Vaccination: A Conversation Worth Having

While America is still in the grips of swine flu mania, let me use this opportunity to clear up a few things about my beliefs concerning the flu shot, vaccines, and health in general. I do this because there is obviously a lot of curiosity about this subject of vaccines -- it comes up in every interview I do these days, and I've been finding that people, including doctors, are privately expressing a skepticism that is still not very prevalent in public. I feel like I've become a confessor for people who want someone to be raising questions about vaccines.

But I don't want the job. I agree with my critics who say there are far more qualified people than me -- its just that mainstream media rarely interviews doctors and scientists who present an alternative point of view. There is a movement to stop people from asking any questions about vaccines -- they're a miracle, that's it, debate over. I don't think its that simple, and neither do millions of other people. The British Medical Journal from August 25 says half the doctors and medical workers in the U.K. are not taking the flu shot -- are they all crazy too? Sixty-five percent of French people don't want it. Maybe its not as simple as the medical establishment wants to paint it.

Vaccination is a nuanced subject, and I've never said all vaccines in all situations are bad. The point I am representing is: Is getting frequent vaccinations for any and all viruses consequence-free? I feel its unnecessary and counterproductive to try and silence people with condescension. Michael Shermer wrote me an open letter and felt I needed to be told that "vaccinations work by tricking the body's immune system into thinking that it has already had the disease for which the vaccination was given." Thanks, Doc, I thought there might be a little man inside the needle. Yes, I read Microbe Hunters when I was eight, I have a basic idea how vaccines work.

That's not -- or shouldn't be -- where the debate is. I admit, its hard to get as clear a picture of my beliefs, as you could, say, if I had written a book on vaccines, versus someone in the setting of a talk show. So I understand why its easy to take bits of things I have said and extrapolate into something I actually have never said. I understand it, but its not exactly "scientific."

But rather than responding to every absurd thing said, let me just tell you want I do think -- because I will admit, I have gone off half cocked on this issue sometimes, and often only had time on my show to explain a fraction of what needed to be explained, and for that I am sorry. Some of it can't be helped, some of that is the nature of the show we do: live, off the cuff, lots of interruptions. Some of it was just from me being overexcited about finally finding a health regimen that actually made me healthier and feel better. And many a time I have wanted to stop the show and clarify a point or provide the nuance I think it deserves, but I am serving many masters, and you have to get out of the way as much as you can so the guests can say their piece.

But some of it I would do differently. For example, I recently joined Twitter Nation -- what can I say, Demi Moore is a very convincing salesperson -- and what everybody told me about Twitter was that it was supposed to be whatever stray thought or thing just happened to you -- you know, for people who find blogging too formal and stuffy.

But apparently it's taken very seriously, because there was Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services what she thought about the fact that "Bill Maher told his viewers anyone who gets a flu shot is an idiot."

Well, not quite. It was twittered, which I guess doesn't make a huge difference, but as 60 Minutes is the last bastion of TV journalism, accuracy is appreciated. And I see that counts for Twitter, too -- my bad -- so yes, some people are not idiotic to get a flu shot. They're idiotic if they don't investigate the pros and cons of getting a flu shot. But, come on -- it was a twitter from a comedian, not a treatise in the New England Journal of Medicine, that's not what I do.

I'm just trying to represent an under-reported medical point of view in this country, I'm not telling a specific pregnant lady what to do. With unlimited air time, I would have, for example, added to my discussion with Dr. Bill Frist on October 2 that, yes, any flu or health challenge can be dangerous when you're pregnant, and if your immune system is already compromised by, for example, eating a typical American diet, then a flu shot can make sense. But someone needs to be representing the point of view that says the preferred way to handle flus is to have a strong immune system to begin with, and getting lots of vaccines might not be the best way to accomplish that over the long haul.

Now, sometimes its OK to fuck with nature -- I believe "intelligent design" is often anything but intelligent; that "God's perfect universe" is actually full of fuck ups and design flaws, like cleft lips and Down Syndrome -- so correcting nature is sometimes the right thing to do. And then, sometimes its not. For me, the flu shot is in the "not" category.

