cut and paste:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2733#comment-35572
Now, kindly explain to me why it would be okay to go back to over 400 deaths from measles in the USA. That could happen if we stopped using the MMR. Not to mention the cases of blindness, deafness, and other severe disabilities that happen in about one in a thousand cases of measles. See the paper I posted above called “Impact of specific medical interventions on reducing the prevalence of mental retardation” (the full paper is availabe online, just go find in the PubMed index).
Also, explain to me very carefully why it is okay for children with underlying health conditions to become even further disabled or die. I would really like to know why children like my son with his genetic heart condition and who had severe seizures while ill with a now vaccine preventable disease do not deserve life.
ajones said
“I respect your opinion to vaccinate, respect my position.”
I find it hard to respect the opinions of someone who puts “mommy instincts” above science. You’re entitled to your own opinions; you’re not entitled to your own facts.
Chris,
I accept your challenge and will post all of my medical source material. I want to be fully thorough here since Harriett thinks my position is based only on my “instincts”. I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t follow my own advice and do research. Also, I NEVER said vaccines should be eliminated so why are you insinuating that I don’t think your poor child with an underlying issue should not be vaccinated?
Stay tuned for my research posting…..
Also any who says…
… does not respect the position of a parent who has a child with underlying conditions.
In order for me to respect her opinion, she needs to explain to me very carefully why these two boys deserved what happened to them:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1055533.ece
Also, she needs to look at the title of this blog. It is Science Based Medicine, not Opinion Based Medicine.
(Side note about Jenny McCarthy, her son got the MMR vaccine when he was between 15 and 18 months. His seizure was when he was about 2 and half years old, well over a year after the vaccine. I believe there is something fishy about her story).
“Vaccines are a choice. I am not anti vaccine. ”
Stercus bovis. Be honest for crying out loud. You sound like Nixon. What formed your opinion about vaccines being full of toxins? Where does this mommy instinct come from? Vaccines didn’t exist until about 200 years or so. Far too little time for an instinct to evolve.
I am going to give you the SCIENCE! RELAX!
You don’t understand my water reference? Prove to me that water is safe. If someone drowns in it then water is definitely not safe. Based on your logic it should be avoided and you should keep it away from your kids and not allow them a sip of it.
Just we cross posted… make sure your research is real. Do not, and mean, really do not post websites from biased sources like Mercola, SafeMinds, NVIC, Generation Rescue, Blaylock, Rense and the like. Also be forewarned that you will automatically lose if you post anything from whale.to (look up Scopie’s Law). Do not post news articles with various sob stories (because, as you can see… I can do that too, but I also referenced a real research paper). Do not post VAERS data, unless that VAERS data has been used as a basis for real research like:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/153/12/1279
The only acceptible research is real peer reviewed papers published in real journals (the journal of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons does not count). Also no papers from lawyer paid research, so nothing from the Geiers or Wakefield is acceptible (that includes the most recent and very silly monkey study, I suggest you listen to the podcast mentioned in the post “H1N1 Pandemic Update”). If you don’t like research funded by pharmaceutical companies, I reserve the right to reject research funded by personal injury lawyers (really, you should read Paul Offit’s book Autism’s False Prophets, which details the law office that paid Wakefield).
And a reminder that this blog is Science Based Medicine, so make sure you research real science (the website where the above paper is posted is a good start). Look at the left side of this blog, there are at least two pediatricians, a retired family doctor and former flight surgeon and an infectious disease doctor. Make sure you satisfy their level of evidence (I would suggest you read more of the posts here).
I also would suggest you read some books on the history of disease and vaccines, from the Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill, Flu! by Gina Kolata, The Great Influenza by John Barry, Polio, an American Story by David M. Oshinsky, Vaccine by Arthur Allen and Vaccinated by Paul Offit (the latter being a biography, but does give lots of history on vaccine development). They should all be available from your local library.
Chris (response to ajones): “Has there really been a huge increase in infertility?”
Women are having their first child later in life on average. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db21.pdf
availability of reliable fertility treatment has increased.
No huge surprise that there is an increase in couples receiving (and talking about) fertility treatment.
I would say this is one of those arguing with a dining room table moments.
ajones said
“I respect your opinion to vaccinate, respect my position.”
I’m not sure why you would come to a site called science based medicine, post a bunch of made up connections (infertility connected to vaccine?) and then demand respect.
Well, No. You have rights that the U.S. constitution GIVES you. You have to EARN someone’s respect.
ajones, I have comment in moderation. It had one link. It comes across fairly angry. I am angry because I have had to deal with all sorts of people like you because I have a disabled child (and was even further disabled due to an illness). I really hate it too when people like you say that only kids with underlying conditions have bad outcomes.
It will come through, eventually. But it has a list of books for you to read, because you sound to me like you have been getting your information from limited sources and you seem to not know about the history of disease and vaccines.
Because I really hate it when people spout lots of stuff and it is patently untrue. You need to educate yourself with real information, like the following books (you probably pick up a basic biology book):
Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill
Flu! by Gina Kolata
The Great Influenza by John Barry
Polio, An American Story by David M. Oshinsky
Vaccine by Arthur Allen
Vaccinated by Paul Offit
ajones:
Reading comprehension fail.
This is what you said: It is RARE that you will die for measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, etc. or dare I say the flu. People die from underlying conditions.
That implies that people with underlying conditions do not deserve to live. Some of these people cannot be vaccinated, they need to be protected by herd immunity.
You running around taking advantage of herd immunity, and reducing the level of herd immunity and spouting such stuff do not deserve respect.
By the way, in the major wave of measles in the USA, about 1 in 500 died. That made it more common than the 1950s (and it was one in a thousand), but is that considered rare?
Chris,
First of all, let me apologize for offending you. I’m not going to fight with you.
I am far from uneducated and will site my resources. I have a lot and it is taking me time to get them all down.
Regarding inferitility:
micheleinmichigan and chris – Polysorbate 80 (also know as Tween 80) is in (certain brands) the DTaP, rotovirus, hep A, flu and HPV vaccines. Yes, I know it is also in lotions, make up and ice cream. This is why I blamed both vaccines and other factors. Here is a medical study for you:
Gajdova M, Jakubovsky J, Valky J.Delayed effects of neonatal exposure to Tween 80 on female reproductive organs in rats. Food Chem Toxicol. 1993 Mar;31(3):183-90. PMID: 8473002.
This is taken directly from http://www.gardasil.com/what-is-gardasil/gardasil-side-effects/
Who should not get GARDASIL?
You should not get GARDASIL if you have, or have had:
* an allergic reaction after getting a dose of GARDASIL.
* a severe allergic reaction to yeast, amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate, polysorbate 80.
There is more to come.
A fundamental premise held by believers in “alternative” health is that we are swimming in a world of “toxins” and those “toxins” are causing disease. Like most premises in “alternative” health it has no basis in scientific fact; it speaks to primitive fears and impulses.
The preoccupation with “toxins” is a direct lineal descendant of the obsession with evil humours and miasmas as causes of disease. Because people could not see bacteria and viruses they imagined that diseases were caused by excess evil humours, substances that were named, but never seen or identified in any way accessible to the senses.
The evil humours, miasmas, etc. were invisible, but all around us. They constantly threatened people, and those people had no way of fending off the threat. Indeed, they were often completely unaware of the threat that was actively harming them.
Evil humours, miasmas, demons, etc. were put to rest by the germ theory of disease. But fear and superstition never die and the “alternative” health community has used that fear and superstition to resurrected primitive beliefs. It is axiomatic in the “alternative” health community that disease is caused by evil humours and miasmas. They just don’t call it that anymore; they call it “toxins.”
Toxins serve the same explanatory purpose as evil humours and miasmas. They are invisible, but all around us. They constantly threaten people, often people who unaware of their very existence. They are no longer viewed as evil in themselves, but it is an article of faith that they have be released into our environment by “evil” corporations or secretly added to vaccines by Big Pharma.
There’s just one problem. “Toxins” are a figment of the imagination, in the exact same way that evil humours and miasmas were figments of the imagination.
Advocates of “alternative” health have an obsession with “toxins” in foods, in vaccines, even “toxins” arising in the body itself. The height of idiocy is the belief in “detoxifying” diets and colon cleansing. The human body does not produce “toxins.” That’s just a superstition of the “alternative” health community. The waste products produced by the human body are easily metabolized by organs such as the liver, and excreted by organs particularly designed for that purpose such as the kidneys.
Unfortunately, evil humours and miasmas have not died, they’ve been reincarnated as “toxins.”
Humans are not rats, one study does not make real evidence. Gardisil is only being offered to females ages 12 and older. You are cherry picking and changing the subject.
There is a reason I asked specifically about the MMR. It helps to deal with one vaccine that does not have thimerosal, nor aluminum, so you don’t get sidetracked.
micheleinmichigan:
I am not so certain. What I detect is someone who has spent too much time on the mommy boards. She is bringing in the old tired points that are classic bits of cherry picking, straw man arguments and changing the subject. She is probably going to back to the mommy board to get studies, which is why she dragged up one on rats for the Polysorbate 80… which brings up over 2000 hits on PubMed.
She obviously has no idea of any of the real science. She claims that the studies are all from the pharmaceutical companies, yet she has not been made aware of all the large epidemiological studies done in several countries by their public health entities (CDC, NIH in USA, NHS in the UK, etc). She has no clue what the real effects of the disease, a classic of argument of some folks (Meryl Dorey has claimed on Australian TV that pertussis is just a bad cold and no one died of it thirty years ago!).
