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."
Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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 t
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
My daughter got the MMR a month or two ago and she ended up with a week of 106F fever.
So the doctor told you that the fever was a result of the MMR or did you come up with the diagnosis yourself?
I'm just saying that it could have been a coincidence. Perhaps it wasn't the vaccine but some other cause after all kids do tend to get sick.
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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:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
Whereas I've had Mumps and Rubella, and the fever was worse and I felt horrible and missed school for over a week each time. 2 days, 2 weeks ... my kids are immunized, thanks.
Could the Vaccination Scare KILL YOUR CHLDREN? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am waiting for the stories blaming the scare for the disease to come out. It has to happen eventually. The media just needs to make sure that they don't make the dumbass parents look like dumbasses for being dumbasses about not vaccinating their kids.
Sort of a "i know we sold you on not doing this thing, but now that you aren't doing this thing and your kids are dying, we decided to tell you that the people who made up how bad this thing was were dumb and we were just following the press coverage heard, so get mad at them."
It'll happen. You heard it here first.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:4, Insightful)
Having said that, some vaccines are unneeded in my opinion; chicken pox, for example, is irritating but better to "experience" as a child.
Are you kidding? Shingles is a potentially disfiguring, often extremely painful event that happens at one time or another to many people who get chicken pox as a kid (shingles isn't acquired... it's a re-surfacing of the virus from within your body). I am glad that a couple of small shots my kids had as an infant will prevent him from ever getting shingles.
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> It contains antibodies to vpds (vaccine preventable diseases) as well as the illness du jour
Sounds like passive immunization to me, so the effects should quickly fade after your stop drinking that breast milk.
> it contains healthful bacterium (now marketed as pro-biotics in your friendly formula brand)
Seriously? I didn't know. I'm not saying you're wrong, but how the hell did those bacteria get in that milk?
> as well as stem-cells
Huh? What use are orally ingested stem cells from another organism
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:4, Insightful)
Unvaccinated, breastfed kids don't generally get sick. (very rarely)
Yes; that's so true. In fact in the past, say 1000 years ago, when there were no vaccines and all kids were breast fed, there used to be no infant mortality at all. </sarcasm>
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
NO, that is not true. Breastfeeding improves the baby's immune system, but it does NOT provide the same kind of specific immunity that a vaccine does. Please stop spreading lies that endanger the public health.
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'post hoc ergo propter hoc'
Its a classic logical fallacy.
Humans are very good in finding 'connections' where there are none.
Its probably some trait we got a long time ago when being a paranoid critter with an overactive imagination gave you a better change not to be eaten by a predator.
Re:Too many coincidences (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is no connection why do we see so many stories similar to mine?
Because the age that vaccines are given is the same age that the symptoms of autism (et al) start to manifest. It's as simple as that.
People have tried vaccines without mercury. People have tried giving vaccines at different times. People have tried forgoing vaccines. And guess what? The same percentage of each group of kids developed all the same awful conditions that are blamed on vaccines.
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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_ [wikipedia.org]
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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
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're so certain you're correct and can back it up with reproducible data, why not submit your study or meta-analysis to a major journal like JAMA, NEJM or The Lancet? The basic idea is that the risks from vaccination are outweighed by the risks of getting the disease your are vaccinating against.
If you can conclusively prove that the risks associated with vaccination outweighs the morbidity and mortality rates of the the disease itself, you should have no problem persuading the medical community at large. Personally I sincerely doubt that this is the case and as a such have had my own children fully vaccinated.
PS: (Score:3, Informative)
BTW: It's not compulsory to be educated to be a skeptic but it is cumpulsory to be skeptical [wikipedia.org] to be properly educated.
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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 (collectivel
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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).
Are you sure about this? My understanding is that mercury-based vaccine preservatives were done away with at least five years ago, if not longer. I believe it was done in large part to allay parents fears about giving their children vaccines.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Informative)
Yellow fever vaccine is a live virus (though it is attenuated).
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Live != Active
I can't think of a single vaccine that's made from a completely live virus (that would be called a virus, not a vaccine).
