Vaccines and the immune system. - Page 2

[Deborah]

It may not make sense, but when it comes to the newest and latest vaccines, it does make a lot of money. See Rotateq, Prevnar and Gardasil for examples.

[Spectrolite]

The links that Gitti and serenitii had the same article on Th1 and Th2 by Philip F. Incao, M.D.

What errors did it have?

[mamakah]

Originally Posted by gr8blessings

Oh, please don't use this as a point in your non-vax argument because then you or someone else will then post here wondering why their doctor thinks them to be uneducated.

First of all, vaccines were initially developed in the 12th century by the Chinese with immunization to smallpox. Jenner further developed and named the technique in 1796. The scientific information obtained about the host-pathogen relationship and vaccination since then has only strengthened what the Chinese observed almost 1000 years ago: vaccination works to reduce mortality and morbidity. To ignore almost 200 years of scientific evidence supporting vaccination, would indeed make you look uneducated.

Second, most of human knowledge has been empirically determined, should we discard that information too? We'd have to given up lots, like food, water, shelter, clothes.

Third, how the knowledge is obtained is irrelevant to whether we can use the information or not. I don't have a detailed, scientific understanding of my vehicle's mechanical parts, but I do know that if I turn the key and step on the gas pedal the car goes and if I step on the brake it stops. I can then use that vehicle to do things useful things for my family, like get groceries.

Finally, alternative medicine has also been determined empirically and has little to no scientific evidence to support it. Furthermore, some alternative approaches are not even biologically plausible. It would be very hard to look educated if you use the above quote in your argument not to vaccinate while at the same time using alternative medicine to keep your family healthy.

I think that your real argument against vaccines is that the safety and efficiency of the vaccine does not justify the risk of an adverse reaction. The statement you quoted simply does not support that argument. A better approach would be to say "science has done experiment A,B,C to show that vaccines are safe and efficient, the problems with these studies are 1,2,3 and studies X,Y,Z need to be done to convince me that vaccines are safe and efficient." This is the argument you need to develop.

gr8blessings

In all my research, I have yet to find a vax that has been studied past 3 weeks after injection. 3 weeks?!?! Can you imagine if we based other things on 3 week studies?
"Well, we checked in with her 3 weeks after she started smoking...and she was fine! Cigarrettes are fine and not harmful!"
That may seem like an extreme comparison, but it isn't. The way we know if things have bad consequences is by studying them in the LONG TERM. Vaccinations have not been studied in the LONG TERM. 3 weeks is barely SHORT TERM.
One looks uneducated to me when they assume that there was little to no life before modern medicine. There was a time when "alternative medicine" was just "medicine." I find it pompous and ridiculous to think that we are so much more advanced these days. My studies of modern medicine started with my pregnancy. I found that the countless interventions during birth were actually making something that wasn't always life threatening, life threatening! Modern medicine has decided that women can't
1. go into labor on their own
2. can't progress in labor without help
3 can't push out a baby that is on the bigger side
4. can't handle the pain of labor.
* All these interventions are making matters worse!
Why is vaccination any different? I basically hear:
"The human immune system, regardless of thousands of years of developement and careful planning from nature, cannot fight off disease. In order to be healthy, we must intervene and make your immune system work better!" I'm sorry, but this is not the cure. This is the disease.

[mamakay]

First of all, vaccines were initially developed in the 12th century by the Chinese with immunization to smallpox. Jenner further developed and named the technique in 1796. The scientific information obtained about the host-pathogen relationship and vaccination since then has only strengthened what the Chinese observed almost 1000 years ago: vaccination works to reduce mortality and morbidity. To ignore almost 200 years of scientific evidence supporting vaccination, would indeed make you look uneducated.

The WHO link was talking about "most of the currently available vaccines", not what the Chinese were doing with smallpox a thousand years ago.

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

The links that Gitti and serenitii had the same article on Th1 and Th2 by Philip F. Incao, M.D.

What errors did it have?

From the article:

Instead vaccinations overstimulate the "tasting and remembering" function of the antibody-mediated branch of the immune system (Th2) which simultaneously suppresses the cellular immune system (Th1)

I've never seen evidence that stimulating the th2 arm suppresses the th1 arm.

What in reality is prevented is not the disease but the ability of our cellular immune system to manifest, to respond to and to overcome the disease!

...and that's just silly.

[an_domhan]

Originally Posted by Spectrolite

The links that Gitti and serenitii had the same article on Th1 and Th2 by Philip F. Incao, M.D.

What errors did it have?

Skeptics say he's a crank. People that interpret data or studies without actually demonstrating anything are usually considered pseudoscientists regardless of the validity of their claims.

[Gitti]

n/m

[mamakay]

Also:

Third, how the knowledge is obtained is irrelevant to whether we can use the information or not. I don't have a detailed, scientific understanding of my vehicle's mechanical parts, but I do know that if I turn the key and step on the gas pedal the car goes and if I step on the brake it stops. I can then use that vehicle to do things useful things for my family, like get groceries.

Well, your mechanic understands how cars work. The people who make and design engines understand quite well. Biology is not in any way the same as automotives in this sense.

Finally, alternative medicine has also been determined empirically and has little to no scientific evidence to support it. Furthermore, some alternative approaches are not even biologically plausible. It would be very hard to look educated if you use the above quote in your argument not to vaccinate while at the same time using alternative medicine to keep your family healthy.

A lot of us here aren't big believers in alternative medicine in general.

[Deborah]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-nee040109.php

This looks sort of interesting. All about TH1 and TH2 and how they are affected by vaccines.

When Zaghouani gave the newborn mice an antigen shortly after birth, he noticed the presence of both Th-1 and Th-2 cells. However, when he gave the antigen a second time, he noticed an abundance of Th-2 cells that responded to the antigen instead of Th-1 cells. Zaghouani was surprised to notice that the Th-2 cells worked to destroy the small contingent of Th-1 cells that had responded to the antigen given at birth.