In addition, my audience is bright, they wouldn't refuse a flu shot because they heard me talk about it, but if they looked into the subject a little more, how is that a bad thing? If they went to the CDC Web site and saw what's in the vaccine -- the formaldehyde, the insect repellent, the mercury -- shouldn't they at least get to have the information for themselves?

But just to reassure all those people who have such a romantic attachment to vaccines: I know, there are vaccines that have had their battles with the bad guys and won -- great! And if you have a compromised immune system and can't boost it naturally, as in poor countries where the children are eating dirt, then a vaccine can be a white knight -- bravo! Does the polio vaccine have the power to prevent children from getting polio, and did it indeed do just that in the 1950s? I believe it does, and it did. But polio had diminished by over 50 percent in the thirty years before the vaccine -- that's a pretty big fact in the polio story that you don't often hear and which merits debate. It may be the case that the vaccine should have been used anyway to finish polio off, but there are some interesting facts on the other side.

So yes, I get it, we learned how to trick our immune systems. And maybe sometimes, you gotta do it. But maybe the immune system doesn't like being tricked so many times. Maybe we should be studying that instead of shouting down debate.

Someone who speaks eloquently about this is Barbara Loe Fisher, founder of the National Vaccine Information Center. I find her extremely credible, as I do Dr. Russell Blaylock, Dr. Jay Gordon and many others, but I shouldn't have even mentioned them because I don't want to be "the Vaccine Guy"!! Look it up yourself, and stop asking me about it -- I'm already the Religion Guy, and that's enough work!

Anyway, Ms. Fisher is someone who says she is not "anti-vaccine," but just has a lot of questions about the long term effect of using a lot of vaccines. After devoting her life to studying this, she says that the influenza vaccine studies that have been done "are not persuasive in proving that a seasonal flu shot provides immunity." She also points out "that what we need, but do not yet have, are studies of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children."

Is it worth it to get vaccines for every bug that goes around? Injecting something into my bloodstream? I'd like to reserve that for emergencies. This is the flu, and there's always a flu. I've said it before, America is a panicky country. It's like we look for things to panic about.The reports from Australia, where they're over their flu season, is that its not a terribly virulent flu. The worldwide numbers support that. But you'd never get that impression from the media in this country.

60 Minutes has done two pieces on swine flu within a month. The first one introduced us to a high school football player named Luke Duvall who, we were told, was the picture of health, and then got hit by the flu so bad he was in the hospital at death's door. But later in the segment we learn that Luke had staphylococcus pneumonia along with the flu. Was that staph bug in him when he got hit by the flu? Its not clear from the reporting, but since every other kid on both football teams got the flu, as well as the cheerleaders ... ahem ... and all of them got over it just fine, then it seems quite possible that Luke had a co-existing infection, and that's why his experience with H1N1 was so different.

On the follow up visit a couple of weeks later on 60 Minutes, we were told Luke had "beaten H1N1." No, he beat H1N1 and staph together: that's very different! If 99 percent of people have relatively mild symptoms, shouldn't science's first job be finding out why the one percent get felled? Having an underlying health issue is the point I was raising with Dr. Frist: maybe Luke wasn't the picture of perfect health they described in the opening.

By the way, when Scott Pelley asked the government spokesman about the fact that only one percent of people who get the flu find it to be anything other than a typical, mild flu, the answer was an analogy to seatbelts, that "only 1 percent of people riding in a car will be in an accident, but you don't want to take a chance on being that 1 percent."

That went unchallenged, which is sad, because what a horrible analogy! I would think vaccines containing many different dicey substances shot directly into the bloodstream have a slightly greater chance of secondary effects than a piece of fabric lying across your waist. Maybe if you had to swallow the seatbelt this would be a good analogy.

If one side can say anything and its not challenged, then of course dissent becomes heresy in the minds of many. I don't trust the mainstream media to be thorough or exacting enough to inform me as much as I need on this subject. Sorry, they're just not up to it. At the very least, they should have pointed out, as we watched Luke fighting for life on a ventilator, that, of course, flu vaccines don't have any therapeutic effect on bacterial infection.

