Correlation and causation - Page 3

[Deborah]

This has been a great discussion, thanks for all the interesting comments.

On the rotavirus, I suspect that the vaccine does work and cases will decline. However, I'm wondering if some other bug won't jump in and fill the gap as has happened with some other illnesses where a vaccine was developed and then the eco-system shifted.

There is the other question with childhood illnesses which hasn't been addressed, which is whether some of them play a helpful role in development. It is assumed that having measles, for example, is all risk and no benefit, but this is a question which hasn't really been studied. It would be interesting to see if there are gaps in health which develop if people miss out on childhood illnesses.

There was some study that found women who had gone through mumps in childhood were less likely to develop ovarian cancer, for example. Isn't that an odd possibility? Who would have thought?

[beep]

I do not understand quite why it should be vaccines vs. general health measures (nutrition, handwashing, etc.). For me, it makes more sense to figure out whether the risks and costs outweigh the benefits for each measure one takes to promote health (of course as much as possible using good research that accounts for confounding variables). And then decide for one's self which ones to implement. I personally am therefore a fan of good sanitation, nutrition, exercise, handwashing, sunlight, and many types of vaccines, and don't see these choices as mutually exclusive. Of course, if great nutrition (for example) could prevent all infectious disease then one could follow just that strategy... but I am not convinced that any of these things is 100%, and certainly not for all diseases.

On the subject of health professionals acknowledging harm from vaccines: my experience with how public health researchers think is that it is not that they deny that there is any harm from vaccines, but rather they attempt to quantify the risks from vaccines vs. the risks from disease across the population (example) and then make recommendations based on what emerges as the lowest-risk scenario overall. They do in fact monitor for adverse events (example) and these are supposed to be reported. They also may work to reduce the observed or theoretical risks from the vaccine, as in the case of creating thimerosol-free formulations, or in this example studying whether changing the type of polio vaccine led to an expected reduction in risk of vaccine acquired paralytic polio. However, I am not saying that vaccine researchers and mainstream public health officers are without biases or that they have some omniscient way of knowing every possible outcome of every intervention they design--or that approval of new treatments always has enough data behind it. I believe it is worth understanding the basic way that they think and work, and its strengths and weaknesses.

I certainly have been guilty of attributing bad attitudes and motives to all health care professionals in a blanket way. Over time I've shifted more towards an understanding of the complexity of motives (e.g. helping individuals, making a difference in the world, interpersonal connections, intellectual challenge, fame, power, money) and pressures (e.g. time, medical and scientific culture, accepted standards of care, medical and malpractice insurance companies) each of them faces, and how this may shape their work for good and bad.

[orangewallflower]

Originally Posted by Marnica

If there was no doubt about these things there wouldn't be a debate.....doubt exsists because there is another reality...another possibility. Whether one chooses to believe in an alternative explanation, learn more about it and then reevaluate their thinking is another story.

Among whom is there debate? (This is really new to me. It would be like hearing that there is doubt about gravitational pull or the earth revolving around the sun.)

What causes disease?

Why don't you "believe in" viruses? I just don't get it when they can be seen?

[beep]

Originally Posted by Deborah

There is the other question with childhood illnesses which hasn't been addressed, which is whether some of them play a helpful role in development. It is assumed that having measles, for example, is all risk and no benefit, but this is a question which hasn't really been studied. It would be interesting to see if there are gaps in health which develop if people miss out on childhood illnesses.

There was some study that found women who had gone through mumps in childhood were less likely to develop ovarian cancer, for example. Isn't that an odd possibility? Who would have thought?

Super interesting questions! It is fascinating to consider the ways in which we interact with our ecosystems, and the consequences for us when we make changes to things that are very interconnected in ways we don't always understand beforehand.

[ema-adama]

I personally do not believe that it is that deliberate of an attempt to avoid asking difficult questions. Some scientists do ask questions that could undermine vaccination. I was just reading an analysis and comment page in the BMJ titled Influenza vaccination: policy versus evidence. I highly recommend reading it. I think it is more of a situation where science takes a long time to establish credible information, and some people are happy enough to do the best they can with the available information and hope that any new information that comes out will not undermine any decision made. Others might not be as comfortable and take more of a wait and see approach.

A similar philosophy is the "we have to make decisions and cannot wait to have perfect data" approach. This attitude may have an altruistic basis but has two important consequences. Firstly, it uses up resources that could be invested in a proper evaluation of influenza vaccines or on other health interventions of proven effectiveness. Secondly, the inception of a vaccination campaign seems to preclude the assessment of a vaccine through placebo controlled randomised trials on ethical grounds. Far from being unethical, however, such trials are desperately needed and we should invest in them without delay.

