What the Papers Don't Say About Vaccines 737
jamie tips an article in The Guardian's "Bad Science" column which highlights recent media coverage of the MMR vaccine. A story circulated in the past week about the death of a young child, which the parents blamed on the vaccine. When the coroner later found that it had nothing to do with the child's death, there was a followup in only one of the six papers who had covered the story.
"Does it stop there? No. Amateur physicians have long enjoyed speculating that MMR and other vaccinations are somehow 'harmful to the immune system' and responsible for the rise in conditions such as asthma and hay fever. Doubtless they must have been waiting some time for evidence to appear. ... Measles cases are rising. Middle class parents are not to blame, even if they do lack rhetorical panache when you try to have a discussion with them about it. They have been systematically and vigorously misled by the media, the people with access to all the information, who still choose, collectively, between themselves, so robustly that it might almost be a conspiracy, to give you only half the facts."
Evidence does not get recorded (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that I'm saying there's a link, but my son suddenly started suffering Cold Urticaria [wikipedia.org] right after having his second MMR jab. When we saw the doctor about it, I mentioned the vaccination as a possible trigger and the doctor immediately launched into a defence of MMR without recording it (she wrote down everything else I mentioned). While I'm aware that the previous arguments about links to autism were based on poor use of statistics, I did find it strange that the NHS is not interested in recording such incidents so that they can do proper statistical analysis and find any real links that exist.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:3, Interesting)
No one is interested in reading positive news like the fact the vaccine isn't actually harmful so there's no money in printing it.
My daughter got the MMR a month or two ago and she ended up with a week of 106F fever. Ordinarily, she likes to run around but for that week she just didn't do anything other than clinging to her mother. What I'm saying here is that the side effects of the vaccine were far worse than anything else (colds, injuries, etc.) that she had up to that point.
Now, she probably didn't end up with permanent damage from the vaccine and it may be that permanent damage is (very?) rare. But the reason these stories have traction is not that it's bad news and bad news sells.
The reason that these stories have traction is that seeing your child with such severe side effects is extremely traumatic and parents are naturally curious whether such severe side effects are causing permanent damage.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:1, Interesting)
Research scientists are the only ones who really know "all the facts", and they only know "all the facts" about a narrow sliver of what there is to know. It takes many years of diligent work to even be able to understand even that. The rest of us rely on them to explain, usually through intermediaries like public health officials, newspapers, books, pediatricians, etc, what we should do. Maybe what you mean is that parents should dig a little deeper than their local paper or some random, paranoid website when making health decisions. That's fine. But whom should they trust, and how should they decide that? It's really a lot more complicated than you're making it sound. Parents do share in the responsibility, but they can only do so much.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:4, Interesting)
The only way to get the parents back on vaccine schedules is to determine the cause of autism.
Um, no. That's not the only way.
There are two public interests here. One is preventing the outbreak of infectious diseases. The other is protecting vulnerable members of our society who are unable to defend themselves against their parents' superstition and ignorance. For either or both reasons, we can and should use the law to force parents to vaccinate their children.
Parents are prosecuted for withholding other forms of medical care from their children. For example, 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann died from diabetes while her parents prayed over her, and those parents are now charged, as they should be, with reckless homicide [thenorthwestern.com]. Why not meet deliberate failure to vaccinate a child with, say, a charge of child endangerment?
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:2, Interesting)
True, but how about printing stories about kids getting hurt by the illnesses these vaccines could have protected them against?
Polio is apparently on the rise, because of these misinformed people, and that is very bad news indeed.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:2, Interesting)
Since the cause of autism is unknown, but the incidence of it is up the last few decades, it seems quite likely that at least one of the assertions regarding what supposedly doesn't cause it may be wrong. Maybe the experiments that have "proved" MMR to be safe didn't reproduce the right conditions or test against the (unidentified) group most at risk of side effects... Maybe it's DTaP that's really the cause, maybe it's the cumulative effect of so many vaccines that does it (or maybe it is indeed unrelated to vaccines, and our source of ignorance lies elesewhere)..
In the meantime, until science has identified what is causing autism, it'd be better to have a bit more humility over what we don't know rather than asserting that for sure MMR/etc are safe. It may save you from a lawsuit to later be able to tell the parent of an autistic child ("but all the tests at the time said the vaccine was safe"), but that doesn't help the parent or the child at all. I'd say err on the side of caution and weight the risks. Don't just mindlessly vaccinate against everything possible, and use the most convenient multi-disease shots (MMR, DTaP).
