What are the biggest more impressive arguments for Pro vaxers? [Archive]

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-24-2006, 09:20 PM

The reality is that as Blessed said, if you are unlucky enough to get full-on tetanus, or polio, it isn't nice. I guess serious complications from measles and chickenpox aren't nice either. Getting liver cancer after Hep B (which can only happen if your diet is trash and you use liver processing OTC or prescription drugs) isn't nice either. Doctors who counsel people whose 4 week old baby has died from pertussis caught from an ICU nurse (true, I got told about this last night)find it hard, particularly when the "experts" say the vaccine is the answer. It didn't matter that the ICU nurse was fully vaccinated. Now the ICU is requiring all ICU nurses to have the TdaP or else they can't work there.

It comes down to whether a person focuses on the WCS (worst case scenario) or whether they can feel that their non-ICU, normal baby, and parenting skills are enough.

Most pro-vaccine parents I know, don't have the knowledge or the skills to nurse their children through infections that are more than a sniffle. They rely on the experts for answers, and certainly have absolutely no faith in the immune systems of their children. They are the ones who say "I couldn't live with myself if my child got really sick and died." So no matter how rare anything might be, those are the reasons they can't get past.

Often, many of them, knowing that its a fragile reason in terms of logic, then add on the altruism angle, by saying that they are protecting all the other kids so that they won't die either.

I've tried to show these people all the risks, facts and data, but ultimately it will come down to wanting to do the "right" thing according to the system: to be accepted by the system.

When they vaccinate their children they don't have to worry, and its the worry relief that is the most important thing for them, as I hear them talk about it.

Spy

12-24-2006, 09:48 PM

I'd say fear of disease, no matter how remote the chances are, and incredible faith in official reassurances about safety-efficacy of vaccination would do it for the most.

bobandjess99

12-24-2006, 10:06 PM

I think it is just that they *can't* break themselves free of the matrix, LOL!

They simply can't wrap their minds around the fact that *everyone* else is wrong..all the doctors, mothers, friends, the gov't, "experts", etc....

It is REALLY difficult to say "hey...all these other people believe the world is flat, but there are a couple of whackos who are *insisting* it is round.....crazy anti-flatEarth people!....Who cares that they have maps and some sort of crazy "prrof" using some new-fnagled math and stuff...there are even some people who claim to have BEEN around the world....Ya, right!! Crazy people......"

Redifer

12-24-2006, 10:12 PM

So true, bobandjess... So many of the people I know who vax (who refuse to do any research about it either) are so indoctrinated into the "trust everyone in a position of authority/always go with the majority, so many people can't be wrong" thing.

It also usually manifests itself in every aspect of their lives; the keeping up with the Jones', the run out and buy the newest crazed-trend item, the "I don't know why I want it or need it, but the media tells me I have to have it/society says I'm supposed to want it/my neighbor has it therefore I must"... I'm not saying this goes for everywhere, but from the people I've seen and conversed with here, it's all so inter-connected you can't tell where one thing ends and another begins.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-24-2006, 10:18 PM

I don't think the OP is talking about the people who the medical profession calls the bandwaggoners. I think she is talking about people who do research, but want to vaccinate.

I think Spy has hit the nail on the head in that these people do convince themselves that vaccines are so safe that its worth doing, even if there isn't much of a chance of dying from a disease. Sort of "Well, we can do it, its safe, doesn't do anything bad, so why not?"

People do have a comfort zone that, no matter what facts are put there, they prefer to do what others do.

xmasbaby7

12-25-2006, 07:28 AM

I have been thinking about this lately, too.

I just switched to a non-vaxing ped and even she says, "Look, as much I have reasons why I won't offer them in my practice, some of them DO work really well."

Some of them probably do work better than others, even though we don't like to give any of them credit around here. (Granted, at what cost to the body do they offer that protection from said disease)

I personally had my own switch philosophically, where I really faced the fact that with either choice, no parent has ultimate on control on how thier child handles disease and what they become exposed to anymore than whether or not their child suffers a reaction.

I STILL think there are better odds in not vaxing and raising the healthiest child possible, but I have accepted that I can't control this absolutely.

So if a parent does all the research and still chooses to vax, I think it is because they think that is still thier safest route because treating illness really intimidates them.

Deborah

12-25-2006, 08:27 AM

I see several hurdles.

First, if illness is always seen as something bad and to be avoided, then why not avoid it? The fact that illnesses in childhood actually accomplish something positive is so contrary to the received wisdom of our time that most people cannot possibly wrap their minds around it.

Second, for people who don't know much history, geography and demographics, it looks as though vaxes really did "save" us. And if we stop vaxing we will be unsaved, obviously.

Third, the conspiracy explanation is a bit far-fetched, especially since their is no evidence that the staff at the various drug companies are avoiding vaxing their kids and grandkids. (I don't think there is much of a conspiracy, just a fatal combination of greed, pride and ignorance.)

Fourth, as has been mentioned, people trust authority. Why not?

Fifth, it is easier to go with the flow, cause once you start questioning who knows where you might end up? It looks to me as though vaxes are one of the last things to be questioned, too. People will do a home birth, cloth diaper, skip the circ, breastfeed for years and so on, before they will start questioning the safety of vaxes.

Sixth, there is a lot of guilt-tripping out there. You gotta vax for the poor, the immune compromised, the people overseas who won't be able to afford vaxes unless millions of us use them to get the price down, the kids with heart problems, the preemies...

aira

12-25-2006, 08:55 AM

(I don't think there is much of a conspiracy, just a fatal combination of greed, pride and ignorance.)

Don't forget the massive, staggering, mind-blowing arrogance. ;)

mykdsmomy

12-25-2006, 10:56 PM

When they vaccinate their children they don't have to worry, and its the worry relief that is the most important thing for them, as I hear them talk about it.

This is soooo true! Unfortunately this kind of logic rings true for so many things we do in this world. It's why we feel safe doing whatever the government stamps as "safe". The FDA stamp of approval is a magical thing :dizzy:

People do have a comfort zone that, no matter what facts are put there, they prefer to do what others do.

I think this pretty much sums it up :( It is a total comfort zone not based on fact or honesty but on comfort and trust in the powers that be. Is it brainwashing? I think so and unfortunately I am guilty of buying into it way too often. Maybe it doesnt boil down to the hard cold facts and evidence but more so the support you get from highly trusted professionals and other parents that you are doing the right thing because it's what they think you should do :dizzy:

huggerwocky

12-26-2006, 10:21 AM

In light of recent threads, I've begun to really wonder why people who truly research decide to vax?
What are the deciding factors or major pro arguments that lead people to vax ?

My child is more likely to be be harmed by the disease than by the vaccination. Easy decision. That's the main reason. Is it so mind boggling someone might have a different opinion? :rolleyes

LongIsland

12-26-2006, 10:31 AM

I'd say fear of disease, no matter how remote the chances are, and incredible faith in official reassurances about safety-efficacy of vaccination would do it for the most.

:nod

Fear of getting sick (with anything, including fever) + Faith in the FDA = Very Easily Manipulated Parent

13Sandals

12-26-2006, 10:50 AM

My child is more likely to be be harmed by the disease than by the vaccination. Easy decision. That's the main reason. Is it so mind boggling someone might have a different opinion? :rolleyes

I for one don't have a problem with someone reaching a different conclusion. The reason things get so heated between vaxers and nonvaxers is that nonvaxers don't have the freedom to make an alternate decision. For those of us who don't agree with you (ie. my son's neurological damage after the cp vax is, I believe, more damage than a case of the chicken pox ever would have done) , we can't opt out as easily as you can opt in. Your decision is respected. Our decision is ridiculed - even for those of us who have seen our children damaged from a vaccination.

momto l&a

12-26-2006, 10:54 AM

The fear of being differant

Proverbs31

12-26-2006, 10:54 AM

The way I see it, even if one were to do no statistical reseach whatsoever, how could we not be skeptical of vaccines simply by reading the ingredients? Seriously: aluminum, mercury,formaldehyde, borax, anti-freeze...how on earth are they convinced that it "safe" to inject these toxins into tiny babies...not to mention the ick factor of human and/or animal blood, monkey kidneys and aborted fetal tissue:dizzy:

Amila

12-26-2006, 11:07 AM

People really, truly (even Dp's friend who is a vax researcher for MERCK) believe that the risk of a bad adverse reaction is 1 in a million. :dizzy:

kdtmom2be

12-26-2006, 11:42 AM

I have always been opposed to unnecessary vaccinations, since I was a teenager and they started telling me that I needed to be REvaccinated for things that I had already been vaccinated for, because it turned out that there were batches of "bad" or ineffective vaccines in the years that I was vaccinated (though not necessarily the city centers). At 16 my mother let me stand up for myself and say NO.

So why will I ultimately vax my own children? Because the system here forces you to vaccinate for certain things or they won't let you put your kids in the public school system! Why not homeschool? Simple, finances. BUT, I don't have to vax them until age 5, and not for everything, just a select few. So DH and I have agreed on selective, delayed vax, and are ok with that. He was dead set against having his other two kids vaccinated for HepB and chicken pox, but was over-ruled by both his ex-wife AND the court system. Go figure.

SOME vaccines do SOME good.... the polio vaccine nearly erradicated a deadly and harmful disease. But with the incidence of polio now being so very low, I would prefer not to vaccinate my children for it unless they were planning on travelling to a country where it was much more prevalent than it is here in Canada. That goes for a whole host of other diseases/vaccines as well.

Oh, and I don't vaccinate my dog either... he's had one rabies vaccine. They are starting to show a link between animal vaccines and animal cancer incidences, wish I could remember a few links for you off the top of my head. (And I wonder when they will start showing those same correlations in the human populations?) They are also showing that the animal vaccines last for WAY longer than they initially thought. i.e. vaccines that they used to administer annually they are now saying last as long as 3-5+ years.

13Sandals

12-26-2006, 11:59 AM

kd - I though vaxes were optional in Canada?

just a thought - I tried the same schedule with my younger son. didn't vax until he got close to K and then only the absolutely necessary ones. He had a speech regression at 4 1/2 after the cp shot and we are still trying to get him back to where he was. i'd homeschool, move out of this state - do anything rather than let him receive another vax. used to be you were born autistic...now it can happen anytime..just a coincidence that my son regressed 'later than usual' right after vaxing. was going to happen anyway.:rolleyes delaying doesn't necessarily get rid of the risks of vaccinating - just delays them. Not saying you were assuming that - you can understand I just feel the need to bring it up as I had no idea kids could regress that late.:gloomy:

Proverbs31

12-26-2006, 12:03 PM

In Canada you can legally exempt your children from vaccines and still send them to public school:

http://www.vran.org/legal/forms.htm

alegna

12-26-2006, 12:14 PM

My child is more likely to be be harmed by the disease than by the vaccination. Easy decision. That's the main reason. Is it so mind boggling someone might have a different opinion? :rolleyes

Could you share the numbers or statistics that you used to reach this conclusion? When I researched raw numbers that's not what I found, so I'd be very interested if you have some hard numbers to show that.

thanks!

-Angela

AikeaGuinea

12-26-2006, 02:06 PM

AikeaGuinea

12-26-2006, 02:16 PM

Could you share the numbers or statistics that you used to reach this conclusion? When I researched raw numbers that's not what I found, so I'd be very interested if you have some hard numbers to show that.

thanks!

-Angela

What do you mean by "raw numbers"...what was your source for these numbers?

If you click here and scroll down to #4 there is a chart which explains "risk from disease vs. risk from vaccines"

http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/6mishome.htm#Vaccinepreventable

Scattershoot

12-26-2006, 02:20 PM

For many, it's just the fact that there is research that "proves" vaxes are safe. I know this is generalized and could go a million directions, but here is more proof that something has been "researched" and proven to be safe. It's about the safety of cloned meat.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/nation/epaper/2006/12/23/a4a_clone_1223.html

From the article:

Two of the largest studies were provided by commercial clone producers Cyagra Inc. and ViaGen Inc. They tracked the growth of cloned and conventional animals and found no problems in clones that were not also present in other animals.

But skeptics remain unconvinced.

Kimbrell, of the Center for Food Safety, said too few animals have been cloned to conclude that they are safe to eat. He also said more independent research — provided by companies that are not in the cloning business - is needed.

Those who produce cloned meat and have billions at stake did research to prove that cloned meat was safe so therefore it MUST be safe. You see how simple that is.

alegna

12-26-2006, 02:24 PM

mamakay

12-26-2006, 02:32 PM

What do you mean by "raw numbers"...what was your source for these numbers?

If you click here and scroll down to #4 there is a chart which explains "risk from disease vs. risk from vaccines"

http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/6mishome.htm#Vaccinepreventable

Aikea,
Pick one of those diseases, and one of those vaccines, and dig beyond the "parent pages" like this one, and the numbers are totally different.

Take pertussis the disease...
They say one in 8 cases of pertussis results in pneumonia.
Where did they get that from? Is that actually true?

Honestly, I'm not sure the risks outweigh the benefits all the time, but the numbers the CDC uses on these "communication" pages that are written for parents are totally a lie.

When we talk about "raw numbers", we mean "What research was the CDC using to make this statement?

The CDC cherry picks data that makes diseases look more scary than they are, and ignores research that shows that...say...most cases of pertussis are subclinical.
And they do the same thing to make vaccines look safer than they are.
And they do the same thing to make the vaccines look more effective than they are.

Pick one disease and one vaccine and we can show you exactly what we're talking about.

ETA:
Like this:
Finally, we can look at the experiences of several developed countries after they let their immunization levels drop. Three countries - Great Britain, Sweden, and Japan - cut back the use of pertussis vaccine because of fear about the vaccine. The effect was dramatic and immediate. In Great Britain, a drop in pertussis vaccination in 1974 was followed by an epidemic of more than 100,000 cases of pertussis and 36 deaths by 1978. In Japan, around the same time, a drop in vaccination rates from 70% to 20%-40% led to a jump in pertussis from 393 cases and no deaths in 1974 to 13,000 cases and 41 deaths in 1979. In Sweden, the annual incidence rate of pertussis per 100,000 children 0-6 years of age increased from 700 cases in 1981 to 3,200 in 1985. It seems clear from these experiences that not only would diseases not be disappearing without vaccines, but if we were to stop vaccinating, they would come back.

Is that really and truly what public health authorities believe?
Or is that a load of crap?

wallacesmum

12-26-2006, 02:40 PM

OP- I think a big factor is who you trust when it comes to adverse effects numbers. The CDC and the docs say there pretty much aren't any; other quarters disagree. No one has convincingly argued in anything I have read that there are good reasons not to do straight up comparative studies of vaxed vs. non-vaxed kids, so it is a bit of an art to glean the truth here.

mamakay

12-26-2006, 02:40 PM

Ok Aikea...now read this.
THIS is raw data on the epidemiology of pertussis.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/115/5/1422

In the prevaccine era pertussis epidemics followed a cyclic pattern, with peaks every 2 to 5 years. With the marked reduction of pertussis by vaccination, the same cyclic pattern still occurs. Studies relating to reported pertussis and Bordetella pertussis infection have been reviewed and analyzed. The increase in reported pertussis over the last 2 decades is mainly due to a greater awareness of pertussis and perhaps to the use of several less efficacious vaccines.

Studies of prolonged cough illnesses in adolescents and adults reveal that 13% to 20% are a result of B pertussis infection. 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.

So how can the CDC's

It seems clear from these experiences that not only would diseases not be disappearing without vaccines, but if we were to stop vaccinating, they would come back.

and "one in 8 cases of pertussis result in pneumonia" stuff be true?
It can't!
They are just cherry picking data to scare you into vaccinating your kid!

ndunn

12-26-2006, 03:16 PM

So why will I ultimately vax my own children? Because the system here forces you to vaccinate for certain things or they won't let you put your kids in the public school system!

I live in Canada too. You can get an exemption. Its VERY easy.

SOME vaccines do SOME good.... the polio vaccine nearly erradicated a deadly and harmful disease.

I think saying the polio vaccine eradicated a deadly and harmful disease is
somewhat untrue. Maybe someone else can add to that as I don't have links on the computer that we are on right now (we are away for xmas).

LongIsland

12-26-2006, 03:29 PM

http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/6mishome.htm#Vaccinepreventable

:lol

.

13Sandals

12-26-2006, 04:04 PM

How do you know it was the vaccines that caused the regression?

i imagine i can never be certain whether it was the vaccine or another environmental, or a genetic factor that triggered the development of definitive symptoms and the loss of communication. for me, the coincidence is too suspicious. i believe my son had a genetic predisposition and the vaccines were a trigger. especially since his symptoms developed on the later side of the normal appearance of autistic type behavior and happened to coincide with vaccination - particularly after the cp vaccine (his last). do I think the cp vaccine is more dangerous than any other of the vaccines he received? No. i believe though that the cp was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was with that dose that his system reached its toxic overload and could no longer cope. even without definitive 'proof' that vaxes were a trigger - i'd much rather take my chances with the vpds than risk that my choice to inject his system with toxins could cause more damage.

jessicaSAR

12-26-2006, 04:09 PM

ndunn

12-26-2006, 06:12 PM

apelilae

12-26-2006, 08:22 PM

When I first started on my vax or not to vax research, I was bombarded by both extremes. I don't trust extremes. I had a hard time finding good, sound research that was objective, unbias, and not supported by either extreme.

You read things like:

Two recent studies indicate that religious and philosophical exemptions to immunizations increase cases of disease. Daniel Feikin et al. in “Individual and community risks of measles and pertussis associated with personal exemptions to immunization,” JAMA 284 (December 27, 2000):3145-50, studied all reported confirmed measles cases among Colorado children aged 3 to 18 years during 1987-1998 and all reported confirmed and probable pertussis cases among the same population for 1996-98. The authors found that exemptors were 22 times more likely to acquire measles and 6 times more likely to acquire pertussis than vaccinated children. Furthermore, the authors found that at least 11% of vaccinated children who contracted measles acquired the infection through contact with an exemptor. Daniel Salmon, et al., “Health consequences of religious and philosophical exemptions from immunization laws: individual and societal risk of measles,” JAMA 282 (July 7, 1999):47-53, found children with religious or philosophical exemptions from immunizations were 35 times more likely to contract measles than vaccinated children.

And it does kinda scare people into vaxing. Even when they know the potential side effects. This research has been a bit :dizzy: at times and I see why some people just say forget it and go with what the doctors say.

We're still on the fence about vaxing. IF we do, I won't until he's at least 2 and it will be a select few. I'm hoping there will be some more unbias longitudinal research by then as I know of several valid studies being conducted now. Right now, I say no vax.

kdtmom2be

12-26-2006, 10:10 PM

In Canada you can legally exempt your children from vaccines and still send them to public school:

http://www.vran.org/legal/forms.htm

well, I'm not in one of the three provinces with legal exemption, but I'll have to look into the "informed consent" part of things. thanks for the info.

ndunn

12-26-2006, 10:29 PM

well, I'm not in one of the three provinces with legal exemption, but I'll have to look into the "informed consent" part of things. thanks for the info.

Oh I forgot to add, I have relatives in Ontario with 4 unvax'd kids and they've been able to get an exemption. Hope that helps!

bri276

12-26-2006, 10:42 PM

2kids-mommy

12-26-2006, 10:48 PM

www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden1/es.php
The vast majority of chemicals people are exposed to come from sources other than vaccines.

bri276

12-26-2006, 10:51 PM

www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden1/es.php
The vast majority of chemicals people are exposed to come from sources other than vaccines.

so? that means we should add more by vaccinating?

mamakay

12-26-2006, 11:03 PM

when you hear a good provax reason- meaning, one that hasn't been completely disassembled, shredded up, chewed and spit out by the incredible wealth of knowledge in this forum that the provaxers haven't bothered to read- let me know. I'd like to hear it.