I do think there can be more of a dialogue between concerned parents and health professionals. After all everyone claims to have the childrens health at heart, there is just some disagreement on how best to look after the health of children.

I personally have never claimed to be anti vaccine. I am pro informed choice. I do not vaccinate my child, and do not plan to vaccinate any future children. I have not found any information that was convincing enough for me to take an unknown risk. I do not think we have any real idea of just how vaccines are impacting the long term health of babies, children and adults. And I would hazard a guess that the mechanism by which vaccines can harm some childen will be a surprise all around, and not as cut and dry as just the vaccine. I am leaning towards thinking it is the vaccine in conjunction with very specific factors that becomes dangerous. Much like many children can be sick with a disease and be just fine once they get over it, I suspect many children will be fine after a vaccination. It's the ones who are not fine that warrant urgent attention in trying to isolate just who is at risk and who is not and how best to protect those who are at risk.... but the debate is nowhere near there yet.

I like to think that science will find answers. I just am not prepared to go with the information we have now and hope that it is enough.

I hold out hope that more and more parents will be concerned enough to ask questions and demand answers.

I do not think I will ever fully understand the vaccine debate. Although it does interest me and I find it interesting looking at the foundations of vaccines as a corner stone to public health policy. It helps me understand the issues more clearly. And I find myself asking questions why correlation equals causation when it comes to the decrease in disease in the 1950's, but correlation could not possibly equal causation when a baby is permanently damaged or dead around the time of a vaccine being administered.

ETA: It takes me a really long time to reply with a busy toddler - so by the time I post, the discussion has moved on. I want to read and respond to all the replies that I have missed. This post was in response to Marnica's post questioning what I do not understand about why vaccines are not questioned.

[orangewallflower]

Originally Posted by ema-adama

I guess I am getting at what I see as a double standard. Knowing there are many variables to health, but chosing to believe that vaccines offer superior protection to other factors is just that. A choice to believe it. There is no way that anyone can say emphatically that it is the vaccine alone. I have tried to convince myself, and I usually end up at the point where general measures to protect health against bacteria and viruses seem like a more sensible approach. Can you imagine the day where we need a vaccine to create specific protection for each and every contagious disease 'out there' when it is reasonable to think that general precautions such as hand washing, wholesome nutrion and clean water might be just as effective on a public health scale?

However, when it comes to babies/children being harmed by vaccines, the fact that they are related in time is made insignificant. With no studies done on children themselves to establish if there is indeed a subgroup in the pediatric population that might be at risk. There is no attempt to answer the question scientifically - other than epidemiological studies, which by nature of their design are unable to study the children themselves.

I am still thinking about this and I might not be making sense in my thought sequences, but there seems to be a kink in the use of correlation and causation.

I am curious as to what is prepostirous orangewallflower. Can you explain a bit more?

Sorry I wasn't clear. What is preposterous is the idea that the only thing that affects disease rate is vaccine. No one whose job it is to look at disease on a societal or historical level (i.e. an epidemiologist) would make this claim.

[orangewallflower]

I have a question: has any disease been eradicated without the use of a vaccine? (The only infecutuous disease that I know to have been eradicated at all is smallpox.)

[Fyrestorm]

Originally Posted by orangewallflower

I have a question: has any disease been eradicated without the use of a vaccine? (The only infecutuous disease that I know to have been eradicated at all is smallpox.)

Well, you don't hear much about scarlet fever any more....

[beep]

Originally Posted by orangewallflower

I have a question: has any disease been eradicated without the use of a vaccine? (The only infecutuous disease that I know to have been eradicated at all is smallpox.)

Not yet that I know of, but they are trying with Guinea worm by improving access to clean water.

[orangewallflower]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm

Well, you don't hear much about scarlet fever any more....

Scarlet fever is alive and well. It's called strep throat these days. Because we treat it with antibiotics, it will almost certainly one day resurge as a threatening disease.

[Fyrestorm]

Originally Posted by orangewallflower

Scarlet fever is alive and well. It's called strep throat these days. Because we treat it with antibiotics, it will almost certainly one day resurge as a threatening disease.

yup, as soon as they invent a vaccine for it.

[orangewallflower]

Ema-edama,

I don't think that even the most pro-vaccine scientists in the world would deny that vaccines injure kids sometimes. I think the point that Dr. Sears is making is that just because a kid has something happen right after a disease doesn't necessarily mean that the vaccine caused it. Human beings are strongly inclined to believe that if B happens right after A then A caused B. To say that A didn't necessarily cause B is not the equivalent of saying that A definitely didn't cause B.

Isn't there a government run vaccine injury agency? (I mean in the U.S.)

