Dr. Sears statistics

[amydep]

Help me work through this in my brain. In Dr. Sears book, he states that if you vaccinate then your child has a 1 in 100,000 chance of a severe reaction for each shot or a 1 in 2,600 chance (100,000 divided by 39 shots) of getting a serious vaccine reaction for the entire 12 year vaccine schedule. Then he goes on to say that many vaccine reactions go unreported, so the number could be 1 in 1,300 or 1 in 900 depending on how many are unreported.

The risk of any one person getting a severe case of VPD each year in our entire population (US) is 1 in 1,500 (200,000 serious cases of VPD each year divided by 300,000,000 population).

I was thinking about this...if you DO vaccinate, then you are taking the risk of anywhere from 1 in 900 to 1 in 2,600 (over the 12 year period) of having your child have a severe vaccine reaction AND in addition to that, you still have the 1 in 1,500 risk each year of having a bad case of VPD (because vaccines are not 100% effective).

If you do NOT vaccinate, then you are guaranteed that your child will not have a severe reaction to a vaccine - guaranteed. But, you then have that 1 in 1,500 risk each year of your child having a bad case of VPD.

Now...he included in the 1 in 1,500 risk of bad case of VPD flu hospitalizations (100,000 each year). IMO, that should not even be included in the statistics, because just how many of these are elderly?? If we are comparing apples and apples, then we should look at JUST the childhood diseases, right??? He also had included in his statistics 7,500 hospitalizations from Hep B. Just how many of these are babies? I doubt very many.

So, if I look at just the illnesses that babies really "NEED" to be vaccinated for, this is what he has for hospitalizations:

HIB - 25
Pc - 30,000
Diphtheria - 5
Tetanus - 100
Pertussis - 1,500
Polio - 0
Measles - close to 0
Mumps - 20 (during a recent outbreak)
Rubella - 3 babies born with defects
Chicken pox - 1000

This is a total of 32,653 hospitalizations per year of VPDs that are on the childhood immunization schedule that is required by most school districts. So, what is that - a 1 in 9,187 chance for any one person to have a severe case of one of these VPDs?? This would be the risks PER YEAR. He doesn't have the breakdown of how many of these are adults versus children either.

Then, if you take just the above listed diseases and the doses of vaccines for just the first year (4 HIB, 4 Pc, 3 DTaP, 3 polio, 1 MMR and 1 chic pox) you get a total of 16 vaccines/shots the first year alone for just these vaccines. There is a 1 in 100,000 risk of a serious reaction each time your child gets a shot. So, 100,000 divided by 16 shots is 1 in 6,250 chance that your child will have a severe reaction to one of these shots in the first year alone.

If you look at just these particular illnesses, it looks a whole lot better statistic-wise to avoid the vaccines, doesn't it? Or am I just completely confused? Plus, going back to what I originally wrote, if you vaccinate you still have risk of having a hospitalization from the VPD also.

[LavenderMae]

Very interesting!

[CanidFL]

I haven't read the book yet but thanks for sharing. That seems reasonable. I also agree that if you vaccinate, you still have a chance of getting the disease. But if I remember correctly, vaccines are close to 80% effective so you would technically get some protection. Or maybe I am wrong lol. I haven't looked that up in awhile.

[Baby_Vol]

Thanks for posting that!

[2boyzmama]

What you have beautifully illustrated is that statistics are notorious for giving you whatever answer you want them to give. That's why I HATE statistics!!! It's fun to cruch numbers, but you can't rely on any one person's interpretation of the results.

I heard another way to look at it recently, and it gave me pause:

If, in a sample group of 100 vaccinated individuals, only 10 people become infected, then the vaccine is said to have a 90% effectiveness. HOWEVER, if only 20 people were actually EXPOSED, then it only has 50% effectiveness.

See?? Statistics are unreliable.

GRRR!! That's why this is such a hard decision for so many people...