So, we have about 40 cases of tetanus a year in the US.
Find me 40 DT reactions that are as horrific as the 40 cases of tetanus.

LongIsland

12-26-2006, 11:04 PM

www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden1/es.php
The vast majority of chemicals people are exposed to come from sources other than vaccines.

Which vaccine ingredient causes the following recognized vaccine adverse reactions:

encephalitis
diabetes
thrombocytopenic purpura
GBS
meningitis
seizure disorder
convulsions
crying/screaming syndrome
diarrhea
hair loss
tranverse myelitis
multiple sclerosis
optic neuritis
chronic arthritis
death

mamakay

12-26-2006, 11:05 PM

www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden1/es.php
The vast majority of chemicals people are exposed to come from sources other than vaccines.

Have you seen this?
What do you think about it?
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=574360&highlight=Chris+Shaw

~member~

12-26-2006, 11:13 PM

suschi

12-27-2006, 04:05 AM

My child is more likely to be be harmed by the disease than by the vaccination. Easy decision. That's the main reason. Is it so mind boggling someone might have a different opinion? :rolleyes

Then someone went on to post a link from the CDC

What do you mean by "raw numbers"...what was your source for these numbers?

If you click here and scroll down to #4 there is a chart which explains "risk from disease vs. risk from vaccines"

http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/6mishome.htm#Vaccinepreventable

Well here's another quote from CDC about harm from disease risk vs harm from vaccines,

Decreases In Disease Risks

Today, vaccine-preventable diseases are at or near record lows. By virtue of their absence, these diseases are no longer reminders of the benefits of vaccination. At the same time, approximately 15,000 cases of adverse events following vaccination are reported in the United States each year (these include both true adverse reactions and events that occur coincidentally after vaccination). This number exceeds the current reported incidence of vaccine-preventable childhood diseases. As a result, parents and providers in the United States are more likely to know someone who has experienced an adverse event following immunization than they are to know someone who has experienced a reportable vaccine-preventable disease. Thus, the success of vaccination has led to increased public attention on health risks associated with vaccines.

http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/pink/safety.pdf

My 4th child is still recovering from his 6 month round of vaccines, given on 9/27/99.

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 06:47 AM

double post

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 06:48 AM

So, we have about 40 cases of tetanus a year in the US.
Find me 40 DT reactions that are as horrific as the 40 cases of tetanus.

For 2005, fifty-six (56) reports of "death" following DT/DTaP (most within 24 hours of vaccination): http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?LOWAGE=&HIGHAGE=&SEX=&STATE=&PRIOR_VAX=&VAX_DATE_LOW=2005-01-01&VAX_DATE_HIGH=2005-12-31&CUR_ILL=&VAX=DTAP&VAXDOSE=&VAXMAN=&VAXROUTE=&VAXLOT=&VAXSITE=&ONSET_DATE_LOW=&ONSET_DATE_HIGH=&REPORT_DATE_LOW=&REPORT_DATE_HIGH=&SYMPTOMS=&HISTORY=&L_THREAT=&ER_VISIT=&DIED=Yes&HOSPITAL=&DEATH_DATE_LOW=&DEATH_DATE_HIGH=&X_STAY=&RECOVD=&LAB_DATA=&DISABLE=&OTHER_MEDS=&V_ADMINBY=&V_FUNDBY=&PAGENO=1&PERPAGE=10

For 2005, forty-two (42) reports of "life threatening" reaction to DT/DTaP: http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?LOWAGE=&HIGHAGE=&SEX=&STATE=&PRIOR_VAX=&VAX_DATE_LOW=2005-01-01&VAX_DATE_HIGH=2005-12-31&CUR_ILL=&VAX=DTAP&VAXDOSE=&VAXMAN=&VAXROUTE=&VAXLOT=&VAXSITE=&ONSET_DATE_LOW=&ONSET_DATE_HIGH=&REPORT_DATE_LOW=&REPORT_DATE_HIGH=&SYMPTOMS=&HISTORY=&L_THREAT=Yes&ER_VISIT=&DIED=&HOSPITAL=&DEATH_DATE_LOW=&DEATH_DATE_HIGH=&X_STAY=&RECOVD=&LAB_DATA=&DISABLE=&OTHER_MEDS=&V_ADMINBY=&V_FUNDBY=&PAGENO=1&PERPAGE=10

Of course, these are just the reported cases.

FTR, VAERS follows up with the provider and/or patient/parent with each of these types of reports.

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 06:49 AM

Not only would it practically take a divine intervention for an unvaxed child to actually contract tetanus, but it would take two divine interventions for tetanus to kill a child.

A vaccinated child has a better chance dying from one of the DTaP vaccine doses, than an unvaccinated child even contracting tetanus, let alone dying from it.

Proverbs31

12-27-2006, 07:06 AM

well, I'm not in one of the three provinces with legal exemption, but I'll have to look into the "informed consent" part of things. thanks for the info.

Those are the only 3 provinces with laws on the books regarding vaccines; in other words, since there are no official laws in the other provinces you cannot be forced to vaccinate. Schools and doctors may tell you that you have to vaccinate because "its the laws" but there is no to back up that statement.

Take advantage of this; many of us in the US can only wish it was this easy for us to opt our kids out!

Scattershoot

12-27-2006, 08:50 AM

So, we have about 40 cases of tetanus a year in the US.
Find me 40 DT reactions that are as horrific as the 40 cases of tetanus.

First, we have to define "horrific." From Merriam-Webster we get:

having the power to horrify

So we go to "horrify" and we get:

to cause to feel horror
to fill with distaste : SHOCK

Then we go to "horror" and we find:

painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay <astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about me -- H. G. Wells> b : intense aversion or repugnance

I personally know 2 people who had "horrific" reactions to dt (not dpt as you left out the p part on purpose). Myself and a close friend. I've already detailed my reactions in other posts, and my friend suffered partial paralysis. His hands just started to function again after several months (they called in Guillain-Barre). That's two of your 40.

Here's a link to the contraindications for dt.

http://www.dhs.ca.gov/PS/dcdc/izgroup/pdf/Contra%20IZ%20Guide.pdf

The National Institutes of Health define GB as rare b/c it affects less than 200,000 people per year. Finding exact numbers is hard but if it's anywhere in the tens of thousands that is a lot of "horrific" situations. I don't pretend to state that all GB cases are related to dt but let's also keep in mind the number of non-reported or under-reported cases. How many people's immune systems fall apart like mine did? It's ridiculous the lack of reporting of vaccine reactions by doctors. We will never, ever even come close to knowing real numbers to "horrific" reactions to dt.

Proverbs31

12-27-2006, 10:24 AM

I personally know 2 people who had "horrific" reactions to dt (not dpt as you left out the p part on purpose). Myself and a close friend. I've already detailed my reactions in other posts, and my friend suffered partial paralysis. His hands just started to function again after several months (they called in Guillain-Barre). That's two of your 40.

Make that 3! The only vaccine I ever got in my entire life was a tetanus shot at 18 years old. About 10 minutes after the shot I collapsed and went into shock. Within 1 month my weight dropped down to 86lbs because my body was no longer absorbing nutrients from food. I had constant, watery diahrea (sp) and no energy whatsoever. It took a good 3 years to get my health back and to be able to keep some weight on.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 10:25 AM

For 2005, fifty-six (56) reports of "death" following DT/DTaP (most within 24 hours of vaccination): http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?LOWAGE=&HIGHAGE=&SEX=&STATE=&PRIOR_VAX=&VAX_DATE_LOW=2005-01-01&VAX_DATE_HIGH=2005-12-31&CUR_ILL=&VAX=DTAP&VAXDOSE=&VAXMAN=&VAXROUTE=&VAXLOT=&VAXSITE=&ONSET_DATE_LOW=&ONSET_DATE_HIGH=&REPORT_DATE_LOW=&REPORT_DATE_HIGH=&SYMPTOMS=&HISTORY=&L_THREAT=&ER_VISIT=&DIED=Yes&HOSPITAL=&DEATH_DATE_LOW=&DEATH_DATE_HIGH=&X_STAY=&RECOVD=&LAB_DATA=&DISABLE=&OTHER_MEDS=&V_ADMINBY=&V_FUNDBY=&PAGENO=1&PERPAGE=10

For 2005, forty-two (42) reports of "life threatening" reaction to DT/DTaP: http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?LOWAGE=&HIGHAGE=&SEX=&STATE=&PRIOR_VAX=&VAX_DATE_LOW=2005-01-01&VAX_DATE_HIGH=2005-12-31&CUR_ILL=&VAX=DTAP&VAXDOSE=&VAXMAN=&VAXROUTE=&VAXLOT=&VAXSITE=&ONSET_DATE_LOW=&ONSET_DATE_HIGH=&REPORT_DATE_LOW=&REPORT_DATE_HIGH=&SYMPTOMS=&HISTORY=&L_THREAT=Yes&ER_VISIT=&DIED=&HOSPITAL=&DEATH_DATE_LOW=&DEATH_DATE_HIGH=&X_STAY=&RECOVD=&LAB_DATA=&DISABLE=&OTHER_MEDS=&V_ADMINBY=&V_FUNDBY=&PAGENO=1&PERPAGE=10

Of course, these are just the reported cases.

FTR, VAERS follows up with the provider and/or patient/parent with each of these types of reports.

Well, you know how I like to play devil's advocate. And since you're taking me up on my argument, I guess I'll hash this out with you.

Let's nevermind children for a minute.
I can't argue that an unvaxed child has a snowball's chance of getting tetanus. But what about older adults?
Can you tell from VAERS which of those reactions were due to the "P" portion?

mamakay

12-27-2006, 10:29 AM

The National Institutes of Health define GB as rare b/c it affects less than 200,000 people per year. Finding exact numbers is hard but if it's anywhere in the tens of thousands that is a lot of "horrific" situations. I don't pretend to state that all GB cases are related to dt but let's also keep in mind the number of non-reported or under-reported cases. How many people's immune systems fall apart like mine did? It's ridiculous the lack of reporting of vaccine reactions by doctors. We will never, ever even come close to knowing real numbers to "horrific" reactions to dt.

Yeah, GBS qualifies as horrific.
Hmm...

How can you estimate how many people a year might develop GBS after/because of the DT?

chaoticzenmom

12-27-2006, 10:57 AM

I'd also say it's fear of disease. I decided to get the polio shot for my son and I got one dtap that caused a reaction. I will continue with the polio shot boosters, but not the dtap. At birth, I decided to get the vitamin k shot only because he's a 3rd child and his likeliness of bodily injury seemed high to me knowing my children.

My dh had mumps and said it wasn't that big of a deal, I had chicken pox and it wasn't a big deal. We're healthy, so I'm not that afraid of whooping cough, but I'd rather avoid it. Hep B? Not scared.

My first son was fully vaxed until 3 and my daughter was selectively vaxed until 18 months. My baby has had those three shots I talked about earlier.

The thing that made me start to research was that when my daughter was born 5 years ago, the doctor came into my room to do the hep b shot. I said "why does she need that shot?" and the dr said "it's no big deal, we can wait until later" So, I felt that she was really against giving the shot to my daughter. I started asking more questions after that. It's like, before, I never realized that I had a choice and that these things could just wait until later, or were entirely optional.

Lisa (mom of 3 wonderful children)

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 10:58 AM

Well, you know how I like to play devil's advocate. And since you're taking me up on my argument, I guess I'll hash this out with you.

Let's nevermind children for a minute.
I can't argue that an unvaxed child has a snowball's chance of getting tetanus. But what about older adults?
Can you tell from VAERS which of those reactions were due to the "P" portion?

Now I understand why you want to concentrate on older adults because of the virtually nonexistent chance of an unvaxed child getting tetanus, but that's changed now with the recent licensure of two Tdap vaccines. Tdap has been recommended to replace T and Td for all adolescents and adults AND regardless of whether you're in the ER with a wound.

Let's also talk about the tetanus "high riskers." Those being IV drug users (IDU's) and diabetics and how they fit into the annual tetanus incidence rate.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 11:19 AM

Now I understand why you want to concentrate on older adults because of the virtually nonexistent chance of an unvaxed child getting tetanus, but that's changed now with the recent licensure of two Tdap vaccines. Tdap has been recommended to replace T and Td for all adolescents and adults AND regardless of whether you're in the ER with a wound.

Let's also talk about IV drug users and diabetics and how they fit into the annual tetanus incidence rate.

What's going to happen with the Tdap regarding reactions is an unknown so far. Maybe adults won't react? Maybe it'll be unreal how many reactions there are?
Who knows?

Honestly, this keeps boiling down to unknowns on both sides, although the "provax" side gets unspoken bonus points for being "official" for some illogical reason.
That's the problem with VAERS, too. Yes, some of the reported reactions will probably be "coincidence". But it makes no sense to assume because some will be coincidence that ALL of them have to be coincidence. And that logical fallacy that pediatricians are so universally prone to make is what shields manufacturers from having to pay a dime when their product kills people.

So...I dunno. There's a lot of guesswork happening no matter which side you argue.

mykdsmomy

12-27-2006, 11:36 AM

So...I dunno. There's a lot of guesswork happening no matter which side you argue.

But it is guesswork or unknowns favored by the pro vax side? Ughhh it's kind of like I'm laying in the street dying and two guys come up....one in a suit and one that appears homeless.....they both offer me medicine but the guy in the suit offers me medicine from his pocket...not in a bottle....the homeless guy offers me medicine that is completely sealed ....which one do I trust? I'd probably trust the clean guy in the suit because even though he has the more risky medicine, he fits in better with society and can be trusted more. Ok, REALLY BAD analogy but it made sense to me :lol

mamakay

12-27-2006, 11:58 AM

But it is guesswork or unknowns favored by the pro vax side? Ughhh it's kind of like I'm laying in the street dying and two guys come up....one in a suit and one that appears homeless.....they both offer me medicine but the guy in the suit offers me medicine from his pocket...not in a bottle....the homeless guy offers me medicine that is completely sealed ....which one do I trust? I'd probably trust the clean guy in the suit because even though he has the more risky medicine, he fits in better with society and can be trusted more. Ok, REALLY BAD analogy but it made sense to me :lol

I think that's a perfect analogy, actually. I totally, totally see what you mean.
The unknowns do make you want to default to trusting the CDC/doctors. But when you logically work it out, their actual arguments aren't all that.

Eh, what a messy thing to try to wrap your mind around.

bri276

12-27-2006, 12:23 PM

So, we have about 40 cases of tetanus a year in the US.
Find me 40 DT reactions that are as horrific as the 40 cases of tetanus.

someone else already did- but now you show me evidence that I should worry about tetanus. even if you only want to focus on adults. 40 cases of tetanus out of how many people who are not up to date on their tetanus vax? with what type of wound care? with what immune system issues or living conditions?

iamleabee

12-27-2006, 12:30 PM

***Edited by mod due to copyright issues***

*found this interesting, the URL to the complete article is:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/5/447

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 12:37 PM

High vaccination levels in the surrounding community and low rates of vaccine failure averted an epidemic.

Noooooo . . . isolation of the infected individuals and natural immunity "averted" spread of the disease.

If one of those homeschooled, measles-infected individuals would have spent a few days in one of the area grammar schools, something tells me we would have seen A LOT of vaccinated school children coming down with measles, not to mention MMR-vaccinated adults.

alegna

12-27-2006, 12:47 PM

***Edited by mod due to copyright issues***

*found this interesting, the URL to the complete article is:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/5/447

Someone linked to this recently. Know what's interesting to me? No deaths. No problems. A few dozen people got a mild disease and got over it :shrug

Where's the scare?

-Angela

mamakay

12-27-2006, 12:47 PM

***Edited by mod due to copyright issues***

*found this interesting, the URL to the complete article is:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/5/447

How many people died?

alegna

12-27-2006, 12:52 PM

How many people died?

none

mamakay

12-27-2006, 12:57 PM

someone else already did- but now you show me evidence that I should worry about tetanus. even if you only want to focus on adults. 40 cases of tetanus out of how many people who are not up to date on their tetanus vax? with what type of wound care? with what immune system issues or living conditions?

Lol...I know the provax argument here is sort of anemic, but...
Ok...sure, they're generally elderly and diabetic. But how do you know that those 40 cases a year in that group wouldn't be 80 cases a year if they weren't getting vaccinated?
Going from memory, around 50% of that population is considered "undervaccinated".
So how do you know that there aren't 40 cases of tetanus a year prevented by vaccination?

mamakay

12-27-2006, 12:58 PM

none

No way! :wink

...but starving kids in Africa die from measles all the time!

mamakay

12-27-2006, 01:02 PM

It's interesting that in Germany, where parents tend to think vaccinating for measles is sort of silly, and they do "measles parties" like US parents do "chickenpox parties"...those kids don't die from measles, either.
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ew/2002/020321.asp

One of the affected regions is the county and town of Coburg in Bavaria, where an outbreak began in an anthroposophical school in November 2001. Anthroposophical teaching discourages measles vaccination, and therefore measles outbreaks have been reported in such schools in other countries (1). The outbreak spread to various other schools and daycare facilities and has not yet been controlled. With a total of 910 cases the cumulative incidence from November to mid-March reached 671 per 100 000 inhabitants. The age specific attack rate was highest in age group 1-4 years with 54 cases per 1000 children. Thirty one per cent of all cases (n=285) were reported in this group. Most cases occurred among children aged 5-9 years (n=377, 41% of all cases) which gives an attack rate of 50 cases per 1000 children. In age group 10-14 years 161 cases were reported, accounting for 20 cases per 1000 children of that age. Vaccine coverage is low in the region, as many parents refuse to have their children vaccinated against measles. According to data from school entrance examinations performed from 1998-1999 only 76% of children aged 5-6 years were vaccinated at least once against measles. The outbreak has been largely limited to the town and county of Coburg, with a few isolated cases in children who attend schools in Coburg but live elsewhere. This is probably due to the higher vaccine coverage in most of the neighbouring counties, where >90% of children with known vaccination status were vaccinated when starting school (http://www.landkreis-coburg.de/aktuell/masern2.html). Of the 910 cases, 37 patients were admitted to hospital, but no deaths were reported

alegna

12-27-2006, 01:04 PM

No way! :wink

...but starving kids in Africa die from measles all the time!

AMAZING! huh? :lol

-Angela

mykdsmomy

12-27-2006, 01:18 PM

It's interesting that in Germany, where parents tend to think vaccinating for measles is sort of silly, and they do "measles parties" like US parents do "chickenpox parties"...those kids don't die from measles, either.

But could one argue that there are perhaps different strains of measles in Germany than in the US and/or vaccines have caused some strains of measles to be more resistant to conventional treatment and therefore vaccinating here would protect kids against said super bugs? (does that make sense?)

ETA: by conventional treatment, I mean chicken soup and vit c...no vaccines

prettypixels

12-27-2006, 01:25 PM

Death is not the only bad thing that can result from measles. There's also brain damage, encephalitis, breathing issues, deafness, and meningitis to worry about.

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/m/measles/complic.htm

Just pointing out that simply because no one of that 37 actually DIED, doesn't mean a disease is "harmless."

And yes, I absolutely would worry about my child contracting a disease where 1 in 2000 wind up brain damaged. The risks of the vaccine seem far smaller no matter how I look at it. However, I don't believe that the only people to have complications from VPD's are unhealthy, dirty, or underfed. Certainly middle-class Americans have had their share of complications with all of these VPD's and the majority of them are not unhealthy, dirty, or malnourished.

Roosevelt contracted polio as a perfectly healthy adult. He didn't *die*, but I doubt he'd have called polio harmless.
http://www.americanpresident.org/history/franklindelanoroosevelt/

Given the cases of measles, rubella, polio and pertussis amongst the Amish, is the feeling there that the Amish only get them because *they* are unhealthy?
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/PublicHealth/tb1/1935

If so, what exactly is required to be healthy enough to shrug off these VPD's? How do you create the ultimate in bulletproof immune systems? I would love to know, and avoid getting the flu this year! :)

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 01:31 PM

Going from memory, around 50% of that population is considered "undervaccinated". So how do you know that there aren't 40 cases of tetanus a year prevented by vaccination?