More than likely she has never seen any of the diseases, being young enough to have received the MMR, OPV and DTP vaccines herself. Also, having healthy children she more than likely has never been in the pediatric ward of a hospital, much less the emergency department. Which is why she did not realize that her statement that the only people who die from measles, etc have underlying conditions (which is patently untrue) would actually be read by someone whose kid has an underlying condition. Obviously she does not have a clue.
I am willing to bet she thinks that tetanus can be avoided by just cleaning out the wound (actually read that on another blog).
Though I am hopeful that she will read real information from unbiased sources and start to learn how the real world of microbes works (ajones, the books on the 1918 flu pandemic by Kolata and Barry should help give you a real perspective).
Chris,
I haven’t been on any “mommy boards”. I did not change the subject, I was asked how vaccines relate to infertility.
Here is what I have for Aluminum:
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Aluminum is now being implicated as interfering with a variety of cellular and metabolic processes in the nervous system and in other tissues.” – Aluminum toxicity in infants and children (RE9607).” Pediatrics (March 1996; 97 (3):413-416
1) Effects of aluminum on the neurotoxicity of primary cultured neurons and on the aggregation of the beta-amyloid protein, Kawahara M. et al., Brain Research Bulletin 2001; 55:211-217
Summary – researchers exposed rat nerve cells to varying amounts of aluminum and found not only nerve degeneration but also accumulation of amyloid proteins, as is seen in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
2) Aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines transiently increase aluminum levels in murine brain tissue, Redhead K., Quinlan G.J., Das R. G., Gutteridge J.M., Pharmacology and Toxicology 1992; 70:278-280
Summary – this group injected aluminum-containing vaccines into mice and found that levels of the metal rose in the brain and peaked around the third day after injection.
3) Neuropathology of aluminum toxicity in rats (glutamate and GABA impairment), El-Rhaman S.S., Pharmacological Research 2003; 47 (3): 189-194
Summary – This group fed aluminum to rats for thirty-five days and found high levels of the metal in the brain tissue, as well as brain tissue degeneration in a pattern similar to Alzheimer’s disease
4) Aluminum neurotoxicity in preterm infants receiving intravenous feeding solutions, Bishop N.J., Morely R., Day J.P., Lucas A., New England Journal of Medicine 1997; 336(22): 1557-1561
Summary – this group found that premature infants given standard IV feeding solutions containing aluminum had impaired neurologic and mental development compared to infants fed nonaluminum solutions.
Before you jump all over me and point out that this study is for premature infants it has to do with impaired kidney function. So my question is, when do they test full term babies’ kidney function?
If a parent follows the CDC guidelines for vaccinations, a two month old infant would receive 1,225mcg of aluminum.
Sit tight for the MMR since that’s what you want to know about!
Why do you say that I can’t get side tracked about aluminum or mercury? I thought this was a discussion on all vaccines?
Dr. Tuteur:
Yet the real ones like tetanospasmin are thought to be harmless, or can be just washed away with soap and water.
Chris,
Luckily for me, I can read books and know that antibody injections and antibiotics can help eliminate the germs. nothing reverses the paralyzing toxin. I also know that if an unvaccinated person gets a deep wound they may be given a vaccine at that time, which MAY or MAY NOT help prevent tetanus. I also know that it has a 15% fatality rate. I also know that some brands have aluminum, formaldehyde, mercury and polysorbate 80.
Once again humans are not rodents, and in addition using “Aluminum neurotoxicity in preterm infants receiving intravenous feeding solutions ” does not apply to vaccines. Stick to the actual realistic levels in vaccines.
This is exactly why I only asked about the MMR.
“So my question is, when do they test full term babies’ kidney function?”
If your full term baby had abnormal kidney function, your mommy instinct would let you know. Deciding about vaccinations in that circumstance would be the least of your worries.
“I also know that it has a 15% fatality rate.”
Tetanus or the vaccine? And the treatment is a walk in the park?
“I also know that if an unvaccinated person gets a deep wound they may be given a vaccine at that time, which MAY or MAY NOT help prevent tetanus.”
That’s why an unvaccinated person needs to get antitoxin in addition to the vaccine. Do you think the body will produce antibodies to the first dose of vaccine instantly?
Get over the mommy instincts. I meant it is my natural instinct to protect my child. By doing research (not mommy sites), I am doing what I think is best for my child.
Chris do you think that 1,225mcg of aluminum is safe for a 8-10lb baby? I have been looking for the research to show that the combination of several aluminum vaccines in an infant is safe. What I see is a study showing there are no harmful effects from aluminum in vaccines where they only tested the DTP vaccine. But babies receive HIB, Pc DTaP, Hep B (which all contain aluminum) when they are 2 months old.
weing – I don’t think the body will produce antibodies to the first does of a vaccine instantly. That is not what the science says so why would I think that? Did I say that somewhere? Tetanus, not the vaccine has a 15% mortality rate and it is also a more severe problem internationally.
Here is my take on MMR:
According to the WHO:
Measles –
- More than 95% of measles deaths occur in low-income countries with weak health infrastructure.
Treatment
Severe complications from measles can be avoided though supportive care that ensures good nutrition, adequate fluid intake and treatment of dehydration with WHO-recommended oral rehydration solution (to replace fluids and other essential elements lost from diarrhoea or vomiting). Antibiotics should be prescribed to treat eye and ear infections, and pneumonia.
All children in developing countries diagnosed with measles should receive two doses of vitamin A supplements, given 24 hours apart. This can help prevent eye damage and blindness. Vitamin A supplements have been shown to reduce the number of deaths from measles by 50%.
MUMPS
“Mumps is mostly a mild childhood disease. It most often affects children between five and nine years old.”
RUBELLA
“…it is a mild childhood illness”
Now for the possible side effects reported on the product insert (NOT A MOMMY BOARD)
Now for the possible side effects reported on the product insert (NOT A MOMMY BOARD)
• Measles infection
• Flu like symptoms
• Inflamed pancreas
• Diabetes
• Bleeding disorders and bruising throughout the body
• Rubella infection
• Allergic reactions
• Joint and muscle soreness
• Life threatening rash (stevens-johnson syndrome)
• Mumps infection
• Rare deaths from unknown causes
Nervous system dysfunctions:
• Eye inflammation
• Nerve inflammation and dysfunction
• Deafness
• Seizures not associated with fever
• Guillain-Barre syndrome
• Chronic arthritis
• Encephalitis and encephalopathy
My conclusion based upon all of this SCIENCE is that these possible side effects are NOT worth it. Like I said before, these diseases are rarely deadly for healthy people in a developed country. So please explain to me what is wrong with my choice not to vaccinate my son? I just gave you my reason with solid science!
“weing – I don’t think the body will produce antibodies to the first does of a vaccine instantly. ”
I’m glad you clarified that, as you appeared to be calling into question the efficacy of the vaccine with your capitalization.
“Tetanus, not the vaccine has a 15% mortality rate and it is also a more severe problem internationally.”
So, you take a couple of Aspirins and it goes away in 85% of the cases?
So you don’t think that the vaccine has nothing to do with the fact that only 5% of deaths due to measles occur in the developed countries?
So when your daughter gets pregnant and gets rubella during her pregnancy, you will not blame yourself for the problems of your grandchild?
When your son gets mumps and his wife leaves him because he can’t give her a child, I am sure he will thank you also.
Chris,
“That implies that people with underlying conditions do not deserve to live. Some of these people cannot be vaccinated, they need to be protected by herd immunity.
You running around taking advantage of herd immunity, and reducing the level of herd immunity and spouting such stuff do not deserve respect.”
I NEVER said people with underlying conditions don’t deserve to live. What that statement meant is that if you have an underlying condition you SHOULD get the vaccine since you have a higher risk of death. But let me understand something, you think that I should sacrifice my child for yours? If I am not comfortable giving my child a vaccine, why should I? That decision has nothing to do with anyone else but my child. Seems like you are the one saying that not everyone deserves to live? Because of this ignorant statement, I do not want to continue discussing anything further with you after this post.
I am not taking advantage of herd immunity because I am educated and know that SCIENCE says that just because someone is vaccinated does not mean they don’t carry the bacteria or virus. That is just an uneducated way of thought and I am surprised that someone of your education (whatever that is) didn’t use common sense there let alone science.
I am done going back and forth with you all. I know how to read medical research and science. I also know how to understand and interpret risks. For every test you have to prove your side, I will have one as well. There is no point to this. It is obvious that you all cannot have friendly debate to inform each other. I came here looking to see “other side” but I now see you all don’t want the other side.
By the way – I don’t let my kid drink the water. He drinks spring water, and eats organic food and sleeps on an organic mattress, goes to a chiropractor, only uses natural products and takes lots of vitamins. I will continue to question everything I give him because that is what a good mommy does!
Good night and good luck!
“For every test you have to prove your side, I will have one as well.”
Only in your mind and others with inadequate knowledge such as yours. You can cherry pick all you want. You are the one that will force us to experience schadenfreude.
Ajones: “My conclusion based upon all of this SCIENCE is that these possible side effects are NOT worth it. Like I said before, these diseases are rarely deadly for healthy people in a developed country. So please explain to me what is wrong with my choice not to vaccinate my son? I just gave you my reason with solid science!”
Oh, I seriously doubt if it is only the science!
I suggest that the main reason the risks of these illnesses look small to you and those of vaccination much larger, is an unspoken presupposition that there is ittle risk of your son ever getting these illnesses in the first place (so long as he stays within his protective cocoon of vaccinated peers).
That viewpoint is indeed “consistent with the science”, for persons so privileged. Your listed, uncertain, “possible” risks from a precautionary drug company insert can understandably look overwhelming when compared to the perception of slight personal risk from actual infection.
