Bill Gates Says Anti-Vaccine Effort Kills Children 832
Hugh Pickens writes writes "CNN has an interesting interview with Bill Gates who says that unbelievable progress is being made in both inventing new vaccines and making sure they get out to all the children who need them. The improvements could cut the number of children who die every year from about 9 million to half that. But Gates has harsh words for those who engage in anti-vaccine efforts, especially Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who falsified data to 'prove' a fraudulent link between vaccines and autism. 'It's an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids,' says Gates. 'Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn't have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today.'"
obligatory Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo97VouL0ls [youtube.com]
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
You're wrong. Vaccination relies on masses of people being vaccinated. Vaccines do not provide 100% protection. So even if you are vaccinated, if the guy sitting next to you in class is a bag of germs, you can still be infected. Vaccination greatly reduces the *probability* that you will be infected, but it does not *eliminate* it.
The anti-vaccine people have harmed many thousands of people, directly and indirectly.
Re:Reason for the hullabaloo wasn't as stated (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
You are wrong. Vaccine immunity is a statistical thing rather than an absolute. A typical vaccine might fully immunize about 80% of the recipients of the vaccine. Others might have weaker immunity or none at all. This means by not immunizing you not only endanger yourself but the people who have had the vaccine and not obtained full immunity.
The immunity of the population is cumulative as function of the total number of people immunized and the efficacy of the vaccine.
This is why laws requiring everyone that doesn't have a compelling medical reason for getting the vaccination are justified.
Re:Why would some people think that ? (Score:3, Informative)
>how in the hell could better vaccines and better health care help lower the world population?
Populations who have lower rates of disease, and better access to health care, tend to have smaller families because they don't have to have more kids as a hedge against their own death rate.
Smaller families becomes a snowball effect to more wealth, and even better access to healthcare.
Oh, and what's so bad about population control?
Re:He's right (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full
http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/pdfs/S0140673610601754.pdf
Wakefield has been widely discredited for quite some time. His results have never been duplicated, studies have failed to demonstrate a link between vaccines and autism, and the scapegoat additive thiomersal (or thimerosal) was taken out of vaccines in 2001 to no effect.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Wakefield's not even a doctor anymore... (Score:5, Informative)
Of the 12 children in his study, children who supposedly developed entercolitis and then regressive autism after the MMR vaccination, only one of the 12 had regressive autism. Three didn't have autism at all. Five had developmental problems noted in their records before their MMR vaccine. The development of problems wasn't nearly as sudden as claimed (often months elapsed). Nine of the children's bowel tests were reported as "non-specific colitis" despite testing normal. Many of the children were recruited from lawyers who were hoping to sue the vaccine makers (can we say 'confirmation bias'?).
Most of these latter revelations have just come to light [telegraph.co.uk]. I can only imagine how hard it must be to be in your position, to want to find an answer for causation. Especially if your child did have entercolitis and then regressive autism. But you should be aware that there isn't a shred of evidence to support this claim. Not a shred.
Also, Dr. Gupta is bordering on irresponsibility (imo) when he says to Gates, "There has been a lot of news about is there a connection with autism, for example. What do you make of all that? Dr. [Andrew] Wakefield wrote a paper about this [in The Lancet in 1998] saying he thought there was a connection." He may be a journalist, but he is a doctor first, and he could have formed his question in a way that more clearly stated what he surely knows to be facts (that Wakefield isn't licensed anymore, that the paper has been retracted and proven to be fraudulent). It's this sort of undue politeness in dancing around the truth that leave doubts in the minds of parents like yourself.
I've seen children dying of measles (in Kaduna State, northern Nigeria), and it's a terrible thing to have to see. In the case of Nigeria, it's a rumor about infertility drugs concealed in vaccines that led to a lot of resistance-to-consent amongst certain communities, and there too the damage of such a provably fraudulent statement has been a long time in undoing. I know it's tempting, maybe even easier to just believe whatever some conspiracy theorist says, but it's important to trust in the thousands of scientists who are advancing the science of saving lives, rather than the few psuedo-scientists who are trying to advance their own notoriety and financial positions.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Specifically about Asshole Andrew Wakefield's ("who used to be a doctor but is now just a guy") fraudulent falsification of results in order to line his own pockets with money from a firm of lawyers who wanted to sue pharmaceutical companies.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Why is the commenter worried? If his children have been 'vaccinated', then how can they catch measles?