While we're on the subject of bacteria, let me say clearly I understand germ theory also -- I believe they also covered that in Microbe Hunters -- nor have I ever said I was a "germ theory denier." What I've been saying is that Western medicine ignores too much the fact that the terrain in which bacteria can thrive is crucial and often controllable, which shouldn't even be controversial. I don't care what Louis Pasteur said on his death bed -- it was probably, "Either the curtains go or I do" -- that's not the point!

And it's precisely because I am a Darwinist that I fear the overuse of antibiotics, since that is what has allowed nasty killer bugs like MRSA to adapt so effectively that they are often resistant to any antibiotic we can throw at it. There are consequences to vaccines and antibiotics. Some people want to study that, and some, it seems, want to call off the debate.

Instead of setting up this straw man of me not understanding germs or viruses, let's have a real debate about how much we should use vaccines and antibiotics. Of course it's good that we have them in our arsenal, but isn't the real skeptic the one who asks if these powerful but toxic methods do harm to what actually is a a very good defensive system, the one you were born with?

Also, I have never said there was a medical conspiracy. In fact, when Howard Dean asked me that, my response was "I wouldn't call it a conspiracy." Any more than there's a conspiracy for the Pentagon budget to be obscenely bloated and operated largely for the corporate welfare of defense contractors. If these are conspiracies, they're mostly legal ones that happen in plain sight. (Good time here to plug the hostess' book, Pigs At the Trough, it's all in there!) I have, in fact, used the phrase "medical-pharmaceutical-food industry" complex in comparing it to Eisenhower's famous depiction of a "military-industrial complex."

But no, I don't think the A.M.A. and Big Pharma and Aetna and Dr. Frist's hospital chain all meet in a board room and cackle about keeping us sick. They meet on the golf course. (Just kidding.)

Do pharmaceutical companies want to cure diabetes or do they want to sell diabetes drugs and equipment? Well, they sure do sell a lot these days, and the food companies are what make that possible. Read David Kessler's book about the deliberate way food companies use salt, fat and sugar as foodcrack to get people literally addicted to eating bad food and too much of it. Is that a conspiracy? Only if you define corporations putting profit ahead of human health as conspiracy. The fact that Americans will do anything to each other for money is not a conspiracy, it's a scandal.

I believe in science and I believe in studies to determine the truth. I also believe Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon was correct when he said recently on MSNBC: "If you've got a checkbook in this town, you can get just about any set of facts you want." So if I remind you of a conspiracy theorist, you sometimes remind me of Britney Spears when she said "we should just do whatever the president says to do, and not ask questions and just support him." The medical community can be brutal on dissent, which would hold more weight if I thought this was a terribly healthy country, which it isn't. Health care is one sixth of our economy, and we spend way more on it than any other nation. The elephant in the room of the health care debate is that we are going to have a high health care bill every year no matter what law they pass because we're sick -- we need a lot of drugs and services.

Am I a conspiracy theorist if I suggest that since the network's nightly news broadcasts are sponsored almost entirely by prescription drug ads, that you might have to hold your breath a long time before you hear the alternative point of view to using pharmaceuticals to cure all our ailments?

Is it conspiracy theory to believe that American medicine too much treats symptoms and not root causes of disease? I always ask my friends when they go to the doctor for something, "Did your doctor ask you what you eat?" The answer is almost always 'no,' and a lot can be cured with diet and a healthier lifestyle. (And a lot can't. I also understand the role of genetics and generations of artificial selection). But Americans don't want to hear that, so doctors don't push it. It's easier and more profitable to write a prescription for Lipitor. They're not bad people, and at the end of the day, you can't make someone eat right. I like and respect all the M.D.s I've had over the years, and for the record, I have a naturopath doctor and I have a Western doctor. I would make an analogy to Republicans and Democrats: in both politics and health, I don't commit to either party because I'm on the side of the truth, whoever has it. In both cases, I'm an Independent.

