10, 20 years from now…how do you think this vaccine controversy will have panned out?

[kathymuggle]

Polish your crystal balls!

I sometimes feel we are at a bit of a crossroads wrt vaccination.

For years things seemed at a standstill.  Everyone had their own beliefs, the map of exemptions in the USA was stable-ish  (I think) …..blah, blah, blah

Lately I sense a shifting.  The pertussis vaccine is not as effective as it should be, as even the CDC admits.  

Almost everyone acknowledges that the CP vaccines has caused an upswing in shingles across all age groups, and shingles is a far less pleasant disease than CP.

On the other hand, the pro-vax community seems to be pushing back wIth tighter rules around vaccine exemptions.

Do you think the general public is getting smart about the fact vaccines might not be the panacea they are being touted as?

Do you think Big Pharm and public health officials will get their way in insisting on tighter exemptions?

[Mosaic]

Good questions... interested to see what folks say.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by Mosaic 

Good questions... interested to see what folks say.

me, too, lol

I think parents are waking up to the fact that vaccines as a standard package are not the greatest/have limitations. 

I do not think there will be a huge contingent of non-vaxxers, but I bet the sel/delayed portions grows.

I also suspect, if autism continues to grow in numbers (I think it might have peaked and plateaued, but really, that is just a hunch)  more parents will decline vaccines.  This is especially true if autism is in your family tree.  Here is a stat:

"In a survey of parent’s beliefs and practices regarding vaccinations and autism, siblings in families in which there was an autistic child were 3 times more likely to be unvaccinated, compared with siblings in families in which there was a child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder." 

http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-children-and-autism-why-no-studies/

I suspect Big Pharm and the government will push back, mostly through tighter exemptions and laws such as the one in California.  It might get worse before it gets better, but I do think it will get better.  At some point the number of parents refusing the whole vaccination package will be too high, there will be too many people expressing rage of erosion of parental rights…and it will end.

Alternately, it will become (and already is) a class issue. I would homeschool or private school before vaccinating because the government insists on it for school entry.   I very much get that I am lucky to be able to do so.  It is really horrible that strict rules around exemptions set up a system where those who can afford it can make vaccine choices, but others, realistically, can not.  

[Taximom5]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

I also suspect, if autism continues to grow in numbers (I think it might have peaked and plateaued, but really, that is just a hunch)  more parents will decline vaccines.  

It will be extremely difficult to know whether autism will continue to grow in numbers.

Psychiatrists are in the middle of officially re-defining autism for DSM-5.  If you change the definition and diagnostic criteria, that changes everything.

(Interestingly, the same thing was done with polio when the vaccine was introduced--the definition of polio was changed so that, if a patient with polio symptoms had been vaccinated, it could not be diagnosed as polio.  Think that might have had any effect on the reported polio rate?)

And the autism rate waters are already so muddy, very few people are able to clearly see what is going on.  The CDC announced that the 2012 autism rate was 1/88--but that is based on 2008 data, which in turn is based on 8-year-olds, who were born in 2000.

Media everywhere trumpeted that the autism rate was still climbing in 2012, a decade after thimerosal was supposedly eliminated in pediatric vaccines, and that that therefore proved that thimerosal was not linked with autism.

But those 8-year-olds studied in 2008, who make up the 2012 officially-announced-by-the-CDC-autism-rate, were born in 2000--and received more thimerosal-preserved vaccines than any children every before.

What an interesting time to be changing the diagnostic criteria for autism.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by Taximom5 

Psychiatrists are in the middle of officially re-defining autism for DSM-5.  If you change the definition and diagnostic criteria, that changes everything.

Yes.  We will have to remember this a few years from now (as if we could forget) when the spin doctors try saying numbers have stabilized or decreased - thus it can't be vaccines 

I do not think parents are fooled by how stats are manipulated.

If a parents sees a lot of autism in the community, and particularly in their family tree, they are going to avoid vaccinating, because despite what others might say, the issue is *not* settled.  

[MountainMamaGC]

I fear the day where vaccines are mandatory is coming soon. Sooner in the US than Canada, but soon nonetheless. I dont know how to stop that from happening, other than writing the health minister on occasion to let her know that I dont approve of mandatory vaccines. Sometimes I wish this debate never came to light, so the people like us could be overlooked like they used to. 