In addition the term live virus is a bit of a non-sequitur in and of itself btw.
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Maybe he meant Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.
Laugh, dammit.
Lack of Interest in Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the story about the dangers of germ-free environments [findarticles.com]. Specifically, excessive attempts to elminate germs can, in addition to creating super-bugs, cause our immune system to malfunction. Without the constant exercisng of our immune system by germs, our immune system goes into overdrive by generating an immune response to things (e.g., pollen) that are not germs.
The above story appeared for a brief moment in the news and then disappeared. Meanwhile, the quantity of advertisements for anti-bacterial products (containing triclosan) has exploded. The public prefers to watch pseudo-science commericials instead of genuine-science news stories.
The anti-science public does not care about science. If the public did care about science, it would have dramatically reduced its purchases of anti-bacterial products (thus protecting the health and lives of Americans). So, when the public does not care about science, science-related stories appear briefly in the news media and then quickly fade away in favor of stories about, say, Paris Hilton.
Re:Lack of Interest in Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider the story about the dangers of germ-free environments. Specifically, excessive attempts to elminate germs can, in addition to creating super-bugs, cause our immune system to malfunction. Without the constant exercisng of our immune system by germs, our immune system goes into overdrive by generating an immune response to things (e.g., pollen) that are not germs.
Yeah, it's difficult to find soap that is not "antibacterial" today. Which is odd as just soap and water used properly will do the job.
But let's not forget it was science that taught us about germs in the first place. It's been hammered home since microbes were first discovered that bacteria and virus were to be avoided at all costs. Now the opposite is true?
I can see why most people would rather read about Paris Hilton than try to decide which scientific report to believe.
Then there's X-Ray Spex's [youtube.com] take on the subject;-)
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There is no resistance danger from products that physically rip the cells apart (this is bleach, alcohol, etc.). Those products are capitalizing on emotionally manipulating people, but they aren't causing difficulty for people trying to treat infections.
Consumer soaps that are marketed as antibacterial generally contain triclosan, full stop. Hand sanitizers are indeed often alcohol based, but they are marketed as killing germs, not as being antibacterial.
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.
Re:Helminthic Therapy to the Rescue (Score:5, Funny)
Today, I bow to dedicate my entire week's worth of beer fund to creating scorp1us foundation for cure to this despicable disease.
Join me, fellow slashdoters, to bring some gleam of hope and cure for this poor little sap.
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Given the number of food allergies you have, it sounds like you ALREADY have a parasite. Both my wife and I picked up giardia somewhere, and it's caused all kinds of health problems, along with a list of food sensitivities. I did an IgG food sensitivity panel and my test results make me look like an AIDS patient (although I am HIV negative). I've taken Tinidazole for the giardia, but that didn't work so I'm on Metronidazole right now.
You should also be checked for problems with neuraltransmitters and hor
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>The effects of these buggers is reduces asthma, allergies, arthritis, and other issue from over-active immune systems.
So you say. Cam you site any double-blind studies by respected researchers publishing in peer-reviewed journals? It seems everyone has a crackpot theory on the immune system nowadays, yet I constantly am seeing a lack of results from these crazy ideas. Kids growing up "dirty" and kids growing up "clean" tend to have the same health issues as adults. Auto-immune diseases look genetic or p
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Well if you're immune system is expressing large amounts of chitinase because of the vaccine, I wouldn't be surprised if it leads to things like asthma.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitinase [wikipedia.org] :
As such, it is unsurprisingly related to allergies. What is surprising, perhaps, is that asthma in particular has been linked to enhanced chitinase expression levels.[14][15][16][17][18]
Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to something that may seriously harm your child, whether it be vaccines or the illnesses the vaccines prevent against, it is your responsibility as a parent to not go off half-cocked and to make extremely sure that you have all the facts before you make a decision regarding the welfare of your child. If you're not up to that responsibility, then you shouldn't have custody of your kids. Plain and simple.