If you can live with the decision not to vaccinate and to let your son run certain risks therefrom, fine, but I strongly advise you not to try and stop others from vaccinating THEIR kids. That may seriously rebound on you if he happens to get testicular mumps from one of his peers when in his teens, or he gives rubella to his wife at a bad stage of pregnancy, among other possible misfortunes.
weing
“So when your daughter gets pregnant and gets rubella during her pregnancy, you will not blame yourself for the problems of your grandchild?
When your son gets mumps and his wife leaves him because he can’t give her a child, I am sure he will thank you also.”
weing – I know you are trying to make a point. But ouch! unnecessary collateral damage, much?
Try to remember numerous people with all sorts of health conditions read these comments.
I can’t ignore these comments:
weing – for your information I have ALWAYS planned to give my son the rubella vaccine around junior high when his immune system has been built up. It is a MILD CHILDHOOD illness. However, I am aware of the affects for pregnant lady which is why I would do it for his wife. As far as your rude comment about the fact that my son can’t give his wife a child, let me know how you feel when your daughter has miscarriage after miscarriage or can’t get pregnant at all from all the polysorbate 80. It goes both ways. Your son could get a sports injury to his testicles and cause infertility. Things can happen whether or not you give your child the shot. You are being absolutely ridiculous. About tetnus treatment where on earth do you draw the conclusion that I would think an asprin would cure 5%? I told you the POSSIBLE treatments. If this is how you interpret what you read, then I feel sorry for you.
pmoran – DON’T YOU DARE TELL MY WHERE MY CONCLUSIONS COME FROM! You don’t know me. I have lost 3 children. I know what it’s like to lose a child so don’t you dare act like I didn’t do my due diligence as a mother. WHAT PART OF “VACCINES ARE A PERSONAL CHOICE” says that I am trying to convince others not to do it? I am all about making an informed decision getting the facts from all sides. As far as cherry picking, how are you all not doing the same thing by picking the research that supports your side?
I don’t want to hear the rats aren’t humans because scientists use rats, IT’S SCIENCE! So you all are willing to use, eat or wear products that have been shown to harm rats? Good for you all.
Let’s see, spouting completely uninformed garbage all over the place? Trying to kill your kids AND MINE?
ajones said: “By the way – I don’t let my kid drink the water. He drinks spring water, and eats organic food and sleeps on an organic mattress, goes to a chiropractor, only uses natural products and takes lots of vitamins. I will continue to question everything I give him because that is what a good mommy does!”
So, her kid might be drinking water with high lead, mercury, etc levels. I recall when my parents had their ‘natural spring water’ tested (before we were allowed to drink it)…WOW. They put a filter on THAT water really quick. All natural stuff in the water…e.coli, lead, mercury…. Nice and healthy (but at least it was natural spring water, right?)
@micheleinmichigan: from 1 (ex) Michigander to another: good luck fighting woo. I’ve talked to my friends and family, and the woo seems to be spreading fast and furious there.
Scott,
If your child is vaccinated and mine isn’t how would that kill your child? Are insinuating that vaccines don’t work? That comment of yours is VERY uninformed and isn’t using common sense. I mean, WOW!
How is the information from WHO and scientific studies uninformed garbage? Only the research you all pull is informed?
ajones,
You remind me of the two bankers during a robbery. One slips something to the other. He asks him what it is. “It’s the $100 I owe you.”
So you aren’t going to let your son play sports either?
weing – funny I think the same of you.
They are not 100% effective, no. Anyone with the tiniest bit of understanding of the subject knows this, so thanks for proving beyond any possible doubt that you haven’t the faintest clue of what you’re talking about.
The irony of this comment is quite impressive.
It doesn’t begin to mean anything like what you claim it means, as others have already described. Citing random information is meaningless if you don’t actually understand it.
And that’s not even getting into the fact that the stuff you proudly boast of doing for your son ranges from useless to counterproductive to actively life-threatening (see: chiropractor-caused strokes). For the sake of your son, PLEASE actually educate yourself!!!
Let me repeat the question, perhaps so you can understand it better: What is the relative risk of harm from the MMR versus measles, mumps and rubella?
Give me real science, do not regurgitate that package insert. Show me the numbers.
We know that measles causes bad things in one out of a thousand cases, and that during the outbreak between 1989 and 1991 caused actual death one out of 500 cases.
Now show that the MMR causes worse problems than measles, mumps and rubella.
Also, aluminum is the most common metal on the planet. You probably got more by drinking your spring water than is in any vaccine, and passed it on to your son in your breastmilk.
Also, don’t give me stupid rodent studies on the ingredients. Show that the vaccine is actually more dangerous than the disease, not its ingredients. Show that the vaccine causes encephalitis, deafness, etc at rates similar to the diseases.
Again, I am very educated as well as my pediatrician, MD (who agrees with me). I stand my decision. When I see a study that actually compares vaccinated children to non vaccinated children I will reconsider. No one here was able to produce a study like that for me. I asked:
“Chris do you think that 1,225mcg of aluminum is safe for a 8-10lb baby? I have been looking for the research to show that the combination of several aluminum vaccines in an infant is safe. What I see is a study showing there are no harmful effects from aluminum in vaccines where they only tested the DTP vaccine. But babies receive HIB, Pc DTaP, Hep B (which all contain aluminum) when they are 2 months old.”
No one pointed me to a test! You all keep telling me that I am uniformed and can’t interpret data. Well I asked for 2 very important tests and NO ONE PRODUCED.
I am leaving this group. This is not science based medicine, it’s selective science!
Having gone to school does not make one educated.
Can’t be ethically done, as has been rehashed time after time.
The standard safety testing of all vaccines covers the question quite nicely.
“No one pointed me to a test! ”
What kind of a test are you looking for?
Diversion by moving goal posts duly noted. It is obvious you have nothing.
By the way, the several epidemiological studies done in several countries I posted above did compare vaccinated versus unvaccinated kids.
By the way, good luck getting a separate rubella vaccine to protect your kid from infertility due to mumps when he is older. I don’t think you will be able to get measles, mumps or rubella as individual vaccines much longer.
Also, if your child is not vaccinated he is by definition being protected by herd immunity. You are being a leach on society. Of course, it does not work for tetanus.
these graphs say it all to me. it shows that vaccines had little (if any) effect on the decline of most major diseases.
http://www.healthsentinel.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2654:united-states-disease-death-rates&catid=55:united-states-deaths-from-diseases&Itemid=55
If you don’t look at graphs in an exploded view. (most pro vaccine graphs start around the 1940′s) then you see that the vaccine effects arent really all that great.
backer, that graph hides the effect of the vaccine through its ridiculous scale.
I stole this from another blog, it is the typed up cases and deaths of measles in just a few years (and I didn’t have to type it!). Please explain what happened between 1961 and 1970.:
Disease: Measles in the USA
Year__Cases___Deaths
1961__423,919_434
1962__481,530_408
1963__385,156_364
(^^ first vaccine licensed)
1964__458,083_421
1965__261,905_276
1966__204,136_261
1967___62,705__81
1968___22,231__24
1969___25,826__41
1970___47,351__89
1971___75,290__90
(^^^ MMR licensed)
1972___32,275__24
1973___26,690__23
1974___22,690__20
1975___24,374__20
1976___41,126__12
1977___57,245__15
1978___26,871__11
(^^^ Measles Elimination Program started)
1979___13,597___6
1980___13,506__11
1981____2,124___2
chris,
ummm…didnt i warn about exploded views on things? You just proved my point. I can show you data that proves almost anything in an exploded view.
Watch this…
seatbelts are a good thing right? do you think their use caused a drastic reduction in auto fatalities?
lets take your view first. Most seatbelt laws were passed in mid to late 80′s
http://www.backerton.com/graph1.jpg
WOW! look at that reduction in deaths just after the laws were passed, seatbelts must be the magic bullet!
Ok now view…
http://www.backerton.com/graph2.jpg
doh! I guess they arent the magic bullet after all.
Exploded view looked really good though. My point is that vaccines (just like seatbelts) have their place but their use is being abused.
Ironic that you’d make that argument, backer, when you’re deliberately using large scales to obscure sharp effects – the close scale is the correct way to see them. Your example is even more laughable since the second graph is on a log scale.
Do you have the least conception of how to analyze plots? Either you don’t and are spouting off with no knowledge, or you do and are deliberately lying through your teeth…
backer,
We accept that the diseases were decreasing before vaccines. We don’t accept that they would have continued to decrease until they disappeared.
The impact of vaccines is undeniable.
The most convincing proof is that when vaccination rates drop, the disease incidence increases, and when the vaccination rates rise again, the disease incidence drops. This has happened over and over, around the world, for several different diseases.
Scott:
I vote for lying through his teeth. Note that the graphs were only for mortality, not for incidence. It is a common anti-vax tactic:
http://jabsloonies.blogspot.com/2009/03/lies-misrepresentation-and-abuse.html
Dawn
@micheleinmichigan: from 1 (ex) Michigander to another: good luck fighting woo. I’ve talked to my friends and family, and the woo seems to be spreading fast and furious there.
Ohhh, there’s a lot of ex-michiganders out there these days.
I have to say in my circle the discussions usually center around.
What company’s going to be laying off next. Tactics for living in the house you can’t sell. Who else can’t sell their house. The amazingly low price that the foreclosed house on your street sold for. Self-employment woes. Your plans for insurance for your children when you’ve lost your job. Announcements of finally finding a job after a year or two of searching, but it’s in another state or pays less than before.