[sassyfirechick]

I don't feel like many of the people I know ARE aware of the options out there, and they do blindly follow vax protocols given by their pedis.  I get a lot of strange looks and questions as to hw I could do that to my child, and how could I be so careless with her health.  But I refuse to sit quietly and pretend like I 'follow the herd' bc we don't and I want people to know WHY.  So I've taken on a new path of educating friends in recognizing a vaccine reaction.  I explain to them that even the slightest things that occur after a vaccine, should be reported and I tell them that it's ok they vaccinate - but they should want those vaccines to be as safe as possible and if no one reports reactions, then on paper they do not exist and changes won't happen.  I've had a few people say they never knew about reporting and since my recommendation they now document every little thing after they vax, so I feel like it's a step in the right direction. 

I cringe to think they could get tougher on exemptions.  I want my child to have a good education, I've researched the options, and I desperately want for DD to attend a montessori school.  I was Catholic school educated, DH was public school, both of us had an education that was lacking in some way (I needed to be allowed to progress beyond my 'grade' in most subjects but it wasn't doable in a catholic school with no extra funding, and DH needed more one on one to capture his interest).  We're lucky to have a montessori school in town, but it's a Catholic montessori.  So, while religion is not a requirement nor a main subject of study, we may face a challenge when it comes to filing for expemption in 2yrs for DD.

And if it comes down to it, I would be willing to homeschool (DH might take some convincing). I left my full time job when she was born bc of issues with scheduling (and DH makes more p/t than I did f/t) so I could be here with our daughter.  I do work p/t a few hrs to get out of the house and my FIL watches her, but if push comes to shove I will not sacrifice health for education and since our public schools aren't that great and with no immediate plans to move, homeschooling it would be.

I really wish the push was not for tighter exemptions and they would focus on safer vaxes, but I guess that's too much to ask for. 

[japonica]

Hmm...interesting to speculate.

I've noticed a couple of things over the past eight plus years I've been involved with this topic. First, the number of parents questioning vaccines and looking into the issue seems to have grown. I'm also on a pretty mainstream forum and the new members joining our very small S&D/non-vaccinating subforum seems to grow all the time. 

I expect that in another 10 years, the aP vaccine will have lost even more of its questionable effectiveness as the bacteria continues to evolve and adapt. We'll also have that first generation of Gardasil girls really hitting their childbearing years and we might get some questions answered about reproductive effects, serotype replacement, and overall long term efficacy. 

Finally, I do think with more parents questioning, TPTB are going to tighten regulations. We've seen some signs of it already, in the US and other countries. It's something all of us who do not adhere to the schedule have to be prepared for.

[ssun5]

I think looking back in history may perhaps help us understand what might happen in the future. Lets just take a look at the UK smallpox history since they have so much history to follow: Sorry that its long...

In 1871, when public disquiet was on the up, Lancet, July 15, 1871 had this to say:

“the deaths from smallpox have assumed the proportions of a plague. Over 10,00 lives have been sacrificed during the past year in England and Wales. In London, 5,641 deaths have occurred since Christmas. Of 9,392 patients in London Smallpox hospitals, no less than 6,854 have been vaccinated i.e.73% Taking a mortality of 17.5% of those attacked, and the deaths this year in the whole country of 10,000, it will follow that more than 122,000 vaccinated persons have suffered from smallpox! Can we greatly wonder that the opponents of vaccination should point to such statistics as evidence of the failur of the system? It is necessary to speak plainly on this matter.”

That year, the House of commons held a committee hearing on vaccination, where many doctors gave evidence against vaccination. One was Dr William Collins, who like many others declared that he had:

“known people who had been vaccinated and re-vaccinated suffer dreadfully from smallpox, two of whom died in the most hideous confluent form after successful vaccination and re-vaccination; one of the three times vaccinated.”

In the epidemic of 1870-72, 44,840 people died, after 70 years of vaccination and 18 years of compulsion.

Also as a matter of interest the article also pointed out that 96% of births were officially registered as vaccinated. AND that a person’s word for being vaccinated was not accepted. The smallpox hospital only accepted that a person was vaccinated, if they had an old scar which was totally distinguishable from the newly forming vesicles. Inspection was done by official “vaccinators” during the progress of the disease. Therefore, if a person, say had confluent, or haemorrhagic smallpox, such a scar would be unlikely to be found. Therefore, the percentage of vaccinated could well have been higher than the Lancet stated.