Ms. Fisher said "If we want to create a society that is dependent on shots for immunity -- the same way we are getting dependent on prescription drugs, antibiotics, and surgery -- this is the path we should keep going down."

I don't think its "anti-science" to pause and consider that point of view.

 

Follow Bill Maher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billmaher

Comments

[Dyson]

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/briefing_20091119/en/index.html

19 NOVEMBER 2009 | GENEVA -- To date, WHO has received vaccination information from 16 of around 40 countries conducting national H1N1 pandemic vaccine campaigns. Based on information in these 16 countries, WHO estimates that around 80 million doses of pandemic vaccine have been distributed and around 65 million people have been vaccinated.

To date, fewer than ten suspected cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome have been reported in people who have received vaccine. These numbers are in line with normal background rates of this illness, as reported in a recent study. Nonetheless, all such cases are being investigated to determine whether these are randomly occurring events or if they might be associated with vaccination.

WHO has received no reports of fatal outcomes among suspected or confirmed cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome detected since vaccination campaigns began. All cases have recovered. WHO recommends continued active monitoring for Guillain-Barre syndrome.

.....Although intense monitoring of vaccine safety continues, all data compiled to date indicate that pandemic vaccines match the excellent safety profile of seasonal influenza vaccines, which have been used for more than 60 years.

[JohnDanStone]

I think many of us have seen intense monitoring in the past. The US governmenment have wisely appointed Marie McCormick who turned up trumps in the IOM autism-vaccine review to lead the monitoring of the swine flu vaccine programme.

In 2001, three years before the IOM reported, Marie McCormick was recorded at a closed session as saying:


"[CDC] wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis."

"we are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect."

-IOM Committee Meeting, 1/12/2001 Closed-Door Meeting Transcript

http://www.rescuepost.com/files/blaxill-iom-critique-1.pdf

So, the programme is in good hands.

[JohnDanStone]

Sorry, left off linkfor report of McCormick's appointment:

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/11/09/swine_flu_monitor/?comments=all

[Dyson]

http://www.thelancet.com/H1N1-flu/egmn/0c03cbf8
H1N1 Vaccine Is Safe, According to Multiagency Monitoring in U.S.

"the CDC is currently evaluating 205 reports of serious adverse events following H1N1 vaccine from in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). Of those, 70 are among pregnant females. All but 13 were nonserious and none involve maternal death.

"Two cases of “possible or probable” Guillain-Barre syndrome have been reported within one day of H1N1 vaccine receipt. The short interval “decreases but does not eliminate” the possibility that H1N1 vaccine caused the event. However, to date the rate of reported GBS cases is less than the background rate in the population, Dr. Izurieta said.

"Dr. Claudia Vellozzi, of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, described the Vaccine Safety Datalink, an active surveillance program of both the CDC and managed care plans that cover more than 9.5 million people, or 3.1% of the U.S. population, is used to follow up on safety “signals” obtained from VAERS.

"Thus far, VSD analyses of pregnant women and of 10 GBS cases identified so far show no significant associations with either H1N1 or seasonal vaccine, although it’s still early. The VSD will continue to monitor both vaccines on a weekly basis, she said. "

[Doybia]

It wouldn't be impossible to sort out the questions about vaccines and reassure people who are concerned. Here is what is needed:

1) Do a study that compares unvaccinated to vaccinated. It would have to be retrospective, but so were the famous Danish studies that concluded that thimerosal and MMR were both safe. If it is good enough for the vaccine manufacturers, it should be good enough for the vaccine critics, right?

2) Set up a system that tracks all vaccine reactions. Insist that doctors or a staff member record every single parent who calls in to say that there baby wasn't feeling well after a vaccine. Get it all. Accurate data is what we don't currently have and that gap supports the vaccine critics, not the vaccine supporters. Arguing that a dearth of data means safety just isn't impressing people anymore.

3) Set up a web-site with access to full-text journal articles about vaccines, so people can read for themselves and see how great the science is.