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by orangewallflower

Among whom is there debate? (This is really new to me. It would be like hearing that there is doubt about gravitational pull or the earth revolving around the sun.)

What causes disease?

Why don't you "believe in" viruses? I just don't get it when they can be seen?

Different medical schools of thought/practice approach illness and what causes disease in entirely different ways. Natural (homeopathic) in particular vs allopathic medicine. Perhaps it's new to you because you are not "into" natural medicine????

I never said I don't believe that viruses exsist....Personally I don't think it's about their exsistance, it's about their ability to cause disease

[1littlebit]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm

yup, as soon as they invent a vaccine for it.

that doesn't make any sense at all. if people started coming down with scarlet fever and it was antibiotic resistant it proabaly would get serious very quickly.

one of the ways to identify scarlet fever is the rash that it causes. they aren't going to start diagnosing everyone who gets strep throat with scarlet fever. i think they affect different places in the body. not sure, i'll check and come back.

[orangewallflower]

Originally Posted by Marnica

Different medical schools of thought/practice approach illness and what causes disease in entirely different ways. Natural (homeopathic) in particular vs allopathic medicine. Perhaps it's new to you because you are not "into" natural medicine????

I never said I don't believe that viruses exsist....Personally I don't think it's about their exsistance, it's about their ability to cause disease

Oh, I actually am into natural medicine.

We were referencing a previous poster, Uccomama (sorry if I mangled the spelling) who did say that. I was following that thread.

[carriebft]

So if you take a person and expose them to the measles virus and we see it invading their body and that person gets measles, what is the explanation if not the virus you exposed them to?

I know many who believe this non-germ theory (vernacular) will say "the person needed a better diet, their blood acidity was off, etc whatever". What is the explanation when the whole population is getting a disease when exposed, even the ones with these good practices? If varicella doesn't cause chicken pox and it is the environment of the body causing it, does that mean we all just had a bad environment? And when we can see the virus invading and taking over and the response to that virus, what is the explanation then?

[Fyrestorm]

Originally Posted by 1littlebit

that doesn't make any sense at all. if people started coming down with scarlet fever and it was antibiotic resistant it proabaly would get serious very quickly.

I was being facetious. Like how Chicken Pox was touted as a deadly disease as soon as they had a vaccine for it that they coudn't sell.

[orangewallflower]

Strep is actually scary, like TB (and unlike chickenpox.) Because they are treated with antibiotics, surviving bacteria are the strong ones. Over time these bacteria become antibiotics resistant. _The Coming Plague_ is a book that treats this subject in pretty apocolyptic terms. We have had a reprieve from these diseases, but in the end they will be back worse than ever.

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by orangewallflower

Oh, I actually am into natural medicine.

We were referencing a previous poster, Uccomama (sorry if I mangled the spelling) who did say that. I was following that thread.

I also did not state that I believe that virus don't exist, but there a reason some scientists dispute their existence.

However, I do not believe they cause disease. I do believe they can be present during what is labeled a disease, but they role is not pathogenic.

Originally Posted by carriebft

So if you take a person and expose them to the measles virus and we see it invading their body and that person gets measles, what is the explanation if not the virus you exposed them to?

I know many who believe this non-germ theory (vernacular) will say "the person needed a better diet, their blood acidity was off, etc whatever". What is the explanation when the whole population is getting a disease when exposed, even the ones with these good practices? If varicella doesn't cause chicken pox and it is the environment of the body causing it, does that mean we all just had a bad environment? And when we can see the virus invading and taking over and the response to that virus, what is the explanation then?

Please can you direct me to the studies and in vivo video footage of the measles virus invading a body and causing the specific childhood disease of measles.

The second part of your post is just quoting a myth propagated by both alternative and mainstream medicine; good diet. blood acidity etc have nothing to do with why a person actually "catches" something or not. I can also explain why it appears that a large portion of a population appears to get an infectious disease at the same time, good practices or no good practices, I doubt you would be open to my explanation. At is core* it has nothing to do with hygiene, the pathogen or the health of the host. Again I ask you to show me real-time in vivo video footage of a specific virus causing a specific disease. I am not interested in antibody response, I want proof of manifestation of the actual disease in a human being.

ETA: * I want to be clear by core, I mean the absolute cause of disease. I am not saying that the health of the host has nothing to do with how the body responds to the healing. Obviously a strong, healthy body is going to handle healing far more efficiently and effectively than a compromised one.

[1littlebit]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm

I was being facetious. Like how Chicken Pox was touted as a deadly disease as soon as they had a vaccine for it that they coudn't sell.

it can be very deadly to anyone who is immunocompromised.