This was in fact discussed thoroughly at the Royal commission in 1886, when it was admitted that in nearly all fatal cases, the profuse eruption his the vaccination scars if they existed, and these cases were all put down as unvaccinated, and with unreliable observations such as these, it was impossible to gauge the true numbers of those vaccinated. (Parliamentary papers 1896, XLVII, p 179)

Another interesting thought to ponder from the historical data was that in London, prior to vaccination, in the worst smallpox outbreak, only 2 % of the population contracted smallpox, and of those 25% died. If there had been vaccinators there at that time, would they have credited this 99.5% of the population, who did not contract smallpox, as solely due to their vaccine?

Dr Geo Wyld of London, held at that time to be a man of impeachable integrity and the authority of that time on vaccination stated in the London Daily News, February 17, 1877:

“I find that many medical men are under the false impression that all we require to do is to inoculate a heifer with smallpox matter and thus get a supply of vaccine lymph. This might become productive of disastrous consequences. Smallpox inoculation of the heifer produces not vaccinia, but a modified smallpox capable of spreading smallpox amongst human beings by infection.”

It soon became very evident world wide, in both lay literature and many of the main medical journals, that vaccination did nothing to either halt or cause less serious infections of smallpox. . By 1885, it was obvious to all in the official statistics, that there was a direct correlation. The medical people wrangled, the average person rebelled, especially when the registrar generals statistics were made public and showed that the majority of people who had died of smallpox from 1850 – 1872 were vaccinated.

A huge outcry amongst the public ensued Over 100 union parished ripped up the local vaccination ordinances in 1872, and instead called in the Sanitary engineers, and started putting in sewage disposal plans, rubbish dispose, proper corpse disposal and jointed pipes to ensure uncontaminated water. Those were the measures officially adopted under the Public Health Act in 1875. the offical records states that those parishes were the ones that by and large escaped the 1878 smallpox epidemic. This, combined with dietary measure initiated in the early 1800’s, along with surveillance, quarantined, and containment of all “imported” cases from outside local areas did what no vaccines could. (It was not until about 70 years later that World Health personnel realised the truth of quarantine, containment and isolation.)

While the unions who had ripped up the vaccination ordinances and got on with real public health measures, the debate continued. 1878 Parliament records show Sir Thomas Chambers as saying “You cannot show that vaccination has reduced deaths, or saved a single life. There may be no smallpox, but the disappearance of smallpox is by no means equivalent to the reduction of mortality.

In 1880, the Registrar General had got tired of the debate, and in his 1880 official report state that:

“The decennium which closed with the year 1880 was one of lower mortality in London than any of the preceding decennial periods. These facts are strong evidence that the sanitary effort of recent years have not been unfruitful. …. The fixing our attention on total morality, we take into consideration its causes. For it will be found that the saving of life was almost entirely due to diminished mortality from causes whose destructive activity is especially amenable to sanitary interference – namely the so-called zymotic diseases. The death rate from fever fell nearly 50%, scarletina and diphtheria 33%. One disease alone in this class showed exceptionally a rise, and no inconsiderable one. This was smallpox, which owing to the two great outbreaks of 1871 – 2, and 1878-8 gave a death-rate nearly 50% ABOVE its previous average.”

And such was the general pitch of public discontent in the early 1890’s, that the medical profession had to do something. What they did was two things.

1)They set up the General Medical Council in 1896. Officially, its purpose was to register only bona-fide, upstanding doctors who the public could trust. Those doctors were registered, and only those doctors could practice medicine. But in actuality, the GMC silenced dissenters, since they simply struck them off the register, or refused to register them, if they would not toe the line.

2)As a palliative to the concerned doctors, they set up, in 1896. the Royal Commission into Vaccination, where, according to the GMC, all material would be honestly and openly studied.

