Vaccination?

[lady_karelia]

Something came up in chat tonight, and because it's late and I'm tired and have to be up early in the morning, I offered to continue the discussion on LJ. So here goes.

If you're that keen on convincing me why I should allow myself or my children be injected with a cocktail of poisonous substances, then please provide me with the scientific evidence, ie. link to scientific studies that prove to me beyond the shadow of a doubt that vaccines are beneficial rather than damaging.

I spent nearly eight years of my life looking for that scientific evidence. I started out because I wanted to disprove someone who told me I'm a "believer in the religion of medicine". I was desperate to find a scientific proof and subscribed to medical journals, which cost me a fortune. When I finally gave up, I had never felt more disappointed.

For example, one would think there'd be plenty of double-blind studies out there, proving that vaccines are beneficial. Well, I'll be darned. Didn't find a single one.

Don't bother linking me to "news". The "news" also tell you how wonderful diet coke is. Or ready-made meals that contain more poisons than edible stuff, let alone nourishment. Or how wonderful meat is. So, just don't. I want scientific evidence.

Give me a clue why it might be beneficial to inject mercury, formaldehyde, aborted fetal tissue, animal dna, alunimum directly into the blood of a human. All in one go. And that's not even mentioning the "virus" which is "weakened". Weakened with what kind of methods? Ethical? I doubt it.

And, as someone was afraid of meeting me or my children since we're not fully vaccinated, please tell me why you are afraid if YOUR children are fully vaccinated to meet my unvaccinated children??? You are told when you bring your children into your doctor's office as well as by TV commercials that once your children are vaccinated, they are fully immune to the disease they're vaccinated against. Why are you afraid of non-vaccinated people if the vaccines are so safe and protective???

I have been reading my f-list religiously. Each time vaccines are mentioned, they go together with the mention of sickness. The flu vaccine wasn't "the right strain that's why I had the flu anyways", or the flu vaccine "made me sick like hell". The anti-cervical cancer vaccine "made dd really sick, but at least she'll be protected now". Oh, rly? She might be so well protected that she'll never have children. Read the package insert, at the very least. And for crying out loud, please do your research.

Comments

[mundungus42.livejournal.com]

I almost don't know where to start here, hon.

Firstly, search for the words "vaccine efficacy" pulls up over 11,000 articles at PubMed (http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/healthy/vaccines/028.printerview.html) (the National Library of Medicine's repository for biological and medical research). Add the name of the vaccine to the search, and you'll find exactly what you need. That's where the hard numbers are that back up the NIH's recommendations, which are here (http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/healthy/vaccines/028.printerview.html). The FDA requires vaccine manufacturers to prove efficacy before it goes on the market. If you can't view the full text of these articles, go to a library that has an online subscription to the journal.

As to why would we would put all these foreign substances into our bodies, I hate to tell you this, you're kind of already getting them and far worse just by living in the modern world. Everything from fabric softener to flame-retardant lingers your body far longer than the preservatives from a vaccine. National Geographic ran this (http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-body/chemicals-within-us.html) rather daunting article on environmental chemicals. Unlike those that are in vaccines, the long-term effects of these chemicals aren't studied.

Re: viruses in vaccines, most are killed by heat before being put into the body and chemically preserved (rather like much of the food we eat). While I am pro-vaccination, even I know that mercury-based preservatives like thimerosol are bad news. The way to avoid this is by asking your doctor to help you avoid them.

As to why people are upset about people not vaccinating their children, that's how outbreaks happen (like the measels outbreak in Northern California and the resurgence of mumps), and outbreaks have bigger effects than simply those who have the disease. And vaccines don't last forever- that's why people who work with animals need to get frequent booster shots for tetanus. I know you said no news, but this New York Times (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEFDA1330F932A15750C0A96E9C8B63) article encapsulates the issue quite nicely.

If you're questioning the efficacy of childhood vaccines due to people's experience with flu shots, you're missing a fine but critical distinction vis a vis the bug involved. Influenza is caused by thousands of strains of three different viral subtypes, all of which survive by mutating rapidly to evade the host's immune system and cause yearly epidemics. Every year, epidemiologists study outbreak patterns to predict which strains of which subtype of virus are likely to cause problems during the flu season. Since there are so many different types that all make people sick, a flu shot may work perfectly and still be ineffective against other strains. By contrast, measels, mumps, rubella (all paramyxoviruses), and tetanus (bacteria) are relatively stable pathogens, which is why their vaccines are more effective than flu shots, even those, like tetanus, that require periodic boosters.

As to why to get your children vaccinated? Well, I can understand not getting a kid a polio vaccine. But tetanus, menangitis, and hepatitis are all potentially deadly bugs that are everywhere and easy for kids to be exposed to. Your advice to do your research is excellent, and I encourage you to get your pediatrician involved. Find out what he/she recommends, and then read up on it.