*Father*
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to something that may seriously harm your child, whether it be vaccines or the illnesses the vaccines prevent against, it is your responsibility as a parent to not go off half-cocked and to make extremely sure that you have all the facts before you make a decision regarding the welfare of your child. If you're not up to that responsibility, then you shouldn't have custody of your kids. Plain and simple.
*Father*
Or why not ask your physician who, I would think, knows a bit more than a writer who does the bare minimum of research, if any, to meet his deadline.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, because Western medical practitioners are conspiring against us, didn't you know?~
But a little more seriously, I think many people are getting suspicious of doctors who are too quick with the prescription pad, and don't spend much time actually doing preventative, or even curative, medicine.
Anecdotes factor in to the story as well. A friend of the family has a son who's autistic. The boy is 13 years old, handsome, has some artistic talent, and wears a diaper because he's totally incontinent. His mom swears up and down that she can trace the changes in him to the very day he got his 18 month MMR. Even if it's anecdotal, a story like that puts the fear into you when you have your own baby.
My wife and I thought about it carefully, and did consult with our family doctor, who is very strict about research-based medicine, and doesn't like to pull out the prescription pad for the least little thing. He recommended going with the shots, but also told us that he takes extra precautions with the vaccines (this was before the latest research). Him, we trust.
Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.
No, what will happen is that there will be a spike in previously preventable diseases due to unvaccinated kids, which will eventually bring about a mutation in the pathogen which will then infect your vaccinated child, or possibly you yourself, who is no longer protected because the anti-vaccine crowd gave the disease a breeding ground and place to evolve to evade the vaccine-created immunity.
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Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Informative)
But a little more seriously, I think many people are getting suspicious of doctors who are too quick with the prescription pad, and don't spend much time actually doing preventative, or even curative, medicine.
As a doctor, I agree wholeheartedly. There are a number of reasons for this, but, honestly, the biggest reason is this is just not paid for. The biggest insurers in this country - medicaid and medicare do not pay for annual preventative health visits except for children. Also, they pay per visit, not what you did or how good a job you did as a doctor. I can spend 30 minutes discussing stuff with my patents about non-medicine treatments, about vaccines or whatever (and I do because I consider it my job to do what is best for my patients), but I won't get paid a dime to do it by their insurance for all that extra time with them or for many of the preventative health visits. That costs me quite a bit of money actually. I have to pay staff and office cost so it comes straight out of my families pocket. Many docs, are understandably (to a certain degree) not willing to make that sacrifice.
This also might lead you to understand why docs get upset with the Jenny McCarthy types. If we spend more time talking about why vaccines are safe, we either have less time to talk about stuff that might be more important or just sacrifice and lose more money ourselves and at the same time make other patients wait longer.
I do make this sacrifice and build it into my schedule, but I make about 30-50% of most my colleuges for it and I spend more time than most of them working because of it. Most of my patients would agree I'm a much better doctor than most for it. Other than knowing I do a good job, I am essentially punished for it. Our system in the US is screwed. My only recourse to maintain this type of care and make a competitive salary is to do boutique medicine. I'm not sure I'm willing to do that because it would exclude all of my poorer patients.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for the insight. I live in Canada, incidentally, but the situation is similar. The government pays on a per-visit basis, not by time, and so it benefits a GP to squeeze as many visits into a day as possible.
There seems to be something else at work though. My doctor, who sounds a lot like you in some ways, is not very popular where I live (a small community of about 10,000). To some extent this can be attributed to his bedside manner, which isn't great, but also I think it's because people know he won't give pain meds at the drop of a hat. He's also been so indiscreet as to suggest that people with chronic pain disorders might benefit from seeing a psychologist, something that doesn't fly too well with the auto-accident litigation industry here.
I think that there is a strong push to prescription-pad medicine from the patients' side as well. People want the quick fix that makes them better. They don't want to hear that pain relief won't fix their problem. They don't want to hear that exercise and a healthy diet are really the only way to lose weight safely. They want magic.
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This also might lead you to understand why docs get upset with the Jenny McCarthy types.