[MommytoHHH]

I was thinking the same thing when I read the book. His stats didn't really seem to add up IMO. I wonder how he would respond to that? Statistics can be misused just as easily as they can be used correctly.

[delphiniumpansy]

But, these are stats WITH vaccination so popular. The idea of herd immunity and all. So, if more and more people do not vax, the idea is that more and more people will get the VPDs. Thus, the stats would change.

[delphiniumpansy]

I don't think you understand statistics. They are not made up! My dog took 4 shoes into the dining room yesterday. Three were mine and one was my dh's. So, 3 out of 4 were mine, meaning he prefers my shoes 3 to 1. He is 75% in favor of my shoes. That is a statistical analysis of my dog's shoe preferences. That is how stats work. You don't interpret them the way you decide what is good or bad art. They are not subjectively interpreted!

[amydep]

Originally Posted by 2boyzmama

What you have beautifully illustrated is that statistics are notorious for giving you whatever answer you want them to give. That's why I HATE statistics!!! It's fun to cruch numbers, but you can't rely on any one person's interpretation of the results.

I heard another way to look at it recently, and it gave me pause:

If, in a sample group of 100 vaccinated individuals, only 10 people become infected, then the vaccine is said to have a 90% effectiveness. HOWEVER, if only 20 people were actually EXPOSED, then it only has 50% effectiveness.

See?? Statistics are unreliable.

GRRR!! That's why this is such a hard decision for so many people...

Exactly! I can skew the numbers some more if you want! For instance, if you take out the 30,000 hospitalizations for Pc because according to Dr. Sears book "96% of the severe cases of Pc disease at Children's Medical Center in Dallas were caused by Pc strains not found in the vaccine", then you only have 2,653 hospitalizations per year of illnesses that are actually "preventable" by vaccine (of the vaccines for the first year of life). So then the figure becomes 1 in 113,079 chance (300,000,000/2653) of getting a severe case of a VPD each year. If you don't vaccinate against Pc because of the statistics showing that the vaccine is not preventing the illness, then your child will only get 12 shots the first year and has a risk of 1 in 8,333 (100,000/12 shots) of having a severe reaction the first year of life. That makes not vaxing look even better, doesn't it? I'll take the 1 in 113,079 risk of contracting a severe reaction to illnesses listed above compared to 1 in 8,333 risk of severe reaction to vaccine any day. This is kind of fun!

[amydep]

Originally Posted by delphiniumpansy

I don't think you understand statistics. They are not made up! My dog took 4 shoes into the dining room yesterday. Three were mine and one was my dh's. So, 3 out of 4 were mine, meaning he prefers my shoes 3 to 1. He is 75% in favor of my shoes. That is a statistical analysis of my dog's shoe preferences. That is how stats work. You don't interpret them the way you decide what is good or bad art. They are not subjectively interpreted!

I know. But my point was that he is taking into consideration in his figures for people who were hospitalized for the flu. This is skewing his results. I don't think that all 20,000 hospitalizations for the flu each year are babies and/or children under the age of 12. So, I automatically take those hospitalizations and those vaccines out of the figures and I got the results shown above. Dr. Sears isn't comparing apples and apples. He is comparing hospitalizations from the population as a WHOLE and comparing that to severe reactions from vaccines during the first 12 years of life. You can't compare the two. That was my point.

[amydep]

OK....now I'm thinking some more. What if you take each illness and vaccine separately. Take each illness and chance of hospitalization due to severe reaction in the population as a whole (300 million) and compare it to the 1 in 100,000 chance of severe reaction from each shot which Dr. Sears mentions in his book. For instance:

HIB - 1 in 12,000,000 chance of having a hospitalization (each year) due to severe VPD or 1 in 100,000 chance of having a severe reaction from the vaccine (each time child has shot)

DTaP - 1 in 198,675 (take all 3 illnesses and combine the numbers) chance of having hospitalization due to severe VPD or 1 in 100,000 chance of having a severe reaction each time your child has the shot

Polio - 0% risk of having a hospitalization due to severe VPD or 1 in 100,000 chance of having a severe reaction from the vaccine (each shot)

Measles - 0% risk of having a hospitalization due to severe VPD or 1 in 100,000 chance of having a severe reaction from the vaccine.