As a final word, to help put things in perspective: I've never gotten a flu shot, and I have had the flu. I have had vaccinations against measels, mumps, rubella, menangitis, typhoid, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and probably others that I don't remember, and I have never had any of those serious or life-threatening diseases, no matter how many times I may have been exposed in my lifetime. I don't believe that this is a coincidence.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

Wheeee, I don't know where to start either, LOL. The links in your first paragraph both link to familydoctor.org, which is financed by advertisements mainly from pharmaceutical companies. Ah, if I want to find out about the benefits of becoming a vegetarian, you wouldn't consult a butcher, right? ;)

Yes, I'm aware of all the chemicals that are imposed on us, and I'm aware that I can only do so much to avoid them (rinsing clothes with vinegar rather than adding fabric softener, for example). Food is equally contaminated, as is tap water. Btw, the long-term effects of these chemicals are no less studied than those in vaccines. Some years ago, I learned how Eli-Lily had "studied" the efficacy of thimerosol in the 1920s. They injected it into a terminally ill people who had meningitis. Then, when all those people died, they concluded they had died from meningitis, not from injected mercury. Makes perfect sense, of course, if profit is your god. And the replacement for thimerosol is 2-PE, which isn't any better than thimerosol.

As to viruses in vaccines, yes, most are killed. Not all. The polio vaccine that was given to everyone up until the 1970s and much longer in third-world countries was the only cause of polio occurrences in the US. Other western countries have similar statistics. As to asking a doctor, I've spoken to plenty. Most if not all were plainly arrogant and implied that I have no idea what I'm talking about and how dare I question something so vital as vaccines. However, I never received an actual answer to my questions.

That NYT article shows very nicely why I don't care for such newspaper articles. They throw around numbers, but tell nowhere where these numbers came from. The report forms for a notifiable disease (and measles is one, amongst others) do not ask about the vaccination status of the patient.

If you're questioning the efficacy of childhood vaccines due to people's experience with flu shots, you're missing a fine but critical distinction vis a vis the bug involved.

No. I simply named the flu vaccine as one example, possibly because it is the one that continues to contain 25 mcg of thimerosol. That amount injected into your body cannot possibly be beneficial to your health. And I won't even mention the other ingredients. I doubt MMR is any more effective than any other vaccine. I know for a fact how pediatricians, and in England, GPs, refuse to diagnose measles or whooping cough because they know the patient was fully vaccinated; therefore, it "cannot be that disease". They've come up with colourful new names for the same old diseases. "Viral cough", "temporary asthma", "unidentified rash", to name a few.

Tetanus is extremely rare according to statistics, and for most cases, the vaccination status is unknown. That doesn't tell me a thing about the efficacy of the vaccine. Furthermore, the wording in those reports from the CDC is generally quite interesting: "It is assumed that the high coverage of vaccination contributes to the low occurrence." It never actually says that is is because of it, no, only "assumed".

My only problem with vaccines is that that Gold Standard Study, which is a double-blind study and generally accepted by the scientific community as proof for something, does not exist. And probably never will be carried out because it might very well show that unvaccinated people are a great deal healthier than those who are "protected" from diseases.

[(Anonymous)]

If you've managed to convince yourself that the National effing Library of Medicine is financed solely by the pharmaceutical industry, there's absolutlely nothing I can say that will convince you that currently available vaccines are largely safe and effective. Nor will you find particularly convincing my statement that double-blind studies aren't the only kind that are scientifically valid, given that most people are not exactly keen to subject themseles to deadly diseases for the sake of satisfying skeptics who lack the critical skills to differentiate anecdotal evidence from science.

If you don't want to vaccinate your kids, fine. But don't expect those of us who have been vaccinated and didn't suddenly become autistic to support it as a sound decision.

[mundungus42.livejournal.com]

That was me, BTW.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

No, that's not what I said at all. I pointed out that both links in your first paragraph linked to familydoctors.org. Then I said that that particular site is financed by pharmaceutical advertisements. I didn't even mention the National Library of Medicine.

And I don't expect anything from anyone, lol.

[mundungus42.livejournal.com]

PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/) was my first link, and I sincerely hope you take advantage of it. All the publications whose contents are listed there are from peer-reviewed journals, which means not just industry and govermnent people look at the study to see that it's scientifically valid. Even if you can't view the full content outside a library, you can read the abstracts.

And discounting the information on a nonprofit website based on who advertizes there is just plain silly. My nonprofit chorus, San Diego Master Chorale (http://www.sdmasterchorale.org/), helped sponsor our season. That doesn't mean we sing songs about gambling or that money you give to us will go to support gamblers.

[mundungus42.livejournal.com]

To clarify (as I somehow managed to truncate the sentence), the penultimate sentence should read "My nonprofit chorus, San Diego Master Chorale, has an ad from a casino on our site because they helped sponsor our season."