This is why I love America. What's a better source of medical information than a doctor? The lady who blows Jim Carrey, thats who.
SMOKIN!
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But it is worth noting that they mention t
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I'm pretty sure the Hippocratic oath does not specify that doctors are required to commit insurance fraud.
That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Make extremely sure that you have all the facts"? I'm a continuous skeptic about everything, and from what I've read, I'm 99.99% sure that autism and vaccines are not linked in any way - but the cause of autism is not known, so it would be irresponsible for me to run out and declare that I'm 100% sure. I'm not sure, and neither are you, and if you claim you're 100% sure, then you're being religious instead of scientific.
A parent who is less sure, say 90% sure, now has to balance the effects and probabilities that on the one hand, that the kid will get the almost-never-lethal-or-disabling measles; and on the other hand a minute chance that the kid will get the disabling malady of autism. It's their kid, so I find it unsurprising that parents are simply skipping the vaccines as long as there's the shadow of a doubt.
The only way to get the parents back on vaccine schedules is to determine the cause of autism.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Informative)
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Information from experts in your life is how you make decisions on which video card to get, which new TV to get, which video game system to buy, which new game to get for it.
Nobody alive is an expert in all fields, and everyone has to put trust in others. That trust is sometimes misplaced, sometimes misplaced in authority, sometimes in lack of authority.
Blaming people for listening to 'other people' and not doing their own research is just stupid -- there's no possibility, and I mean _NONE_ that any human
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??
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:4, Insightful)
And you miss out the prisoner's dilemma.
If you're the only one that doesn't get vaccinated then that's fine, but the moment it becomes popular then whooping cough rapidly becomes more common.
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You misunderstand me: I wasn't advocating not getting vaccinated; I was pointing out that Reziac himself committed exactly the statistical fallacy he was complaining about!
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Not really, because it only takes one case to generate an epidemic among unvaccinated subjects. So the very low odds of catching it in the first place only apply to the first case.
In a given population, about 85% must be vaccinated to achieve a "herd immunity" effect for unvaccinates (that is, a *lack of opportunity to be exposed* to active disease). But when the vaccinates drop below about 85%, you have conditions conducive to an epidemic.
So yes, the very occasional unvaccinate is not really at risk. Howev
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the solution is basic education in the scientific method and statistics for everyone, beginning in elementary school.
This is wrong. People don't care. Teaching about the scientific method and statistics won't make them care. It's too many steps removed from the vaccine issue for the average attention-span anyway.
We have a cultural problem. It's not about the scientific method. People believe in conspiracy theories. People believe in shadowy corporations who are secretly out to get them. People believe in secret cover-ups. People believe everyone's got a hidden agenda or a conflict of interest. But, most importantly, people believe they're the exception. They have it figured out. They're wise. They're not going to be fooled like everyone else.
It's a self-esteem problem -- too much self-esteem. It's a lack of respect for others. It's laziness. It's irresponsibility. It's self-focus and emotional self-investment. It's not being completely grown-up.
The scientific method won't help because it's only useful if the answer it leads to fulfills some emotional need you have. Otherwise, it can be discounted in favor of the process that leads to a more fulfilling answer.
I don't know what the solution is. Removing some of the societal rewards for making bad choices would help.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Insightful)
We may not know what causes autism, but we do know what causes measles, and whooping cough, and we know that both of these can cause death. We also know how to prevent them. Also there is a bigger connection with autism rates and cable television expansion, and the rise of the internet, I hope you think carefully about letting either cable television or a high speed internet connection in your house.
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, Informative)
IAAP (I am a physician - specifically pediatrics). First off, "you" may have been "fine" when you "got measles," but the population of England wasn't. Measles isn't chicken pox - it's a LOT worse. It's pretty rare to die of pox, but measles will kill you, give you encephalitis, make you go deaf, or a lot of horrible, horrible things. It's not just a bunch of itchy spots for a month.