The 40 annual cases of tetanus do not occur in only the elderly population. More than half the adult U.S. population (20+ years of age) are not "protected" against tetanus.

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 01:34 PM

Death is not the only bad thing that can result from measles. There's also brain damage, encephalitis, breathing issues, deafness, and meningitis to worry about.

The MMR VACCINE causes brain damage, including encephalitis and a slew of other serious adverse reactions. In fact, MMR-vaccine induced encephalitis is a VICP tabled vaccine injury. TRANSLATION: It happens often enough (and with permanent brain injury and death) that we can't even try to hide it, so we had to table the injury.

AND the MMR vaccine causes meningitis as well.

Roosevelt contracted polio as a perfectly healthy adult. He didn't *die*, but I doubt he'd have called polio harmless.
http://www.americanpresident.org/history/franklindelanoroosevelt/

Roosevelt is now believed by researchers to have suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), not polio. Incidentally, GBS is a recorgnized vaccine adverse reaction. And no, GBS is not "harmless."

mamakay

12-27-2006, 01:35 PM

But could one argue that there are perhaps different strains of measles in Germany than in the US and/or vaccines have caused some strains of measles to be more resistant to conventional treatment and therefore vaccinating here would protect kids against said super bugs? (does that make sense?)

ETA: by conventional treatment, I mean chicken soup and vit c...no vaccines

Naw...they're not saying that. The "official" argument is that we have to vaccinate to protect the immunocompromised. (the very rare child who measles might seriously injure or kill).
Which is very clever, coz if you don't go "Oooh, ok...good idea" then that makes you selfish.

Angela's thinking is actually correct, though, in my opinion. My job as a parent is to protect MY child. That is job#1 in my life.
If that makes me a selfish bi**h, then whatever. That's life.

If the measles vax wasn't doing weird stuff that the PTB seem to want to pretend isn't happening, then ok...maybe I'd be cool with that plan.
But as it stands, nope.
And making nonvaxers feel guilty for wanting to protect their own kids is messed up. It's coercive, manipulative nonsense.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 01:40 PM

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 01:43 PM

Do you think it's a coincidence that it's usually immunocompromised kids that have complications with chickenpox and measles?

Excellent point . . . and there's no coincidence.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 01:45 PM

The 40 annual cases of tetanus do not occur in only the elderly population. More than half the adult U.S. population (20+ years of age) are not "protected" against tetanus.

But still, how do you know those 40 cases wouldn't be 80 cases if not for tetanus shots?

(I realise that the "number needed to treat" here is astronomical...vaccinating 300 million people to prevent 80 deaths...but still.)

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 01:51 PM

But still, how do you know those 40 cases wouldn't be 80 cases if not for tetanus shots?

(I realise that the "number needed to treat" here is astronomical...vaccinating 300 million people to prevent 80 deaths...but still.)

The 40 annual cases of tetanus = 40 annual deaths?

mamakay

12-27-2006, 01:54 PM

Ok, pretty pixels...I've got a homework project for you.
I want you to find out exactly how many non-immunocompromised kids have to catch measles before you'll find a case of braindamage or death.
Is it 4000? 8000? 20,000?

mamakay

12-27-2006, 01:59 PM

The 40 annual cases of tetanus = 40 annual deaths?

Well, tetanus sucks so bad when it happens that I was thinking of it like death. But you're right. Tetanus doesn't always result in death. But it's sort of a "fate worse than death" kind of thing.

But anyway...
Is there an argument out there that the shot isn't preventing 40 cases of tetanus?
Other than MT's vax non-responders/natural immunity non-responders one? (which is really quite plausible, in a way, except for the CDC's statement that the few cases of tetanus happen in unvaccinated people...but they might just be making that up, like they like to do, too.)

lyttlewon

12-27-2006, 01:59 PM

Roosevelt contracted polio as a perfectly healthy adult. He didn't *die*, but I doubt he'd have called polio harmless.
http://www.americanpresident.org/history/franklindelanoroosevelt/

How do you know that FDR was a perfectly healthy adult? What do you know about his personal health profile?

ETA I did a google of FDR and it turns out he was a chain smoker. Not exactly what I would consider healthy.

iamleabee

12-27-2006, 02:07 PM

i would like to post another article and avoid copyright infringment issues (unlike last post).

i found this article interesting.
here is a blurb:

We found that websites critical of vaccines claim that vaccines cause illness, claim that vaccines are contaminated, promote the idea that the vaccines are only temporarily effective, encourage alternative medicine, claim conventional medicine is wrong, make emotive appeals, and make ethical allegations about conspiracy, cover-up, civil liberty violations, totalitarianism, and immorality...many of the arguments in use today parallel those used in the past. For instance, during the late 19th century, objections to smallpox and typhoid vaccinations included the following: vaccination is against the laws of nature, good hygiene provides adequate protection against disease, vaccines can transmit other diseases, and compulsory vaccination is a violation of one's liberty [34,35]. These arguments are similar to those espoused by current vaccine critics who hold that natural therapies and alternative medicine are preferable for prevention of infectious disease, vaccines cause idiopathic illness, and school entry vaccination requirements violate civil liberties [13,14]. Furthermore, the ethical allegations remain quite strident, including purported collusion among government, the medical establishment, and pharmaceutical companies that is motivated by profit [35]. Finally, opponents of vaccination dramatize relatively rare adverse events to overshadow vaccination's enormous public health benefits [15]. This is an especially effective tactic now, as the toll from a number of infectious diseases fades from the public memory {as a result of universal vaccinations}.

source: J Med Internet Res. 2005 Apr–Jun; 7{2}: e17.
Published online 2005 June 29. doi: 10.2196/jmir.7.2.e17.
Copyright © Richard K Zimmerman, Robert M Wolfe, Dwight E Fox, Jake R Fox, Mary Patricia Nowalk, Judith A Troy, Lisa K Sharp. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research {http://www.jmir.org}, 29.6.2005. Except where otherwise noted, articles published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License {http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/}, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, including full bibliographic details and the URL {see "please cite as" above}, and this statement is included.
Vaccine Criticism on the World Wide Web
Richard K Zimmerman, MD, MPH, 1,2 Robert M Wolfe, MD,3 Dwight E Fox, DMD,1 Jake R Fox, MA,1 Mary Patricia Nowalk, PhD, RD,1 Judith A Troy, MS,1 and Lisa K Sharp, PhD3
Richard K Zimmerman, Department of Family Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3518 5th Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA, Phone: +1 412 383 2354, Fax: +1 412 383 2306, Email: zimmer@pitt.edu.
Reviewed by L Nasir and Julie Leask
3Department of Family Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA
2Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
1Department of Family Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Corresponding author.
Received January 28, 2005; Revisions requested February 25, 2005; Revised May 16, 2005; Accepted June 8, 2005.
The publisher's final edited version of this article is available at J Med Internet Res.
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 02:08 PM

How do you know that FDR was a perfectly healthy adult? What do you know about his personal health profile?

ETA I did a google of FDR and it turns out he was a chain smoker. Not exactly what I would consider healthy.

It couldn't have been polio, anyway. Polio is an enterovirus, and was absolutely endemic in the prevaccine era. No person in the US could avoid contracting it in childhood. Sort of like how rotavirus is now. It's a given that your kid is definitely going to catch it.

That's why now they think it had to be GBS, not polio. Paralytic polio in adulthood was virually impossible because everyone was immune to the virus by the end of childhood.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 02:14 PM

mykdsmomy

12-27-2006, 02:17 PM

i would like to post another article and avoid copyright infringment issues (unlike last post).

Finally, opponents of vaccination dramatize relatively rare adverse events to overshadow vaccination's enormous public health benefits [15]. This is an especially effective tactic now, as the toll from a number of infectious diseases fades from the public memory {as a result of universal vaccinations}.

Articles like this are a dime a dozen but where is the PROOF? They state "relatively rare adverse events" but what proof do they use to back that up? Prepare for another bad analogy but these articles remind me of the kid on the playground that's bullying someone and his friends are behind him going "yeah, yeah" and repeating everything he's saying without THINKING for themselves....grrrrr

mamakay

12-27-2006, 02:19 PM

Iamleabee, what do you make of this?
It's an FDA meeting on the issue of animal viruses accidentally making it into vaccines and infecting people.
They go over the ones you can find in pubmed like SV40 in the OPV, and BVDV in the MMR first, and then there's this:

http://www.fda.gov/cber/minutes/0910evolv.txt

Now the regulatory authorities in the room will be well aware of a large number of other examples of this type which don't actually get published. I think that's not so good. I think this stuff really should be out there in the public literature. But nonetheless, these are the ones which are well known, I think.

I understand from some of the remarks that have been made that there are others that are known to a small coterie of people here that have not been publicly declared. I urge all of you to think about this seriously because it can and will have a great impact on this industry. Thank you.

DR. MINOR: I agree totally with that. It does seem to me that sooner or later the information will leak out. I think the industry looks very bad.
(bolding mine)

sophiekat

12-27-2006, 02:20 PM

Articles like this are a dime a dozen but where is the PROOF? They state "relatively rare adverse events" but what proof do they use to back that up? Prepare for another bad analogy but these articles remind me of the kid on the playground that's bullying someone and his friends are behind him going "yeah, yeah" and repeating everything he's saying without THINKING for themselves....grrrrr

:lol :yeah:

FrederickMama

12-27-2006, 02:21 PM

mamakay

12-27-2006, 02:21 PM

iamleabee

12-27-2006, 02:26 PM

Yeah, that's us to some extent. The question is, are we right or are we wrong?

Would you like to discuss the "vaccines are contaminated" claim first?
That's my personal favorite. :loveeyes:

"are we right or are we wrong?" i don't know that that question can be answered. i'm pretty sure i can't answer it.

but somebody else wrote a while back that they do not see how any thinking knowlegeable person can choose to immunize their child. that's short sighted. some of the data supporting immunizations are very very good. some of the anti-vax data is pretty bad, and alot of it is connected with various religious groups, anecdotal evidence, and offers to buy things.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 02:31 PM

aira

12-27-2006, 02:31 PM

Prettypixels, didn't we go over this bit about measles causing deafness with Shodan? :rolleyes

Please show me where this happens?

sophiekat

12-27-2006, 02:31 PM

jessicaSAR

12-27-2006, 02:34 PM

jessicaSAR

12-27-2006, 02:36 PM

BTW, I am completely willing to be convinced by good arguments, evidence and logic. But vague references to good data, and claims that there are scary websites out there don't fall into the good arguments category for me.

Come on, back to the OP, let's hear some good arguments for vaccines. I am all ears.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 02:37 PM

can you provide us links to this "very very good" data? and links of connections to religious groups or offers to buy things? or are you merely giving us anecdotes? ;)

No, they exist. I've come across those sites. But most the posters here ignore sites like those since they're questionable. Google "shirley's wellness cafe" if you want to see a goofy antivax site selling weird stuff.

That's not where we get our information from, though. I think provaxers think we do, but we don't.

JesseMomme

12-27-2006, 02:42 PM

I've thoroughly read this thread and have yet to see anything big or impressive so I'll just sit back and keep eating my popcorn and wait. :lurk: I'd love to paricipate more fully but my poor keyboard has been broken...

Just so you know I've been waiting for big and impressive for over five years now.
:rainbow

annettemarie

12-27-2006, 02:42 PM

source: J Med Internet Res. 2005 Apr–Jun; 7{2}: e17.
Published online 2005 June 29. doi: 10.2196/jmir.7.2.e17.
Copyright © Richard K Zimmerman, Robert M Wolfe, Dwight E Fox, Jake R Fox, Mary Patricia Nowalk, Judith A Troy, Lisa K Sharp. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research {http://www.jmir.org}, 29.6.2005. Except where otherwise noted, articles published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License {http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/}, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, including full bibliographic details and the URL {see "please cite as" above}, and this statement is included.

Please note the part where it says "INCLUDING FULL BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS AND THE URL"

Also, moderators here on MDC are volunteers. We actually don't have the time (nor the inclination, frankly) to chase down the details on the copyright status of every quote on the board.

Therefore, kindly
1. Keep your blurbs to 100 words or less.
2. Clearly mark them with the quote function so it is painfully obvious which part is a quote and which part are your own words.
3. ALWAYS include a citation or working URL.

Copyright policy (http://www.mothering.com/mdc/copyright_concerns.html)

If you have questions or concerns, please PM one of the Vaccination mods, as questioning moderator actions on the board is against the User Agreement. (http://www.mothering.com/mdc/mdc_useragreement.html)

iamleabee

12-27-2006, 02:48 PM

bad data, IMHO:

“I helplessly watched my daughter suffer an excruciatingly slow death as she screamed and arched her back in pain, while the vaccine did as it was intended to do and assaulted her immature immune system. The poisons used as preservatives seeped through her tiny body, overwhelming her vital organs one by one until they collapsed. It is an image that will haunt me forever and I hope no other parent ever has to witness it. A death sentence considered too inhumane for this county's most violent criminals was handed down to my beautiful, innocent, infant daughter, death by lethal injection.”
(www.mercola.com/2002/aug/7/vaccine_death.htm)

“Then one word can describe this new video, 'Vaccines: What CDC Documents and Science Reveal,' by world-renowned vaccine expert Dr. Sherri Tenpenny: essential. To put it simply, if you are dedicated to protecting and enhancing your life, your family's, or your patients', but you have not been exposed to the often startling but thoroughly documented information in this video, there is a dangerous gap in your knowledge. Whether you have explored the issue of the dangers of vaccines extensively or not at all, I more than recommend you watch this video—I implore you to do so. Available on VHS. Just $24.95.”
(www.mercola.com/forms/vaccine_video.htm)

(the quote below is from a reverend who is pro-life and is antivax because many vaxes are cultured on stem cells. but she does not disclose her religious bias in her anti-vax statements.)

REFUSAL OF RECOMMENDED VACCINES

Patient Name_______________________________ Birthdate_______________

As the parent/guardian of __________________________, I have investigated the risks and benefits of the following vaccines and diseases. I am aware that there are documented cases of people contracting diseases for which they are clinically fully immunized and that the manufacturers of the vaccines do not guarantee 100% efficacy. I am also aware that VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) documented cases of over 54,000 adverse reactions from vaccines in a 20-month period. The National Vaccine Injury Fund, created in 1986 to compensate those damaged by vaccines has paid out over one billion dollars in compensation to date.

from: Complied by Rev. Kathryn E. Rateliff, CCD, CCCE, SM
October, 1999

Kathy is an ordained minister, certified christian doula (CCD), certified christian childbirth educator (CCCE), graduate midwife, parenting educator, monitrice, administrator for T2 Shepherd Ministries, volunteer staff chaplain at the Tarrant County jail, wife and professional mom. In addition to her two surviving natural children, Kathy has a daugther-in-love, adopted children, step-children, and foster children. Her total number of children as of October, 2004 is 75. their ministry believes: Jesus, fully God and fully man, came to bring reconciliation between God the Father and His children. He lived a sinless life, spent three and one half years in ministry to show us the Father, instituted the church, died a horrible death on the cross to pay our sin penalty, and rose victorious three days later to show His power over death, hell and the grave. He took stripes on His back for our healing, and took our shame on Himself so that we could stand righteous in Him before the Father. We believe He sits at the right hand of the Father, ever interceeding for us. We believe He will return for those believers who look for Him some day soon, and we shall meet Him in the air. We believe He will return bodily to reign and rule on the earth for a thousand years and that His Saints will return with Him to work.

next post: data i find persuasive

Mirzam

12-27-2006, 02:57 PM

Given the cases of measles, rubella, polio and pertussis amongst the Amish, is the feeling there that the Amish only get them because *they* are unhealthy?
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHe...ealth/tb1/1935

pp I am not Amish, but I got measles, rubella (and mumps for that matter) as a healthy child. Do you realize there actually benefits to these diseases?

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=582840

JesseMomme

12-27-2006, 02:57 PM

JesseMomme

12-27-2006, 02:59 PM

pp I am not Amish, but I got measles, rubella (and mumps for that matter) as a healthy child. Do you realize there actually benefits to these diseases?

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=582840

:yeah: the Amish aren't exactly dropping like flies, last I knew.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 03:03 PM

:yeah: the Amish aren't exactly dropping like flies, last I knew.

Neither are the Germans. :)

iamleabee

12-27-2006, 03:11 PM

here is one study i like:

URL:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15364187

short quote from link: "Controls were matched on age, sex, and general practice. FINDINGS: 1294 cases and 4469 controls were included. 1010 cases (78.1%) had MMR vaccination recorded before diagnosis, compared with 3671 controls (82.1%) before the age at which their matched case was diagnosed. After adjustment for age at joining the database, the odds ratio for association between MMR and pervasive developmental disorder was 0.86 (95% CI 0.68-1.09). Findings were similar when restricted to children with a diagnosis of autism, to those vaccinated with MMR before the third birthday, or to the period before media coverage of the hypothesis linking MMR with autism. INTERPRETATION: Our findings suggest that MMR vaccination is not associated with an increased risk of pervasive developmental disorders."

article from:
Pediatrics. 2006 Jul;118(1):e139-50.

short quote:"A statistically significant linear increase in pervasive developmental disorder prevalence was noted during the study period. The prevalence of pervasive developmental disorder in thimerosal-free birth cohorts was significantly higher than that in thimerosal-exposed cohorts (82.7 of 10000 vs 59.5 of 10000). Using logistic regression models of the prevalence data, we found no significant effect of thimerosal exposure used either as a continuous or a categorical variable. Thus, thimerosal exposure was unrelated to the increasing trend in pervasive developmental disorder prevalence. These results were robust when additional analyses were performed to address possible limitations because of the ecological nature of the data and to evaluate potential effects of misclassification on exposure or diagnosis"

a retraction from 10 of the 12 authors of the original mmr-autism article based on 12 children in the UK:

"We wish to make it clear that in [the 1998] paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient. However, the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health. In view of this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract the interpretation placed upon [the] findings in the (1998) paper, according to precedent."
from Retraction of an Interpretation by Simon H Murch, Andrew Anthony, David H Casson, Mohsin Malik, Mark Berelowitz, Amar P Dhillon, Michael A Thomson, Alan Valentine, Susan E Davies, John A Walker-Smith (10 of the original 12 authors; John Linnell could not be reached)"

ETA: moderators: thanks for your hard work!

overall: i think people who chose to immunize their children are not unthinking, and have considered reasons for their decisions, just as those who chose to decline vaxes are not unthinking and have considered reasons for their decisions.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 03:14 PM

"are we right or are we wrong?" i don't know that that question can be answered. i'm pretty sure i can't answer it.

but somebody else wrote a while back that they do not see how any thinking knowlegeable person can choose to immunize their child. that's short sighted.On whose part? The person who chose to vaccinate without fully researching, or the person who made the comment that they couldn't understand how people who fully research would vaccinate?some of the data supporting immunizations are very very good. Then show it to us.

some of the anti-vax data is pretty bad, Here? Then show it to us.

and alot of it is connected with various religious groups, So. What's wrong with that? A lot of doctors are also in religious groups, and some of what they do originates from that premis.

Are they saying that anything linked to religious principles in any way, is invalid?

anecdotal evidence,That's pretty funny, because I could put up eons of medical articles which show that over 80% of how the medical profession operates these days is primarily based on anecdotal evidence. (Because when anecdote comes from doctors its science and when it comes from non-doctors its anecdote, is my favourite way of explaining it) and offers to buy things.