I was born in the UK in 1961, and so grew up in the era where we weren't vaccinated against things like measels and chicken pox, and so of course we caught them, and we were fine. There may be rare side effects of these diseases, but the coincident rise in autism coupled with the rise in vaccination at least doesn't indicate autism as one of the side effects. As it happened I also almost died as an infant as a result of the DTP vaccine, and consequently wasn't given the 2nd shot of the series. I did subsequently catch whooping cough, and although it was unpleasant, it's sure better than being dead.
Since my wife is due with our first child in January, the topic of vaccinations has much personal relevance, and while I certainly intend to vaccinate our child in general, I will be looking for a pediatrician who isn't too blase about the potential risks given our lack of knowledge about what does autism.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:4, Interesting)
Correlation != causation. There are data that suggest that a moist climate can bring about autism, or at least many came from most climates. My brother has autism sprectral disorder. Yes, we lived in a climate with 44+ inches of rain a year. So? I think a number of my family members going back generations had touches of Aspbergers. Is it in the genes? Can autism changes to the brain be triggered somehow, or by something?
Do we know if the MMR vaccine has quality control problems? That maybe there's more to the MMR than what it's supposed to prevent? Do we know any of this stuff?
No. We do not. It's sadly anecdotal except that we know more about ASD than ever before, in terms of post-diagnosis treatment. But because it's a spectral disorder, there are many conditions and variants to consider.
I had the measles. Both kinds. Didn't die. Mumps? Yes. No after-effects. But a classmate of mine had the mumps and nearly died; lost vision and hearing, and subsequently had lots of cardio issues to deal with from a damaged heart. Rubella? Haven't heard of a case in years. But I gave MMRs to both my children. They turned out ok. What might happen if I had a different batch? Dunno. Currently, the science behind all of this is very immature.
I vote for MMRs and additional research on all of the issues, especially drug dose QA and QC.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Interesting)
What amazes me is their complete inability to compare risk factors (tho this is much the same as Schneier talks about re perceived risk).
Chances of a mild reaction to whooping cough vaccine runs somewhere around 1 in 10,000, with the chance of a fatal reaction about 1 in 1 million (but in that case, the child's immune system is a bomb waiting to go off, and sooner or later something will get 'em).
Chances of death if the child contracts whooping cough: about 1 in 4 with modern hospitalization, or 1 in 2 without.
To me, that's a no-brainer.
The same bullshit is permeating the dog breeder community too -- "Vaccinosis" is now blamed for everything that can possibly go wrong! How about not breeding animals whose immune systems can't handle the trivial stimulation of a vaccine? And if they can't handle vaccine, how on earth are they expected to handle a realworld exposure, at hundreds or thousands of times the strength of vaccine??
Good Article, shame there arent more like this guy (Score:5, Interesting)
Ben Goldacre is actually an excellent journalist, a phrase that is increasingly becoming oxymoronic. He's happy exposing the BS of the big pharma companies, the alternative medicine quacks, and most importantly the media themselves.
In a media filled with "science correspondents" who either mindlessly reprint press releases or scaremonger to drive sales this is a breath of fresh air.
I really wish I could attribute the ignorant scaremongering of the media on issues like the MMR vaccine to the fact that most journalists have never even seen the inside of a science textbook. But I think the malaise runs far deeper.
The simple fact is that fear sells papers. Print a headline that strikes fear into the hearts of parents and they're likely to buy the paper to read the article. Printing a headline stating the opposite ( new study finds vaccines reduce asthma deaths ) just doesn't have the same emotional impact.
This extends beyond reporting on science to a wide range of topics. Look at the coverage given to vanishingly rare child abduction/murder cases for example. If you can generate fear you can shift product.
In a wider sense I'd also say that the atmosphere of fear this kind of media coverage generates is tolerated and even encouraged by owners and advertisers because it doesn't threaten their interests, and in many cases aligns with them.
If a paper was to start scaremongering to the same extent(i.e. fearmongering multi-page spreads several times a week) about the (very real) threats to it's readers from global warming, foreign wars or lax regulations, it would be branded as a crazy left wing rag and rapidly ditched by advertisers, assuming the owners didn't fire the journo's responsible first.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:1, Interesting)
Speaking of money, there is little money in a cure, however, treatment makes people wealthy. There is no desire to CURE people because it will lead to reduced revenues. If you can make people sicker with out their knowledge then that just adds to the treatment side of the biz. I am a victim of this. I have spent over a year researching this, and the body of evidence that supports hazards of Vaccines, Fluoride, Mercury, thimerosal and so on is irrefutable! Those of you that get all of your information from the "News" and Tv, such as the Discovery Channel and so on are being mislead. I urge you to use the resources available to you over the internet, alternative media is what journalism is all about. The corporate controlled media is bought and paid for by big money. Turn your tvs off and read a book, use the internet to research this stuff. Don't just parrot what you hear on the news. Learn your history, 1920s,30s,40s Germany, Italy, Russia, Iceland, Argentina any many others. Just as most stereotypes are based on 80% truth, so are most "conspiracy theorys". "Conspiracy Theory" is a term used to turn your mind off to any possibility of reality, you dismiss it before you every try to confirm or deny it yourself. I did the same thing, until i had problems that medicine could not explain, could not treat, i was on my own, i FOUND my cure and a lot of other information along the way. I implore you to unplug from the media machine and think for yourself, make your own conclusions, and assume that 90% of what you hear on the news and tv is total BS.