Many vaccines are not (cannot be?) given until a certain age. If enough people go unvaccinated that outbreaks become possible, children too young to receive the vaccine can become infected. There is also, of course, the cost to society as a whole when there is an outbreak.
Re:Reason for the hullabaloo wasn't as stated (Score:5, Informative)
Wakefield was doing everything the conspiracy theorists usually ascribe to the immoral, illicit and illegal activities of "Big Pharma". Actually breaking up the MMR into 3 separate individual immunizations would do nothing but increase the profits of big pharma and the administering physicians.
Re:Please Show Me Evidence. Seriously. Please. (Score:5, Informative)
Link please?
I'm all for vaccination--let's just get that out of the way up front. Wakefield has been up to no good. But Bill Gates is now on record saying that thousands of children have died as a result of Wakefield's work. I have yet to see any empirical evidence of this. Indeed, the only evidence I've seen at all (that Wakefield has had real impact) is anecdotal and often turns out to be attributable to other forces (e.g. illegal immigrants who don't know they can get free vaccinations, religious parents who refuse vaccinations anyway, that sort of thing).
It bothers me that in an argument about the unempirical, biased work of one scientist, we are trotting out in opposition not truth but different lies. This is a very big problem! And yet we are all so angry at Wakefield that no one appears willing to call Gates on the carpet to explain what he is talking about and where his data is coming from. So have we decided that lies and invented statistics are okay so long as they support something we like? Come on, people. We're better than that.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=measles+outbreak [lmgtfy.com]
This is bullshit, and you know it. (Score:5, Informative)
Show us figures on what percentage of children in outbreaks of measles, for example, have been 'vaccinated'. Strangely enough, we never get to see those figures.
Let's look at your CDC link, since it has the exact info you want. In that case, all of the persons who developed measles had been vaccinated. So you win a point. Or do you? About fifteen percent of children vaccinated against measles won't develop immunity with the first jab, which is why a second is recommended. (Also, just for reference, the vaccine is most effective after 12 months of age, and not effective at all before six months.) So it's possible, maybe even likely that these students hadn't had their second jab (which would make 85% of the students immune, and 15% vulnerable — "The highest attack rate was 12% (9/74) for the 11th grade students (p 0.02)"). Furthermore, as I am sure you know, your immune system's memory (B-cells) 'forgets' threats over time, which is what creates the need for booster shots. The CDC indirectly notes this, "The attack rate was four times greater for students vaccinated 10 or more years before the outbreak than for students vaccinated more recently (p 0.05)". Lastly, the measles vaccine is very temperamental in its cold storage, with an acceptable range of 8 degrees, and any variance outside this range reduces its efficacy.
You lap up whatever the shills in the media tell you, then lambast anybody intelligent enough to question it...
The real reason I'm replying is that I want to address this comment above. I don't just lap up whatever I'm handed. Do you? When was the last time you were doing epidemiological field work? I just came back from northern Nigeria, where I was observing UNICEF and government health teams vaccinate kids, and independently surveilling measles outbreaks occurring now. Before that I was in Ghana, also working with government health teams to observe the vaccination of children, but I wasn't able to see any outbreaks. Why not? Because Ghana doesn't have outbreaks, because they maintain herd immunity amongst their under-five population. The region (like a state) I was living in for this period has a prevalence of higher than 90% for MMR vaccination, and Ghana hasn't had a measles death since 2003. In Nigeria the prevalence for vaccination in Kaduna State is around 13% for coverage of recommended vaccines, and it gets as low as 0% if you go to Jigawa State. So I'm not just lapping up whatever the "media" tells me (in fact the media is woefully silent on these sorts of matters, because most Westerners care more about Tiger Woods' indiscretions than dying kids in Nigeria), I've been in the thick of it and I've seen kids dying from measles. When was the last time (if ever?) you actually looked into this besides just lapping up what a few outcast theorists have told you to believe?
the real reason for the great reductions in some of the diseases they 'vaccinated' against - huge improvements in SANITATION.
