Frustrated with anti-vax stats

[berkeleyp]

So I am very, very skeptical about vaxes. The big pharma $$ really gets me - BUT I really hate when otherwise reasonable anti-vax people say stupid things and act as if it proves something.

I have Neil Miller's newest book: Vaccine Safety Guide for Families and in his chapter on pertussis, he claims the vaccine is inneffective because in several outbreaks, around 75% of patients were mostly or fully vaxed. He also states that the nations overall vax rate for DTP was near 98%. Hello? That means that the 2% of non vaxed folks represented 25% of pertussis cases. That proves, not that the vax is ineffective but that not vaxing puts a person at much higher risk of infection.

The vax is not 100% but it works pretty darn well if only a small number of people get the disease out of a large population right? If vaxed people make up 98% of the population and the vax were ineffective then shouldn't we see 98% of pertussis cases among vaxed people too?

I am not pro-vax by any means but after reading this chapter, I am somewhat put off by the rest of the book. It makes me question the author's understanding of simple statistics. Why can't anti-vax people be reasonable in this regard.

I also heard Sherri Tenpenny say that tetanus was not such a big deal because it had a 90% survival rate! That is a 10% death rate! Maybe the vax is more dangerous but a 10% death rate is pretty scary.

Anyway, I am prepared to duck under the flames but I just had to rant a little. I am so frustrated by the lack of good research on vax safety and angry that the good guys can sometimes be so dumb.

[Deborah]

have a look at insidevaccines--they are pretty careful with their numbers

what skews pertussis stats, big time, is misdiagnosis

doctor asks: are you vaxed? answer yes, then it is bronchitis or asthma or one of a dozen other illnesses

answer no, then pertussis is the first choice, although it may, in fact, be bronchitis

you do see the problem?

[runes]

Doctors are pretty resistant to diagnosing pertussis in vaccinated children, it's often called "atypical asthma". Also, I highly doubt that 98% of the population is up-to-date on their vaccination for pertussis. What do they consider "vaccinated"? Yes, I did receive DTP when I was little, but not only did I contract pertussis when I was around 8 years old (I remember it distinctly), I also had it last year. Do I fall into the vaxed or unvaxed camp?

Pertussis is endemic, and it is often misdiagnosed, so the stats on it are notoriously wrong. As Deborah mentioned, the folks at Inside Vaccines did an important article about this:

Pertussis: Yo-yo stats

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater with the Miller book. You are obviously well-researched to question these kinds of things, perhaps you can read the original sources of his information to see where his numbers may have come from. That's what I do when I have a "hold on, wait a minute" moment when reading and researching. I would also suggest trying to contact him so that he could clarify.

[Scattershoot]

I agree that anti-vax information should be scrutinized as well. I personally believe that Miller has been a very good influence on opening the current floodgate of vaccination information that so many have benefitted from. His ThinkTwice website is packed with great information.

I too would try to find out where his info came from. He is usually pretty good at sourcing. If 75% of pertussis cases are occurring in the vaxed population, then that in and of itself is important to know. As others stated, misdiagnosis is HUGE. Diagnosis is often not an exact science but instead just an opinion. This is extremely important to understand.

If 2% unvaxed represent 25% of the cases, then what does this mean? I personally don't fear pertussis for my children at all and feel childhood diseases are a necessary part of the developmental cycle. Besides, these numbers can be massaged just as well because if you show pertussis symptoms and you have NOT been vaxed then you can bet your bottom dollar that diagnosis goes down on the chart. Even if it's not known for sure. If 75% getting diagnosed are vaxed, then I'd say the vax is pretty weak.