Then there is the typical, teacher, music, vacation, movie, stuff.
I probably shouldn’t talk about Michigan. I get too negative.
I don’t hear much talk of woo. But I do live near Ann Arbor which has a great pediatric teaching hospital and I think we have above standard medical care in the area. Also with many health care folks in the family. (two perfusionists, one nurse anesthetist, one former RN.). I’m much more likely to hear stories of interesting or difficult surgeries than anything else.
“Scott:
Either you don’t and are spouting off with no knowledge, or you do and are deliberately lying through your teeth…”
I vote for both.
backer,
Please come to Michigan and drive around with your seat belt off. We need the extra traffic violation revenue.
“pmoran – DON’T YOU DARE TELL MY WHERE MY CONCLUSIONS COME FROM! You don’t know me. I have lost 3 children. I know what it’s like to lose a child so don’t you dare act like I didn’t do my due diligence as a mother.”
That’s not what I said. You would not be human if you were not being influenced by the remoteness of immediate risk to your son from the illnesses that many others are vaccinated against. And if you have lost a child you will inevitably be extra-sensitive to risk.
So you are understandably biased. It is evident from your own words that you are being rather superficial in your appraisal of the real life-time risks from these epidemic illnesses, while straining hard to find every last speculative risk from vaccines, even from agents that have now been given to millions of infants with without evident adverse effects.
scott-
you said…
“Ironic that you’d make that argument, backer, when you’re deliberately using large scales to obscure sharp effects – the close scale is the correct way to see them.”
I am not even gonna get into how many ways you are wrong here.
Chris…
you said…
“It is a common anti-vax tactic:”
I am not anti vax. I have said this over and over again. I am however pro good science, and i have yet to see any from the pro vax side.
However your link proves my point once again. the chart starts in 1950, a common pro vax tactic.
Harriet-
Thank you for admitting about the pre vaccine decline. Finally a small voice of reason.
you said…
“The most convincing proof is that when vaccination rates drop, the disease incidence increases, and when the vaccination rates rise again, the disease incidence drops. This has happened over and over, around the world, for several different diseases.”
sorry this isnt convincing to me…
here is how i might say it…
The most convincing proof is that when enough people are exposed to a disease, the disease incidence drops. This has happened over and over, around the world, for several different diseases.
Vaccines are great for true epidemics but for stuff like the measles, and chicken pox? a complete waste.
pmoran-
“even from agents that have now been given to millions of infants with without evident adverse effects.”
prove it.
I will preface this with…if there is even one adverse event linked to them then you are wrong. This is the dogmatic arrogance that has no room in science.
backer:
And the lying just continues! How about you answer my question with that “good science” of yours about what happened to the incidence and deaths from measles between 1962 to 1971? Why did it go from around 400000 (and almost half a million in one year) cases per year, with several hundred deaths to less than 80 thousand cases and under a hundred deaths in ten years? Where did the 75% decrease come from?
What other ten year span from 1900 to 1960 had a reduction of measles incidence reduce consistently to one quarter of the previous decade?
My link also showed incidence, not deaths! Why do you think the reason for that was?
Chris-
who cares about incidence? Not me. So are you saying we should create a rhinovirus vaccine just because it occurs alot? The only thing that truly matters is disability and death.
i do not dispute the fact that the vaccine played a part in the decline. I do not dispute the fact that vaccines inherently work.
you said…
“How about you answer my question with that “good science” of yours about what happened to the incidence and deaths from measles between 1962 to 1971″
sorry “good science” cannot be done in this case because there is no control group to test and it has no ability to be falsified. That is the only way good science can be done.
Ooh, it took a bit but I found some real information on measles incidence in the first half of the 20th century. It is a table on page 9 of:
http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
And it does look like I can cut and paste the pertinent part of the table (by the way, I was being generous in using 1971, that was an epidemic year for measles), and edit out the other diseases:
Year…. Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . 0.1
We care about incidence because vaccines are the only thing that can reduce incidence for measles.
Death from measles is reduced by other medical interventions (like artificial ventilation for the pneumonia that can occur, and medications to reduce very high fevers). It is a matter of keeping the number of parameters down (which is what is how good science is done, a concept you do not seem to understand).
backer
“The most convincing proof is that when enough people are exposed to a disease, the disease incidence drops. This has happened over and over, around the world, for several different diseases.”
Gosh, that sounds like a particular kind of biology…what is it. It’s on the tip of my tongue.
Oh yeah. Evolutionary Biology.
Backer, why do you hate God?
backer said,
““The most convincing proof is that when vaccination rates drop, the disease incidence increases, and when the vaccination rates rise again, the disease incidence drops. This has happened over and over, around the world, for several different diseases.” sorry this isnt convincing to me.”
Why is it not convincing and how do you explain it otherwise?
“pmoran-
“even from agents that have now been given to millions of infants with without evident adverse effects.”
prove it.
I will preface this with…if there is even one adverse event linked to them then you are wrong. This is the dogmatic arrogance that has no room in science”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There is a need for a little dogmatism when so many are trying to sow confusion.
Also the shorthand of this kind of discourse is limiting.
So I’ll expand the statement thus: “without thus-far evident or likely ill effects given extensive experience with the agents used, the small doses given and other known sources of exposure”..
I’ll add that idle speculation is not “science” but reasoning from extensive experience and from what we already know, is.
I’ll point out that the benefits of most vaccines are so clear that it would take much larger ill effects than are currently even alleged with a speck of credibility to seriously challenge their use in public health in most countries, and that most allegations would if proved true simply require a different format of the vaccine, not pse a challenge the basic validity of this public health measure.
Your threat does not work, either. “Without evident adverse effects” implies anything above the background levels of that effect.
ajones
I think that I spoke uncharitably. I am sorry. When I first read your posts I thought you were being flippant, but as I read on I saw that you are basing your actions on genuine fear.
I want to preface my next statement by saying I don’t know you and I don’t know anything about your life. I only am speaking to one possibility of who you might be. If the following does not describe you, I apologize for my presumptions.
People who have experienced a big loss sometimes can get thrown into a vicious cycle of intrusive thoughts and anxiety followed by efforts to sooth the anxiety by addressing the anxious thoughts. These efforts could involve avoiding potentially dangerous activities, cleaning or checking for fire hazards, etc.
Of course wanting to be safe and taking precautions is typical, but if you feel that your thoughts are intrusive to you and making you kinda miserable. Or if you feel that your efforts to be safe or make your family safe are consuming to much of your time or you don’t feel good about it, you may benefit from some of the cognitive behavior therapies for obsessive compulsive disorder. This is not to say that you might have OCD only that some of the therapies can be helpful for some of the above symptoms.
Of course, like I said, a good chance this doesn’t apply to you, but if it does here are some resources that could be helpful.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/OCD-Support/
Books,
Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Beverly Beyette
Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty by Jonathan Grayson
Best of Luck, Michele in Michigan
Harriet-
I should clarify. I do see how it is proof of the efficacy of the measles vaccine. That, i do not doubt. I just does not convince me that we should have a nationwide campaign to inject our children with potentially harmful vaccines. especially ones like diptheria, and polio. I seriously doubt that if we took polio off the list we would see 1000′s of new cases. same for diptheria.
Please show the evidence that the vaccine for diphtheria is dangerous, especially in light of what happened about in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union broke up:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol4no4/adobe/vitek.pdf
backer:
What evidence do you have that the IPV is dangerous?
Why do you think the diseases would not reappear? Do you think everyone on the planet stays within their own neighborhood?
What happened when Nigeria suspended polio vaccination:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073
Did polio just stay in Kano State?
(bolding added)
I have another comment on diphtheria and the former Soviet Union that is awaiting moderation.
Do not think the USA is immune to imports:
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/596052
If those diseases are wiped out, and I mean totally wiped off the face of the earth, then we could stop vaccinating against polio and diphtheria. That’s what we did with smallpox.
Polio was on its way to being eradicated, but it hit a snag caused by a web of lies. Funny that.
Chris on 22 Nov 2009 at 3:12 pm “Polio was on its way to being eradicated, but it hit a snag caused by a web of lies. Funny that.”
Cryptic posts don’t elevate the conversation.
I thought the problem was non-human reservoirs.
The post would be less cryptic if you actually kept up with the discussion (especially with backer’s use of data). From the paper I posted on the Nigerian polio experience just a couple of comments before:
There are issues with OPV putting poliovirus in the water system, there is an argument for the IPV:
http://www.virology.ws/2009/02/26/dreaming-inactivated-poliovirus-vaccine/
Joe,
There are no non-human reservoirs for polio. Or measles. That’s why we have an excellent chance of eradicating them as we did smallpox.
ajones, could I make an observation?
MMR viruses are live, but attenuated (weakened).
This means that there is a real but very small risk they might cause genuine (but milder) symptoms, just as the real disease would do, and this often applies to the risk of the side effects or complications also.
You get scared when conditions like “thrombocytopenia” (low platelet count) or “meningitis” may be mentioned in the vaccine information leaflets. I understand.
But you must also understand that conditions like these are far less common with the vaccine than they are with the real disease (and as you know, everyone would get measles/mumps/rubella in the absence of vaccination.
So it is perfectly logical (and reassuring) to give your child MMR, since the risks of reactions are extremely low, and far lower than they are for complications of the infection. Your child might be lucky enough to escape these infections at the moment, (with vaccination rates being high still, but this is changing), and many unvaccinated kids get exposed anyway when older teens/adults, when the diseases are much more severe. This is something you can help your children avoid, by vaccinating them now. It’s never too late.
