Mandatory vaccinations vs. right to choose
POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Thursday, December 7, 2006 07:56
VIEWED: 21145
PAGE 10 of 21
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Polio vaccines did eradicate polio. How do I know this? B/c there are no longer hundreds of thousands of people in the US with paralysis or who have died from it.
It actually didn't. As was said by CANTTAKESKY way earlier in this thread, conveniently at the same time the Polio vaccine was given out in droves, the WHO and FDA changed the definition of what could be diagnosed as Polio versus Coxsackie virus or aseptic meningitis. A direct quote from his post:
Quote:
Before the vaccine, anyone with non-paralytic symptoms and anyone with paralysis lasting at least 24 hours was diagnosed with polio. After the vaccine was introduced in 1955, the diagnosis was changed to only paralytic cases lasting at least 30 days. The good majority of polio cases, those with nonparalytic symptoms, were renamed something else. A big fraction of paralytic cases recover within days to 2 weeks, so this subset was automatically eliminated as polio cases as well.
People who would have been diagnosed with polio before 1995 were now labeled with Coxsackie virus or aseptic meningitis.
Convenient, huh?
Also, I'm not going to post all of them, but he also lists reference to the definition chages in the US, Canada and Germany. If you didn't read them already, I suggest you do. I didn't know any of that until this thread started. I've been an advocate for vaccines for things like polio, but after reading that (and doing some of my own research on the topic) I have to seriously reevaluate the effectiveness of the 'cure' when the definition of the disease changed so drastically that about 90% of what was diagnosed Polio before the vaccine would be classified as something else now. Kinda' makes you think, unless of course you refuse to.
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I'll be in my bunk.
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Quote:This is a good segue into my next segment.
Originally posted by rue:
Polio vaccines did eradicate polio. How do I know this? B/c there are no longer hundreds of thousands of people in the US with paralysis or who have died from it.
Correlation does not equal causation.
Both anti-vaccine and anti-choice camps make this mistake. It goes something like this.
A happened.
Then B happened.
Therefore it is a fact that A caused B.
With anti-vaccinationists, it looks like this.
My kid got vaccinated.
My kid got autism.
Therefore it is a fact that vaccines caused autism.
With anti-choice proponents, it looks like this.
People got vaccinated.
The disease disappeared.
Therefore it is a fact that vaccines caused the disappearance.
Both groups fail to consider other factors may have been involved, or even something as simple as coincidence may have happened.
(The following are examples of possible scenarios. I am not presenting them as facts.)
To illustrate other factors:
1. The autism may have been caused by increased TV watching and electromagnetic radiation, for example, which happened at the same time the kid was old enough to be vaccinated.
2. The disappearance of the disease may have been caused by increased hygiene and sanitation, which happened at the same time as vaccine deployment.
To illustrate coincidence:
1. The autism may have been developing all along, but became noticeable by the time the kid was old enough to be vaccinated.
2. The incidence of disease may have been declining all along, but became noticeable by the time vaccines were used.
Sometimes correlation DOES correctly represent causation. But correlation alone does not PROVE causation, by scientific standards. In absence of hard proof, individuals should be allowed to make up their own minds in interpreting correlations.
I am not here to convince anyone of my personal views of vaccines *I* am perfectly fine with disagreement. Perhaps this is a pipe dream, but my continual hope and goal is this: that you all can be fine with my disagreeing with you, and let me take care of my kids the best way I see fit.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius--and a lot of courage--to move in the opposite direction.
--E. F. Schumacher
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CTS,
"When physicians find out someone has been vaccinated for polio, they are encouraged to look for another diagnosis."
Your insinuation about medical testing is insulting both personally and professionally. Having worked in a federal medical lab, I can state without reservation NO ONE is encouraged to, hinted at, ordered to, or in any way steered to falsify the type of tests run, skew the protocols used, or alter the results. And to claim that somehow people have missed polio in these days of PCR when polio is genetically confirmed and typed by strain is beyond ignorant.
If you have a point to make, make it without your load of ignorance and paranoia.
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Furthermore, I find your ability to carp at small points while missing the big picture to be unparalleled by anyone save PN. Polio is a modern international problem. It is strain-tracked from outbreak to outreak, from one vulnerable unvaccinated population to the next. Countries whose backs are to the wall KNOW that to contain polio, you need to vaccinate.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=10275
An outbreak of polio has hit children in the Nigerian state of Kano. Kano is one of the muslim states that had boycotted the use of the polio vaccine. Many muslim states in Nigeria banned the polio vaccine because those in charge said the Americans were using the vaccines to make their population infertile. Many of them said the vaccine would also be used to spread AIDS in the region. Despite appeals from neighbouring countries to vaccinate its population, the conspiracy theorists in Nigeria got their way.
