Well then let just shut down the entire medical community.
The best part about vague accusations is they can support any premise. Is there any evidence that a simpleton such as myself can read that say these thing actually happened? An article in a medical journal, a report from CNN, some writing on the bathroom wall at the Saddledome?
Not a bad reason to be skeptical though when profit motive is involved. The pharmaceutical industry is not comprised of angels.
Not true for most diseases we vaccinate against, including the targets of the MMR vaccine (which is why when the vaccination rates dropped after Wakefield's fraud, the incidences of these diseases increased again). Improved sanitation helps primarily against food and water-borne diseases (e.g. cholera), not those that are transmitted person to person.
I didn't say vaccines didn't help, I said they were not primarily responsible for the reduction in disease, such as MMR. We're talking something like <5%, if I remember my single medical anthropology class correctly.
i think people on both sides should watch this documentary Frontline: The Vaccine War.. its on netflix at the moment. It traces a case of whooping cough that errupted in the southern states and ended up infecting hundreds of people, and costing thousands (if not in the millions, can't remember) of dollars to get rid of that outbreak.
What I don't think "anti vac" people get is that vaccinations rely on herd immunity, in that we need to hit a certain % for it to protect against those who can not get these vaccines. IE the sick, the elderly, and the very young, etc. So if you don't get one, its not just yourself or your family you are affecting...
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Maybe the whole '9 shots' thing included 9 different vaccinations that were given in three or 4 shots. For example, diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis is given in one shot, measles/mumps/rubella is given in one shot, and then polio is usually administered by liquid now. Hep b and Heb a are given, sometimes varicella is given. All necessary to go to school here.
Last time my kids went to their physicals they had to get Hep shots (can't remember which) and varicella.
My son had bacterial meningitis when he was only 4 years old and he was in ICU for 10 days, literally on his death bed. I wish there was a meningococcal immunization when he was a baby. It was terribly scary.
To be honest, when my two boys were babies I was afraid to give them the immunizations because of all of the side effects, and I grew up with a kid who got polio because of the immunization which was EXTREMELY rare. I am so glad I did. After the meningitis, I am obsessed with keeping them up to date with everything.
Maybe there is some link to autism and immunizations, I am no expert. But personally, I'd rather take the slight risk and immunize against deadly diseases.
I'd say that is a scare tactic actually, and this is the way the media typically acts when flu season rolls around or some "pandemic" like swine flu comes about mysteriously.
Getting a measles shot is one thing but getting a seasonal flu vaccine every year is unnecessary. It's known that vitamin D supplements are just as effective, if not more so than taking the shot. I have not been seriously sick in years and I don't take any vaccines.
That's a solid sample size.
You do realize that the swine flu wasn't overhyped, the reason it never got to pandemic levels is because of vaccines.
Think about this:
There are 3 million people in Alberta. Suppose, 1% of those people got the swine flu. That's 30,000 people sick. Let's say, of those 10% of those people get seriously ill and had to be hospitalized. Now we're talking 0.1% of Albertans. That's 3,000 people, nearly half of Alberta's entire bed capacity being dealt with for swine flu (Alberta has about 8,000 beds). If you think the health care system is bad, think about 50% of your resources being consumed by a disease in the span of months.
This doesn't even account for the fact that I bet many rural hospitals aren't equipped to deal with an outbreak like that, not to mention the financial impact.
Our health care system isn't set up to treat in a small outbreak, and that's why prevantative medicine is far more efficent than reactive.
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Could you give some examples of an unnecessary vaccine?
I'd say an unnecessary vaccine is one administered to a person who has no realistic risk of actually getting the disease while there are shortages in areas or among demographics that do need them. The H1N1 vaccination program was a good example of that.
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Are any children still getting small pox vaccines?
We are actually getting close to eradicating polio on a global basis; there are only a couple countries in Africa left that are dealing with it. Once that happens I would expect that polio will be removed from the vaccine schedule.
Irrelevant to anything I said since I clearly stated that I am not against vaccinations in general. I am against using fear to convince people that vaccinations are necessary 100% of the time.
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As far as vaccines go, you are correct. However we would be better off to require people who opt out to pay for any damages caused to society if they act as carriers to vulnerable populations.
Interesting. Can you quantify what those damages are? It sounds pretty irrational to pin blame on a very small precentage of the population like that.
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Maybe the fault then lies in an misunderstanding of probabilities.
I have no misunderstandings of probabilities. I have a science background and have worked in high level research facilities in the past. The probability of an epidemic occurring because low risk people refuse to get vaccinated is pretty small. Let's not go overboard.
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Yikes, I hope they eventually arrest and charge this Wakefield guy for attempted murder if his report comes out as a big fraud. The guy could have potentially indirectly murdered a lot of innocent kids by influencing some parents into not getting their kids vaccinated with his bogus report.
The article presented convincing evidence to debunk 3 myths:
MMR causes autism.
Thimerosal (mercury) causes autism.
Simultaneous administration of multiple vaccines overwhelms and weakens the immune system, triggering autism in a susceptible host.
Gerber and Offit reviewed 13 large-scale studies that demonstrated no association between the MMR vaccine and autism. These included ecologic studies, retrospective observational studies and prospective observational studies. The findings were consistent; the only outlier in all the studies of MMR was Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s small, discredited 1998 study, which was fully retracted by The Lancet in early 2010.
They reviewed 7 large-scale studies (again, ecologic, retrospective, and prospective) that consistently demonstrated no association between thimerosal and autism. They showed that the hypothesis was not biologically plausible, since the symptoms of mercury poisoning are distinct from those of autism and are not produced by the thimerosal in vaccines.
They showed that the overload hypothesis is not credible because
The immunologic load has dropped from 3000 components in the 7 vaccines used in 1980 to less than 200 in the 14 vaccines recommended today.