You mean, they haven't looked at their own medical journals? :rotflmao That has to be one of the funniest arguments out, given that the experts in extorting money off ordinary people are the medical profession/pharmaceutical backers.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 03:22 PM

overall: i think people who chose to immunize their children are not unthinking, and have considered reasons for their decisions, just as those who chose to decline vaxes are not unthinking and have considered reasons for their decisions.

Have you read the simpsonwood transcript?
Also, do you understand that the author retractions with the MMR thing were only about the *causes autism* part of the studies?
They weren't retracting the findings of the measles virus in the guts of autistic kids. They were retracting the logical conclusion that it was a cause and effect relationship.

JesseMomme

12-27-2006, 03:31 PM

Oh ok...iamleabee is making the point that mercola was trying to make money off an anti-vax video, I understand now.

snowbird25ca

12-27-2006, 03:56 PM

So why will I ultimately vax my own children? Because the system here forces you to vaccinate for certain things or they won't let you put your kids in the public school system! Why not homeschool? Simple, finances. BUT, I don't have to vax them until age 5, and not for everything, just a select few.

well, I'm not in one of the three provinces with legal exemption, but I'll have to look into the "informed consent" part of things. thanks for the info.

Actually, none of the provinces "legally" require you to vaccinate. Not vaccinating is really simple in Canada and vaxes can be refused on the basis of medical, religious or philisophical reasons in all of the provinces and territories. The Canadian constitution is designed so that vaxes can't be mandated as a requirement for school entry without the option to opt out. In all but 3 provinces you don't even need to complete an exemption or anything. Here in Alberta I don't have to do anything to send my kids to school or put them in a dayhome. I just say we don't vax and that's it. So if you've been told differently, you've been lied to..:(

sophiekat

12-27-2006, 03:57 PM

and *clearly* drug companies don't have anything ($$$$$) to gain from selling vaccines . . . . :rolleyes: :lol

mamakay

12-27-2006, 04:06 PM

and *clearly* drug companies don't have anything ($$$$$) to gain from selling vaccines . . . . :rolleyes: :lol

And it's a lot more than just the vaccines. It's a huge chunk of the system you end up opting out of once you start applying skepticism towards pharmaceuticals. Once you realise that everything is not always exactly what it appears to be, you're less likely to fall for a lot of the marketing.
I don't know if they realise that or not, though.

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 04:07 PM

That's not where we get our information from, though. I think provaxers think we do, but we don't.

Ya know why they think we do? The CDC tells implies we do on their "parenting" pages.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 04:11 PM

Ya know why they think we do? The CDC tells implies we do on their "parenting" pages.

Ad hom at it's finest.

Clever little ....folks.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the CDC lately?
I really do. I really, really do.:duck:

Spy

12-27-2006, 04:15 PM

Because when anecdote comes from doctors its science and when it comes from non-doctors its anecdote, is my favourite way of explaining it

Funny that you mentioned it :lol Just yesterday someone read on a strictly medical 'professional' board about HepB virus transmission through saliva (not parenterally) and asked me if I ever heard or read anything about it. I said I haven't, and then this person wondered why the other doctors never questioned this statement or asked for a source. Then we found the answer in the same thread, from a mod - whenever someone without a medical diploma comes with a questionable idea, they must provide a link to the source. Whenever they receive an answer from a medical doctor, they are not to ask further questions. A source from a doctor is not required - a doctor is a source :dizzy: :p I kid you not.

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 04:15 PM

:yeah: the Amish aren't exactly dropping like flies, last I knew.

And they seem to be lacking autistic children as well.

We don't see the CDC beating down their doors in order to find out why though, hmmm?

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 04:17 PM

Ad hom at it's finest.

Clever little bastards.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the CDC lately?
I really do. I really, really do.:duck:

:lol

Oh, those CDC "parent" pages. :shake

jessicaSAR

12-27-2006, 04:26 PM

overall: i think people who chose to immunize their children are not unthinking, and have considered reasons for their decisions, just as those who chose to decline vaxes are not unthinking and have considered reasons for their decisions.

I very strongly disagree. While there may be a small # of parents who have researched carefully and still decide to vaccinate, the vast majority of parents, IME, do not think about it at all. I know that I vaccinated my first child because I did not have any idea that there was anything to think about, and I am the kind of person who thinks about everything. In fact, every time I have discussed this issue with my friends who vaccinate they cannot even tell me what shots their children have received. And I am talking about a very highly educated (ivy league advanced degree) cohort of parents.

On the other hand, I do not know a single non vaxing family that has not given the issue very serious thought (although I am sure there are a few bandwagoners, I think they are a very small minority).

This is just my experience, but it is an across the board experience. The decision not to vaccinate is very, very different than the decision (if it can be called a decision at all) to vaccinate.

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 04:32 PM

The decision not to vaccinate is very, very different than the decision (if it can be called a decision at all) to vaccinate.

:clap

aira

12-27-2006, 04:33 PM

Slightly OT, but about the credentials topic...

A few years ago DH got into a heated debate about training martial arts while pregnant, and the risks, ethics, etc about it. He was winning the debate thoroughly, but one somewhat prominent member of the forum (and dojo) didn't like his opinions and first personally attacked him, and then got an OB friend of hers who does martial arts to post about how safe it was. She just started with pat answers and "slogans" about how well padded and protected a fetus is... It was clearly expected that her MD was going to back everyone down and "win" the debate without merit.

So DH called her on the lack of solid evidence to back her assertions, etc... So she started using bigger medical terms, citing irrelevant but intentionally misleading studies, and DH just took her apart on it - purely on the logic.

Though he did use a particularly hilarious spin on the "lack of evidence to the contrary means X is safe" arguement... He used it to "prove" that humans can safely walk on the moon without technological help. :lol Line for line replacing what she had said about fetal protection during trauma.

So everyone jumped all over DH... like "Whoa! You really crossed the line by disrespecting a doctor!! OMG!!" and "That was just over-the-top!"

The reason I bring it up... Doctors state something, it's perceived as fact no matter how absurd and illogical it is. Pointing out those flaws in reason without an MD after your name makes you a flake, quack, or just plain meanie.

.

mamakay

12-27-2006, 04:40 PM

So everyone jumped all over DH... like "Whoa! You really crossed the line by disrespecting a doctor!! OMG!!" and "That was just over-the-top!"

The reason I bring it up... Doctors state something, it's perceived as fact no matter how obsurd and illogical it is. Pointing it out without an MD after you name makes you a flake, quack, or just plain meanie.

Or a blasphemer.
It's a cult. I swear that's what it looks like from my POV.

aira

12-27-2006, 04:48 PM

:nod

Exactly. Don't dare challenge the religion. The inquisition will come a-knockin'.

BTW, I hate it when I get quoted before I edit for spelling and syntax! :lol Everyone can see what a :nut I am... :lol

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 04:50 PM

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 04:53 PM

Iamleabee.

Does this article from a provaccine website, fulfill your definition of measles "data"?

If so, why?

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=699

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 04:57 PM

Here's some more meningitis "data":

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=702

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 04:59 PM

Here's some chickenpox "data" too:

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=708

Deborah

12-27-2006, 05:00 PM

If that is your definition of "data" then the TV ads put out by the health department to emotionally blackmail you to vaccinate your kids must qualify as "data".

Librarians actually do define data AND information AND knowledge.

So, data is the raw numbers and facts, organized in some way, but not summarized or presented to make it easy. Think the census tables before they have been analyzed, or the VAERS case histories if you just started reading them at random.

Information has been worked through and is presented in a more or less finished form. Journal articles are a good example. Information isn't necessarily true, just organized and analyzed.

Knowledge happens only within human beings who have experiences, collect data and information and then think about it, digest it, turn it this way and that and then make it their own. An example would be riding a bicycle, which is knowledge that is so well digested that it has gotten into your physical body. By this definition, there is no such thing as a body of knowledge, there are only human beings, in bodies, who sometimes know things.

So the data won't tell us anything one way or the other until we organize it and analyze it.

And the organized and analyzed data won't tell us anything until we think about it.

Thinking is sort of important.:wink

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 05:01 PM

Here's some polio "data":

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=711

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=705

NYCVeg

12-27-2006, 05:03 PM

Lol...I know the provax argument here is sort of anemic, but...
So how do you know that there aren't 40 cases of tetanus a year prevented by vaccination?

But still, how do you know those 40 cases wouldn't be 80 cases if not for tetanus shots?

(I realise that the "number needed to treat" here is astronomical...vaccinating 300 million people to prevent 80 deaths...but still.)

I haven't read all the reponses, but mine would be this: where is the evidence that the 40 cases of tetanus that occur in the US are among people that haven't gotten the vax? Because that's the only way this argument can be meaningful. It is not only the unvaxed who get V"P"Ds. In the recent measles "outbreak", I think around 2/3 of those who contracted it were vaxed (and who knows how many who didn't show symptoms). Pertussis is notorious for infecting "protected" people.

And what is the efficacy of the tetanus vax, anyway?

FrederickMama

12-27-2006, 05:10 PM

Here's some polio "data":

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=711

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=705

Wow:dizzy:

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 05:14 PM

Here is some rubella "data":

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=701

LongIsland

12-27-2006, 05:18 PM

I haven't read all the reponses, but mine would be this: where is the evidence that the 40 cases of tetanus that occur in the US are among people that haven't gotten the vax?

The CDC's tetanus surveillance has this information. Most adults are not "adequately protected," so they'll be people who get tetanus who are vaccinated, don't remember getting vaccinated or not vaccinated at all.

And what is the efficacy of the tetanus vax, anyway?

Oh, but the tetanus vaccine boasts an efficacy rate of 100%
:lol

I'm not kidding - the Pink Book says 100% :nod

Yes people, when an Elvis sighting is more likely to happen than an unvaxed individual getting tetanus, of course the vaccine is going to look like it's 100% effective.
:hammer

mamakay

12-27-2006, 05:19 PM

Here's some more meningitis "data":

http://www.immune.org.nz/?t=702

We don't have that vax yet here in the US for kids. (clinical trials are happening right now, though).
Reading that is like seeing into the future in a way. Weird. Like being visited by the Ghost of Propaganda Yet to Come...

mykdsmomy

12-27-2006, 05:22 PM

Like being visited by the Ghost of Propaganda Yet to Come...

:spitdrink

aira

12-27-2006, 05:24 PM

:laugh:

Mamakay and LI!!

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 05:30 PM

We don't have that vax yet here in the US for kids. (clinical trials are happening right now, though).
Reading that is like seeing into the future in a way. Weird. Like being visited by the Ghost of Propaganda Yet to Come... How dare you insult my "data" like that :nut :hammer :rotflmao

But really.... do you honestly consider this a legitimate way to present information to parents?

Is this really "data"?

And if its okay for pro-vaccine organisations to present this as a legitimate argument to get parents to vaccinate, exactly why criticise people who don't want to vaccinate, talking about their experiences in the same way? It seems to me, that the provaccine people have emotional blackmail absolutely down to a "fine art".

bri276

12-27-2006, 05:41 PM

Given the cases of measles, rubella, polio and pertussis amongst the Amish, is the feeling there that the Amish only get them because *they* are unhealthy?

as a matter of fact, the Amish diet is far from ideal. just because a group is living a little more naturally than some of us doesn't make them perfect, or healthy.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 06:07 PM

as a matter of fact, the Amish diet is far from ideal. just because a group is living a little more naturally than some of us doesn't make them perfect, or healthy.

Too true. Even in 1993, I was shocked at the amount of sugar and white flour they consumed.

I wonder if it is better now, or worse?!

Scattershoot

12-27-2006, 06:09 PM

Well, tetanus sucks so bad when it happens that I was thinking of it like death. But you're right. Tetanus doesn't always result in death. But it's sort of a "fate worse than death" kind of thing.

But anyway...
Is there an argument out there that the shot isn't preventing 40 cases of tetanus?
Other than MT's vax non-responders/natural immunity non-responders one? (which is really quite plausible, in a way, except for the CDC's statement that the few cases of tetanus happen in unvaccinated people...but they might just be making that up, like they like to do, too.)

My BIL had two horrific reactions to vaccines and I got them mixed up at one time, but found out it was the dt that caused him to get Bell's Palsy the day after the shot. Of course the doctor refused to call it an adverse event. Also, I had a lengthy conversation with a women who spent months in and out of the hospital (got down to less than 70 lbs) after a dt shot. Her story is certainly horrible.

That makes 4 people I personally know in my small, little world who had horrific reactions to the dt shot. Unless I'm just unbelievably unfortunate to be surrounded by a ridiculous percentage of dt damaged people, the dt vaccine is at least as horrific as the 40 (they claim) who suffer from tetanus a year. To say the number could be 80 is no different than saying it could be 200 or 2. We could speculate on what ifs forever. We could speculate that those injured by the dt shot is really 10,000 or 100,000 or 1 million or more. Look at just the symptoms I had after the shot. Earaches for the 1st x in my life. How many people suffer from earaches? Jaw pain for the 1st x in my life. How many suffer from jaw pain? A nasty skin condition. How many suffer from skin conditions? A weakened immune system that allowed viruses that I use to fight off no problem to put me out of commission. How many people have weak immune functioning? What about GBS? What about Bell's Palsy? The numbers could be monstrous.

iamleabee

12-27-2006, 06:57 PM

ok lets see:

I think around 2/3 of those who contracted it were vaxed (and who knows how many who didn't show symptoms).

of the most recent measles outbreak in US, 94% of cases were among unvaccinated individuals. 2 episodes of vaccine failure.

what do i think is good data? large sample size, over many years. anyone can make any case about their child, or their cousin etc. but what interests me is when people look at hundreds or thousands of cases over many years.

why am i unconvinced about anti-vax data? i have yet to see anything that resembles the above. please direct me to studies and i will read them. my mind is not closed. (mamakay...i am working through that article you posted).

why can a mother make an informed decision to vax: she can read the articles published in leading peer reviewed scientific journals presenting data she finds compelling.

i wrote that i found it discouraging that anti-vax sites are making the arguement that vaccines cause harm and then try to sell you things: buy this video! this book! etc. some people wrote back that the articles i posted are the same because drug companies make money selling vaccines. a--i don't think that's where drug companies make their money (except maybe very new vaccines like the hpv one) and b--this alludes to a big researcher/medical field/drug company/data manufacturing conspiracy to essentially make up millions of data points and poison the vast majority of children in the US for the last 6 decades. this allegation states that drug companies are paying university researchers to publish data in independent scientific journals extolling the virtue of vaccines that are essentially poisonous. maybe so (re: tobacco), but i remain unconvinced at this time.

mammom

12-27-2006, 07:14 PM

ok lets see:

i wrote that i found it discouraging that anti-vax sites are making the arguement that vaccines cause harm and then try to sell you things: buy this video! this book! etc.

Not all of them do...

a--i don't think that's where drug companies make their money (except maybe very new vaccines like the hpv one) and b--this alludes to a big researcher/medical field/drug company/data manufacturing conspiracy to essentially make up millions of data points and poison the vast majority of children in the US for the last 6 decades.

The hep b vax was the first BILLION dollar vaccine. And have you read the Simpsonwood meeting transcripts? They are available on the CDC web site: http://origin.cdc.gov/nip/news/simptrans072005.htm Looks slightly like a conspiracy to me... At least that aspect of it...

iamleabee

12-27-2006, 07:19 PM

i think that is what mamakay posted...i am working my way through it.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 07:28 PM

iamleabee,

Please could you quote back to the post, becuase your quote comes right out of left field out of cntext.... which 2/3rds of what? How? Where...

And were we talking about measles? Where? Is there a URL or ref to that?

In terms of "good data" ... if you call data this large sample size, over many years.why did you use anecdote as an example of bad data? :nut

Please get your terms right.

Since the Institute of Medicine, in its many books on the assessments of vaccine safety, admits that there are no large sample size studies over many years and says in their books that they were hampered by just such a lack of studies, why do you think that the provaccine people have got such studies with which to back a provaccine stand?

Why are you wanting people here to direct you to studies? Do you know how to do accurate medical research using pubmed, medline, and google yourself?

i wrote that i found it discouraging that anti-vax sites are making the arguement that vaccines cause harm and then try to sell you things: buy this video! this book! etc. some people wrote back that the articles i posted are the same because drug companies make money selling vaccines. a--i don't think that's where drug companies make their money (except maybe very new vaccines like the hpv one) and b--this alludes to a big researcher/medical field/drug company/data manufacturing conspiracy to essentially make up millions of data points and poison the vast majority of children in the US for the last 6 decades. this allegation states that drug companies are paying university researchers to publish data in independent scientific journals extolling the virtue of vaccines that are essentially poisonous. maybe so (re: tobacco), but i remain unconvinced at this time.:nut

I am having difficulty unravelling several seemingly unlinked thought-bites in the above words. Can you reword/translate/punctuate/gramaticise the above so that there is a coherent train of thought available please? Also, you have made some unsubstantiated allegations amongst them, so could you please give us some examples with URLs, so that we can understand what you are going on about?

Also, why are you assuming that these comments have anything to do with this board?

That is... if I've understood them correctly, which is a moot point.

Gitti

12-27-2006, 07:30 PM

of the most recent measles outbreak in US, 94% of cases were among unvaccinated individuals. 2 episodes of vaccine failure.
Would you please post a link to what you said here. Because there were measles outbreaks and something like 85% of the kids were fully vaccinated.

anyone can make any case about their child, or their cousin etc. but what interests me is when people look at hundreds or thousands of cases over many years.
Right. Where?
Where did you look for information like that?

my mind is not closed. (mamakay...i am working through that article you posted).
That is very good.

why can a mother make an informed decision to vax: she can read the articles published in leading peer reviewed scientific journals presenting data she finds compelling.
Why can a mother make an informed decision to not vax: she can read articles in peer reviewed scientific journals presenting data and finds them compelling.

What are we saying here anyway? :lol

i wrote that i found it discouraging that anti-vax sites are making the arguement that vaccines cause harm and then try to sell you things: buy this video! this book!
OK. No one twists your arm to buy anything. But pharmaceutical corporations are twisting arms of our representatives and not only twisting arms, they are buying them off left and right. Laws are being passed that protect the manufacturer AND force people to vaccinate.

i don't think that's where drug companies make their money
Then you are very misinformed or don't want to know. More than any fortune 500 companies, vaccine/drug manufacturers are by far the richest conglomerate on this planet.

this allegation states that drug companies are paying university researchers
Unfortunately most scientists are employed by pharmaceutical corporations. There are virtually no independent scientists. Everything is pretty much dictated. Universities get huge stipends and money for new buildings from the pharma corporations. Those things are not a conspiracy. They are not even secret. They are fact. Pharma is proud of all the money they give to universities. What the heck?

vaccines that are essentially poisonous.
What would you call a concoction of mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, biphenol, antifreeze, antibiotics, monkey DNA, MSG, etc. etc.???

I call it poison. What exactly do you call it?

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 07:40 PM

i think that is what mamakay posted...i am working my way through it.

Mamakay did not give you the URL to simpsonwood/mercury.

She gave you the URL to FDA/contaminants here:

http://www.fda.gov/cber/minutes/0910evolv.txt

mamakay

12-27-2006, 07:47 PM

i wrote that i found it discouraging that anti-vax sites are making the arguement that vaccines cause harm and then try to sell you things: buy this video! this book! etc. some people wrote back that the articles i posted are the same because drug companies make money selling vaccines. a--i don't think that's where drug companies make their money (except maybe very new vaccines like the hpv one) and b--this alludes to a big researcher/medical field/drug company/data manufacturing conspiracy to essentially make up millions of data points and poison the vast majority of children in the US for the last 6 decades. this allegation states that drug companies are paying university researchers to publish data in independent scientific journals extolling the virtue of vaccines that are essentially poisonous. maybe so (re: tobacco), but i remain unconvinced at this time.