Now, as expected, polio is beginning to spread among children in the region. Now the local authorities are appealing for urgent assistance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301733.html
The first outbreak of polio in the United States in 26 years occurred earlier this fall in an Amish community in central Minnesota, state and federal health officials reported yesterday.
Four children have been infected with the virus, although none has become paralyzed. The Amish typically decline to vaccinate their children. The last large outbreak of polio occurred in numerous Amish communities in several states in 1979.
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/indonesia_28428.html
Indonesia had been free of polio for over a decade as a result of a global campaign to eradicate the disease, which at its peak paralyzed or killed one thousand children a day. Before March 2005, (before the polio outbreak) only half the children in Girijaya had been inoculated. A disease of poverty, polio thrives where sanitation is poor and spreads through water contaminated by human waste. So far this year, 240 cases of polio have been reported in Indonesia.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=23598
Polio outbreak spreads across Yemen
Low immunization rates among Yemen's children may facilitate the spread of the virus.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/061123/137/69o1q.html
Poor immunisation blamed for India polio outbreak
The WHO has said the Uttar Pradesh strain of the virus had spread to neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh besides faraway Angola and Nambia. All four nations had been polio free.
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Modern tests not only unambiguously diagnose polio, they type it by strain as well. Anyone who claims that somehow polio is misattributed as another virus, or that other viruses are misattributed as polio, is woefully ignorant of the state of modern medicine.
This is not to say I trust everything the government does. I know there are policies intended to bias science amd medicine (especially under the Bush administration). But a blanket state of denial over well-founded facts serves NO ONE well.
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Baby,
See my reply to CTS.
The FACT is that mass polio vaccination works. If you don't want to trust the evidence of hundreds of thousands of paralyzed UN-vaccinated people and NO paralyzed vaccinated people (how DO you ignore that?), then look to the modern world (pick up your head and smell the coffee, dude) where polio is still a health threat.
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http://jama.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/285/9/1183
Essentially no correlation was observed between the secular trend of early childhood MMR immunization rates in California and the secular trend in numbers of children with autism enrolled in California's regional service center system. For the 1980-1994 birth cohorts, a marked, sustained increase in autism case numbers was noted, from 44 cases per 100 000 live births in the 1980 cohort to 208 cases per 100 000 live births in the 1994 cohort (a 373% relative increase), but changes in early childhood MMR immunization coverage over the same time period were much smaller and of shorter duration. Immunization coverage by the age of 24 months increased from 72% to 82%, a relative increase of only 14%, over the same time period.
Quote:
Originally posted by babywiththepower:
Okay, Rue, I have a question about these figures. "At the same time there was a a 373% relative increase in autism, there was a 14% relative increase in MMR vaccination."
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Quote:It was not a comment about medical testing professionals. It was a comment about which tests the physician is likely to order to begin with.
Originally posted by rue:
Your insinuation about medical testing is insulting both personally and professionally
However, I apologize that I had worded that statement rather badly. I should have said, "When physicians believe polio is unlikely (because of assumed vaccine effectiveness), they are encouraged to look for another diagnosis."
I got this impression from reading statements such as the following:
"E33 and other enteroviruses should be considered in the course of AFP surveillance activities in countries where poliovirus has been eradicated." http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=154677&tools
=bot
Quote:I was answering a question you raised specifically about the US history of polio. If you wish to expand discussion to an international history of polio, by all means, raise the point. But please raise it civilly.
If you have a point to make, make it without your load of ignorance and paranoia....Furthermore, I find your ability to carp at small points while missing the big picture to be unparalleled by anyone save PN.
I will not respond to personal attacks. Others don't mind hurling sarcastic hostility at each other. I have no interest in it, and I will not engage.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
--Tom Robbins (1936 - )
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
http://jama.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/285/9/1183
Essentially no correlation was observed between the secular trend of early childhood MMR immunization rates in California and the secular trend in numbers of children with autism enrolled in California's regional service center system. For the 1980-1994 birth cohorts, a marked, sustained increase in autism case numbers was noted, from 44 cases per 100 000 live births in the 1980 cohort to 208 cases per 100 000 live births in the 1994 cohort (a 373% relative increase), but changes in early childhood MMR immunization coverage over the same time period were much smaller and of shorter duration. Immunization coverage by the age of 24 months increased from 72% to 82%, a relative increase of only 14%, over the same time period.