And second, as for your reaction to the DTaP vaccine, there is a widely known side effect of the vaccine (specifically the "P" part against Pertussis, aka Whopping Cough). We are well aware of the side effect and it is known. That is not the same as speculation about an unproven side effect believed by the public and rejected by most of the scientific community. Hmm, sounds a *lot* like the Global Warming denier community. Oh wait, but those guys are kooks, right? *You're* just being skeptical, right?
That being said, your physician is either an idiot, or to be fair, maybe this wasn't known in 1960s UK - the solution to the DTaP reaction you describe is to administer just the D and T portions and not adding the Pertussis part. Congratulations, you were not immunized against Tetanus or Diptheria.
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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.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Insightful)
The incidence of diagnosis of autism is up, but that doesn't necessarily mean the incidence of occurrence is up also. It could very well be that it simply went undiagnosed before -- instead of being called "autistic," the children were just called "slow" or "shy" or "retarded" or something.
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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 what is defined as autism has changed, resulting in more "diagnosis" than before without any actual change in the population.
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?
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Immunize the kids, sterilize the parents?
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep hearing this, and it is really off base. If you give a pathogen a place to breed it may mutate into something that can bypass vaccince-created immunity.
So as much as you are gambling that you won't get infected because 80% of others have had the vaccine, those 80% are gambling on YOUR lack of immunity rendering their own immunity null and void if you give the pathogen a place to mutate.
The unvaccinated pose a greater danger to the general population than the vaccines pose to the individual.
It's not actually a parental issue (Score:5, Informative)
It's a societal issue. Once a critical portion of the population is not immunized against a disease, then a widespread epidemic is more possible and likely. This could have severe economic impacts that go far beyond the goals of individual parents. This is why most immunization is mandatory unless there is a specific religious or health related exception. People invoking these exceptions trivially are endangering the functioning civil order. These vaccines have proven to be quite safe -- and, even if there is a risk of infection (say for example, with live polio), if the negative side-effect rate in the population is low-enough, its still something that should be mandated in order to ensure that the population as a whole is resilient to some of the Big Nasties.
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:4, Insightful)
Unless you happen to be a medical expert of sufficient calibre to run the experiments yourself, you rely on others to supply you accurate knowledge about the subject. Unless you are an expert in every subject, there are bound to be potential decisions regarding the welfare of your child where you have little choice but to go off half-cocked, since you simply have no way to know for sure what the results of each choice might be, and at what probability.
No one is up to that responsibility. Nothing short of a god could possibly be. But don't let logic get in the way of making grandiose declarations - in the name of the children, of course.
Ah yes, that would explain it. There's something about children which seems to turn people's brains off, allowing them to both spout and believe unbelievably stupid statements without recognizing them as such. Must be some kind of hormonal thing.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you possibly get "all the facts" when you are trying to raise a child?
Most parents (if you really are a parent) sort of muddle through the whole process of raising kids with imprecise information and an attempt to do the best we can with what limited information may or may not even be available to us at the moment.
Yes, reading first aid manuals, parenting guides, and other such books or websites may be useful, but more often you go on the advise of your own parents, neighbors and friends. There is often a whole lot of trust that happens too... sometimes misplaced trust at that.
As for "THE TRUTH" about vaccines, I don't really even know what the truth may or may not be here. Certainly it can be quantitized how useful vaccines have been in terms of the society as a whole, but as a parent you don't care about who a vaccine is generally saving the whole of society if it is your own kid that is the 1% or 1/10th% who gets screwed over with a bad reaction to a vaccine. All you care about really is how it is going to impact your own children.
I also don't think the medical community is being totally honest here, and that there can be some children who shouldn't be receiving vaccines. The trick here is to be able to make that decision... often with the medical community actively fighting against you or openly dismissing your fears without so much as even looking at any legitimate concerns you might have or even doing so much as even looking at your child at all, much less your child's medical history.
Muddling through is the best any parent can do anyway, and how dare you suggest that a child should be removed from a parent who is otherwise working in good faith to do the best they can for their own kids.
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
but when it's a third party who pays for your bad decision, well, that's a lot more justifiable, now isn't it?