Mumps - 1 in 30,000,000 chance of having a hospitalization due to severe VPD or 1 in 100,000 chance of having a severe reaction from the vaccine.

Chickenpox - 1 in 1,500,000 chance of having a hospitalization due to severe VPD each year or 1 in 100,000 chance of having a severe reaction from the vaccine

Does this make sense?

[lyttlewon]

Originally Posted by delphiniumpansy

I don't think you understand statistics. They are not made up! My dog took 4 shoes into the dining room yesterday. Three were mine and one was my dh's. So, 3 out of 4 were mine, meaning he prefers my shoes 3 to 1. He is 75% in favor of my shoes. That is a statistical analysis of my dog's shoe preferences. That is how stats work. You don't interpret them the way you decide what is good or bad art. They are not subjectively interpreted!

Ah yes but how do we know that you didn't accidently drop meatloaf on your shoes and it wasn't actually your shoes he liked but the meatloaf and if you cleaned your shoes he would have prefered your DH's shoes 100% of the time? It isn't the math part of statistics that are the problem but the interpretation.

[LavenderMae]

Amydep, this is so very interesting, thank you!

It isn't the math part of statistics that are the problem but the interpretation.

:

[youmb00]

Originally Posted by delphiniumpansy

I don't think you understand statistics. They are not made up! My dog took 4 shoes into the dining room yesterday. Three were mine and one was my dh's. So, 3 out of 4 were mine, meaning he prefers my shoes 3 to 1. He is 75% in favor of my shoes. That is a statistical analysis of my dog's shoe preferences. That is how stats work. You don't interpret them the way you decide what is good or bad art. They are not subjectively interpreted!

As a former math dork I must say statistics are notorious for ease of subjective interpretation. You can pretty much get whatever result you want if you are careful at wording it.

As in above example, maybe you have lots more shoes than your husband, etc.

[amydep]

Originally Posted by youmb00

As a former math dork I must say statistics are notorious for ease of subjective interpretation. You can pretty much get whatever result you want if you are careful at wording it.

As in above example, maybe you have lots more shoes than your husband, etc.

Yes! I have 25-50 pairs of shoes and DH only has 2 and most of the time one of those pairs is out in the garage, so dog would only have access to one pair!!!

[youmb00]

Originally Posted by 2boyzmama

If, in a sample group of 100 vaccinated individuals, only 10 people become infected, then the vaccine is said to have a 90% effectiveness. HOWEVER, if only 20 people were actually EXPOSED, then it only has 50% effectiveness.

See?? Statistics are unreliable.

GRRR!! That's why this is such a hard decision for so many people...

Even in above example, out of the 20 exposed people if 10 ppl weren't going to get the disease anyway (with or without vax, since not everyone gets ALL the disease) then that's 0% effectiveness. Numbers are kind of useless unless we know what the statistics of non-vax people look like.

I always wondered how they come up with the effectiveness %?? Does anyone have the details on how the numbers are figured? What kind of assumptions are used?
I know some books say 60-90% effectiveness for certain vax but that doesn't say much. Might as well say, "we don't know"

[mykdsmomy]

Originally Posted by youmb00

I know some books say 60-90% effectiveness for certain vax but that doesn't say much. Might as well say, "we don't know"

I can see a bunch of scientists standing around shrugging their shoulders and saying...hmmmm might work. might not.
Then pharma hears "It might not work but it will sure make us a lot of money and will make people feel like they are "protected"....let's do it! Kaching!!!

[AlexisT]

Originally Posted by amydep

Measles - 0% risk of having a hospitalization due to severe VPD or 1 in 100,000 chance of having a severe reaction from the vaccine.