I give these two examples quite a bit on this forum, but they sum all this up in a nutshell. A family member received a tetanus shot and the next day half his face was paralyzed. Before he even got the shot, he really questioned the doctor about possible side effects (he'd been talking to me a lot). The day after the shot, he goes back to the same doctor unable to close his eye, constantly drooling and unable to move half his face. The doctor says no way the shot caused it and diagnosed him with Bell's Palsy. The doctor said he got a virus. Here's example #2. A young girl I know had little red, itchy spots on her scalp. She didn't feel good either. The mom called the doctor's office and told them what was going on. They said the girl's got the chicken pox and even told her not to come in. Then they discover she's had the chicken pox vaccine. The girl is taken in and they call it some strange name I don't remember (some kind of scalp condition or something). This is how it works.

[mamakay]

First of all about pertussis:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...act/115/5/1422

Serologic studies suggest that the rate of B pertussis infection in adolescents and adults is 2.0% per year. The rate of cough illnesses (pertussis) caused by B pertussis infection in adolescents and adults is between 370 and 1500 per 100 000 population. These data suggest that there are between 800 000 and 3.3 million cases per year in the United States.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...ull/104/6/1381

(about the WHO's case definition for pertussis)

This definition required 21 days of paroxysmal cough plus laboratory confirmation of pertussis in the subject or household contact. There are 2 problems with this definition. The first is that a substantial number of B pertussis infections in unvaccinated children are mild and would not meet the case definition. The second is that all pertussis vaccines tend to modify duration and severity of disease rather than completely preventing illness.18,2326-29,35,36,40 Therefore, the WHO definition has made all vaccines look better than they are and it has tended to obscure differences between vaccines

About stats...I'm not defending Miller's claims, because it sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about...
But this:

He also states that the nations overall vax rate for DTP was near 98%. Hello? That means that the 2% of non vaxed folks represented 25% of pertussis cases. That proves, not that the vax is ineffective but that not vaxing puts a person at much higher risk of infection.

The vax is not 100% but it works pretty darn well if only a small number of people get the disease out of a large population right? If vaxed people make up 98% of the population and the vax were ineffective then shouldn't we see 98% of pertussis cases among vaxed people too?

Looking at pertussis like that doesn't work, because the pertussis vaccine just lessens symptoms. It never really prevents pertussis. But you could look at other vaccines like that. Like, mumps.

What you're saying is what they were saying at first during the (probably ongoing) mumps epidemic. It's kind of the standard provax line.

http://www.idph.state.ia.us/adper/co...ectiveness.pdf
(no copyright...state HD link)

Examples Explaining Mumps Vaccine Effectiveness:
Or why are so many mumps cases occurring in vaccinated people?
There have been many questions about why people, who have been vaccinated, are getting mumps. As you read through the examples that follow, keep these key points in mind.
• The mumps vaccine (part of the MMR vaccine) is about 95% effective.

Example 1:
In a community of 100 people, 100% have been vaccinated. Everyone is exposed to mumps. What happens?
• 95 people (95%) in the community are protected by the vaccine and do not get mumps.
• 5 people (5%) in the community become ill with mumps because the vaccine did not “take”.
• Of the 5 people who get mumps, all (100%) have been vaccinated.


Example 2:
In a community of 100, 98% have been vaccinated (a similar rate to what is being seen today in Iowa’s K-12 schools and some colleges.) Thus 98 people are vaccinated and 2 people are not. Everyone is exposed to mumps. What happens?
• 93 people (95% of the 98 who are vaccinated) in the community are protected by the vaccine and do not get mumps.
• 5 people (5% of the 98 who are vaccinated) become ill with mumps because the vaccine did not “take”.
• 2 people who have never been vaccinated get ill because they have no immunity to the disease.
• Of the 7 (5 vaccinated +2 unvaccinated) people who get mumps, 71% (5/7) were vaccinated. (This is similar to what is happening now in Iowa.)

Ok, well, it would work like that if terrorists were to spray the whole population with mumps virus, but in the real world, how are 100% of the people being exposed to mumps in the first place? You can't get that much circulation, to where 100% of the population is exposed, if the vaccine is really that effective.
So the above explaination only makes sense when you're ignoring the issues of exposure and transmission.


So what's going on?