Translation:
scott-
if this makes you feel better, but you are still wrong. I am looking at general trending not cyclical data. short term data also has no way to account for noise (unexplained external variables). These fluctuations are sorted out over the long term but not the short.
So when the data do not do what you think it should, you just ignore it… as a reminder, here is the data of measles incidence in the USA from 1900 to almost 2000:
Year…. Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . 0.1
I would say it had a definite trend starting after the introduction of vaccines in the early 1960s.
Utter garbage. Looking for a sharp change on a large scale is moronic. And while one does have to pay attention to the uncertainties, that’s still true for large scales. But irrelevant in this case since the effect is much larger than the uncertainties.
You’re either an idiot or a liar, plain and simple. (Or possibly both.)
Chris-
i think you are missing something. I do not care about the rate, or incidence, or any of what you are posting. I look at these things in terms of probabilities.
The fatality rate from measles for otherwise healthy people in developed countries is 3 deaths per thousand cases, or .3%.
mumps-self limiting disease
rubella-self limiting disease
This tells me that i can safely wait to get my children these vaccines until their bodies are stronger and more well equipped to handle them. I see no need to give them to babies.
You should. Even if you don’t care about misery, you should at LEAST care about complications short of death!
And you think this is somehow ACCEPTABLE when there’s such a safe, easy, and effective way to prevent those deaths?
Your callousness appalls me.
If there was, you know, even the tiniest, faintest, shred of a hint of evidence that there would be ANY benefit whatsoever to such delay, there might be some semblance of a point here. Since there is no such benefit, this argument is effectively the same as waiting until Friday the 13th under a full moon.
Scott-
If this is what you consider safe?
As listed on the MMR insert…
Panniculitis
atypical measles
fever
syncope
headache
dizziness
malaise
irritability
vasculitis
pancreatitis
diarrhea
vomiting
parotitis
nausea
diabetes mellitus
thrombocytopenia
purpura
regional lymphadenopathy
leukocytosis
Anaphylaxis and anaphylactoid reactions
angioneurotic edema
bronchial spasms
arthritis
anthragia
myalgia
encephalitis
encephalopathy
subacute sclerosing panencephalitis
Guillian Barre Syndrome
febrile convulsions
seizures
ataxia
polyneuritis
polyneuropathy
ocular palsies
paresthesia
aseptic meningitis
Pneumonitis
sore throat
cough
rhinitis
Stevens-Johnson syndrome
erythema multiforme
urticaria
rash
pruritis
nerve deafness
otitis media
retinitis
optic neuritis
papillitis
retrobulbar neuritis
conjunctivitis
Orchitis
DEATH
there are many less ways to be effected by the measles, mumps, or rubella themselves. I wouldnt say getting many of these after getting this shot would deem it “safe”.
and this is effective?
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/mmrjournal.html
But hell you are right it is easy.
Citing whale.to and package inserts? Come on!
Given the rates of those adverse events? Absolutely.
harriet and scott-
you both fail to see my point. I am not trying to convince you to change your position. It is clear that you both are as i like to call them “position by pride” types. No amount of evidence will ever persuade you to change. (before you say it…i know, i know if the evidence is there you will change your position. BS, i have heard it a thousand times) I am simply defending my decision to not vaccinate, and showing you that i have reasons why.
Harriet-
i am not citing whale.to. I am citing the studies, they just happen to have them compiled. The reason i cited the studies is to show that vaccines arent always effective as people lead others to believe. If there is a chance my child will get the disease even vaccinated what use is the vaccine? why are pertussis rates on the rise even with record number vaccinations? It seems to and i will say it for the 100th time it seems. If there is no immunity offered by the vaccine then the risk (even if small) do not outweigh the benefit.
here is how i see it…
(scale 1 to 10)
major risks from adverse reactions to vaccines=.5-1
(i say this because there is so much double speak in reaction reporting that i do not trust the numbers, therefore i cannot get a clear picture as to the ACTUAL reactions)
risk from adverse vaccine reaction if i do not vaccinate=0
risk my child will actually catch rubella=infinitesimally small
risk my child will actually catch mumps=infinitesimally small
risk my child will actually catch the measles=infinitesimally small
risk my child will actually die from the measles=.3
.3 still beats .5
I am open to changing my position. It is very simple in my case.
show me ACTUAL reaction numbers long term and short term.
You’re either lying through your teeth or grossly uninformed. There IS no evidence to support your position! You do NOT have any rational reason for your decision! The actual evidence overwhelmingly supports vaccination. You have consistently been completely unable to provide any actual factual basis for any of your assertions.
Given that, it’s the height of hilarity for YOU to gripe about “position by pride”.
this is an obvious non sequitur
why? simple.
show me ACTUAL reaction numbers long term and short term.
show me this to prove it isnt
All in the pre-approval safety studies.
backer,
What makes you think that not vaccinating is safer compared to getting the diseases?
backer is counting on the fact that vaccination has almost eliminated these diseases. His children are indeed unlikely to get them. Unfortunately, all it takes is a reduced herd immunity and one person bringing the disease into the community, and his unvaccinated children will be at risk. And he is putting others in the community at risk by his refusal to vaccinate.
“If there is a chance my child will get the disease even vaccinated what use is the vaccine?” The use is that the vaccine will greatly reduce your child’s chance of getting the disease and if he gets the disease, he will have a milder case.
That’s like saying if people who use seat belts can still die in a car accident, what’s the use of seat belts.
Because they want it to be completely risk free, Harriet, and of course nothing is.
To me, it is more like saying “using a car seat increases risk by drowning in the event my cars goes off a bridge.”
weing-
because as i have pointed out to scott i have yet to see ACTUAL reaction numbers. Medicine is the only science i know that can discount events an present it as fact.
Example…lets say you have 1000 kids get vaccinated 500 of them have some form of a reaction within 30 days. In REAL science all reactions are recorded, placed in categories, and an error bar is added. Medicine just waves the “there is no direct connection” wand and viola’ case is dismissed. This is suspicious at best.
just adding SIDS to the equation pushes the reaction number WAY up. However most SIDS deaths get the magic wand, so arent added. Again, why not? Just do what REAL scientist do and add it into the data, use error bars for correction and let people decide for themselves. I could care less about a doctors opinion, i want to see hard numbers, and ALL of them.
this is article describes what REAL scientist do. apparently doctors aren’t
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_n9_v107/ai_21262680/
Because they want to prove that there is 100% no risk to vaccine.
Of course, we can all die from the inhaled bug, I suppose…
I would totally agree that doctors are not real scientists.
However most SIDS deaths get the magic wand, so aren’t added. Again, why not?
Because SIDS is not attributable to vaccines, that is why not. if you speak of VAER, I would agree with you that it is weak data at beast, but then so is all reported registry data.
Doesn’t mean vaccines are unsafe.
I agree that we, practicing MDs, are not running experiments and getting good, clean data is not easy. That is something we can work on. But making up data to support your claims is definitely not going to do the job. Your expectations may also need to be tempered. As Harriet indicated “…if people who use seat belts can still die in a car accident, what’s the use of seat belts.” is fallacious logic.
edgar-
you just proved my point…attribution is a bias. Just add the event to the data set and let the data speak for itself.
weing-
I never did this. This is what i am accusing pro vax people of doing.
again you are used to bad science. this argument is only fallacious if the data isnt categorize. if no crashes under 20 mph ever produce a fatality is it fallacious to assume that if everyone drove 20 mph we could all avoid seat belts? no it isnt. Again good science tell the truth every time. just show me the data.
Backer: “Example…lets say you have 1000 kids get vaccinated 500 of them have some form of a reaction within 30 days. In REAL science all reactions are recorded, placed in categories, and an error bar is added. Medicine just waves the “there is no direct connection” wand and viola’ case is dismissed. This is suspicious at best.”
Are you saying that new vaccines are NOT subjected to studies of this scale and design before being approved for use by the relevant authorities of various countries? I hope our resident vaccine experts will reassure us that even the rapidly developed H1N1 vaccine had such data available prior to its release.
Such studies are expensive, prohibitively so if if large enough to exclude rare serious reactions. Yet we can be largely reassured by the fact that most vaccines are very similar to older vaccines that have now been studied in hundreds of thousands of trial subjects and in numerous prospective and restrospective studies.
Then there is the post-release marketing surveillance of VAERS, and similar institutions in other countries, which for all its faults should be able over time to signal any major problems that have not yet been detected.
Of course, if you are unable to accept that vaccines do what they are supposed to, then no amount of safety data will satisfy.
backer said, “In REAL science all reactions are recorded”
In vaccine science all reactions are recorded, and then they analyze the recorded events to try to determine which ones were actually due to the vaccine. They compare the incidence of a reported adverse event after vaccination to the incidence of the same event in people who have not been vaccinated. Here’s one example of such a study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11144371
Scientific studies have concluded that vaccines are not a risk factor for SIDS. Do you have any evidence that they are?
By the way, you left out something when you copied the package insert. It started out: “The following adverse reactions are listed in decreasing order of severity, without regard to causality, within each body system category and have been reported during clinical trials, with use of the marketed
vaccine, or with use of monovalent or bivalent vaccine containing measles, mumps, or rubella:”
“Without regard to causality” means these reactions were reported during clinical trials but may or may not be attributable to vaccination.
Harriet-
prove it…show me the data. If it is so available then it should be easy to produce. and i mean ALL events.
this is where it stops being science, and is subject to bias. I will say it again. this is NOT science. Science lets data speak not opinions. That is what analyzed determinations are…opinions.
Merck was a sponsor on this study. You call this unbiased scientific study? HA!