I don't know if this is from Dr. Sears or elsewhere, but it's false. I know this is anecdata, but there was recently a measles outbreak at a local primary school. 12 cases of measles, 2 hospitalisations for breathing difficulties. Fatalities due to measles are very rare in industrialised countries, but complications (of varying degrees of severity) are not uncommon. It's also one of the most infectious diseases, which is why it's been targeted by WHO (a large number of infections means that even if the complication rate is low, you can still end up with an overwhelmed health system were a major outbreak to occur).

Measles is one disease that does come back quickly when vaccination rates drop (there's been a sharp increase in the number of cases in the UK as MMR rates have declined); that would have to be factored in. Not all diseases will see this increase, of course--polio being the prime example.

[amydep]

Originally Posted by AlexisT

I don't know if this is from Dr. Sears or elsewhere, but it's false. I know this is anecdata, but there was recently a measles outbreak at a local primary school. 12 cases of measles, 2 hospitalisations for breathing difficulties. Fatalities due to measles are very rare in industrialised countries, but complications (of varying degrees of severity) are not uncommon. It's also one of the most infectious diseases, which is why it's been targeted by WHO (a large number of infections means that even if the complication rate is low, you can still end up with an overwhelmed health system were a major outbreak to occur).

Measles is one disease that does come back quickly when vaccination rates drop (there's been a sharp increase in the number of cases in the UK as MMR rates have declined); that would have to be factored in. Not all diseases will see this increase, of course--polio being the prime example.

He got these figures from the US - I see you are in the UK.



And I did reread his stats and he does mention figures for kids 12 and under with a population of 50 million children on a separate page (page 170), so the stats would change to the following for each VPD mentioned above (using 50 million instead of 300 million):

HIB - 1 in 2,000,000 chance of hospitalization each year (using the 50 million children stat) versus 1 in 100,000 risk of severe reaction from each dose of vaccine (He says that the most severe cases occur during the first 2 years of life which would be 5 million babies. Using that figure it would be 1 in 200,000 risk for hospitalization during the first 2 years. After that the risk is close to 0).

DTaP - 1 in 33,112 chance of hospitalization each year versus 1 in 100,000 severe reaction from vaccine each time. (He states in his book that tetanus is unheard of during the first 5 years of life and only 10 cases a year from ages 5-25 which gives the disease risk 1 in 500,000. Diphtheria risk is 0%. Whooping cough there is 1500 severe cases each year in infants - most severe in the first 6 months of life - so he says the severe risk is 1 in 3333 taking into account there are 5 million babies instead of 50 million children.)

Polio - still 0% for hospitalization from VPD versus 1 in 100,000 vax reaction

Measles - 0% hospitalization from VPD versus 1 in 100,000 vax reaction

Mumps - 1 in 5,000,000 hospitalization in the total 50 million population of children (he says the risk is 1 in 250,000 for teens and young adults) versus 1 in 100,000 vax reaction

Chickenpox - 1 in 250,000 hospitalization for 50 million children (for some reason he has 1 in 25,000 in his book, but clearly lists 200 serious cases. This would be 50,000,000 children divided by 200 cases which equals 250,000 not 25,000) versus 1 in 100,000 vax reaction

[Deborah]

It looks to me as though the problem comes from combining the diseases and combining the vaccines and comparing the net numbers. If you do each vax vs each disease, one at a time, it is more useful in terms of deciding which vaxes you want to do (or not).

And yes, if we totally stopped vaxing there would be an increase in some childhood illnesses. I'm still very doubtful if I would be willing to risk the health of my grandchildren (who would, I think, survive any of the normal illnesses just fine) to protect some unknown children. Especially since the stats as to the dangers of the various illnesses are so wildly variable. I'd be willing to contribute money to a fund to help teach people how to successfully nurse their kids through normal childhood illnesses first, I think. A lot of the problem is ignorance.

But I'll admit that measles worries me, because of the millions of adults with no immunity (due to the vax) and the millions of babies with no immunity (due to the vax).