So stop doing that. You want to use government force to make the other government meddling (and force) less expensive. Try minding your own business.
Err... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Err... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem here is that many British newspapers have spread wholly-untrue scare stories about the MMR injections, largely based on erroneous analysis by descredited scientists, Andrew Wakefield.
No-one can be be expected to follow every major medical story by reference to the original papers (and despite your noxious smugness, you don't either). We all rely on the media, both to alert us to potential medical risks, and to give accurate and even handed treatment to medical stories.
The papers and journalist in question (and. Melanie Phillips, I'm looking at you) have put sales-grabbings scare stories ahead of providing actual information -- acceptable if you're just gossiping about celebrities, but children have lost their lives because well meaning parents have been swayed by newspaper medical stories written with scant regard for the truth. Like people who shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre, they should be held to account.
Took me 5 minutes... (Score:5, Funny)
...to read the last sentence.
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.
Six commas...
A beef, with commas, you have? (Score:5, Funny)
You must be new here, for if you were not, you would know that us, the readers of slashdot, enjoy reading summaries which, when read slowly and carefully, provide some great meaning that, fortunately, could not have been presented to us without all the deliberately, refreshingly placed commas, all of which brighten our sad, lonely days in these dank, windowless basements which, for many of us, have been our homes for decades and, comma-willing, will continue to be for many more decades to come, for we would be distraught should our parents, who gave birth to us, of course, were to boot us out into the "real world", the simple notion of which frightens us beyond belief, really.
Sincerely, yours,
Reader, who is anonymous, for various reasons, none of which concern you, the reader of this comment.
Doctors != Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In that, medical doctors are scientists, trained in the medical sciences, which act as technicians on the human body.
Re:Doctors != Scientists (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Doctors != Scientists (Score:5, Informative)
I know this is going to be viewed somewhat as flamebait, but to put it bluntly, doctors are mechanics for the human body.
It's funny you should say that. A friend of mine is toward the end of med school, and at her house I was leafing through one of the professional journals she gets. It reminded me a lot of a car mechanic's guide. Very little on the science or the why. She agreed.
Maybe that's the right thing, as being a family doctor you have to keep up with an awful lot of conditions. But I went through a lot of doctors before I found one who a) had at least a touch of humility, and b) made me feel like she understood the actual science involved.
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 i
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Many, many statistical analysis have been done. Repeatedly it has been proven there is no link.
But the press still print any trash story they can make up, leading to people like you being unsure.
Re:Evidence does not get recorded (Score:4, Informative)
most urticarias do start suddenly and the reason is never found.
You don't understand evidence (Score:3, Informative)
Because such self-reported anecdotes are not relevant in a proper statistical analysis.
If there were a correlation to be found, then the epidemiologists would be able to find it just based on the fact that a significant number of children came in with cases of hives shortly after coming in for their MMRs. Your records would support that, based si
Props to the author (Score:5, Insightful)
In the face of the standard shrill anti-science which permeates western media, he's a guy who tells it straight. A high class myth-busters, if you like.
A geek. The man.
Amateur physicians?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amateur physicians?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I'd suggest not, but there are plenty of people who take their advice from 'alternative' therapies, from the internet, from their religion and from spam email.
Of course with so many of these things it's what people want to hear: People would like there to be magical cures. People like a conspiracy - to feel that they know something everyone else doesn't - such as that MMR is actually an overall negative and hence they won't have their kids vaccinated.
Power Lines (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when power lines were giving our children cancer?
I'm glad they fixed that.
Re:Power Lines (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, there was a degree of truth to that story, even though it turned out that the power lines themselves were harmless.
It turned out that the pesticides used to clear the land surrounding the high-voltage lines were carcinogenic, and seeped into the water supply.
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.