Look, this is just bullshit, too. I've lived in Ghana, where there is sporadic running water (that you cannot drink without boiling) and no electricity and people defecate in the bush. And I've lived in Nigeria where the exact same is true. Yet in Ghana measles isn't a problem, and in Nigeria it is. This is just my anecdote, but if you look at where kids are dying from measles (or whatever disease) and you control for sanitation, you'll see that it isn't a factor. Polio (hep A, tyhpoid, cholera, etc) are spread by feces, so handwashing helps immensly there, and standing water breeds malaria (well, Anopheles mosquitoes that carry it), but there's about the extent of your sanitation argument. Once we get away from diarrheaol diseases and look at measles, sanitation isn't a factor at all (compared to rates of vaccination).
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, you really are a fool. You have no idea about herd immunity, nor do you understand how vaccines have changed the world.
Polio is still a massive problem in the 3rd world, as is TB and other diseases that have been all but eradicated in industrialised nations. All it would take is a generation if idiots like you to put the industrialised world back to where the 3rd world is.
Having lived in Cambodia and seen first hand what polio, TB, measles outbreaks, and the like can do, well, I can assure you that vaccination is worth it. Whether it is 100% effective or not. Again, herd immunity.
Your arguments don't hold up when looking at outbreaks from an immunologists point of view. The whole idea is herd immunity, not that the vaccine works on everyone. Once vaccination rates are above 90% it's quite difficult for a disease to move from small outbreak to pandemic. Your argument that there's no mention of how many vaccinated people caught the measles means nothing, it's actually the worst way to back your argument up - There's no data on this therefore it must exist!
Questioning something with an intelligent argument backed up by research and logic is valid, questioning without any intelligent argument and using a lack of data to back your argument up is beyond stupid.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
You fail at "I have a basic understanding of the world I live in 101". Go to www.gapminder.org . Watch the videos, peruse the data.
In short: the only path out of overpopulation is development. Again and again, we see that when infant mortality rates fall the families become precipitously smaller. Because all humans understand the concept of "I have a kid, he probably won't die, and if I have only one (perhaps two), he can go to school and have a life better than mine beyond my wildest dreams".
Vaccination, because it enhances child survival, is a crucial tool against overpopulation and for development.
On surviving the first five years of life. (Score:5, Informative)
However, the World Health Organization reports 164,000 deaths per year from measles (which is the leading cause of death among children), not the millions claimed by Mr. Gates.
Gates was speaking about all preventable diseases in children - and from here it looks like he got his numbers right.
Major Causes of Death in Children Under Five in Developing Countries and the Contribution of Malnutrition [usaid.gov] [source: WHO and The Lancet, 2005]
Pneumonia 19%
Diarrhea 17%
Malaria 8%
Measles 4%
HIV/AIDS 3%
Although approximately 10.5 million children under 5 years of age still die every year in the world, progress has been made since 1970, when the figure was more than 17 million. ...
Today nearly all child deaths occur in developing countries, almost half of them in Africa. While some African countries have made considerable strides in reducing child mortality, the majority of African children live in countries where the survival gains of the past have been wiped out, largely as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Surviving the first five years of life [who.int] [2003]
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, is this the same Dr. Hadwen who is known for his "denial of the germ theory of disease" [wikipedia.org]? The same Dr. Hadwen who spoke in the late 1800's and early 1900's against vaccination?
Yes, I'm sure he has a lot of relevant medical opinions. Maybe he can tell us all about how the Black Bile Humor [wikipedia.org] causes most of our diseases, and recommend Bloodletting [wikipedia.org] by leeches as a remedy for every ailment we get, as well?
Sorry, pal, but questioning his medical opinion today is pretty much mandatory for anybody who professes to have an understanding of science, biology, and disease.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
"One thing I've never understood, however . . . is why we care so much about ensuring that EVERYONE gets a series of vaccinations? I mean, as long as I'm vaccinated and I vaccinate my kid, what the fuck does it matter if five kids in their class don't get vaccinated? "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity [wikipedia.org]
If there aren't enough vaccinated people around, and the disease is in the community, and you or your family can't have the vaccine for some reason (e.g. egg allergy, for a common one) ... then you're fucked. It's in your interest that as many people as possible around you get the vaccine too.
Re:Add Bill Maher to your list (Score:1, Informative)
The threat from influenza is overstated [unreasonable.org],and according to the available evidence flu vacccines are not useful for the general population [unreasonable.org] or for the elderly [unreasonable.org]. (There may be a benefit for the immune-compromised.) That makes widespread flu vaccination at best a waste of resources, at worst an exposure to risk of various side-effects without gain.