An infant’s immune system is capable of handling the thousands of antigens it is exposed to early in life.
Vaccinated children are not more susceptible to infections.
Its interesting that since MMR > Autism link is about as dead in the water as can be, Jenny Mccarthy and her ilk are moving the goalposts to well then what about other stuff in vaccines, all the while seemingly unwilling to just read the facts or talk to experts in these matters.
Now I'm not a MedMal or Tort attorney, but I'm pretty sure that the "federal vaccine court" is only accesible by passing through a wardrobe of some sort. It's also interesting to note that the linked article has 3 sources, none of which are related to the claimed award of damages based on a vaccine causing autism like symptoms. Good stuff Mikey.
I LOLed at the wardrobe comment.
I'm sure Mikey and the author of the article were referring to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP): http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/
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The VICP is a no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system for resolving vaccine injury claims that provides compensation to people found to be injured by certain vaccines. The U. S. Court of Federal Claims decides who will be paid.
Long story short, the US Federal Court (and Federal Court of Appeal in some cases) has consistently found no causal link between MMR vaccines and autism in any of various test cases heard to date based on any of the three theories of causation alleged.
Also, based on what I pieced together from that article, it seems that "Hannah" settled out of court and was not awarded damages of any sort. As valo and others can attest, out of court settlements rarely mean that a party is admitting liability in any way. There are plenty of valid reasons for settling a claim even if you ultimately may be vindicated.
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In that movie that i mentioned above, they take a look at denmark (I think it is) to debunk these anti-vax, as they are in a unique position because they record all the vacination history for ALL their citizens, amongst other medical information. From a sample size as large as that country they found NO evidence at all that vaccines cause autism. None. And this is a massive sample size.
They also mention a dozen or so other studies which ALL have definatively proven that mecury/vaccines dont cause autism.
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I didn't say vaccines didn't help, I said they were not primarily responsible for the reduction in disease, such as MMR. We're talking something like <5%, if I remember my single medical anthropology class correctly.
It's a lot more than 5% - if you look at the Stats Canada data for measles (for example) the incidence rate plummeted after the MMR vaccine became widespread. It went from 300,000 to 400,000 cases annually with no real changes in incidence from the 1920's to the 1960's, to about 10 cases annually.
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It's a lot more than 5% - if you look at the Stats Canada data for measles (for example) the incidence rate plummeted after the MMR vaccine became widespread. It went from 300,000 to 400,000 cases annually with no real changes in incidence from the 1920's to the 1960's, to about 10 cases annually.
That's interesting. I could be wrong, but I'll dig up a few studies I have at home in paper copy to try to remember where I read this.
Accepted science does not neccesarily equal truth.
One can see many instances where science has gotten it wrong in the past. Certainly medical science has a very dubious track record. The fact that science in this day and age has married itself to big corporations and big government doesn't help its credibility at all.
You are a fool to not at least question whatever is currently passing as accepted science. Those of you who are acting like it is a cardinal sin not to vaccinate betray a blind faith in institutions that don't deserve such trust.
I had my boys vaccinated because I determined that the rewards were greater than the risks. However, I do respect those who come to a different conclusion. What I don't like is you zealots who have sacrificed independant thought and critical thinking on the altar of scientific orthadoxy. Your "holier than thou attitude" is annoying.
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Maybe chemical was the wrong word but you can't deny the harm that mercury and formaldehyde (some vaccines contain these ingredients) can inflict on the body.
Do you realize that the maximum amount of mercury in a dose of any vaccine that ever had mercury in it is less than the allowable mercury in a liter of water by the government of Saskatchewan?
If you are interested in the math behind it, during a previous thread on the topic I did the calculations.
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Accepted science does not neccesarily equal truth.
One can see many instances where science has gotten it wrong in the past. Certainly medical science has a very dubious track record. The fact that science in this day and age has married itself to big corporations and big government doesn't help its credibility at all.
You are a fool to not at least question whatever is currently passing as accepted science. Those of you who are acting like it is a cardinal sin not to vaccinate betray a blind faith in institutions that don't deserve such trust.
I had my boys vaccinated because I determined that the rewards were greater than the risks. However, I do respect those who come to a different conclusion. What I don't like is you zealots who have sacrificed independant thought and critical thinking on the altar of scientific orthadoxy. Your "holier than thou attitude" is annoying.
You're right, its better to submit to dogma than proven science.
Water doesn't kill you, but water contaminated with mercury or other harmful agents can kill you.
You realize that pretty much all natural sources of water are "contaminated" by mercury. Heck, they even track levels of mercury deposition and runoff from the atmosphere to water.
I'd say that is a scare tactic actually, and this is the way the media typically acts when flu season rolls around or some "pandemic" like swine flu comes about mysteriously.
This indicative of the flawed reasoning you are employing.. we were talking about nurses administering the vaccines, not the media. The media does what it does, that doesn't have any relevance to the risks and benefits of vaccinations.
And you put pandemic in quotes to try and make some point, but H1N1 met all the criteria for a pandemic, yet you employ more flawed reasoning by making an appeal to emotion with your "so called" quotes.
It's not a scare tactic to state what is going on.
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Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck
Getting a measles shot is one thing but getting a seasonal flu vaccine every year is unnecessary.
What's the difference then? How can one be ok but the other not be?
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Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck
It's known that vitamin D supplements are just as effective, if not more so than taking the shot.
I've read some studies on vitamin D with relation to flu and cold, and they don't say what you are claiming here. This is a bare assertion, substantiate it with some evidence.
While you are at it maybe you can explain how taking vitamin D can generate antibodies for a particular strain of flu.
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Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck
I have not been seriously sick in years and I don't take any vaccines.
That you think this kind of fallacious reasoning is in any way meaningful is telling.