Oh, and here is a little tid bit from the study.
“Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura was also excluded”
so this is what you mean when you say…”In vaccine science all reactions are recorded.”
cmon Harriet you can do better than this. i was actually gaining some respect for you
pmoran
are you kidding? one of the H1N1 vaccine studies had about 30 people enrolled in the study. This is not what i call extensive, do you?
Harriet-
prove it…show me the data. If it is so available then it should be easy to produce. and i mean ALL events.
this is where it stops being science, and is subject to bias. I will say it again. this is NOT science. Science lets data speak not opinions. That is what analyzed determinations are…opinions.
Merck was a sponsor on this study. You call this unbiased scientific study? HA!
Oh, and here is a little tid bit from the study.
“Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura was also excluded”
so this is what you mean when you say…”In vaccine science all reactions are recorded.”
c’mon Harriet you can do better than this. i was actually gaining some respect for you
” “But making up data to support your claims is definitely not going to do the job.”
I never did this. This is what i am accusing pro vax people of doing.”
You mean turning into the Incredible Hulk and SIDS were made up by pro vax people? Are you saying you get your Real Science data from the whale web site?
“this argument is only fallacious if the data isnt categorize.”
I really have no idea what this means.
So if a drug company sponsors a study, you automatically exclude it? You still have access to the data. Analyze it yourself. See if you come to the same conclusion. Don’t forget to put your own biases away.
yes i do. This should be your answer as well. Let me ask you this. would you trust crash test data from consumer reports or the car company that made the car?
I did, it is a horrible study riddled with holes.
Independent studies give one this luxury, not ones sponsored by the study that makes the drug. I really can’t see why you are even arguing this point it is rather obvious.
What?
it is simple. lets use the seat belt illustration.
crash fatalities without seat belt vs with seat belt, 100 accident cases…
(fictitious crash data)
without 0-20 mph=0 with=0
without 20-40 mph=30 with=10
without 40-60 mph=50 with=15
seeing this data it is not fallacious to assume it is safe to be in a crash going 20 mph or below without a seat belt.
however if the data is like this…
out of 100 crashes of people not wearing a seat belt 85 died.
…then the data gets skewed, because as you can see it wasnt the seat belt usage, per se, that lead to the death, but an increase of speed. However without being able to see the data broken down into these categories you cannot see this.
I really have no idea what this means.
weing
sorry the previous post was typo’ed, i wish i could edit.
it should have been 80 died in the illustration, and the random…”I really have no idea what this means.” should be omitted at the end. it was left over from something i copied from your post
weing-
one other thing…
i gotta give you props for this. It at least shows you know the limitations. This is more that most people would admit
Backer: “– are you kidding? one of the H1N1 vaccine studies had about 30 people enrolled in the study. This is not what i call extensive, do you?”
Is that study even relevant? This looks like an evasion of my question, as I am sure you realise that these are adequate numbers to show that a vaccine can provoke an antibody response, and that this would have been the question that this particular study was primarily designed to answer.
You imply there were other studies. Did they not provide the kind of data you were asking for? If not, can you prpvide a source for the actual studies?
Can ANYONE tell us what kind of safety data specific to the H1N1 vaccine was available before release?
I’m sorry, I have been off in the real world dealing with my real life. I checked in here after several hours and just noticed that “backer” seems to have gone rather ballistic.
I don’t have the time or fortitude to filter through the silliness, but at any time has she/he ever posted the relative risk between getting the MMR and the disease measles (the last thing I posted was the incidence of that disease in the USA from 1912 to 1997… which showed this marked decrease starting in the mid 1960s)?
Basically the percentage of those affected by the vaccine versus the disease, with the same severity (which means a sore arm from a vaccine is not the same as going blind due to the disease!).
At this point I’m genuinely starting to feel like I’m talking to my kitchen table. Completely ignoring all provided information. Demanding that all data be spoon-fed when the location of the data has already been provided. Gross lies and misrepresentations.
scott, chris-
I have stated simply what data i need to see. I do not want it spoon fed, as i have looked for it myself. I have concluded the data does not exist. This is what make me suspicious. I invite you to prove me wrong, and i am not adverse to being wrong. I just want to see the data to make an informed decision.
Like a have said before in my field of science, vaccine data sets would be thrown out with the trash.
The data exists. You just do not like it. Sorry, it doesn’t come from a sterile lab in a controlled environment. If, as you say, the data does not exist to make an informed opinion regarding vaccines, then you are making an uninformed opinion regarding them.
You’ve been told where the data is – the pre-approval safety studies and VAERS.
Such comments demonstrate your execrable understanding of science.
backer,
I don’t throw out a study if it’s sponsored by a drug company. I evaluate the study on its own merits. To do otherwise would be to fall for the ad hominem fallacy. Where will you get information on a new weapon if not from the weapon’s manufacturer?
Nope, no go. adding outcomes willy nilly increases the chance of type 1 error. You add enough , one will be statistically correlated just by chance.
There has to be a reason to suspect.
I just came across this discussion and wanted to ask some questions. It’s not the acute side-effects of vaccines that worry me, but possible longer-term side effects from unknown contaminants. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Vaccines are only checked for contamination with known viruses (i.e. they are specific-pathogen-free), and for reverse transcriptase activity (RT was common in MMR vaccines in 2001, indicating the presence of retroviruses, I don’t know about now), so we really have no idea what unknown viruses they contain. We also do not know what oncogenes, other DNA fragments or prions they contain. You cannot remove all these contaminants from vaccines without removing the virus, whether dead or attenuated.
Measles and mumps vaccines are made from chick embryos that are undoubtedly contaminated with some viruses and other cellular debris. Rubella vaccine is made from a human fetus-derived cell-line (WI-38) that should be free from viruses, but all vaccine cultures are fed with bovine serum (which can contain unknown viruses – look up BVDV) and contaminated with human material to introduce the virus they are intended to protect against. It is impossible to test for all these contaminants and we really have no idea what the long-term effects of these contaminants might be.
You may remember SV40, a monkey virus that contaminated polio vaccines in the 60s. SV40 causes cancers in animals, and in human cells in vitro, and has also been found in human tumors. In 2002, the National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine (IOM) Immunization Safety Committee concluded that SV40 in vaccines could have caused infection in humans and that these infections could have caused cancers in humans. Work continues to find out whether cancers in humans actually were caused by this contamination.
How do we know that the unknown viruses, oncogenes and prions we may be liberally injecting into our children will not have devastating consequences in 20-30 years time? Or are modern vaccines purified in some way that I am unaware of?
weing-
again i guess you are used to bad science. You get specs from the weapons manufacturer. you get shooting accuracy, jam rate, any other negatives from an independent third source. The weapons manufacture is NOT going to tell me that there gun jams every third round.
weing-
i am sick of these assertions. If it there then show me. It should be really easy to produce.
Again, maybe this is the difference between physics, and medicine. But i can show you every last shread of data that tells us that the universe is between 13.5-14 billion years old. I can give you this number with 100% certainty. I can point you to all the links that you need to validate this. it is easy to find and readily available in MANY places. If i can do this in my field, why can’t you do this in yours?
here they are in case you don’t believe me.
constant speed of light
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
expansion of universe confirmed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law
expansion rate of the universe
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_expansion.html
universe age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
I can give you more detail but i think you get the point. It took me a bout 5 minutes to find them. I would expect if the data you assert exists it will take you about the same time to find it for me.
Nescio-
You have hit the nail on the head. This is exactly what i am asking of the others on this board. However, i can’t even get simple adverse reaction data out of these people much less long term effects.
Yes, but can you make snowflakes that are identical?
backer,
Your analogy doesn’t hold. You’ve already been provided with that level of detail. What you’re demanding you be spoon-fed, after being told where it is, are all of the data from the experiments which informed those links. The WMAP data set, as one example.
And if you’re willing to say “i can show you every last shread of data that tells us that the universe is between 13.5-14 billion years old. I can give you this number with 100% certainty.” then you’re either lying or clueless about the physics involved.
But really, I’ve got no clue why I bother anymore. Some minds are simply completely closed to anything resembling information.
backer,
Basically you are saying that you don’t have the data you need to make an informed opinion regarding vaccines. So you should have no opinion at all about them. Any opinion you may have about them is uninformed.
scott-
by your comments your have proven to me that you are, in my estimation, still in college, maybe even highschool? Your level of understanding is elementary at best. The only thing you have contributed to this conversation is a string of ad hominems and you periodically vomit a non sequitur. Please do us all a favor and keep your comments to your self unless you are going to contribute something useful.
weing-
No, This is not what i am saying. I do have opinions about vaccines, as i have said before (but apparently gets overlooked every time) I think they have their place. I do not however think many of the vaccines used today are merited, and believe that more study needs to be done to asses the impact of these vaccines. To me there is enough doubt to at least merit a well designed independent reaction/autism/diabetes/asthma study. And IMO until that study is done then no one is qualified to say that these things are “safe”.
“I do not however think many of the vaccines used today are merited, and believe that more study needs to be done to asses the impact of these vaccines. To me there is enough doubt to at least merit a well designed independent reaction/autism/diabetes/asthma study.”
This opinion is based on what data?
weing-
here is just one example…
“A study by New Zealand researchers published in Epidemiology, analyzed the health of 1,265 people born in 1977. Of these, 23 didn’t get any childhood vaccinations and none of them suffered childhood asthma. Among the 1,242 who got polio and DPT shots, more than 23 percent later had episodes of asthma.”
If asthma puts one in the high risk category for H1N1, then you might have succeeded in preventing Diptheria, pertussis (questionable) and tetanus. But possibly opened the door for their death to a much more common disease, influenza.