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/.../faqs-tech.htm

Do we know why so many cases have had MMR vaccine?
Yes, some of the reported cases are in individuals that have been vaccinated with two doses of MMR. The vaccine effectiveness for one dose of MMR is 70-80% and 80-90% for two doses.

Now that makes more sense, doesn't it?
Any time you hear about an outbreak in an almost fully vaccinated community, it doesn't necessarily mean the vaccine is completely ineffective, but if people start saying "Well, the vaccine is 99% effective, so if you have 1,000 people who are all vaccinated, 10 of them will catch disease X" don't believe it. It would take all 1,000 of them being exposed to create those 10 cases, and if the vaccine is really 99% effective, then you're not going to get 100% of the population being exposed.
It's way more likely that the vaccine is just significantly less effective than they're saying.

[leila1213]

Originally Posted by kidspiration

Doctors are pretty resistant to diagnosing pertussis in vaccinated children, it's often called "atypical asthma". Also, I highly doubt that 98% of the population is up-to-date on their vaccination for pertussis. What do they consider "vaccinated"? Yes, I did receive DTP when I was little, but not only did I contract pertussis when I was around 8 years old (I remember it distinctly), I also had it last year. Do I fall into the vaxed or unvaxed camp?

Depends on whether you came down with it this go-around. If you didn't, you are vaxed. If you did, then you are unvaxed.

[berkeleyp]

thanks mamakey - I like your numbers breakdown. My head spins reading all this stuff. I'm educated and consider myself pretty smart but this stuff still gets me. There is so much conflicting and/or confusing information out there.

If pertussis vaccine lessons symptoms - isn't that a good thing in terms of preventing infant deaths? at least among babies who have had two or more doses?

[mamakay]

thanks mamakey - I like your numbers breakdown. My head spins reading all this stuff. I'm educated and consider myself pretty smart but this stuff still gets me. There is so much conflicting and/or confusing information out there.

Yeah, it takes a LOT of reading about it all before it all starts coming together. Everybody trying to recruit you to a "belief team" (both pro and anti) tends to oversimplify things in ways that are just wrong. The reality is that disease epidemiology and immunology is complex, every vaccine works differently, and even good science can render deceptive results.

If pertussis vaccine lessons symptoms - isn't that a good thing in terms of preventing infant deaths? at least among babies who have had two or more doses?

Well, death tends to not happen after 6 months even in the unvaccinated, but there's a good chance (not sure how good, but it's definitely possible) that the 2 and 4 month shots are preventing some deaths. For all we know, the first shot makes you about as immune as you can get from the shot, and all the booster doses do is maintain that immunity.
But nobody really knows.

On the flip side, being vaccinated might make people even less likely to be able to actually clear the bacteria than if they'd never been vaccinated (I'll find a link or two on that if you want...complex science stuff)...so that might mean that mass vaccination means there's more pertussis "out there" infecting people of all ages. But again...nobody really knows.

[runes]

This is a perfect example of how it is that you can continually do research and actually end up with MORE questions than you started with.

By reading more and thinking more, my list of questions was getting longer not shorter, and once I realized this, it became extremely clear to me that reverting to the biological default of an intact immune system was what I felt most comfortable with.

In the meantime, the research continues and yes, the list of questions continues to grow. And I suspect that will never change.

[bamsmom]

Originally Posted by berkeleyp

I also heard Sherri Tenpenny say that tetanus was not such a big deal because it had a 90% survival rate! That is a 10% death rate! Maybe the vax is more dangerous but a 10% death rate is pretty scary.

in the tenpenny DVD that i've seen, she does downplay the seriousness of tetanus, but i thought she was just trying to get the point across that tetanus isn't universally fatal, like many people seem to think it is. i don't think she was saying that tetanus is "no big deal", it's just not the death sentence most people think it is. that's now i interpreted it, anyway.

but i totally know what you mean about some anti-vax people and their stats...it's sooo frustrating when you're researching and you come across stats that just don't seem right. i agree with a PP that insidevaccines.com is great with their use of stats...they also are very good at pointing out the inconsistencies with the info posted on the cdc's website.