Just so you know, I don't think it's a conspiracy to poison children or anything like that. I do think the manufacturers fudge some of the data in the clinical trials to make their products look slightly more effective than they are a lot of times.
And some of the research is a little off after that because docs are prone to misdiagnose VPDs in vaccinated kids. But most of the vaccines do "work", too, to some extent. Flushots are almost completely ineffective, and the pertussis vaccine seems to be about 50/50, maybe, but most of the rest work fairly well.
The data that's totally wrong, IMO, is the cherry-picked data to make all the diseases look more scary than they are.
It gives the impression that society would just fall apart if the manufacturers were to stop making the vaccines, and it just isn't true.
If you look at places like Germany...yeah, they have measles and mumps etc., but it's just not that big of a deal.

Regarding vaccine risks, we do know for a fact that they've "covered up" viral contaminants. So right off the bat, we know that is how they have been known to operate. (whoever "they" are.)
I do think the diagnostic change is responsible for a lot of the "autism epidemic", too. It has to be.
But at the same time, the MMR and thimerosal research hasn't ever been "debunked", either. And I can totally see people at the CDC wanting it to just "go away", because if every parent of every kid diagnosed with "autism" could sue Merck, the CDC might think it would create a public health disaster when Merck withdrew from the market.
So they probably think protecting manufacturers actually protects public health.
The group who originally got the simpsonwood transcript through the FOIA also got emails that were going around the CDC at that time, and it's bad. Some of those guys totally believed thimerosal actually had caused speech delays and tics. There's just no doubt about that.
And they also asked the IOM to "prove" thimerosal and the MMR were "safe on a population level"...which means "Look at epidemiology, not the biology".
Because the biology would say something that might open the manufacturers up to lawsuites, IMO.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 07:57 PM

None of these studies conform to your stated ideal of large numbers over many years.

All have major scientific flaws in both premise, confoundings, and other variables, which have been discussed in many places, by many doctors, many times.

If you have read the IOM books on the topic, why would you "like" these studies below?

here is one study i like:

URL:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15364187

short quote from link: "Controls were matched on age, sex, and general practice. FINDINGS: 1294 cases and 4469 controls were included. 1010 cases (78.1%) had MMR vaccination recorded before diagnosis, compared with 3671 controls (82.1%) before the age at which their matched case was diagnosed. After adjustment for age at joining the database, the odds ratio for association between MMR and pervasive developmental disorder was 0.86 (95% CI 0.68-1.09). Findings were similar when restricted to children with a diagnosis of autism, to those vaccinated with MMR before the third birthday, or to the period before media coverage of the hypothesis linking MMR with autism. INTERPRETATION: Our findings suggest that MMR vaccination is not associated with an increased risk of pervasive developmental disorders."

First major flaw. The numbers are too low. When it comes to rare events in order to even pick up a 5% excess you would have to have somewhere between 50 - 100,000 study participants... also... There was no totally unvaccinated group. You don't compare vaccinated with vaccinated, and expect to get something which would show you what would have happened had these children not had any vaccines at all.

In order to understand confoundings, the Cochrane review comments on the quality of the majority of studies might be of some help:

html text:

http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004407/frame.html

pdf

http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004407/pdf_fs.html

article from:
Pediatrics. 2006 Jul;118(1):e139-50.

short quote:"A statistically significant linear increase in pervasive developmental disorder prevalence was noted during the study period. The prevalence of pervasive developmental disorder in thimerosal-free birth cohorts was significantly higher than that in thimerosal-exposed cohorts (82.7 of 10000 vs 59.5 of 10000). Using logistic regression models of the prevalence data, we found no significant effect of thimerosal exposure used either as a continuous or a categorical variable. Thus, thimerosal exposure was unrelated to the increasing trend in pervasive developmental disorder prevalence. These results were robust when additional analyses were performed to address possible limitations because of the ecological nature of the data and to evaluate potential effects of misclassification on exposure or diagnosis"

You aren't HONESTLY telling us, that you think Fombonne's study is worth squat are you?

Why?

Can you not see the errors in this, let alone the fact that the man did not state the most obvious conflict of interest that all here will know? That he was funded by thiomersal manufacturers?

A detailed scientific review of this article has been done elsewhere, so I see no need to rehash it, but if you honestly think accepting what medical journals publish uncritically, is a way to make a decision then fine.

a retraction from 10 of the 12 authors of the original mmr-autism article based on 12 children in the UK:What original MMR-autism article? There was NEVER a 1998 MMR-autism article. I have the original article and it never mentioned MMR-autism.

"We wish to make it clear that in [the 1998] paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient. However, the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health. In view of this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract the interpretation placed upon [the] findings in the (1998) paper, according to precedent."
from Retraction of an Interpretation by Simon H Murch, Andrew Anthony, David H Casson, Mohsin Malik, Mark Berelowitz, Amar P Dhillon, Michael A Thomson, Alan Valentine, Susan E Davies, John A Walker-Smith (10 of the original 12 authors; John Linnell could not be reached)"Think about this. The article never mentioned MMR-autism. It pointed out that measles virus had been found in the gut of 12 children and I think from memory called it some form of enterocolitis or something....

The possibility of a link was raised by WHOM primarily? Wakefield asked the question as to why/how the virus was there.

and who made the interpretation? And think about this. Why was this retraction made? By whom, how many years later, and for what purpose? Why did Wakefield lose his job? Have you looked at the peripheral events around this, and then the Lancet debacle not long ago?

I think that the whole deal about this article and subsequent events will come out in the wash with the GMC, when Wakefield takes the stand in a short while, and I really hope the media cover it accurately and fully.

And I'm really looking forward to reading the book written by his wife, who is a doctor and who once worked with the GMC. I just hopes she holds off until after the GMC hearing, which I hear is slotted for 12 weeks, so I don't expect it to be short. But I hope a lot of people will be eating their hats after it.

but somehow doubt it.

overall: i think people who chose to immunize their children are not unthinking, and have considered reasons for their decisions, just as those who chose to decline vaxes are not unthinking and have considered reasons for their decisions.I disagree. Just in the quality of what you have put here, both in your expression and in what you consider to be "good data" and your "proof" so far, I would have to suggest that your reasons are not yet well considered, and neither are your research methods (and results) adequate in terms of providing sufficient framework upon which to make an informed choice.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-27-2006, 08:21 PM

Oh ok...iamleabee is making the point that mercola was trying to make money off an anti-vax video, I understand now. You mean, Mercola was suggesting someone go to another website and buy a video made by someone else, who makes a living off talking about vaccines.

Aka Sherry Tenpenny?

So its okay for all the doctors who are paid to make a living off persuading people to get vaccinated to do that, and to "sell" you vaccines (your taxes are the same as your pocket), but its not okay for people who have made a video to sell it.

My husband and I wrote a book this year about vaccines.

Now, we realise that there are some people who think that anyone who writes something controversial and tries to make money off it are probably scum, but lets do some sums shall we.

We wrote this book, in order to give parents tools to "think" more efficiently about the issue of vaccination.

It cost us $103,000 in order to do all the setting, design, cover, edits printing of 5,000 copies, okay?

Given the amounts required to post the books everywhere, total end costs will be around $250.000, okay?

Now, its all very well for provaccine people like Dr Offit to do these things for a big fat writing commission fee, and then get pharma/publisher funding, and absolutely NOTHING comes out of their pockets. You appear to have no conscience about him, or any other provaccine author making money out of books etc....

Like this guy, Arthur Allen:

http://www.amazon.com/Vaccine-Controversial-Medicines-Greatest-Lifesaver/dp/0393059111/sr=1-1/qid=1167102610/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3725830-3181766?ie=UTF8&s=books

Is it okay to pay money for this book?

Other provaccine books which sell on Amazon... do you object to them as well?

But this $250,000 which we are spending, isn't coming out of phama pockets.

WE decided to take the "altruistic" path and make the book available for free, which means everytime someone asks for the book it costs us $50.00 to get it to the USA.

But the reality is if we are to do another book, the money has to come from somewhere. So could you please tell me where you think that money should come from this time?

Had I decided to sell it through Amazon, would that have been acceptable to you ? Do you expect Sherry Tenpenny to give the DVDs away for nothing?

A few people who have asked for the book have decided that a worker is worthy of recompense, and have donated back money to the Trust we set up. Donations are running at 13% so far. Now, you do the maths. Will that cover the costs?

Whose the mug here. I can tell you in one word.

Me. :angry

iamleabee

12-27-2006, 08:30 PM

the 94% referrs to an article i posted on page 4 of this thread, url here:
*found this interesting, the URL to the complete article is:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/5/447

hope that clears up the confusion.

I disagree. Just in the quality of what you have put here, both in your expression and in what you consider to be "good data" and your "proof" so far, I would have to suggest that your reasons are not yet well considered, and neither are your research methods (and results) adequate in terms of providing sufficient framework upon which to make an informed choice.

oh. my. :bolt: and that was the edited reply! yikes!

~member~

12-27-2006, 08:40 PM

the 94% referrs to an article i posted on page 4 of this thread, url here:
*found this interesting, the URL to the complete article is:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/5/447

Now, I am confused.
14 (41 percent) had laboratory-confirmed measles and 20 (59 percent) were epidemiologically linked to a laboratory-confirmed case.
That is only 34 people!!!! Not your thousands that you said you wanted in order to say the studies were true.

~member~

12-27-2006, 08:42 PM

what do i think is good data? large sample size, over many years. anyone can make any case about their child, or their cousin etc. but what interests me is when people look at hundreds or thousands of cases over many years. And, yet, the article you linked is only 34 people.
from May 2 to July 8, 2005 Which is not even a year!

mamakay

12-27-2006, 08:44 PM

Oh, and the Mumps portion of the MMR is only 50-70% effective now, too. Seems it used to work better, but hasn't for a while.

~member~

12-27-2006, 08:45 PM

For hundreds of thousands of years we had NO VACCINES! And we flourished!!!

knowerofnada

12-27-2006, 08:52 PM

As far as people who say they do the research and still decide they don't want to vaccinate...I have to be totally honest here...I never really believe those people when they claim they did the research...I think they are just saying that because they believe so strongly that vaccinations MUST be the right thing to do....but I think each and every person who said they did the in-depth vaccination research and still decided to vaccinate is lying. They just have to be.

knowerofnada

12-27-2006, 09:03 PM

I think most families who don't vaccinate are concerned not only with acute reactions but also with chronic problems such as long term alteration to immune function, which will not show up until much later.

Right. I know this is the MAIN reason we don't vaccinate; not because of the risk f an acute reaction. I'm not sure vaxers "get" this.

JesseMomme

12-27-2006, 10:47 PM

JesseMomme

12-27-2006, 10:52 PM

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-28-2006, 01:18 AM

iamleabee,

I wasn't to know whether it was your editted reply or not. All I'm pointing out is that your arguments are totally confusing, and what you say "impresses" you and what you put up as proof contradict each other, as the others had the energy to say, and I did not.

If I am going to convey information to people the most efficient way (beyond the fact that I'm a lousy typist) is to say it clearly, to make sure my references back up my statement, and to make sure that one thought flows logically to the next.

If I didn't do that, I would expect people to use me as a trampoline.

That has happened in the past when I've had a senior moment, and lost the plot. We all do on occasions, so that's no sin, and I admit it when I botch up.

But if you are going to tell us, why we don't convince you, and what does convince you, so that we can understand your POV, then you need to convince us that you have a consistent position which you can back up.

I'm only too happy to discuss it when you've sorted it out.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-28-2006, 01:41 AM

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/5/447

Furthermore from the article above:During the outbreak period, 66 persons who were suspected to have measles were identified, of whom 32 (48 percent) were determined not to have measles because they either had a negative laboratory test for acute measles infection or were not epidemiologically linked to a patient with laboratory-confirmed measles.

This is absolutely crap diagnosis.

You know what? Measles has symptoms which means that a person with measles walks like measles, talks like measles, and looks like measles, okay?

Now, if you have measles, it will be a blinding revelation of the obvious. A moron with an access to a textbook can look at the person and say "Yup, this is measles" and then draw bloods and look for a rise in IgM and/or IgG titres to make sure.

But when someone "suspected" of having measles is eliminated because they did not have a laboratory-confirmed test, and/or were not linked to a patient who did have a laboratory-confirmed test, I have a mental picture here of totally clueless idiots wandering around looking for measles under the bed, in the cupboard ~ in fact anything, to try to make up a few numbers over a few weeks to add another medical article to their CV.

The "someone" was obviously, patently stupid, if they were unable to diagnose measles on the symptoms presented... and if they were not (which it is clear they couldn't, or they wouldn't have had to "rely" on a lab test), then why all the hype about how dangerous it was.

Cases too mild to be diagnosed on sight alone?

All those with the lab test had the characteristic rash. Then, what was the point of the test? Just to be sure, I guess.

And those who were hospitalised, why were they hospitalised?

The hospital phlobotomist was a smoker, and vaccinated to boot, and the fact that she had both IgG and IgM antibodies means that she had pre-existing immunity. IgG isn't seen in acute situations without pre-existing immunity. She was the only one who had it severely, and was on a ventilator, because here lungs were filled up with black stuff and carbon monoxide, which is always a good way to make sure that something like measles takes hold, so she had only herself to blame.

And the other two got dehydrated. Well, yes, its possible in a country where the value of water appears to have got lost, and many people subsist on pepsi, or Dr peppers.

This is a whole beatup about diddums.

But what it shows me is this.

The biggest side effect of vaccination is that many vaccinated people have no idea how to look after themselves when they get sick, because they've developed a mentality that says that the doctor will do it all, so don't think about simple things like "I need to drink water". :rolleyes

All the basic, nursing, commonsense things that our parents and grandparents had a pretty good idea about have gone west.

Furthermore, and I see this in labour and many other areas of medicine... doctors are forgetting the art of looking at people and diagnosing on the basis of knowledge, observation and symptoms. They like machines, tests, and a little print out, to feel that their heads are worth something. :hammer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was brought home to me recently, when a friend of mine's child got mumps. The day he got the first symptoms he was at school, and fell off playground equipment and hit his head.

So when he was taken to hospital, with a fever and these two lumps under the jaw, it was a "head injury" with fever, photophobia etc... The mother arrived, and looked at him and said... "Well, I think he has mumps." and wanted to go home, but they wouldn't let her. The specialist said that it wasn't mumps and he might die, so they did a CAT scan (of all stupid things~ think of the radiation that that gives a kid :Bigeyes) and overnight the temperature rose a bit, and when they wanted to use tylenol, the mother said "Forget it, its only mumps."

Next day the mother again wanted to discharge her son, and they got antsy, so in the end she called the paed, and said "I think you are very negligent leaving my son in here. I wanted to take him home last night, but you wouldn't let me, and I want to take him home now, because he's got mumps, and he shouldn't be here."

Why not? The paed says.

My friend got a flash of inspiration and said "Because he might infect you, and you might get sick and die."

Well, that gottim moving, and fast. They brought in another paed and then an older one who just laughed and said "Of course its mumps, for crying out loud..." and the two young paeds were desperately trying to get this kid outta hospital as FAST as they could, because the killer disease might infect everyone in the hospital.

Didn't much care about whether it might kill the child, but hey.

The mother was talking with the slightly amused older paediatrician who really didn't give much of a toss, and said "Do they all behave like this?" and he just said "Well, yes, its the politically correct method of doing things."

My friend asked the paed In all your years of practice did you ever see a bad case of mumps/ and he said "Yeah. Me. I've had it three times. The last time I had to sleep for a day."

It would be funny if it wasn't sad.

One day, there will be a vaccine against the common cold, and what's the bet that doctors then, will treat anyone with a cold like they have Ebola.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-28-2006, 01:49 AM

I'm looking forward to borrowing your book from an mdc mama sometime in the near future, when another mama is done borrowing it. I know this does you a fat lot of a good on the financial end however :gloomy:

Listen lady. :hug The point is, we want this to be available to anyone no matter their circumstances. That was another reason we decided to do it this way.

If you want it, PM me.

jessicaSAR

12-28-2006, 04:49 AM

This is absolutely crap diagnosis.

You know what? Measles has symptoms which means that a person with measles walks like measles, talks like measles, and looks like measles, okay?

Now, if you have measles, it will be a blinding revelation of the obvious. A moron with an access to a textbook can look at the person and say "Yup, this is measles" and then draw bloods and look for a rise in IgM and/or IgG titres to make sure.

But when someone "suspected" of having measles is eliminated because they did not have a laboratory-confirmed test, and/or were not linked to a patient who did have a laboratory-confirmed test, I have a mental picture here of totally clueless idiots wandering around looking for measles under the bed, in the cupboard ~ in fact anything, to try to make up a few numbers over a few weeks to add another medical article to their CV.

The "someone" was obviously, patently stupid, if they were unable to diagnose measles on the symptoms presented... and if they were not (which it is clear they couldn't, or they wouldn't have had to "rely" on a lab test), then why all the hype about how dangerous it was.

Cases too mild to be diagnosed on sight alone?

All those with the lab test had the characteristic rash. Then, what was the point of the test? Just to be sure, I guess.

And those who were hospitalised, why were they hospitalised?

The hospital phlobotomist was a smoker, and vaccinated to boot, and the fact that she had both IgG and IgM antibodies means that she had pre-existing immunity. IgG isn't seen in acute situations without pre-existing immunity. She was the only one who had it severely, and was on a ventilator, because here lungs were filled up with black stuff and carbon monoxide, which is always a good way to make sure that something like measles takes hold, so she had only herself to blame.

And the other two got dehydrated. Well, yes, its possible in a country where the value of water appears to have got lost, and many people subsist on pepsi, or Dr peppers.

.

I just want to reiterate these points because they really struck me as well.

1. They eliminated almost half the "suspected" cases because they couldn't diagnose them or find out who they had been exposed to...????

2. Almost all of the unvaccinated kids got measles and there were absolutely no complications except two people needing IV fluids. The only pneumonia was in an older smoker. This is a mild childhood disease! Thank goodness all the billions we spent on vaccination averted an epidemic.:scratch

Sounds like there a was measles party. Perhaps there is a reason all those unvaccinated kids were exposed. I know that if measles were to show up in my state, especially among homeschoolers, there would definitely be gatherings. This study doesn't even mention the possibility that there were continued, purposeful exposures. Do you think epidemiologists really don't know about measles parties??

nichole

12-28-2006, 05:01 AM

I'm not done reading this thread yet but I wanted to post this before I forget. If vaccines are not effective, how come it is so hard to find chicken pox for my son? I know they are not 100% and we need boosters b/c of waning immunity, but I find it hard to believe that they don't work at all.

Also I have found that to get the real answers you have to really dig deep. So when I first started researching vaccines, I was pro vaccines. Two years later I started researching more and now I'm delayed/selective. Another year later and I'm still learning.

So to answer the original poster, *some* pro vaxers *may* not have access to all the information b/c you have to go beyond the propaganda that appears informative at first.

The other thing is that no one has a crystal ball to see what would happen if we vaccinate or do not. I can't know how my child will react to a certain disease or vaccine until it happens.

Most pro vaxers are just not comfortable with their child getting a VPD whereas nonvaxers see childhood illnesses as part of life. Who knows how many cases of whooping cough and measles go unreported?

Ok i promise to go finish reading the whole thread now :shy

Scattershoot

12-28-2006, 06:22 AM

Sounds like there a was measles party. Perhaps there is a reason all those unvaccinated kids were exposed. I know that if measles were to show up in my state, especially among homeschoolers, there would definitely be gatherings. This study doesn't even mention the possibility that there were continued, purposeful exposures. Do you think epidemiologists really don't know about measles parties??

Exactly what I was thinking. Especially with the huge percentage of home-schooled children involved. If anyone caught chicken pox or measles around here, dozens of children would end up with the "diseases" in an "epidemic" because we'd all be hanging out having a good time. The mass media and pro-vaxers would have a field day talking about how the "measles outbreak was attacking the unvaccinated" but would somehow leave out the life-long immunity part and the maturation of the immune response.