Re: (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: (Score:3, Informative)
Funny, the fillings I had last year were still amalgam fillings, and when I had to have some work done on the same fillings back in September the dentist used amalgam again to fill in the work he had done. I also was advised and I also signed a consent form before I received a flu vaccine shot back in October that the vaccine contained thimerosal. I am fairly certain that this was the same vaccine given to children needing resistance to the flu. In any case, these days, many of the wild caught ocean fish
Science knowledge (Score:4, Informative)
It's a debate that's been going on for a long time (Score:4, Insightful)
The age old debate about whether the flu shot can give people the flu. And the odd reaction to other components...I'm looking at you, thimerosal. Most of the discussions tend to be more heat than light.
My opinion is the fear is far greater than the actual risk would indicate. Even if the reaction rate was extremely small, litigation and the internet are going insure the stories spread far and wide. Combine a very small number of actual problems with a lot of publicity, add a dash of anecdotal evidence and I think the fear factor of vaccinations is over done.
Complicating the discussions are the number of times we've been collectively lied to by big business and big pharma. Even if they were telling the truth, we have reasonable grounds to remain suspicious. And the Bush administration installing an incompetent religious frootloop as head of the FDA hasn't exactly inspired public trust that the safety of medications and vaccines are being adequately monitored. It's easy to suspect that oversight of medication safety is every bit as good as the SEC's oversight of the financial markets.
This time there *was* a conspiracy .... (Score:3, Informative)
Usually, one can rely on the cock-up theory. However, in the case of the MMR vaccine there really was a conspiracy.
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/bc1114td.html
90% of all newspaper articles are utter crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's my reasoning: Once in a while, an article covers a subject that I am knowledgeable about. Almost always, I will find something wrong in the article. Sometimes it's just a minor mistake or a gross over-simplification. More often than not, however, the article gets it hopelessly wrong and completely misinforms the reader.
I can only conclude that the same happens in articles that cover stuff I know nothing about.
So, I pulled the number in the headline out of my ass. Kinda like the average newspaper author.
Jenny McCarthy needs to shut up (Score:3, Informative)
Has Jenny cured her sons supposed vaccine induced autism yet?
The media is eager as hell to hope on board whenever she opens her ignorant mouth.
Seriously, who the fuck in their right mind would take medical advice from this nutbar? And shouldn't spewing such nonsense somehow fall into the realm of practicing medice without a license?
http://www.stopjenny.com/ [stopjenny.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Jenny McCarthy may not know what causes autism, but let's not forget that neither do doctors.
Possibly, however doctors and scientists tend to have stricter standards of proof than "making shit up" or "google searching". Read the site I linked and ask yourself why the media gives this woman a pulpit to preach from. She didn't know vaccines are made with viruses in them and thinks this is a bad thing, she has no knowledge of the subject matter. Her ignorance is so astounding it almost seems to be a form of criminal negligence to put her in front of a camera to spout off about something she obviously
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: (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps the rational stories just need *better headlines:
Exclusive Report: Sensationalist headlines could kill your child!
*For certain definitions of "better"
Reckless Endangerment? (Score:3, Insightful)
What gets me is that the media can report all this garbage, with no research, no medical training, and no scientific training, yet we as a society allow them to do this without making any attempt to make them act responsibly.
If reporters or newspapers regularly print scare stories without adequate research, or something like this which is practically designed to scare parents without giving them the full story, they should be prosecuted. They are making a profit out of playing on people's fears, why on earth do we allow that?
Surely there would be a case for Reckless Endangerment or Child Endangerment if papers create scares like this, but then make no effort to correct their mistakes when scientific testing proves them wrong? Yes, papers are sometimes made to print apologies, but they are tiny and hidden out of the way. In cases like this, it would be fairer (and safer!) to make papers print a big "We're sorry" article, given exactly the same attention as the original story. And if that means running it on the front cover for a month, with regular follow up articles, then so be it.
The media have a huge effect on the public, they need to take responsiblity for their actions.
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.
Follow the Money (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason why this debate has been and is still going on, even with the evidence to the contrary, is the money trail.
