vaccination study

[mamaofthree]

does anyone know if there has been a study using a large group of people who vaccinate and a large group that do not and comparing the general health of the people maybe having followed them for childhood to adulthood?

thanks

h

[Gitti]

You would think that all pharmaceutical companies that sell vaccines would want such a study to prove that vaccinated kids are by far the healthier. Well, to date no such study has been done by any pharmaceutical corporation. You know what they use for an excuse? It would be unethical to withhold vaccines from any child.

Yet parents who do not vaccinate and never will vaccinate their children have repeatedly offered their children as part of such a study. But to no avail.

What do you think of that?

I believe they have a pretty good idea what the outcome of such a study would be and it's not easy to manipulate that.

[bbrandonsmom]

Study to be done-
http://mothering.com/peggyomara/category/vaccines
There's more info on the NVIC parent page.

[Marnica]

There are no "scientific studies" looking at vaccinated vs unvaccinated as the powers that be deem this to be "unethical".

Here is a study generation rescue did a while back

http://www.generationrescue.org/survey.html

[cyberfish]

Originally Posted by Gitti

You would think that all pharmaceutical companies that sell vaccines would want such a study to prove that vaccinated kids are by far the healthier. Well, to date no such study has been done by any pharmaceutical corporation. You know what they use for an excuse? It would be unethical to withhold vaccines from any child.

This baffles me.

Since we have seen that some genotypes are susceptible to vaccine damage (e.g. Hannah Poling), then how is it ethical to recommend the blanket vaccine schedule, where everyone gets the same thing, regardless of any other factors? It seems like the flip side of the argument about withholding vaccines yet it is not deemed unethical.

[interested]

Originally Posted by Gitti

You would think that all pharmaceutical companies that sell vaccines would want such a study to prove that vaccinated kids are by far the healthier. Well, to date no such study has been done by any pharmaceutical corporation. You know what they use for an excuse? It would be unethical to withhold vaccines from any child.

Yet parents who do not vaccinate and never will vaccinate their children have repeatedly offered their children as part of such a study. But to no avail.

To provide solid, difficult-to-refute evidence of a connection between vaccination and subsequent health, a randomized controlled trial would have to be done. Vaccination is considered "standard care" and this is because it is currently believed to be best for children. Very frustrating, but true. It is considered unethical to randomly assign people to a condition believed to be harmful or "not best." This is applied to all studies - so it's not really an "excuse" in the case of vaccines.

Honestly, I couldn't in good conscience buy a study where parents volunteered our unvaccinated kids. These families, IME, tend to live healthier in many ways - so it's no surprise if the kids are healthier overall.

[mamaofthree]

i guess i don't understand that... because a lot of families who do vaccinate are healthy people. when they do a study they try and keep all things equal except the thing being studied. so if you found a group of people who vaccinate and lived an otherwise healthy lifestyle and then a group of non-vaccinators who lived the same lifestyle, each group being about the same in number could you not do a study... especially an independant study by a group that doesn't have an issue with or with not vaccinating?

h

[mamaofthree]

Originally Posted by Marnica

There are no "scientific studies" looking at vaccinated vs unvaccinated as the powers that be deem this to be "unethical".

Here is a study generation rescue did a while back

http://www.generationrescue.org/survey.html

is this study considered valid?

h

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by mamaofthree

is this study considered valid?

h

it's a survey that gen rescue did a few yesra back...to the medical community no, it' snot valid. It was not a scientific study...there were no controls, etc....doesn't mean that one can't get useful information from it. But any provax MD or scientist would not think it carries weight at all.

[katelove]

Originally Posted by interested

To provide solid, difficult-to-refute evidence of a connection between vaccination and subsequent health, a randomized controlled trial would have to be done. Vaccination is considered "standard care" and this is because it is currently believed to be best for children. Very frustrating, but true. It is considered unethical to randomly assign people to a condition believed to be harmful or "not best." This is applied to all studies - so it's not really an "excuse" in the case of vaccines.

Honestly, I couldn't in good conscience buy a study where parents volunteered our unvaccinated kids. These families, IME, tend to live healthier in many ways - so it's no surprise if the kids are healthier overall.

It would also be best if it was a double blind - so every child participating was injected but half got actual vaccines and half got saline and neither children, parents or vaccinators knew who was getting what.

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by katelove

It would also be best if it was a double blind - so every child participating was injected but half got actual vaccines and half got saline and neither children, parents or vaccinators knew who was getting what.

yes but that is unethical don't ya know??

[sunnmama]

Originally Posted by Marnica

yes but that is unethical don't ya know??

You disagree?

It is difficult for me to believe that any marginally thoughtful parent would volunteer their child to be part of a study randomly assigning them to a "vax" or "non-vax" group and following them through to adulthood. People have differing opinions about vax, but the opinions tend to be strong, and largely based on fears of the alternative.

[tanyalynn]

It would be very tricky to do this well. Worthwhile to look at kids whose parents have chosen not to vaccinate and compare them to kids whose parents have chosen to? Yes, but not straightforward.

Some families choose not to vaccinate based on having health problems already, so the kids are at higher risk. Others have been more interested in health matters for years, and their kids are at lower risk than usual. Both groups are probably overrepresented among the non-vaccinating compared to the general population, and quantifying that would be tricky.

And what do you measure? Doctor visits, hospitalizations? Death rates in the US are pretty low, and I know I work pretty hard to keep my kids' illnesses from progressing to something serious that needs medical care.

I'm not saying it's not possible, but it would not be as straightforward in its interpretation as we would hope.

[MountainMamaGC]

I am sure they can find health conscious families that both vax and dont vax. Heck even the info on deleyed vaxes would be useful. There are families on MDC that are in all 3 groups that eat healthy and take care of their health.

The idea that nonvaxers are more health conscious so the study would not be vaild, is IMO a complete cop out. Finding non-vaxers and vaxers with similar health habits can be done.

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by sunnmama

You disagree?

It is difficult for me to believe that any marginally thoughtful parent would volunteer their child to be part of a study randomly assigning them to a "vax" or "non-vax" group and following them through to adulthood. People have differing opinions about vax, but the opinions tend to be strong, and largely based on fears of the alternative.

I misspoke and the "unethical" part that the government points to is depriving the unvaccinated child from "lifesaving" vaccines. I only diasgree with the double blind part....a study doesn't need to be double blind really. That concept I believe is more useful when looking at drugs that are prescribed for certain conditions and one wants to take the placebo effect out of the equation.

[interested]

Originally Posted by Lydiah

I am sure they can find health conscious families that both vax and dont vax. Heck even the info on deleyed vaxes would be useful. There are families on MDC that are in all 3 groups that eat healthy and take care of their health.

The idea that nonvaxers are more health conscious so the study would not be vaild, is IMO a complete cop out. Finding non-vaxers and vaxers with similar health habits can be done.

Self-reported health habits are notoriously difficult to measure, and invalid. Additionally, people behave differently if they know they are participants in a study. Physicians screen and report differently. You just can't control for everything. This is why anywhere in clinical research an RCT (and yep, ideally double-blinded) is really the only way to make a "trustworthy" claim. They're really the best way to get at the causality vs. correlation issues.

Part of the reason I stay in my lab and play with bacteria - less time with sticky and frustrating ethical issues!