The 100 grand spent on the older, hospital employee just shows how expensive the disease is when you don't get real immunity from getting the disease as a child. The 34 year old employee was one of the two vaccine failures. They try to make the point that not getting vaccinated ends up costing society loads of money, but their own flippin' study shows that vaccination ends up being much, much more expensive in the long run.

This study is SO RIDICULOUS its RIDICULOUS. The people were all members of the same church. What religious practice has such a high rate of unvaccinated children? It sounds like the gathering was fortuitous not disastrous.

This example of a study for pro-vaccination is why people who choose not to vaccinate have such little patience with the "research" of pro-vaxers.

suprgrl

12-28-2006, 06:48 AM

Where did you find the detailed info re: the hospitalization cases for the measles outbreak?

jessicaSAR

12-28-2006, 06:51 AM

Where did you find the detailed info re: the hospitalization cases for the measles outbreak?

In the article posted by iamleabee in post 148

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/5/447

suprgrl

12-28-2006, 06:53 AM

Thanks. I just went back and found it while you were posting.

Trying to keep up here :dizzy:

Interesting discussion.

aira

12-28-2006, 09:29 AM

MT... :rotflmao about the peds encountering mumps!

True it is sad, though. I saw similar stupidity when DS was in the hosp with RSV... machinistic handling and myopic thinking based solely on labwork.

They very quickly sent us home (after having told us we'd be there no less than a week) when I ranted to the team of young little yale peds about the risks they were introducing by not thinking things through first.

Works like a charm. :wink

I'm super surprised they didn't push the vax issue. DS was 2 months, and I had just refused them in his ped's office a few days before. Hearing here how many mamas get harrassed about it when their kids are sick... :tsk

Tracy

12-29-2006, 02:02 AM

blessed

12-29-2006, 04:55 AM

I take care of older people in my practice and it's quite common to run across folks who suffered from polio as children.

I've only ever seen one case of tetenus, and that was in a nonvaxed child. But it was horrible. He almost died and was left neurologically damaged. However, nearly all of the few cases of tetenus in the US occur in elderly sick people, so that was a very unusual case.

I think that some vaxes can be justified in a risk/benefit ratio. However, many - flu vaccine in kids, hep b in infants - are not intended to protect the recipient of the vaccine but are given for community purposes. So, the indications for the vaccine are misrepresented to parents in the first place. Then, the safety and efficacy groundwork haven't been followed prior to widespread recommendations for use, so as consumers we are left to ourselves to figure things out.

What a screwed up mess.

MichelleS

12-29-2006, 08:36 AM

Most pro-vaccine parents I know, don't have the knowledge or the skills to nurse their children through infections that are more than a sniffle. They rely on the experts for answers, and certainly have absolutely no faith in the immune systems of their children. They are the ones who say "I couldn't live with myself if my child got really sick and died." So no matter how rare anything might be, those are the reasons they can't get past.

Often, many of them, knowing that its a fragile reason in terms of logic, then add on the altruism angle, by saying that they are protecting all the other kids so that they won't die either.

I've tried to show these people all the risks, facts and data, but ultimately it will come down to wanting to do the "right" thing according to the system: to be accepted by the system.

When they vaccinate their children they don't have to worry, and its the worry relief that is the most important thing for them, as I hear them talk about it.

I read all these posts with such great interest, and this one, especially, spoke to me. I am the type who couldn't live with anything happening to my children. When my son was born, I was young, inexperienced, and ignorant - I had him vaccinated because I thought "everyone" did. He now has severe asthma and allergies.
I had my now 22 month old partially vaccinated. She suffered a negative reaction; the repercussions of which lasted for months.
My 8 month old has not been vaccinated at all. Do I worry? Of course, I worry. I try to read and research, even as I'm innundated with vaccine advertisements. I have no friends who don't vaccinate, so all of my more mainstream friends think I'm overreacting, and ridiculous in my responses. So yes, I worry, and I am guilty on occasion of questioning whether I'm doing the right thing.
I suppose I question myself more often than others do because I don't have a support group of friends to talk with about this.

wallacesmum

12-29-2006, 09:07 AM

(nak)

There are posters in this forum who seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of this issue. I am still learning, and am far from considering myself to have "done the research." There is pressure from the peds, pressure from family and friends, and pressure from the fact that there is supposedly a specific window when this stuff has to be done. Sometimes, we have to make decisions with incomplete information. In the vaccine debate, I feel that, no matter how much I know, the information will be incomplete, because WHERE ARE THE STUDIES THAT COMPARE COMPLETELY UNVAXED KIDS WITH VAXED ONES? My life has not allowed me to develop nearly the level of expertise that I would require to be an effective advocate; all I can do is direct people to the resources that have been helpful to me, and to explain the following:

All our actions are governed by our root, or a priori, assumptions. Sometimes new info modifies a position that is compatible with these assumptions, and sometimes it challenges them fundamentally. There are two major opposing fundamental assumptions in the vaccine debate, in my experience. One is the generally anti-vax position, which seems to be that the human body is a fairly effective machine, which is still mostly a mystery. Until scientists can create a human from scratch, how could I believe that they understand the animal? If we screw around with it, we are likely to experience consequences, that will require further remediation. So, the best approach is to minimize abuse of the system, and cultivate it in a manner consistent with its demands (what is asks for that seems to make it work better, rather than make is sick).

The more pro-vax, or pro-"medicine", position would seem to be that we understand the human body and can anticipate and pre-empt any consequences from previous pre-emptive strikes (take a healthy baby, inject it with toxins, then run interference). This position also requires the assumption that research institutions and scientists don't get stuck in ruts or develop agendas that would preclude the ability of a researcher from objectively observing something contrary to their own held assumptions. It would also require that these people act in the best interest of a stranger's child, at potential expense to their own career.

Those people do exist, I have no doubt. They are out there fighting the fight all the time, but the stresses can break a person. Peter Duesburg's wife says that no one will have them to dinner or play with their son. Those are little things, but they are a person's life. Wouldn't it be easier for Dr. Duesburg to follow the herd and continue to enjoy the praise of his peers that he used to experience? He doesn't, and there is a cost.

This is already too long a post, so I will stop, although there is a whole essay's worth of fleshing out to be done here. The relevance to the OP, in my mind, is that the most compelling arguments are often the ones that we have already had in a more general sense, that govern all of our decisions. We must be on constant guard that we are open to an argument that could fundamentally shift the parameters, but in the absence of that argument, we all start from somewhere.

Does that make sense? I can see how two people can look at the same data and draw different conclusions, but those two people cannot both start from the same place. If we watch the media, we see that debates are always framed in narrow terms that fit certain initial assumptions; step outside those and watch out! Try it with education, try it with government, try it with medicine, etc.

mamakay

12-29-2006, 10:07 AM

very interesting but of course no shock to me.

What's even more interesting is that the guy who said the stuff about the studies that don't get released was Philip Minor, who was the head of the UK's FDA for decades.
Google his name and "OPV" and see what theory he's a proponent of.

mamakay

12-29-2006, 10:17 AM

I think that some vaxes can be justified in a risk/benefit ratio. However, many - flu vaccine in kids, hep b in infants - are not intended to protect the recipient of the vaccine but are given for community purposes. So, the indications for the vaccine are misrepresented to parents in the first place. Then, the safety and efficacy groundwork haven't been followed prior to widespread recommendations for use, so as consumers we are left to ourselves to figure things out.

What a screwed up mess.

Even the "community purposes" for HepB isn't exactly what you'd think. It's part of the universal schedule here in the US so the vaccine is affordable in China.
Seriously.
That's the way "bioethicists" are working things out now. Which I'm not totally opposed to, other than the way this stuff is basically being worked out in secret. It leaves me feeling cynical and suspicious.

And the vaccine debate is so emotionally charged now that any dissent whatsoever gets you pegged as a mental case.

It is a screwed up mess.

blessed

12-29-2006, 10:34 AM

..And the vaccine debate is so emotionally charged now that any dissent whatsoever gets you pegged as a mental case..:nod When my colleagues find out that I'm not a wholesale supporter of all vaxes they usually look at me sideways and say 'you're not one of those, are you?'

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-29-2006, 10:59 AM

And you reply with:

Not, but you're one of these no doubt

http://whqlibdoc.who.int/bulletin/1997/Vol75-No4/bulletin_1997_75(4)_367-375.pdf ~ See page five second para on the left.

This is an article talking about vaccinating sick kids in hospital.

Since there are virtually no contraindications to measles vaccination, measles vaccine should be administered regardless of the patient's health status. Measles vaccination is particularly important for malnourished children and for those with chronic illnesses, as they are at increased risk of complication due to measles. An exception to this recommendation are children who on admission, are so ill that they are at serious risk of dying. Although administration of measles vaccine is not dangerous in such cases, parents may incorrectly attribute a death to the vaccination

Yours sincerely, the World Health Organisation, who know everything.

But to be blunt, what this says to me, is that they care more about the reputation of a vaccine than the health of a seriously sick person.

Or a well one, for that matter.

LongIsland

12-29-2006, 11:02 AM

Thank you MT. This needs to be repeated and people need to read EVERY WORD again and THEN AGAIN:

Since there are virtually no contraindications to measles vaccination, measles vaccine should be administered regardless of the patient's health status.
Measles vaccination is particularly important for malnourished children and for those with chronic illnesses, as they are at increased risk of complication due to measles. An exception to this recommendation are children who on admission, are so ill that they are at serious risk of dying.

Although administration of measles vaccine is not dangerous in such cases, parents may incorrectly attribute a death to the vaccination

:shake

.

aira

12-29-2006, 11:24 AM

:jaw

wallacesmum

12-29-2006, 11:30 AM

LI - are there no contraindications because there are no safety tests on sick kids? I haven't gotten through your wonderful testing thread yet!

mykdsmomy

12-29-2006, 11:32 AM

mamakay

12-29-2006, 11:54 AM

:nod When my colleagues find out that I'm not a wholesale supporter of all vaxes they usually look at me sideways and say 'you're not one of those, are you?'

An if you want to get really freaked out, go look around the "Ethics of Vaccines" project at the University of Pennsylvania site.
These are bioethicists who are implementing plans to do nifty stuff like vaccinating middle school kids with the HPV vaccine at school for the sole purpose of "overcoming" the "parental consent" barrier to care.

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=557554

Not that I even have a huge problem with the HPV vaccine, but there actually are some questions about how it might not turn out so hunky dory.
There are some bases they haven't covered regarding it's safety.

Also, I live in a state with only a religious exemption. And I'm an atheist. So, we're not allowed to have *scientific issues* with any of the vaccines? What am I supposed to do?

Who's the voice of skepticism in the NIP? The very folks who make the schedule? No one else can say "Hey...what are you thinking? This isn't all that scientifically sound, really, as far as I can tell."

So messed up. So, so messed up. :irked:

mykdsmomy

12-29-2006, 12:15 PM

Also, I live in a state with only a religious exemption. And I'm an atheist. So, we're not allowed to have *scientific issues* with any of the vaccines? What am I supposed to do?

Can't it be against your personal religion (atheist) to give your child vaccines though? I mean does it have to be written in church doctrine somewhere?

Drummer's Wife

12-29-2006, 12:19 PM

Can't it be against your personal religion (atheist) to give your child vaccines though? I mean does it have to be written in church doctrine somewhere?

I'm atheist and signed a religious exemption with no problem. :shrug

mamakay

12-29-2006, 12:20 PM

Can't it be against your personal religion (atheist) to give your child vaccines though? I mean does it have to be written in church doctrine somewhere?

We have the "sincere" and "bona fide" language here. I know in NY they pretty much want you to specifically mention god, and if they sense even a hint of a "scientific issue", your exemption is denied, but I don't know about here. (Tennessee).
I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Gitti

12-29-2006, 12:20 PM

Can't it be against your personal religion (atheist) to give your child vaccines though?
Yes, it can.

I mean does it have to be written in church doctrine somewhere?
No, it does not.

Scattershoot

12-29-2006, 02:24 PM

These are bioethicists who are implementing plans to do nifty stuff like vaccinating middle school kids with the HPV vaccine at school for the sole purpose of "overcoming" the "parental consent" barrier to care.

What else can we expect from a group of psychopaths. I do not use that term lightly either. Here is the American Heritage definition of psychopath.

A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.

For these psychopaths, parents are simply in the way. When a child suffers a horrific reaction or dies from their vaccines, they make that child a statistic, create some risk/benefit fantasy or try everything they can to deny the death was from their poisons. Is it or is it not amoral and criminal to destroy health and kill.

We now have cameras in school bathrooms without parental consent (is it or is it not perverted to watch children use the restroom), CPS side by side with police officers going to schools without parental consent and interviewing children (is that not aggressive) and soon psychological exams will be taking place.

JesseMomme

12-29-2006, 02:51 PM

mamaofthree

12-29-2006, 03:00 PM

As some who vaxed my two oldest I have to say it is lack of easily found info against vaxing.I had no idea that you couldn't vax, that there were even side effects other then at the site of the injection. I am not even sure what made me even begin to question all of it in the first place. But I did.
Here is what I thought about... 1.) when are you ever exposed to that many diseases at once, EVER? Maybe if you are in a refugee camp with no water in a war zone might you come in contact with all of the diseases they vax for at once. It isn't that you may come into them at some point in your life, but what 2 month old is around all those things at once, ever? And if we are to keep our babies safe from germs and have people wash up and we are to spray them with Lysol (JK) to keep them safe, why is it ok to pump them full of toxins and dead germs over and over again? And why if the vaxes work do you need to have them so many of them over and over? I mean most people who get mumps (lets say) get it once and that is it.
I guess a major turning point was when I had decided to selectively vax my ds#2 and on a drawn out schedule and I went to the county helath department and when I told them what he was to get they told me (I kid you not) That "This is going on your perment record" What record would that be? And talk about a scare tatic. Why do that? Plus have you seen the paper about vax reactions? It is long and small print and that is IF you get something more then what the Ped hands out.
I hope that I haven't don't long term damage to my two kids who have been vaxed. I can look back and see that it is possible that some of my DD's health problems as an infant and small chuild could very well have been vax related. Chronic ear infections, skin rashes, upper resp illnesses often. Thankfully this isn't a problem any more, but it was an issue after every vax. Only now as I have learned more can I look back and see how it was connected. :irked: :(

H

paisleypoet

12-30-2006, 10:47 AM

I completely vaxed my first two kids, and I did it because I believed the doctors when they told me "the benefits far outweigh the risks." I never researched the ingredients or any of the possible effects. Now my daughter has some serious food allergies and other sensitivities, and I started thinking, and doing some research. She will not get any more vaccines, and I am starting to think that they are the cause of her problems. There are too many things wrong with the pro-vax argument IMO.
The problem with questioning vaccines is that you have to come out of the comfortable bubble you have been living in. It feels warm and safe in there to just trust everything the doctor says. You start to question other things as well. Who can you trust? But IMO it is better to live this way, to question everything and get the answers you need to make the decision that feels right in your heart. Even if it is hard to do. Even if everyone around you will think you are crazy. :nut

Plummeting

12-30-2006, 11:13 AM

The problem with questioning vaccines is that you have to come out of the comfortable bubble you have been living in. It feels warm and safe in there to just trust everything the doctor says. You start to question other things as well. Who can you trust?

Yes. There have been times when DD was sick that I wished I had that kind of blind faith in the medical system that so many people do, so that I could just take her in and get some drugs and feel like I was doing something. Knowing better than that, well, it keeps her healthier in the long run and has prevented her from getting rounds of unnecessary abx that I'm positive would have been prescribed if I'd taken her in for different things, but which she clearly never needed since she's always recovered within a few days without them. OTOH, if I had some sort of faith in docs and their judgement, it would be such a relief to feel like I was doing something if I could take her in and get meds.

Don't get me wrong - she eats healthy, she nurses and we supplement when/what appropriate, so I am doing something for her, but sometimes I still feel so helpless. And the thing is, since I know doctors often have no idea what they're doing when it comes to sick kids, I wouldn't feel any less helpless if I did take her in, because I'd know they were probably doing something useless at best and harmful at worst. I've crossed some kind of threshold and I can't return. It isn't that I think doctors are never necessary - they certainly have their place - but that place just doesn't happen to be in the treatment of run-of-the-mill coughs, colds, rashes and childhood illnesses. They're good for serious illnesses.

aira

12-30-2006, 11:25 AM

Right on, Plummeting...

I now feel that seeing an MD is putting us into a totally out-of-control situation. Long ago, it was like getting a fix of being a child where "the parent" would make everything better and I'd be safe without any responsibility, but then always being let down in the end...

mykdsmomy

12-30-2006, 11:32 AM

The problem with questioning vaccines is that you have to come out of the comfortable bubble you have been living in. It feels warm and safe in there to just trust everything the doctor says.

This really hits the nail on the head for me. I was also thinking this morning that there are some really intelligent people/parents out there for whatever reason just DONT want to hear it. It's like you try to bring up the idea of questioning the dr and they either look at you like you're an alien or they get the look in their eyes that's reminiscent of a child putting their fingers in their ears and going "la la la la, i cant hear you". :(

mamaofthree

12-30-2006, 11:42 AM

Very true. My SIL whom I love dearly, will not hear of it. She just looks at me smiles and takes her dd to get vaxed. Shge told me it was to get her into school, but I informed her our state has all the exemps. She didn't care. Even when her dd stopped nursing for 2 days as a 6 month old, she didn't stop to question what was going on, she took her for the next round and the next, with the same reaction. And she is a great mama, but she will not even think to question her doctor about this one thing. She is AP all the way, organic diet, won't give her dd unnessary meds, etc, but that one thing... :dizzy:

H

Fyrestorm

12-30-2006, 12:57 PM

The problem with questioning vaccines is that you have to come out of the comfortable bubble you have been living in. It feels warm and safe in there to just trust everything the doctor says. You start to question other things as well. Who can you trust? But IMO it is better to live this way, to question everything and get the answers you need to make the decision that feels right in your heart. Even if it is hard to do. Even if everyone around you will think you are crazy. :nut

I wonder if that's why all this was sooooo easy for me. I haven't trusted anyone in the medical profession since I was 6 and was sexually abused by a Pedi Urologist....I NEVER trusted a one of 'em again....not even my much loved midwives and Chiro..I still research and question EVERYTHING they say. I'll actually look out the window if they say, "isn't it a lovely day out?"

I read the threads here and read about people struggling with this decision...I think to myself..."easy...just stop"...I have trouble understanding why it's so hard to make this decision...maybe I should have been asking why it was so easy for me.

Plummeting

12-30-2006, 01:38 PM

You know, Fyrestorm, it's always been easy for me to trust myself over doctors when it comes to my own health. I had no problem refusing what I considered excessive/unnecessary treatment of dysplasia when I was only 21. (I was right - it cleared up on its own.) I also had no problem refusing abx for pneumonia when I was 22.