--geefy0 (I was to lazy to log in, and this is my first post)
Titer Tests (Score:2, Interesting)
My seven-year-old hasn't had any vaccines or boosters since she was three because she hasn't needed anything - NOTHING - she had all of the antibodies that she was tested for. Armed with this kind of knowledge, how can you NOT be skeptical of just following rest of the herd to shoot up our kids with unnecessary chemicals?
Helminthic Therapy to the Rescue (Score:4, Interesting)
Helminthic therapy [wikipedia.org] is the intentional infection of a person with a parasite. The parasite mitigates the immune response of the immune system. The idea is to choose a helminth (parasite) that 1) can't replicate in the body and 2) won't have any adverse side effects. Luckily there are two such species of parasite. These worms live in in the intestine and are well-tolerated by most individuals.
The effects of these buggers is reduces asthma, allergies, arthritis, and other issue from over-active immune systems.
The idea is that the human immune system evolved with these parasites, so they are factored into a balanced immune system. Clean societies don't have these, so the immune system overreacts, thus causing problems.
I plan to get it, (for my food allergies) but it is not yet accepted by western medicine.
PS. I am allergic to beef, chicken, egg (egg is used for the flu shot), all shellfish, corn, rye barley... the list goes on. I can't even drink beer, unless it is a special sorghum beer.
Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Science" (Score:3, Interesting)
I just finished Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Science" [amazon.co.uk] and I can highly recommend it.
Rich.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:3, Interesting)
Good to know that about measels. I may have been confusing german measels (which we did have, along with chicken pox) with real measels. Obviously we didn't have MMR back then, but maybe we were vaccinated against M&M.
Interesting also to know that about DT(a)P. I don't know if my childhood doctor was an idiot, but at least he made house calls! ;-) As it happens I was later vaccinated against tetanus and diptheria as part of a school trip to the middle east.
The trend for decades (Score:4, Interesting)
I find it miraculous that anyone of us over the age of 40 survived at all. There is so much hype about peanut butter allergies, laundry detergent allergies, supposedly deadly inoculations and the terrible dangers of dust and dirt.
In the 60's and 70's as elementary school students we all ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, played outside, ate dirt (not me but of of my younger siblings did), got scraped up, sunburned, poison ivy/oak/sumac and rolled around in the grass. If the prevalence of terrible medical conditions were so common as they are claimed of today, we would have all died before we were 11 years old.
How many children today are on Ritalin or other behavior modifying medicines? In my childhood if you acted up repeatedly you would be spanked with a belt or a shoe.
There is a common thread through all of this; more and more parents would rather assign some condition, allergy or psychological problem to their children, rather than accepting that their poor parenting skills and lack of oversight is the primary reason on why their children appear to have problems. So let's not get inoculations for our children, after all, smallpox, bubonic plague and malaria are all "natural" and we should live closer to nature.
The "victim" mentality is all pervasive and we are passing it off to our children. Should we really be surprised by the apathy and disconnection of our children from societal structures? This will be our legacy, civilizations who decline to these levels have traditionally collapsed after a few decades.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I'm in the 1% who got screwed over from NOT having the vaccine. I got mumps when I was 12, and I'm nearly completely deaf in one ear as a result. Completely preventable. Needless to say, we did do the research when it came to vaccines for our kids, and they both did get the MMR.
By the way, some people don't really get too much of a choice. One requirement to get a US greencard is to prove you've been vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:3, Interesting)
Being told by the doctor that it was just a coincidence was pretty insulting, as a fever is a pretty common side effect of vaccines.
Also, a fever that high, even in an infant, can be fairly serious and needs to be controlled and brought down to prevent permanent damage.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:2, Interesting)
Dude, there are plenty of other culprits that make a hell of a lot more sense than the repeatedly-investigated-and-dismissed vaccines.
Better culprits: PCB. Corn Syrup. Organophosphates. Hormones in milk. Radon. Radio waves.
There's literally dozens of better culprits out there, especially as childhood vaccines haven't used mercury-based thiomersal since 1999, which was supposed to be the original reason vaccines were causing autism, as some sort of weird mercury poisoning.
And yet autism hasn't gone down since then, leading people into the totally insane theory that vaccines themselves are causing it, which doesn't even make any sense.