The average cost of therapies for Autism is about $50,000 - $100,000 US per year for at least 2 - 3 years for those who end up being higher functioning and even more for those that are lower functioning. Health Insurance companies refuse to pay the costs calling it a mental health issue (will be interesting to see where mental health parity leads), the schools do not want to pay for it because they do not see it as a medical issue, and for those who never get the ability to survive on their own, the government is not real interested in paying for their care for the rest of their lives. I am sure that in some ways, athasma is in a similar area.
To make the situation worse, there is stress on the whole family. The parents cannot go out together because they cannot find someone to care for their kid. The other kids feel left out. There is the monetary stress. Simply put they want someone to pay.
Who better than a big bad corporation who has deep pockets. So of course, now they are going to be blamed. The lawyers pick it up for the money and the media picks it up because situations like that sell news. Even worse, if there is evidence that proves that this group is wrong, it is either ignored or there is a conspiracy. I remember a couple of months ago where we here on Slashdot where a mother and person with Autism did a blog against the whole MMR causes vaccines argument and was vigorously subpeonaed by a lawyer fighting for anti-vaccine parents. This occurred in the Dow-Corning fight with Silicone Breast implants too.
Add to the fact that in most cases, scientists cannot and will not say for 100% certainty that MMR does not cause Autism. This is because nothing is 100%. If 100 people jump out of a 3rd story window and all die, are you 100% certain that the 101st also will die when the jump out. In fact, the agent which is claimed to cause the issues has been removed from vaccines in many states in the USA and the expected drop in autism has not occurred. That should be enough proof for most people that they are looking up the wrong path.
I do not think this will die however until someone/thing comes up with a system to pay for the treatments of autism and other issues. This is all about the money.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd agree. And you can't prove a negative. However, our legal system isn't supposed to require you to prove a negative, even in a civil case. The problem is tons of lawsuits brought by individuals gets expensive. Eventually, these cases will cause Congress to give pharma blanket immunity on vaccination lawsuits, which is a lousy idea. And not for a good reason. There's no valid, statistical evidence of a causative link between the MMR and Ausitm, and all the wishing in the world doesn't make it so. There ar
Re: MMR? (Score:2)
Here in the UK, the media (or at least, a good number of newspapers, TV programmes, etc.) have been trumpeting the possibility of a link between this vaccine and autism for the last few years -- despite the only 'lab' claiming any link turning out to be a shed belonging to someone with a correspondence degree.
(It's interesting that most of these vaccine scares seem to be restricted to one country at a time, even though the vaccines themselves are used across the world...)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You can have a reaction to nearly anything you can stick in your body. So nothing's 100% safe. The debate is always at the "is it the norm of the exception" point.
Re:Dr Sear's Vaccine Book (Score:4, Informative)
The mercury was removed years ago because of people flipping over it. Kids feeling like crap after a vaccine will happen regardless of what you put in it, because of the very nature of what it does (it makes your immune system go nuts over it, which is what makes you feel like crap... like what happens when you a have a freagin cold). Oversimplifying here, but thats about it.
Spacing them out may or may not have benefits, I'm not arguing that, but its not the mercury or whatever that makes your kid go poof after a vaccine.
I'm glad my parents didn't know about this . . . (Score:3, Funny)
Dosing him with multiple ones really knocks 'em down for a week or more until they return to normal.
. . . or they would have vaccinated me more often.
. . . Or maybe they did, and I still haven't returned to normal.
Yes, that's it.
Re:Vaccines save lives (Score:4, Insightful)
More specifically, the risks posed to an individual are far outweighed by the same individual's benefit gained by living in a thoroughly vaccinated society. It's not a question of individual vs. societal benefits, it's that people who refuse vaccinations for spurious reasons are free-riding on the herd immunity (whilst simultaneously degrading it a tiny bit) of all the other individuals who properly weighed the risks and got vaccinated.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, there's a non-zero risk of an adverse reaction that can be quite severe, even including death. That risk is vanishingly small in comparison to the possible consequences of not having widespread vaccination. You can die from most vaccinated diseases, and if we didn't have herd immunity from widespread vaccination, your risks of death from those diseases would be far greater.
The problem is that the risks and consequences of degrading herd immunity appear to be individually small because the consequence