It's just that when it's your children, it would be so much easier to trust someone else to have the answers. It would be easier to abdicate responsility, you know? For someone with your experience, I think it would obviously be completely different, but for the average person who hasn't had a traumatic experience, it's a lot different, kwim?

lilysmama1124

12-30-2006, 03:08 PM

Just wanted to chime in that I am having a hard time deciding about vax and here is why-no flames please. I completely distrust our government, medical establishment, the phramaceudical co., and the FDA. I 100% believe that they distort facts and infor. The problem that I run into is that I am not a scientist or a researcher so when I read stats from a non-vax source I am as skeptical of that info as any other. Not because I think it is false but because I don't know how to really evaluate the legitamcy of any of the information. So when I try to talk to or read info from experts on either side I end up more confused. I know that there are many of you whose children who have been harmed by vax and I also know that there are children who have gotten VPD's and been harmed so from an emotional stand point it is just as hard to know what to do. For me, the more research I do the more confused I feel. I truely want to do the right thing but it really is hard from to discern the fact from the fiction in either argument. I also think that as parents we all look for things that validate the decisions we have made. Therefore if you choose to vax your children you are probably more likely to believe information that tells you that was the correct decision and visa-versa. Instinctively I feel that I do want to vax but both decisions feel very scary to me. It isn't because I don't want to be different or because I can't "take the heat" I will inevitably get for no-vaxing it is because some of the diseases actually do pose a threat and I live in an area where those diseases have actually shown up recently (ie. pertusis) and I just want to do the best thing possible.

mamakay

12-30-2006, 03:19 PM

mammom

12-30-2006, 04:04 PM

I read the threads here and read about people struggling with this decision...I think to myself..."easy...just stop"...I have trouble understanding why it's so hard to make this decision...maybe I should have been asking why it was so easy for me.

I struggled a tiny bit with our decision, but really - just a tiny bit and only with one or two of the illnesses (polio and tetanus, as they are the sticking points for many on this journey). Now I am in your shoes - can't see how it can be such a struggle. I see the anti-vax information that is easily available and it ALL makes sense to me.

I can certainly understand how people could get "stuck" on one or two of the illnesses, but MOST OF THEM ARE BENIGN in even relatively healthy children!! Of course there are the exceptions, but, and I don't have data here to back up my belief, but I believe the numbers of HEALTHY children having problems with an illness are far fewer than the numbers of children damaged by vaccines.

Deborah

12-30-2006, 04:20 PM

I can certainly understand how people could get "stuck" on one or two of the illnesses, but MOST OF THEM ARE BENIGN in even relatively healthy children!! Of course there are the exceptions, but, and I don't have data here to back up my belief, but I believe the numbers of HEALTHY children having problems with an illness are far fewer than the numbers of children damaged by vaccines.

Very interesting point. There are a lot of very unhealthy children around now, although the infant mortality rate has improved a bit since the 1950s, when I was a child. For example, in my entire childhood, I can't remember ever hearing of an infant or child with an ear infection. Weird. In fact, when my daughter was a baby in the late 60s I don't recall hearing anyone talking about ear infections and I did hang out with other moms and infants occasionally. So what gives?

Asthma
severe, life threatening allergies
ADHD
autism
cancer in children
immune system problems
ear infections

The problem would be demonstrating that the heavy load of vaccines is THE factor that is causing most or some of the increase in chronic illness and behavioral stuff.

Momtezuma Tuatara

12-31-2006, 08:08 PM

In 1993, when I was in America, there was a ghastly TV advertisement running, which had lots of children running in a playground, laughing and playing in the sun, and then they disappeared, it was black clouds, leaves, dark sky and the text said something like "If you don't vaccinate your children there will be no next generation."

I just couldn't believe it; and the ad was sponsorred by a medical association.

I often wondered just how many people believed that, and if they did, how they thought all their ancestors got to have children.

Spy

12-31-2006, 08:17 PM

I often wondered just how many people believed that, and if they did, how they thought all their ancestors got to have children.

Things like that are still running on TV, you just don't watch anymore :).

As for the ancestors, there is a current 'explanation' that sounds like the following: 'we are a vaccine-dependent generation. Because we were massively vaccinating for some deadly diseases for a couple generations, we do not have any other immunity than the vaccine-induced one. Unlike our ancestors, we can't rely on the natural immunity of those who survived the disease. There is no chance of surviving if we stop vaccinating'. There you have it - good news and bad news for the price of one :irked:

aira

12-31-2006, 09:27 PM

I ususally hear that in past generations everyone was crippled, lost 15 babies each, and couldn't hear b/c of measles... :eyesroll

OK, I'm exaggerating, but only a little. :p

Isn't life better now...?? :eyesroll Can't even bring peanut butter sandwiches to schools because it will kill somebody.

tiffer23

12-31-2006, 11:38 PM

I haven't read any other replies and probably won't get around to coming back (I always forget) but I think my biggest issue with it all is that I DON'T WANT my son to catch any of these diseases. It seems all anti-vaxers want their kids to catch them and gain lifetime immunity. I don't want him to catch them OR be vaccinated. Since that's not likely a possibility, I plan on delaying vaccines. Right now, I do not think he will get any before 2, but then I'll slowly give him some I find to be "needed." Some I am 99% sure I won't give him are the Pertussis (not sure about the D & T parts though), Flu, Prevnar, Hib.... I'm still researching on Hib especially though. *shrug*

imo, when it comes to your own child it's a lot harder to make a decision. Do I want my child injected with the things in vaccines? No! Do I want him to suffer any ill effects that I believe vaccines can cause? No! Do I want him to catch Rubella and become sterile? No! Do I want him to suffer with the whooping cough? No! It's ALL scary to me. Vaxing and not vaxing.

Either way I'm trying to make the best educated decision for my son. Right now, it's not giving him ANY vaccinations. Later he may receive some, I don't know yet. That's why I never stop researching.

ETA: I really just think it's a crapshoot either way. A child that might be biologically programmed to be able to survive the diseases could die/become injured from vaccines. But a child who is programmed to be able to handle the vaccines without any issues may be hurt or die from a disease. No one can know which their child is.

All the anti-vaxers I come across talk about how horrible it is that children die from vaccines, and I agree. But I find it equally as terrible that children are dying from these diseases.

Plummeting

01-01-2007, 12:06 AM

Do I want him to catch Rubella and become sterile? No!

Rubella doesn't cause sterility. That's mumps you're thinking of and it's extremely, extremely rare. Mumps orchitis almost never causes sterility, but in the rare instance that it does, it's almost always confined to one testicle, meaning the man isn't actually sterile, because he still has another fully functional testicle producing more sperm than he will ever need. Mumps-induced sterility is so rare that the CDC doesn't even have ANY numbers on how likely/common it is. THAT is RARE.

All the anti-vaxers I come across talk about how horrible it is that children die from vaccines, and I agree. But I find it equally as terrible that children are dying from these diseases.

Yes, children in Africa, who don't have enough food and can't get clean water, some of whom are infected with AIDS or malaria at the same time that they catch measles. Healthy American kids who aren't on steroids don't just drop dead from chickenpox or measles. It is terrible no matter why a child dies. The difference is that people who don't vax have learned enough to know that their child is more likely to be killed by falling out of bed than by tetanus or chickenpox.

treemom2

01-01-2007, 01:18 AM

I haven't quite made it through reading the entire thread but I did want to give the opinion of my doc back in the states. I really liked him and he was very supportive of my decision not to vax my children, however he did want to discuss the reasons he decided to vax his. What he told me was that in the area where we lived there were a lot of tourists. Although he didn't think his children would get the VPDs normally, he was worried about them taking the train and sitting next to someone from XYZ and catching it from them. He then went on to tell me that it is a risk/benefit analysis. There are risks to the vaxes and risks to the diseases. He said he could not live with himself if one of his children died from a VPD, however he said truthfully he was concerned about the vaxes as well, but thought that the risk of dying from a VPD was more than dying from a vax.

~member~

01-01-2007, 01:22 AM

What he told me was that in the area where we lived there were a lot of tourists. What tourists do you know that are allowed into the USA without being vaccinated? :dizzy:

Momtezuma Tuatara

01-01-2007, 02:14 AM

I haven't quite made it through reading the entire thread but I did want to give the opinion of my doc back in the states. I really liked him and he was very supportive of my decision not to vax my children, however he did want to discuss the reasons he decided to vax his. What he told me was that in the area where we lived there were a lot of tourists. Although he didn't think his children would get the VPDs normally, he was worried about them taking the train and sitting next to someone from XYZ and catching it from them.

You mean, these perfectly healthy tourists travelling happily on buses are alive and running, and have diseases that will kill your doctors children?

Are his kids that bad, that things that don't even bother tourists will kill his kids?

What a lousy advert for his omnipotent power as a parent of a supposedly healthy child.

:rotflmao

angela&avery

01-01-2007, 07:21 AM

suprgrl

01-01-2007, 07:54 AM

i find this itself is one of the biggest problem with parents today. They are so afraid of their kids being sick..... its normal, its good and its healthy to get sick as a child and build up immunity. This is so frusterating. I am so constantly trying to get through peoples skulls that illness (and fever) is NORMAL for children. arrrrhg!!!

I agree it is one of hte biggest driving factors in parents that vaccinate. They are afraid of illness. Have no tools for treating illness, no resources for treating illness in their home and feeling confident about it.

There also seems to be a strong belief that illness is something that just happens to you. I have a friend whose family has been sick 5 times this year...for a week each time! To me that is outrageous! They vax, medicate for everything, and live on processed foods. They had honestly not even heard of certain local vegetables that I eat regularly! They view getting sick like rolling the dice. So, yeah, if there is something out there (vaxes) that are said to prevent illness then it is miraculous to them. Why would anyone not want to do that?!
For some reason my friend has never put it together that I and my family are never sick, yet hers are. We eat healthfully, they eat crap. She just doesn't seem to think like that.
The bottom line seems to be that people want to live their lives as comfortably as possible...meaning they don't want to have to give up anything for their health... especially if a doctor can just fix whatever problems my arise with a pill or shot. Drinking water, or eating more veggies, exercising are all too much work for something medicine has solved in their minds.
Modern medicine is all about trying to overcome nature so that people can live how they want without consequences. Of course that can never happen, but alot of people think it has happened.

mammom

01-01-2007, 09:54 AM

i find this itself is one of the biggest problem with parents today. They are so afraid of their kids being sick..... its normal, its good and its healthy to get sick as a child and build up immunity. This is so frusterating. I am so constantly trying to get through peoples skulls that illness (and fever) is NORMAL for children. arrrrhg!!!

I agree it is one of hte biggest driving factors in parents that vaccinate. They are afraid of illness. Have no tools for treating illness, no resources for treating illness in their home and feeling confident about it.

I totally agree. And it's funny (or maybe not) - the fear has made its way into every aspect of parenting. I just got a catalog in the mail the other day from One Step Ahead or something like that and it was their "SAFETY ISSUE." They have every kind of "baby-proofing" device for your home (padding for corners, locks for every thing in the house, etc.), leashes for travelling and location devices in case your child is lost, etc., etc. I am sure some of these are very handy sometimes, BUT, the fear of ANYTHING, even a slight knock on the head from bumping into the corner of the counter, seems to be pervasive. People don't want anything "bad" to happen to their children - even if it could be a learning experience in the end.

I hope what I am saying makes sense - of course I don't want anything truly bad to happen to my own son! But life happens. We can't lock our kids in padded cells and let them out when they are adults. You know?

Cate

01-01-2007, 10:04 AM

What tourists do you know that are allowed into the USA without being vaccinated? :dizzy:

Just wanted to point out, I don't live in the US, nor am I a citizen of the US, but I have been there, many times, and I have *never* been asked to show a vaccination record.

AikeaGuinea

01-01-2007, 10:12 AM

I ususally hear that in past generations everyone was crippled, lost 15 babies each, and couldn't hear b/c of measles... :eyesroll

OK, I'm exaggerating, but only a little. :p

It breaks my heart when the anti-vax faction jokes around like this. Have you ever talked to someone who grew up in the 30's or 40's when these diseases were still around? Better yet, have you ever talked to an elderly woman who raised children during the days before the vaccination program started? They would shame you for the way you talk about these VPDs. Many many tears were shed over children who contracted and died from VPDs, tears that parents nowadays do not have to shed because our children are all protected by vaccines and herd immunity. My mother, who was born in 1947, told me how she and her brothers were not allowed to go to public events because they might get polio. In her small school alone there were 5 or 6 children who had leg braces from polio paralysis. And let's not attribute it to poor nutrition and sanitation because back then people ate a heck of a lot better than we do now. I wish everyone who is against vaccination and doesn't believe in the efficacy of vaccines would spend some time with a mother in her 70's or 80's if you want to hear what life was like for mothers and children before vaccines.

Anti vaxers can laugh all they want about 15 babies dying and people being crippled but back then you should have seen the lines for the polio vaccines when they became available.

JesseMomme

01-01-2007, 10:29 AM

Modern medicine is all about trying to overcome nature so that people can live how they want without consequences. Of course that can never happen, but alot of people think it has happened.
worth repeating.

mammom

01-01-2007, 10:34 AM

Mirzam

01-01-2007, 10:38 AM

Unreal

01-01-2007, 10:51 AM

Plummeting

01-01-2007, 10:58 AM

Just wanted to point out, I don't live in the US, nor am I a citizen of the US, but I have been there, many times, and I have *never* been asked to show a vaccination record.

Yeah. Only legal immigrants have to show proof of vaccination, not tourists.

Plummeting

01-01-2007, 11:06 AM

LongIsland

01-01-2007, 11:17 AM

The lines for the polio vaccine were created by mass marketing fear tactics, in the same way the public are brainwashed now into vaccinating. The this kind of fear-based medicine was perfected back then.

:clap
:nod
Read that again people.

Even the author of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning book, Polio: An American Story, makes that point in his book.

From just two reviews of the book:

Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, Oshinsky reveals that polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed by the media, but in truth a relatively uncommon disease. But in baby-booming America--increasingly suburban, family-oriented, and hygiene-obsessed--the specter of polio, like the specter of the atomic bomb, soon became a cloud of terror over daily life

Certainly the actual threat of the disease was exaggerated. In "Polio: An American Story" David Oshinsky reminds us that, even in the 1940s and 1950s, "ten times as many children would be killed in accidents ... and three times as many would die of cancer."

My mother, who was born in 1947, told me how she and her brothers were not allowed to go to public events because they might get polio.

Which is EXACTLY why the author made this point in his prize winning book on polio. Your mother, like everyone else, was very easily manipulated. The same thing is being done today:

Ped: "Dont take junior out in public until he's had his two month shots or he's going to die."

Plummeting

01-01-2007, 11:34 AM

:Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, Oshinsky reveals that polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed by the media, but in truth a relatively uncommon disease. But in baby-booming America--increasingly suburban, family-oriented, and hygiene-obsessed--the specter of polio, like the specter of the atomic bomb, soon became a cloud of terror over daily life

Yes, and this is exactly why, despite living her entire life without a polio vaccine and seeing her 13 surviving siblings doing the same thing, my grandmother feared that her own children might develop paralytic polio. When she was a kid, there wasn't a big media scare and they couldn't afford to sit around and listen to the radio anyway.

ndunn

01-01-2007, 11:48 AM

My grandmother is now almost 80 and she is my biggest supporter of not vaxing. She had 7 kids and they all had everything and they all are fine.

suprgrl

01-01-2007, 11:56 AM

My grandmother is now almost 80 and she is my biggest supporter of not vaxing. She had 7 kids and they all had everything and they all are fine.

Yep.
My grandparents as well as my great-grandfather (ages 79, 83, and 101) have always been very against vaccines.

LongIsland

01-01-2007, 11:59 AM

Yes, and this is exactly why, despite living her entire life without a polio vaccine and seeing her 13 surviving siblings doing the same thing, my grandmother feared that her own children might develop paralytic polio. When she was a kid, there wasn't a big media scare and they couldn't afford to sit around and listen to the radio anyway.

:nod

The scaremongering is even worse today with the amount of pharma television commericals and TV medical drama's (sponsored by pharma).

Today, you cannot go to bed without taking a sleep aid, if you get upset, you need to take Paxil, you cannot bring your newborns out of the house for the first time without getting shots (except for the ped's office :rolleyes), Walgreens is open 24-hours a day because a fever must be medicated, a cough must be medicated and a runny nose must be medicated, children must sit in shopping carts with slipcovers around the cart, hand sanitizer must be in every jacket pocket, parents must now be vaccinated so they don't kill their children . . .

mykdsmomy

01-01-2007, 12:06 PM

.
Walgreens is open 24-hours a day because a fever must be medicated, a cough must be medicated and a runny nose must be medicated, children must sit in shopping carts with slipcovers around the cart, hand sanitizer must be in every jacket pocket, parents must now be vaccinated so they don't kill their children . . .

Well of COURSE. I mean, WHY would you allow your child to suffer needlessly when you can give them perfectly HARMLESS tylenol to make them feel better?? I mean isnt it just so cut and dry for parents? If you dont give your child cold medicine to make them feel better then you are a terribly negligent parent :shake (that's the feeling I get from most people when I tell them to let the fever run it's course....I get looks like i'm insane and cruel)

LongIsland

01-01-2007, 12:33 PM

If you dont give your child cold medicine to make them feel better then you are a terribly negligent parent :shake (that's the feeling I get from most people when I tell them to let the fever run it's course....I get looks like i'm insane and cruel)

:nod

. . . and forget about talking to young parents about garlic oil almost immediately clearing up an ear infection WITHOUT a doctor's visit or medication.

Imagine that - a child with a temperature, screaming in pain in the middle of the night, holding his ear, screaming "my ear hurts" and then it's gone almost as soon as it came. No doctor visit, no Tylenol, no antibiotics, no late night ped phone call. Then waking up in the morning like nothing happened . . . and it was just garlic and oil. :shrug

The looks on people's faces is priceless . . . .

I've gotten a few, "yeah, but . . ." and they just stop and can't even respond. I'm like, "yeah, but what? But how did a mere parent get rid of an ear infection without (1) a doctor's visit; (2) medication; and (3) not a bit of worry?"

bri276

01-01-2007, 01:05 PM

yep, my 84 yr old grandmother support me in not vaxing dd. her kids all had mumps and measles and while she said mumps was bad for them, she still supports the idea that it's much better for a child's immune system to get the illness than vax for it. I don't know where all these pro-vax elderly people are??? never met one.

LongIsland

01-01-2007, 01:10 PM

All the anti-vaxers I come across talk about how horrible it is that children die from vaccines, and I agree. But I find it equally as terrible that children are dying from these diseases.

Yes, children in Africa

Exactly.

Let's take measles for instance. The few hundred people (ALL AGE GROUPS) in the United States who died of measles prior to the measles vaccine's introduction were VERY likely, VERY unhealthy (immunocompromised, heart, lung conditions, on steriod medication, etc.).

Measles was hardly a child killer just prior to the vaccine's introduction, let alone when halfway decent compliance to the (second) vaccine finally kicked in - the first measles vaccine was pulled b/c it sucked and caused a lot of reactions.

This is why the CDC needs to use WORLDWIDE mortality figures for VPD's in order to scaremonger parents into complying with the MMR recommendation. A fever and a rash doesn't sound all that scary unless children are dying of it.

So, not only does the CDC need to use worldwide mortality figures in order to get you to comply, but they conveniently leave out the reason why children in un/underdeveloped countries die of VPD's -- severe malnourishment and unsanitary, dense living conditions.

RetroMom

01-01-2007, 02:05 PM

:nod

The scaremongering is even worse today with the amount of pharma television commericals and TV medical drama's (sponsored by pharma).

Today, you cannot go to bed without taking a sleep aid, if you get upset, you need to take Paxil, you cannot bring your newborns out of the house for the first time without getting shots (except for the ped's office :rolleyes), Walgreens is open 24-hours a day because a fever must be medicated, a cough must be medicated and a runny nose must be medicated, children must sit in shopping carts with slipcovers around the cart, hand sanitizer must be in every jacket pocket, parents must now be vaccinated so they don't kill their children . . .