Okay, that puts it a little more in perspective. They're stating the percent increase in infants developing autism and getting the MMR independantly of eachother. I'd be interested to see the figures for a test (if one was even done) testing the difference in the ammount of children developing autism who recieved the MMR versus those that didn't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'll be in my bunk.
http://www.myspace.com/babywiththepower
http://members17.clubphoto.com/michael809717/guest-1.phtml
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Quote:I'll use this to jumpstart my next segment.
Originally posted by SignyM:
SUBCLINICAL? That means infections with no symptoms. If there are no symptoms, how is pertussis being diagnosed? Links please?
Mild or Subclinical Disease in the Vaccinated
It is widely documented that people often still get the disease for which they were vaccinated, but either do not show any symptoms, or show milder symptoms than normal. This impacts the vaccine debate in two ways:
(1) Subclinical disease usually does not get diagnosed. This decreases the true incidence of the disease and exaggerates the effectiveness of the vaccine.
(2) Persons with subclinical disease often spread the disease to others unknowingly. In contrast, unvaccinated persons with full-blown symptoms are easy targets for blame. This can make unvaccinated persons look completely responsible for transmission when vaccinated persons are silently infecting others.
Here is an example. In 2000, researchers in Israel reported a 4 month old infant who died of pertussis. The infant had had one dose of the pertussis vaccine at age 2 months. His entire family was fully vaccinated for pertussis. The two daycare centers for his two siblings were fully vaccinated for pertussis. So they tested everyone, to find out how the infant got infected. Ten% of one daycare and 55% of the other daycare tested positive for recent pertussis infection. The researchers concluded:
Quote:
We tested 46 fully vaccinated children in two day-care centers in Israel who were exposed to a fatal case of pertussis infection. Only two of five children who tested positive for Bordetella pertussis met the World Health Organization's case definition for pertussis. Vaccinated children may be asymptomatic reservoirs for infection....even young, recently vaccinated children may serve as reservoirs and potential transmitters of infection...We found that immunity does not even persist into early childhood in some cases. We also observed that DPT vaccine does not fully protect children against the level of clinical disease defined by WHO. Our results indicate that children ages 5-6 years and possibly younger, ages 2-3 years, play a role as silent reservoirs in the transmission of pertussis in the community. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol6no5/srugo.htm
To me, it is entirely conceivable that had the daycare had one unvaccinated child, they would have zeroed in on him first. If he had had pertussis, they probably would not have looked any further, and placed the burden of blame entirely on him.
Whether or not this sort of thing actually happens, underdiagnosis and silent vaccinated carriers should be considered in evaluating effectiveness and transmission threats.
Here are abstracts of other studies on subclinical disease.
http://www.vaccinationnews.com/scandals/july_5_02/mild_or_subclinical_
disease.htm
http://www.vaccinationnews.com/Scandals/July_17_02/subclinical_rubella
_vaxed.htm
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize it to an underground dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic. The Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.
-- Benjamin Rush, physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence
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CTS
It took very little looking (and I do mean VERY little) to come up with this:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5347a5.htm
"As part of the eradication strategy, a global surveillance system was established to 1) identify acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases in children aged <15 years and 2) deploy a network of accredited laboratories to perform virologic testing of stool specimens to determine whether the paralysis resulted from poliovirus infection."
In other words, the whole AFP surveillance system was set up for polio, and polio is tested for. If negative, other virus testing may be done.
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I did want to point out that your quote "E33 should be considered in the course of AFP surveillance ... where poliovirus has been eradicated" came from New Zealand. Now b/c of this statement "If you wish to expand discussion to an international history of polio, by all means, raise the point" I thought you were restricting your concerns to the US. Apparently not, eh?
But pursuing your link I found many facts you skipped over:
At the time of the patient’s illness there was a community outbreak of echovirus type 33 (E33) infection. A total of 75 cases were reported, mostly involving children with meningitis. Outbreak isolates were submitted by regional virology laboratories to the National Polio Reference Laboratory at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), Porirua, Wellington, for further characterization. ... All cell lines except the poliovirus-specific L20B cells inoculated with the three fecal specimens yielded E33 viruses, with typing confirmed by sequencing.
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So CTS,
Now that I hope we've resolved your concern that people just aren't looking for polio, I was wondering what you say about the quarter to half million unvaccinated people in the US with paralysis; and the dearth of paralyzed people after universal vaccination. Any comments?
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