Weing-
I will admit though that this study could be coincidence. But that is why i say it merits further study.
Then you admit to cherry picking, which is what finding one paper in the vast collection of vaccine/asthma studies. Also, what is the general number of people who get “episodes of asthma”? How do you define “episodes of asthma”? I do not have asthma, yet I have had a couple of times when I experienced exercise asthma.
Also the influenza vaccine is recommended for people with asthma: Am J Prev Med. 2009 Aug;37(2):109-15.
Influenza vaccination among adults with asthma findings from the 2007 BRFSS survey. (by the way, the first sentence in the abstracts is “Asthma prevalence among U.S. adults is estimated to be 6.7%”, which answers the first question).
And another:
J Asthma. 2009 Jun;46(5):477-80.
Does influenza vaccination improve pediatric asthma outcomes?
(the conclusion was “yes)
Also, what are the risks of the vaccine versus getting the diseases? Since pertussis is still rampant in this country, I posted a paper that showed how diphtheria returned to several countries after the break up of the Soviet Union, and there is no such thing as herd immunity for tetanus. So you are going to have to have a better argument for not vaccinating for these diseases after saying:
You have not yet produced any real evidence force that “enough doubt” bit.
I recently had a debate with someone over at Orac’s blog about that, and came up with lots more studies that showed that diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus vaccines are not a factor in asthma:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/11/has_desiree_jennings_vaers_report_been_f.php#comment-2064397
Reproduced below:
There are problems with the DTaP in terms of effectiveness, and how long it lasts. That is why herd immunity is so important, and why adults and older children are being encouraged to get the Tdap.
Your one paper: J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2008 Mar;121(3):626-31. Epub 2008 Jan 18.
Delay in diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus vaccination is associated with a reduced risk of childhood asthma.
Its conclusion:
RESULTS: Among 11, 531 children who received at least 4 doses of DPT, the risk of asthma was reduced to (1/2) in children whose first dose of DPT was delayed by more than 2 months. The likelihood of asthma in children with delays in all 3 doses was 0.39 (95% CI, 0.18-0.86). CONCLUSION: We found a negative association between delay in administration of the first dose of whole-cell DPT immunization in childhood and the development of asthma; the association was greater with delays in all of the first 3 doses. The mechanism for this phenomenon requires further research.
So there was further research….
First it was, Pediatrics. 2009 Mar;123(3):944-50.
Routine vaccination against pertussis and the risk of childhood asthma: a population-based cohort study.
The abstract starts with:
Epidemiologic studies of the association between childhood vaccinations and asthma have provided conflicting results, possibly for methodologic reasons such as unreliable vaccination data, biased reporting, and reverse causation. A recent review stressed the need for additional, adequately controlled large-scale studies.
Which concluded:
CONCLUSION: This study provides no evidence of an association between vaccination against pertussis in infancy and an increased risk of later wheeze or asthma and does not support claims that vaccination against pertussis might significantly increase the risk of childhood asthma.
This is another older study: Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2002 Jun;21(6):498-504.
Childhood vaccinations and risk of asthma.
Which concludes:
CONCLUSION: There is no association between diphtheria, tetanus and whole cell pertussis vaccine, oral polio vaccine or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the risk of asthma. The weak associations for Hib and hepatitis B vaccines seem to be at least partially accounted for by health care utilization or information bias.
And another: Am J Public Health. 2001 Jul;91(7):1126-9.
Immunization and symptoms of atopic disease in children: results from the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood….
CONCLUSIONS: International variations in childhood atopic diseases are unlikely to be explained by variations in immunization.
And then there is another one that is Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2005 May;16(3):193-200.
Does childhood immunization against infectious diseases protect from the development of atopic disease?… Which says:
adjustment for sex, age, father’s socioeconomic status and active smoking, adolescents having been vaccinated (n = 694) had a significant lower risk to suffer from asthma or atopic diseases than non-vaccinated adolescents did (n = 24) [odds ratio (OR) = 0.30; 95% CI: 0.10, 0.92]. ….These results, in agreement with previous ecological data, support the hypothesis that early vaccines could promote Th1 proliferation in response to the infectious agent contained in it, which inhibits the enhancement of atopic manifestations. Further studies are needed to confirm the phenomenon.
Looking at the papers, they go back and forth. So your Manitoba study is just one of many.
Now there are problems with delaying pertussis vaccination, in that infants are more vulnerable to the disease. One common anti-vax statement is that Japan stopped vaccinating babies with the DTP and reduced the number of Sudden Infant Deaths. Except they leave out the fact that more infants actually died from pertussis, and since they had not been give the DTP, it could not be blamed:
Expert Rev Vaccines. 2005 Apr;4(2):173-84.
Acellular pertussis vaccines in Japan: past, present and future….
After two infants died within 24 h of the vaccination from 1974 to 1975, the Japanese government temporarily suspended vaccinations. Subsequently, the public and the government witnessed the re-emergence of whooping cough, with 41 deaths in 1979. This series of unfortunate events revealed to the public that the vaccine had, in fact, been beneficial.
There was also an outbreak that involved deaths in the UK at about the same time. I could not find a good historical paper for reference. Though I did find this paper: Timeliness of Childhood Vaccinations in the United States, which has this paragraph:
Pertussis is another example of the importance of timely vaccination. During 2003, 11 647 cases of pertussis were reported in the United States31; incidence was highest among infants who were younger than 6 months34 and infants accounted for the highest proportion of pertussis-related hospitalizations and deaths.35 Among infants who contracted pertussis during the 1990s, at least 44% were undervaccinated for their age. Furthermore, among the 25 pertussis-related deaths in infants aged 2 to 11 months, 15 had not received any doses of pertussis vaccine.36 While these children were too young to have received the complete 4-dose series of DTaP, data suggest that the risk of pertussis-related hospitalization is decreased if children have received 1 or 2 doses of vaccine.35 Furthermore, because siblings are a source of transmission to infants too young to be vaccinated,36-37 timely vaccination of these children can indirectly protect young infants by decreasing their exposure. We found that 16% of children were undervaccinated for DTaP for more than 6 of the first 24 months of life and another 14% were undervaccinated for 3 to 6 months.
So before you demand that vaccines must be 100% effective and 100% safe, you will have to show that the diseases are absolutely 100% harmless.
Chris-
i appreciate your effort, however i am not here trying to (as i have said before) persuade anyone to change their position. I only plead ignorance and ask for people like you to educate me. So far you are doing a poor job because you present me with “studies” i don’t want studies i want data. I want all the data. ALL studies are bias in some way. Data isnt bias. I am sure you realize that there are studies that completely conflict with the ones you cite.
When i say “enough doubt” i am talking personally, but in light of the recent H1N1 vax polls, apparently close to half of America agrees with me. So i would say MD’s need to do a better job of showing us why we shouldn’t doubt.
this isnt what i want i simply want to be able to make an informed decision. Maybe vaccines should have star ratings just like cars. ratings given to them by an independent third party. At least this would be a step in the right direction. If things keep going the ways things are now more and more people are going to distrust MD’s and vaccines.
Those interested can find a good summary of adverse events associated with vaccines here:
http://www.who.int/vaccines-documents/DocsPDF00/www562.pdf
In the short term, assuming that adverse events have been accurately reported and collated, it seems to me that vaccines are safer than the diseases they protect about. In the long term we simply don’t know, yet.
backer:
You first said you want science… we give you science… then you say you want “independent” studies, we give you independent studies. Now you just want data, from “independent” sources.
Must make you tired moving all those goal posts.
You’ve been given data from public health agencies from several countries, and even the WHO. You’ve been give studies funded through grants by researchers in several universities in several countries, and even one from military doctors serving our armed forces overseas (who are paid a set salary). Yet, none of these are deemed “independent.”
Yet you are quite willing to post the horrible graphs from the “healthsentinal” website as if it is independent data you would accept. Looking at its author page, I find not one person with any medical training and at least one journalist claiming “I decided I was not going to subject either of my children to getting vaccinated.” How is that independent data? Is it only independent if it says what you want it to say.
I would say you are doing a poor job of making a coherent argument. You present graphs from biased websites, one lousy tiny study, and then balk when several others are presented that do not say what you want.
Now Nescio provides a document of over a hundred pages on vaccine adverse reactions. Of course it has entire chapters on vaccines that are not on the American pediatric vaccine schedule (when was the last time you were offered a cholera or yellow fever vaccine for your child?).
But here is some of the data that backer does not like to see on page 4. It shows has a table of the severe reactions for several vaccines. Let’s see what it says:
For Hib:
!!!!!!…which will not cut and paste! Rats, gotta type.
For Hib: Nil reactions … now kindly compare that to the outcome if a child actually gets the disease (bacterial meningitis)
for MMR: Febrile seizures, 333 out of a million doses
Thromboc… oh, well… low platelets, 33 out of a million doses
Anaphylaxis, 1-50 out of a million does
Now compare that to measles causing one case out of a thousand having encephalitis resulting in a bad outcome, then a few more resulting in pneumonia, and between one in five hundred to five thousand cases resulting in death.
Mumps causes meningitis (and about 1 in 1000 to 10000 resulting in deafness), and rubella is bad for any fetus.
for DTP: Seizures: 570 out of a million doses
Anaphylaxis/shock: 20 out of a million doses
Encephalopathy: 0-1 out of a million doses…
Do we really need to rehash what happens when an infant gets pertussis, or when anyone gets diphtheria or tetanus.