It's just crazy, isn't it? Can't turn on the TV these days without being inundated with pharma commercials. I'm sick and tired of hearing, "Ask your Dr. if _____ is right for you. ______ is not for everyone, including people with this, this, this or that. Side effects may include blah, blah, blah, blah...." :blah Amazes me how times I hear "serious and sometimes fatal side effects have occurred..." :dizzy:
I can't help but also blame the media for the germ-a-phobia. They hype up every stinking outbreak of anything and make it sound like it's the end of the world and everyone will die. :irked:
Furthermore...I'm really tired of being told what I must do to protect and/or ensure my children's safety--or even my own. I do have a brain, and I know how to use it!! I don't need some Dr., media giant, pharmacist, safety expert or anyone else to tell me what an awful person I am if I don't do exactly as they say. Why must we be continually dumbed down and expected to do as we're told without questioning anything.
I mentioned the falling out of bed statistic to my husband the other day, and he replied, "Well, next thing you know they'll be installing air bags on the floor..." :lol
Ok, end of rant!! :o

ndunn

01-01-2007, 02:36 PM

Oh ya, my 14 month old cousin just had the measles. She had a fever for a few hours, and a rash, that was about it. She isn't even breastfed!
It was so harmless.

Deborah

01-01-2007, 03:25 PM

Read Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Three of his siblings die in the book. It is perfectly clear that they die from malnutrition, although yeah, they get sick and then they die. But healthy children living in decent conditions wouldn't have succumbed.

And in spite of the most horrendous living conditions and constant hunger, Frank's mom managed to bring up three children.

[Side note: I'm reading it because we have a discussion group series scheduled--all memoirs]

Just wanted to add that I remember having measles and I think mumps and I had chickenpox but it was before my memory kicked in. My mother grew up in the bad old days, born in 1918, so she had everything as did her siblings. My mother was anti-vax and didn't worry about us dying from normal childhood illnesses. And she didn't use fever reducers and she never took us to the doctor.

She was just fine with having an unvaxed great-granddaughter.

Plummeting

01-01-2007, 03:44 PM

I mentioned the falling out of bed statistic to my husband the other day, and he replied, "Well, next thing you know they'll be installing air bags on the floor..." :lol

:spitdrink

I forgot to say, since people are talking about the diseases they and the children they know have had, that I had mumps at age 3. Apparently it wasn't too traumatic, because I don't remember it, even though my first memory is at age 12 months when I was seriously burned. We remember traumatic events, so mumps couldn't have been bad for me or I'm pretty sure I would've remembered it. I remember chickenpox, which I got just a few months before mumps. I was vaccinated with the MMR, too, so I guess the mumps part hasn't been working so well for longer than they admit. DD has been exposed to mumps twice now, but she never got it. She did have pertussis at 5.5 months. No big deal for her.

jeanine123

01-01-2007, 05:11 PM

:nod

. . . and forget about talking to young parents about garlic oil almost immediately clearing up an ear infection WITHOUT a doctor's visit or medication.

Imagine that - a child with a temperature, screaming in pain in the middle of the night, holding his ear, screaming "my ear hurts" and then it's gone almost as soon as it came. No doctor visit, no Tylenol, no antibiotics, no late night ped phone call. Then waking up in the morning like nothing happened . . . and it was just garlic and oil. :shrug

The looks on people's faces is priceless . . . .

I've gotten a few, "yeah, but . . ." and they just stop and can't even respond. I'm like, "yeah, but what? But how did a mere parent get rid of an ear infection without (1) a doctor's visit; (2) medication; and (3) not a bit of worry?"

Though in my case it took a drs visit to find out about the garlic oil to start with. And yep, cleared right up over the weekend. Also made me crave Italian for the better part of three days. Though I agree with the crossed eyes look, it's amazing how much it changes when I throw in the fact that my ped recommended it. Then all of a sudden it's ok. :rolleyes

mamakay

01-01-2007, 05:20 PM

The lines for the polio vaccine were created by mass marketing fear tactics, in the same way the public are brainwashed now into vaccinating. The this kind of fear-based medicine was perfected back then.

This point is really one of the crucial ones with the whole vaccine issue.
Either history has been sort of revised to favor vaccines as saving the world, or it hasn't.
Do you see the same thing going on with chickenpox?
In 50 years, are people going to hear "The chickenpox vaccine is a victim of it's own success. People no longer remember the horrors of children stricken by the varicella virus, which killed over a hundred children a year and left countless others scarred, maimed, and brain damaged."

And the next generation of antivaxers are going to be told that THEY are the ones revising history. And the moms around who are choosing to vax for chickenpox NOW are going to be the ones saying "Oh...it was horrible...chickenpox was such a terrible disease".

nichole

01-01-2007, 05:38 PM

In 50 years, are people going to hear "The chickenpox vaccine is a victim of it's own success. People no longer remember the horrors of children stricken by the varicella virus, which killed over a hundred children a year and left countless others scarred, maimed, and brain damaged."

:lol

mamaofthree

01-01-2007, 06:08 PM

My MIL grew up in the prevax days and had all the illness. She has never even given it a thought. She never had a friend die or cousin (she only had a brother), no one she knew died of any of it and they all had it. Although she did get her kids vaxed due to the fact that she will do whatever any doctor tells her. :dizzy: But when I told her my two youngest are not vaxed it didn't even phase her, because she can't say that the illness where bad. Was it uncomfortable? Yes, but they got through it.
Even my grandma had no bad memories (when she actually had memories) except for Scarelet fever. And that they don't even vax for (as it is strep )my dd had it and I was talking to my Gram, she about had a stroke when she found out.
So what is the ear and garlic oil? I wish I had known that when my dd was little. I was so uniformed back then (12 years ago!) she was on antibiotics all the damn time and even has some hearing loss. :(

H

granolamomma

01-01-2007, 06:13 PM

This point is really one of the crucial ones with the whole vaccine issue.
Either history has been sort of revised to favor vaccines as saving the world, or it hasn't.
Do you see the same thing going on with chickenpox?
In 50 years, are people going to hear "The chickenpox vaccine is a victim of it's own success. People no longer remember the horrors of children stricken by the varicella virus, which killed over a hundred children a year and left countless others scarred, maimed, and brain damaged."

And the next generation of antivaxers are going to be told that THEY are the ones revising history. And the moms around who are choosing to vax for chickenpox NOW are going to be the ones saying "Oh...it was horrible...chickenpox was such a terrible disease".

I think my generation is by-and-large vaxed for those diseases that we are supposed to be scared of (M,M, and R, for instance), so I grew up with no personal experience or knowledge of them. They were mysterious-sounding scary things that you wouldn't think of not protecting yourself from.

And truthfully, after all my initial research I was still scared to take the no-vax plunge. But it was the Varicella vax that made me stop short in astonishment (and, most importantly, without fear). I mean, Chicken Pox? Seriously? I actually laughed in surprise when I first heard that. That seemed nearly as silly to me as if someone had told me that they had created a vax for teen acne or bullies. It was a part of my childhood, and I couldn't figure out why it needed a vax. Sure, it can become complicated in Shingles (which I had twice) but c'mon! A cold can eventually turn into pneumonia and kill someone, but there's no cold vax (yet).

I just don't understand how people don't logically see that if you are unhealthy when you catch something, of course you have a greater chance for complications. Duh. So focus on being healthy to begin with and the rest will take care of itself, imo.

mamaofthree

01-01-2007, 06:18 PM

But aren't children now getting shingles when they didn't before because of the Vax? Or am I not remembering that correctly?

H

mykdsmomy

01-01-2007, 08:30 PM

A cold can eventually turn into pneumonia and kill someone, but there's no cold vax (yet).
.

OH, just you wait, sister....I betcha anything there's got to be some kind of cold virus vax in the works. I mean look at all the anti-viral stuff they have out now. "When you feel a cold coming on, take this anti viral med and you'll be back to work in no time" :shake I truly believe the goal is to eventually avoid all illnesses because there will be no reason to be sick as long as the pharma companies keep spitting out stupid medications.....get it.....one gets sick, pharma sells them a med, that med makes them sick, pharma sells them another med for that illness and it keeps going til we're so far removed from the original cause of illness that we no longer put 2 and 2 together and realize it's pharma that's making us sick NOT VIRUSES/BACTERIA. (ok, stepping off my :soapbox now)

Stevie

01-01-2007, 09:15 PM

I have been "lectured" twice in the past two weeks by people because I mentioned not vaccinating.

The first was a business partner. We are in the business of selling vitamins and supplements. They work extremely well; neither my kids nor I have had a dose of Tylenol or any other OTC drug; and certainly not a Rx since I was introduced to this radical notion of health via good nutrition.
We have been sick; our products do a great job of helping our systems to push things through quickly. I trust our products because they work. I do not trust what does not, and has never, worked.
She, on the other hand, gasped and said "Oh, you MUST vaccinate!" I said, "No, we must NOT vaccinate." (said with a smile and in a loving tone)
"But your kids will die of a horrible disease!"
~Oh? which one?~
"well, all of them"
~I have done months worth of research on this subject and have come to the conclusion that my kids are not in danger from any disease. On the other hand, I have found a whole lot of evidence that vaccinating causes severe damage~
"No, no... you are wrong; the diseases are not there anymore because of the vaccines!"
~Really? Would you do me a favor and print out or email me the studies or graphs that show that? I would never endanger my kids and if you have information I haven't seen, I'd love to see it~

haven't heard from her yet.... incidently, another of our partners had a conversation similar to this with me a couple of years ago... she no longer vaxes her kids and is reading JALP now :)

The other lecture came last night from someone from our church. They insisted that all kids are different and must be treated individually. After asking me whether I thought their DD should be in all day kindergarden.
She had repeated antx for ear infecs as a baby and ended up with tubes. After the tubes, the doc refused to give them antx anymore because the infecs were now viral and not bacterial anymore :irked:
She is vaxed for whatever the doc tells them to vax for, including flu vax... she is diagnosed with ADHD and is on Ritalin; they are considering increasing her dosage because her behavior hasn't improved. Teachers complain that she won't stay on task....
She is very difficult and inappropriate. I have been her "teacher" for an hour at a time on Sundays and yesterday she spent 5 hours with us. My challenging 3 year old is easy compared to her...
But her parents insisted that she needed all the vaxes and all the drugs. I very gently told them why I had stopped vaxing and the first red flag I got from their GP, but it was like they couldn't hear what I was saying (of course they get their shots like good little soldiers too)
I pointed out that neither of my kids has ever taken an antibiotic and I told them that DD had just "done" the flu in 16 hours total. They were appalled that I not only hadn't given her Tylenol but that I didn't even take her temp! I was just shaking my head! Why are they not hearing that she recovered in 16 hours instead of 16 days????

So my conclusion is that there has never been an impressive argument for vaccinating. I am totally open to hearing it; in fact, I am an extremely open minded person. It is just not forthcoming... stilll waiting :o

mamakay

01-01-2007, 09:25 PM

So my conclusion is that there has never been an impressive argument for vaccinating. I am totally open to hearing it; in fact, I am an extremely open minded person. It is just not forthcoming... stilll waiting

Ok...what about this...

So, the polio virus might cause paralysis in one out of 1,000 kids.
Doesn't that still add up to a lot of people when you take into account the billions of people in the world?
Isn't eradicating polio a good thing?

aira

01-01-2007, 10:03 PM

OK, I have been debating whether I wanted to address AG about her response to me...

I'm fairly sure I should just keep my mouth shut and let it speak for itself. :nut But I'm tired and a my judgement is out the window.

Anti vaxers can laugh all they want about 15 babies dying and people being crippled but back then you should have seen the lines for the polio vaccines when they became available.

:firedevil WTF is this? :angry Yes, I'm laughing about babies dying and crippled people. MwaHahahahaha!!!!!!

Do you not see that this crap is the same arrogant (wannabe coersive) nonsense as the silliness that gets parents to pump their kids full of any and everything a doctor tells them to?

Is this all you have to support your opinions? Character assassination? WTG. Who needs facts to understand this topic when we can just be shamed into agreeing with you. :eyesroll

[An elderly woman] would shame you for the way you talk about these VPDs.

Old folks would shame me? If this BS can't, why do you think I'd be shamed by the elderly who all survived VPDs? :nut

See, the thing is my family seems to have incredible longevity. Most folks on my mother's side have lived or are living well into their 90s and 100s. Just in case it's hard to calculate -they are not vaxed. So yes, I've actually had some actual contact with actual old people. :dizzy: WTF? :irked:

Many many tears were shed over children who contracted and died from VPDs, tears that parents nowadays do not have to shed because our children are all protected by vaccines and herd immunity.

:bigeyes

How terribly insensitive and condescending to mothers who have lost kids to vaccine damage. Wow. I'm almost speechless - almost.

Now, an interesting tidbit about my family is that we didn't start having "bad genes" until the "lifesaving" vax program started for my mother's generation. It damn near killed my mother at age 29 who still suffers with chronic GBS, and I've had nothing but reactions and long-term trouble myself. But what could I know about tear shedding?! We have vaxes now so I don't have to shed any tears! :eyesroll

Why are the old folks in my family running circles around us young'uns??? They live in the same environmental factors, like air pollution and food additives in their SAD. Except for me, who eats organic macrobiotic.

I'll go see if I can convince my 92 y/o grandmother - who lives in my house - that she would've lived longer if she'd had all the vaccines given now. Maybe I can convince her to get "up to date" so she won't die. I dunno, though, she's told her doctor to shove off whenever he's tried to give her a flu or pneumavax. Don't think I'll have much luck.

.

mamakay

01-01-2007, 10:11 PM

Maybe I can convince her to get "up to date" so she won't die. I dunno, though, she's told her doctor to shove off whenever he's tired to give her a flu or pneumavax.

:lol

Momtezuma Tuatara

01-01-2007, 10:27 PM

It breaks my heart when the anti-vax faction jokes around like this. Have you ever talked to someone who grew up in the 30's or 40's when these diseases were still around? Better yet, have you ever talked to an elderly woman who raised children during the days before the vaccination program started? They would shame you for the way you talk about these VPDs. Many many tears were shed over children who contracted and died from VPDs, tears that parents nowadays do not have to shed because our children are all protected by vaccines and herd immunity. My mother, who was born in 1947, told me how she and her brothers were not allowed to go to public events because they might get polio. In her small school alone there were 5 or 6 children who had leg braces from polio paralysis. And let's not attribute it to poor nutrition and sanitation because back then people ate a heck of a lot better than we do now. I wish everyone who is against vaccination and doesn't believe in the efficacy of vaccines would spend some time with a mother in her 70's or 80's if you want to hear what life was like for mothers and children before vaccines.

Anti vaxers can laugh all they want about 15 babies dying and people being crippled but back then you should have seen the lines for the polio vaccines when they became available.

My Father was born in 1912, and still is alive, and pretty much unvaccinated, to give us all gyp. My mother was born in 1924. My husband was born in 1932.

In my father's family the kids were born in India, China, Indonesia, Malaya, South Africa ~ many many countries which had epidemics, and you know what AikeaGuinea? My grandmother was the one who nursed Indian people through typhoid, Chinese through Cholera, the whole Island of Kawau through the 1918 flu; in fact, my father lost count of how many times, his mother and kitchenmaids set up hospitals.

She did get sick of typhoid herself and India, and lost her eldest daughter and son. Why? Because she was too sick to look after the children, and the way the locals looked after the children, killed them.

She was an incredible woman, who had great compassion, but who really knew how to nurse.

Never, even when the polio and diphtheria vaccines came out would she ever have considered using them. She believed that the body could do what it was supposed to do, if people knew how to deal with infections, and she certainly did. She was not a trained nurse, and in fact, held trained nurses in considerable scorn, which is unsurprising, if you knew how diphtheria was treated between 1900 - 1945. It was a wonder as many survived as did.

Do you KNOW how measles in the 20's and 30's was treated AikeaGuinea? I'll tell you.

Doctors used to withdraw 20 cc blood from a parent, and inject 10 cc into each buttock. Blood typing anyone? :nut

There is a chapter in my book on useless treatments.

Now, I don't make light of death of any kind and never had.

But it is a shame when someone ticks others off, particularly if it would seem that the person doint the :tsk :tsk actually has no idea just how much the medical profession actually contributed to disabilities and deaths then, and now.

My father was in the second world war, and his older brother in the first world war. In both wars, if any of the soldiers got shot in the trenches they did their best to disguise the fact, because they knew that if they were taken back to the army hospitals, it would be very likely that they would get gangrene, and land up with amputations at best, and death at the worst.

Many of the wounded went bush with mates, rather than submit to anything the medics dreamed up.

And.. my father's brother, and the old vets here tell me the same thing. Their best friend, was not a nurse, or a doctor, but a committed mate with some maggots.

It's very instructive to have a good hard long look at medical history and realise that people today, may have a totally unrealistic view looking back... that of rose coloured propaganda glasses.

There were not lines for polio vaccines, amongst people who had understood, knew and respected Sister Kenny, and for those who had read Dr Benjamin Sandlers book on Polio and Diet and exactly why a diet of soda-pop, white flour and white sugar was part of the equation whereby polio went from being endemic to epidemic.

There is so so much more I could say, but I wonder what the point is in saying it.

Stevie

01-01-2007, 10:45 PM

read the rest of the thread and just had to respond to knowing someone old :)

My mother had a cousin who was one of the few who ended up with a bad case of polio. Lived in an iron lung for ages (years?) died in her 20s.... she told me that if I had seen her cousins' existence I would make sure my kids were vaxed for polio. Also carries on about how she and her brothers were not allowed around other people till the ground froze and school started again. I love the woman but she makes no kind of sense.

I asked how it was that with such a medical scourge as polio, her cousin was the only person she knew who ended up severley afflicted. I sympathized and gave my deepest regrets that the poor young woman had a miserable time, but how did her parents and siblings escape polio???????
How did she and her family escape serious polio complications since they were in close contact with the cousin just before she became ill????? How was it that no one else in her vicinity got even a mild case of polio if it was so dang contagious?????

So she tried to tell me that the polio "epidemic" in "that Amish" community proved that my kids should be vaccinated. Ummmmm, gee mom; you mean the people who never showed any clinical sign of the disease? I do believe I'd rather my DC chance that than ......oh say, the death that some kids experience shortly after their polio vaccines :dizzy: Like I said, I love her, but she is irrational on the topic of polio because she was a direct victim of the scare tactics of the day.

Just like the current crop of people who insist I must vax my kids without showing me any evidence that it is better for them or for society at large... still waiting...

~member~

01-01-2007, 10:50 PM

Would a healthy person stuck in an iron lung for years survive?

aira

01-01-2007, 10:56 PM

Too bad they didn't know about Sister Kenny. :( Her cousin might have lived a long happy life. :( :(

Oh wait, I'm supposed to laugh at her misery, according to some. :eyesroll

Well, I assure you I'm not. I'm very sorry she suffered.

mamakay

01-01-2007, 10:56 PM

Would a healthy person stuck in an iron lung for years survive?

What do you mean?

~member~

01-01-2007, 11:02 PM

What do you mean?
Just what I asked. How do we know that the iron lungs didn't hurt/kill people as opposed to the disease?

mamakay

01-01-2007, 11:05 PM

Do you understand why they were using iron lungs?

tiffer23

01-01-2007, 11:06 PM

Random comment....

I talked to my grandma (she's in her 70s) about not vaccinating my son yet (well, other than his 2m shots). She really didn't seem TOO worried. She was a little, just because she knows it's the norm to vax now. She said that her and her brother and a couple of her boys (my uncles) got mumps and did fine. It wasn't fun, but she said it wasn't any huge deal. Just really sore and uncomfortable. She DID say that everyone she knew got the whopping cough and it was BAD. She said if there was anything that could prevent that she would suggest getting it. Now, none of them died or anything. But she said that it was just the worst and she can remember throwing up and choking and not being able to breathe, etc. I told her that honestly, if there was anything to prevent it, I'd get that one for DS in a heartbeat. As it stands, the Pertussis is one of the LEAST effective vaccines out there and has one of the highest reaction rates. The risks of the vaccines are greater than the risks of whooping cough. But I am honestly terrified of that one. *sigh* DS gets a "bad cough" from a cold and I'm in tears. I can't imagine whooping cough. :(

mamakay

01-01-2007, 11:14 PM