All the evidence mentioned including the records of all the parishes refusing to implement compulsory vaccination was studied, but rejected. But the evidence exists today, in the form of the Royal Commission on Vaccination. There are two reports, the official one stating vaccination to be superduper clean and a world saver, and the dissenting report which accurately stated evidence given. There is also Minutes of Evidence In British House of commons “Reports from Commissioners, Inspectors & Others”. I don’t know how many volumes there are, but there appear to be many!

The problem for the medical people was that such information had the potential to unravel not only their reputation, but the vaccine “industry”. So to counter the negative publicity, in both lay and medical media, the medical profession using the results of the Royal commission, started a mass publicity campaign, blaming the previous use of arm to arm vaccination, and badly trained doctors and vaccine administrators – and even “wrong technique” as the cause of all the troubles.

They maintained that a new “safe, pure glycerinated lymph” was the only one that would work. They proposed that vaccine manufacture should be removed from the hands of amateurs with “dubious” stock, and that its manufacture should be entrusted to “reliable” pharmaceutical companies to ensure a standard safe product.

Arm to arm vaccination was immediately made illegal in 1898, after the medical profession admitted that arm to arm did indeed spread both syphilis and tuberculosis, and this provided them with the scapegoat and useful alibi to “get out of jail” so to speak..

Even so, huge numbers of parents simply didn’t buy into what they saw as the new propaganda.

It is also to be noted that vaccination rates dropped severely by 1883, with the majority of parents defying the law in places like Leicestershir. The number of parents summonsed and prepared to be imprisoned show this clearly. By 1885, the system was pretty clogged, with over 3,000 parents awaiting prosecution, which mobilised demonstrations in the towns where numbers were mounting.. But by1898 the fine/jail system was quietly abandoned after the 1898 Act allowed conscientious objection if supported by a magistrate. By the end of 1898, 203,413 “C.O.” certificates had been issued by local magistrates, excusing over 230,000 children from vaccination. The government attempted to clamp down on the definition on what constituted “satisfaction” of conscientious belief, which resulted in a drop of only 39, 511 certificates in the following year. Which sprung the National Anti-Vaccination League back into life. This was compounded by the fact that the new Government calf lymph had not yet been given with any “guarantee”. The NAVL league ran a concerted campaign until in 1907, an act was passed virtually ending compulsory vaccination. By making a straightforward declaration, a parent was free of obligation to the act. By 1911, over 25% of births were exempted, and it was all down-hill for the pro-vaccinationists from there. In the late 40’s, the Vaccination Act was repealed totally..

Ok, so back to just me. I think it will be an ugly road fully of get out of jail free cards, mis information, public campains, even possible jail time for us etc.... I think it will have to get much worse and we would have to be willing to go to jail to escape vaccination just like in the UK if it really ever turns.

 What amazes me is how damaged many of our children ALREADY are and yet parents, medical personnel etc STILL refuse to call it vaccine damage.

   I think we have to go through a huge backlash STILL just like in England before it gets any better. I think we still have another 50-100 years of this before we even have a chance of real change.

REFERENCES:

Apart from medical articles, the basis of this draft is:

Encyclopedia Britannica, 1889 edition (9th)

Vaccination by Dr Charles Creighton

Smallpox in London: Factors in the decline of the Disease in the nineteenth Century, by Anne Hardy,
Medical History 1983,27:111-138

Leicester and Smallpox: The Leicester method by Stuart M.F. Fraser Medical History, 1980,24:315-332.

The Genesis of Edward Jenner’s INQUIRY of 1798: A comparison of the two unpublished manuscripts and the published version. By Derrick Baxby.
Medical Hisory, 1985,29:193-199

Law, Medicine and public opinion: the resistance to compulsory Health Legislation 1870 – 1907, part 1, and part 2 by R.M.MacLeod
Public Law (Jnl) 1967

The Value of Vaccination by Feorge William Winterburn, PhD., M.D., Pub F.E.Boericke,
1886.

An Inquiry into Vaccine “Lymph”. Medical Pamphlet Vol 119, S610.4/M248.

[Mama Soltera]

Yes, I do think there will be new discoveries and awareness. I just look at how much things have changed in general over the past ten years, how much we know (or at least have realized we don't know) that we didn't, how many new things have become the norm for us, how many things we are working on. I absolutely feel that in only ten years we will look back and wonder how we could not have seen so many things (now) that then will be so clear and common sense. In twenty years --- I can't even imagine!