Understanding this is not not the same as being opposed to vaccinations against more deadly diseases. I never get a flu shot; but I got my Tdap booster a few months ago. And even though it made me feel like crap for a day or two, for serious diseases like tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis it's worth the risk of a reaction.
The WHO actually changed the definition of a pandemic in May 2009 so that H1N1 would qualify [bmj.com], removing the qualification that an outbreak must cause "enormous numbers of deaths and illness". And it estimated that 2 billion H1N1 cases were likely -- 1 out of 3 human beings on the whole planet -- even after the winter season in Australia and New Zealand showed that only about one to two out of 1000 people were infected.
It did this while taking advice from people with financial and research ties with Big Pharma companies that produced antivirals and vaccines [bmj.com]; one researcher who wrote key guidelines had been paid by Roche and GlaxoSmithKline.
There is definitely questionable behavior, conflict of interest, and lack of transparency here. Business as usual for Big Pharma.
You certainly ought to get kids vaccinated again polio, MMR, and other real threats for which effective vaccines are available. Influenza, however does not appear to fit into that category.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
You might want to rethink your stance on Chicken Pox vaccines.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/varicella/dis-faqs-gen.htm
"Many people are not aware that before a vaccine was available approximately 10,600 persons were hospitalized and 100 to 150 died as a result of chickenpox in the U.S. every year."
"Can a healthy person who gets varicella die from the disease?
Yes. Many of the deaths and complications from chickenpox occur in previously healthy children and adults. From 1990 to 1994, before a vaccine was available, about 50 children and 50 adults died from chickenpox every year; most of these persons were healthy or did not have a medical illness (such as cancer) that placed them at higher risk of getting severe chickenpox. Since 1999, states have been encouraged to report chickenpox deaths to CDC. These reports have shown that some deaths from chickenpox continue to occur in healthy, unvaccinated children and adults. Most of the healthy adults who died from chickenpox contracted the disease from their unvaccinated children."
Re:This is bullshit, and you know it. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Topical (Score:5, Informative)
I've heard her on the radio where she managed to convince people that a vaccine with no mercury in it would give their children autism via mercury poisoning. That's not logic, that's fucking sympathetic magic. That nasty sociopath manipulates people for fun as her hobby and speaks like an accomplished and well practised confidence trickster.
One of her arguments can basically be summed up as this: nobody with any sort of education or experience can be trusted because that will cloud their judgement.
That viewpoint holds everyone reading this in contempt. She is not on the side of anybodies children, she only wants to play games.
Re:Lie in summary (Score:5, Informative)
The BMJ, the Lancet, Neurotoxicology, The American Journal of Gastroenterology, The UK General Medical Council. How many peers do you need?
Re:Add Bill Maher to your list (Score:5, Informative)
Guess you fell asleep in grade school health class, so here's a refresher with as little medical/science junk as possible.
Antibiotics attack and kill the microbes. If they don't kill all of them, the survivors might reproduce into an infection resistant to that antibiotic.
Vaccines hype up your immune system so it can identify and kill the target microbe when/if you get infected, it's like giving your friends the heads up and phone number of that total creepazoid so you can hit ignore when he/she calls.
There, did that make sense to you? If you want to know more, pick up any pamphlet on vaccinations at any accredited medical facility, like a licensed physicians office, licensed pharmacy, the hospital, urgent care (if you have that), etc, just not the dippy new age stuff that got you into stupid in the first place.
There's a lot more to immunology, but this isn't the place to discuss it. You can find it if you want, but please stop listening to bubblegum pundits, they'll get you killed with their "medical opinions".
Patents probably kill people too (Score:2, Informative)
Now there is another problem. In poorer countries people are unable to afford medication because of patents. Gates is and has always been a strong proponent of patents.
Re:Add Bill Maher to your list (Score:4, Informative)
This is simply not true.
You cannot "train" you immune system. Letting the immune system fight the flu does not make it better at fighting anything else.
The end result for the immune system after fighting a virus infection is the same as you get by taking a vaccine; anti-bodies.
The historical "strengthening" of the immune system by letting it fight it's own battles only works on a population level. Those with a weak immune system dies; the ones who survive doesn't get stronger (but the % of the population with a strong immune system increases). Some ant-vaccination wackos base their argument on this (we serve evolution by letting the weak die).