By the way, the states that have more lax vaccination rules, have more pertussis. So don’t think that pertussis vaccine is without value:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296/14/1757
backer:
The information has been provided to you over and over and over again. You are obvious refusing to make an informed decision because of a bias (even though you say you are not anti-vaccine, your actions speak louder than your baseless declarations), and because you do not even know what constitutes good science or data.
You have absolutely no idea of what is a relative risk, which is why you refuse to answer my questions on what is the relative risk between a disease and its corresponding vaccine. You are exactly like a former co-worker who blathered on about how organic food was healthier due to less toxins while calmly puffing away on her cigarette!
That’s odd, “protect about”? I thought I typed, “protect us from”. You get my drift, anyway.
“in my estimation almost all of the other vaccines on the schedule are just silly”
That statement and those that follow show the arrogance of your ignorance. You are asking for data, yet your mind is already made up. Again what good, clean data are you basing your default decision on? My guess is that your decision is not based on the careful analysis of data. Your decision was reached by conditioning and not learning. That means, irrationally. Your mind is not subject to change by any data or studies we may present you.
backer:
You don’t t think Japan is a modern society? During an epidemic of measles after making their version of the MMR voluntary there was a measles epidemic. Several dozen people died. Because they still don’t vaccinate for mumps, there are now lots more young people becoming deaf. Germany is not a modern society either? Wow. They have had several kids die from SSPE in the past few years. And obviously the USA was not a modern society just twenty years ago when over 120 people died from measles.
You have a very closed mind, and trying to reason with you is about as productive as talking to a kitchen table.
backer,
“MMR- I just don’t see these as being that dangerous in modern society”
Oh really? Could you then possibly explain why Pluserix and Immravax were banned in the market?
Th1Th2-
I am talking about the actual diseases here
I am saying measles, mumps and rubella arent dangerous, not the vaccine
weing-
no prob it is simple.
lets give YOU the best case scenario. Let compare dying from something we consider “safe” to contracting and dying from one of these diseases at their peak, or close to it.
odds of dying in a car crash in modern times 1 in 18,585
Odds of contracting and dying from…
measles- in 1960′s 1 in 500,000
polio- in 1950′s 1 in 67,000
diptheria- in 1920′s 1 in 8730
mumps- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
rubella- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
varicella- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
rotavirus- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
tetanus- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
Hib b- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
Hep A, and B- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
Meningococcal- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
Pneumococcal- 1 in pick a really big number above 1,000,000
These make driving seem really dangerous
Last year my 7m old niece died from a rare strain of bacterial meningitis, 22F. 22F is not included in Prevnar–and in researching it, my sisterinlaw has heard everything from ’22F is not prevalent enough to be included’ to the reason that including 22F will affect the overall stability of Prevnar. But for whatever reason, it’s not a vaccine routinely given.
Only a few dozen people died from 22F in this country last year. Or, in your words “1 in pick a really big number above 100 million.”
This post is completely anecdotal. But I can assure you that the high odds of our situation offer my brother and his wife very little comfort. To have an innocent baby die from a disease that is completely preventable………every 1 is 1 too many. That’s what people like you don’t get–even one person’s death from a disease we can prevent is too many.
Yes I drive a car. But I also wear a seatbelt, obey posted laws and limits, don’t phone/text/drink while driving and my children are in seats that were installed by state police auto safety technicians. I know driving is a risk and I do everything I can to minimize my risks.
@ Chris–I have a friend who, in discussing religion with someone once said “It’s like me trying to teach a pig to sing. Frustrating for me and annoying for the pig.”
provaxmom-
that is why i said this about my decision not to vaccinate against…
“Hib B, Meningococcal- Menigitis is rare, and not easy to catch, and what about the other jillion types of meningitis that can infect my child? I don’t see the point in worrying about one or two more than the others.”
It is sad to hear your story, but it is exactly my point. There are a million ways to die, and in my opinion vaccines give a false sense of comfort. Just like a seat belt, sure it will help unless you are going 150 mph then it won’t do much good.
But your point doesn’t make sense. What you’re saying is “we can’t vaccinate against everything, so let’s vaccinate against nothing.”
Where is the logic in that?
Yes, me or my kids can still get & die from 22F. But I am comfortable with the fact that they won’t die from the 7 types they are vax’d against. Or the flu, or the swine flu. It’s not a false sense of comfort, I am vax’d against many diseases and therefore can be comfortable that I will not get them, or will to a lesser extent. Same with your dumb car scenario–I can be very comfortable that I won’t get in an accident going 150 mph, because I don’t drive 150 mph. It’s about being reasonable and reducing my risk of accidents and disease.
There is a point in worrying about some diseases more than others–it has to do with prevalence.
Oh, and your logic of “since we can’t vaccinate against everything, let’s not vax at all” reminds me of my dad. He’s been smoking for porbably 55 of his 70 years on this planet. I long ago stopped nagging him about it. Whenever someone says something to him in reference to the smoking/bad for your health thing, his response is “eh, so what. Gotta die of something.”
Yes, we all are going to die eventually. But doesn’t it make sense to eliminate behavior that would shorten your life span? The only difference between his argument and yours is that in this competition, you have better odds.
No matter how you dissect the studies, the risk of contracting the disease is higher than the risk of any serious side effects from the vax.
provaxmom:
Thanks, but I do include the real studies and data not so much for backer and Troll1/Troll2 but for lurkers.
backer is not even a dining table, she is the missing back from a broken dining chair, there is nothing there there. So far she has illustrated the classic “I am not anti-vax anti-vaxer” characteristics of having a closed mind, along with being illiterate, innumerate and completely clueless about what constitutes real science and data… with the added tactics of “just asking questions”, moving goalposts and hiding the real data in a bunch of nonsense.
Oh, and I forgot that among backer’s classic denier tactics was the redifinition of vocabulary. She has redefined “science” to something completely foreign to the real world, and claims she is not relying on herd immunity… even though she is not vaccinating her children and they are actually being protected by the vaccine status of their community.
Not to mention actually completely missing my point. In my niece’s case, there *is* a vaccine available, just not routinely given or even on the market. But it exists. I just wonder how baxter will feel if her kids or her contracts something preventable, knowing it could have been prevented.
A common tactic for the vaccine efficacy deniers is to blame something else, or to say the child was somehow medically deficient so if it was that disease they were going to suffer soon anyway (kind the “unhealthy do not deserve to live” type). If the child ends up in the hospital and there is a bad outcome, they will blame the doctors/nurses and everything else, other than the disease that is mostly preventable with a vaccine (note that I did not say the vaccine was 100% perfect). She even thinks that tetanus can be treated without a previous vaccine! (She did not understand when weing tried to explain that the booster and treatment work mostly if the person had been vaccinated before.)
They often really don’t care, as was noted with the San Diego parent whose son infected many babies with measles in a doctor’s waiting room (see http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1275 ). She was nonplussed about the effect of her decision even though a few kids ended up in the hospital. It is a “my kid is more important than yours” mentality. Kind of like the PTA mom who told me with a straight face that it was unfair that the hearing impaired kid in her son’s class got a sign language interpreter and extra help, while her gifted and talented son got no “help” (even though there was a gifted and talented program in the school just a couple miles away).
Chris,
Have you ever worked in a healthcare facility which involves direct patient care? Do you think of yourself as more reliable than someone who had extensive experience in a clinical setting?
Hmmm… my comment with the link has been in moderation all day. Oh well… here is the essence:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2849&cpage=1#comment-36204
After reading this I thought a useful article might be 1009 reasons to completely ignore “science based medicine”
You might as well call your site “big pharma based medicine” as your agenda is transparent.
And again it is the completely unoriginal Pharma Shill Gambit!
(of course, it is a bit ironic since Mercola is infamous in selling all sorts of stuff, as noted by this Business Week article that features Mercola: Old-Time Sales Tricks on the Net)
My comment did not quite go through, but magnus_heydoc should read Business Week’s article on Mercola that is titled “Old-Time Sales Tricks on the Net”, by David E. Gumpert, dated May 23, 2006. The shill gambit works both ways.
Hi Chris, although I don’t appreciate being marketed to at all by any website using some sales based strategies is consistent throughout any outfit that sells products of any sort. IE. that’s something I don’t condone but it is a ‘symptom of the universe’ so to speak.
However, any tactics or strategies employed by Mercola, or and other sites or corporations for that matter pale in comparison to the devious trickery employed by ‘big pharma’. Bribes and payoffs, ‘doctoring’ research study results, burying research results, setting up dummy ‘watchdog’ sites to push a drug agenda(this site?) and outright harming human beings in the name of money is despicable. This is an industry that spent 45 billion on marketing to you and me in 01 and 19 billion on R&D.
Don’t attempt to compare sales tactics employed by Mercola and the local insurance salesman to big pharma ever, for they’re not even on the same playing planet let alone field.
I do not trust big pharma ever and never take pills. The only thing I trust with respect to health is the body’s ability to heal and self regulate it’s physiology with a healthy lifestyle. By the way that’s what the literature says as well. Lifestyle trumps drugs, and drugs websites masquerading as watchdog sites.
Well, please do stay consistent, never buy anything from Mercola and his friends like Russell Blaylock (brain supplement). Stay away from homeopathic pills, zappers, various supplement pills like “chlorella”, and anything else that is not just plain real food.
As part of that consistency, be sure to get yourself a Medic Alert bracelet that tells any emergency response folks to not take you to a hospital after an accident. Instruct them to take you home and tuck you in bed so your body can heal itself. Though you might have them wrap up any bleeding wounds, but be sure it is an old sheet because you wouldn’t want to use any sterile gauze manufactured by one of those evil pharmaceutical companies.
ibid.