Here's a hint: If conspiracy theorists have to change how something worked, but it mysteriously has exactly the same effects, that's called 'moving the goalposts'. They argued for a decade that it was mercury poisoning, and that treatments designed to remove mercury from the system helped, and, hey, they've been revealed to be entirely full of crap(1) as people who get non-mercury vaccines get autism at the same rate. (Granted, people who didn't get vaccines at all also got autism, too, so I don't know why I'd expect actual facts to slow them down.)
No, I'm not saying thiomersal was a good idea, or that we shouldn't have gotten rid of it, but we've pretty clearly demonstrated it wasn't causing autism.
1) Incidentally, mercury in the environment, put out by coal plants, could still conceivable be the villain. But that has nothing to do with vaccines, and thanks to the stupid theory of mercury in vaccines causing autism, there have been dozens of studies of mercury levels in autism sufferers and no link has even been found.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm going to ASSuME here that you don't have kids or you really ought to know by now that any competent doctor, upon administering any of the childhood vaccines, will caution a parent that the child may feel lethargic and develop a fever in response to the injection.
Most vaccines are made out of killed virii. They provoke an immune response in the human system. It's what makes them work. The body tries to fight off what is essentially a dead invader. But in the process, it develops antibodies against future infections.
Fever, is part of the body's antiquated immune system. It's caused by our body trying to cook off the invasion. Unfortunately, the bugs learned how to cope with it long ago which is why we don't hesitate to medicate it down with Tylenol.
The real issue for concern out of the childhood vaccines is the suspension solution they are delivered in. This contains preservatives to provide shelf-life and enhance the vaccine's effectiveness since we don't have Just-In-Time medical vaccination infrastructure. Some of the happy ingredients you'll find in common vaccines are formaldehyde (poison) and thimerosal (poison) which breaks down into ethylmercury (poison) and also raw mercury (poison).
Adding to these concerns are the insistence by the AMA to deliver these childhood injections in bulk at early ages. Under the typical immunization schedule, children under 2 years are regularly dosed with 3-4 vaccines, significantly increasing their exposures to the toxic preservatives.
If you want to trust your government and believe that the FDA knows what they are doing and would never lie to you or cover the truth to enhance corporate profits, then you have nothing to worry about. But if you are a student of history or merely read the news on a regular basis, you might wonder if the FDA really has your best interests in mind when they claim that small amounts of these known toxins are just fine for your newborn baby.
But don't mind me. I'm just a raving lunatic father who insisted on reading up on these things and forced our doctor to both delay immunizations as long as possible and space them out over a longer period to reduce the risk to our children. None of my kids turned out autistic which proves absolutely nothing, but then, I wasn't worried about proving a point, I was merely concerned about the well-being of each and every one of my precious offspring.
Re:Too many coincidences (Score:3, Interesting)
So you're right to follow the money. You just followed it the wrong way. Andrew Wakefield is the lead author of the 1998 medical article that first conjectured a link between vaccines and autism. He was paid hefty sums to write his controversial article by companies working on non-mercury vaccinatons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield [wikipedia.org]
Re:Power Lines (Score:3, Interesting)
Other studies have concluded that any other correlation between childhood cancers and powerlines were either statistical noise, or due to other factors such as the higher likelihood that the lines would be located near industrial residential areas.
I have a friend who's a radiologist. He's an extremely sharp guy and I've heard people say that he's really good at his job. And yet, he and his wife fought tooth and nail to try to keep a cell phone tower being put up a mile from their house because they didn't want to be irradiated.
Great guy, but the logical disconnect here almost drove me to drink.
Re:The needs of the many vs. the needs of the few. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes a certain percentage die of vaccines, the over-all benefit to society is huge.
The top 10 causes of death in the first part of the 20'th century were diseases we have conquered with vaccines.
Before the vaccine, ~10% of children contracted polio, ~10% of those died of the disease. That's 1% of the population. Many of the 9% that survived, survived with some level of paralysis.
Think about your class size, picture 1% dying of just polio. Now add a few more percent for Measles, Mumps, Rubella (collectively MMR), Whooping cough, Typhoid fever, Yellow fever, valley fever...
And the only control at the time was quarantine. With a positive identification for a communicable disease, the doctor called the health department who put a yellow quarantine sign on your house (required by law).
Re:Too many coincidences (Score:3, Interesting)
Not quite. This was the first vaccine scare, which was not about mercury, but about the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine (which has never contained mercury).
But you are close: Wakefield had a patent on a supposedly safer measles-only vaccine, as well as making hundreds of thousands of dollars testifying in vaccine-injury cases. His claims were based on a scientifically ridiculous hypothesis, and other labs without a financial interest were unable to reproduce the "evidence" supporting his claims.