Voila! Problem solved.

[Sheldon101]

1. With a retrospective study, you have to decide, in advance, what you're looking for to avoid the data mining problem. I don't think there are any useful and plausible theories to be tested.
2. Doctors are expected to report all serious events that occur after vaccination and that information is closely monitored. That's why when there were 6 cases of anaphylactic shock (most likely egg allergy) from a single lot of GSK's Canadian vaccine, instead of the 2 expected, that lot was recalled.
3. Some of that is happening

[Doybia]

Thanks for sharing your opinion on what is plausible and what isn't.

Doctors are not expected to do anything whatsoever about vaccine reactions and they mostly don't.

See, you've got all these parents who are questioning vaccine safety. Many of them had children who reacted badly to vaccines. They told their doctors. The doctors dismissed them. Later the parents discover that the reactions weren't reported. These parents, many of them, end up as vaccine critics.

Prevent the growth of people who distrust vaccines. Set up a system for accurately tracking vaccine reactions.

[sandygottstein]

Sheldon101,

1. You don't think there are any useful and plausible theories to be tested. Many of us disagree. Besides, your criticism wouldn't stop a prospective study from being conducted. So can you at least get behind that?
2. They indeed are expected to report all serious events. But they are not required to do so. As a result, only a small percentage do. Even a vaccine manufacturer stated to the IOM that only about 2% of adverse effects get reported in a passive-reporting system, which is what VAERS is.

[JohnDanStone]

Sheldon101

1. In this eletter to BMJ I extracted Cochrane's main remark on th 6 autism sudies included in its 2005 review. You will note that they were unable to conclude anything much from the data, apart for the Danish study in which the authors had failed to count many of the autism cases in the vaccinated group, thus distorting the results (I think Cochrane drew inadequate attention to this).

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/339/sep09_1/b3658#220537

2/3. Parents have the greatest difficulty getting their concerns about adverse events heard. This is what a lot of the present row is about. So far you seem to be siding with the people telling us to go away - or sue. This gives an idea of what goes on:

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/mpsmisledovermmr/

[ddanimal]

Sorry about the malformed link. Here is the link to the Patternson lecture. It ties a lot of loose ends together and puts things into perspective.

I am leaving for a week tomorrow. So I wont be able to respond. Dont think I am avoiding you cable or dyson! I am going out of town.

Here is the link:
URL: http://eands.caltech.edu/articles/LXIX3/patterson.pdf

[JohnDanStone]

ddanimal

I think that if you are looking for triggers for autism - whatever they were - they would have to be agents which becoming much more numerous just over 20 years ago. And you would have to explain why the authorities keep on dismissing parents who report regression after vaccination.

[JohnDanStone]

A comic statement from a recent CDC press release on swine flu:

"The estimated ranges of cases, hospitalizations and deaths generated by this method provide a sense of scale in terms of the burden of disease caused by 2009 H1N1. It may never be possible to validate the accuracy of these figures. The true number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths may lie within the range provided or it’s also possible that it may lie outside the range."

http://cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm

[sandygottstein]

A fine either/or proposition it is, eh?

[JohnDanStone]

Covers everything - really gives you faith in their expertise!

[Sheldon101]

MORALITY AND ETHICS MISSING
----------­----------­----------­----------­----------
Judging by his blog entry, "A conversation worth having" on vaccination doesn't require a word about the ethics and morality of vaccination in general and flu vaccination in particular.

That's a shame. Because, aside from those who reject vaccination, per se, as violating the tenets of their faith, there's a very strong concensus among religious and non-religious leaders that getting vaccinated against the H1N1 vaccination is the morally correct thing to do.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/2009/10/swine_flu_vaccine/all.html

Which makes perfect sense. You have an exceptionally safe vaccine against and a real risk that your lack of action can hurt others in your community. So even if you don't want to get vaccinated to protect yourself from, at a minimum, a few nasty days and you won't do it protect your cat* then you should still do it because it protects others.

Flu Vaccination: The right thing to dol

[sandygottstein]

Part 1

Sheldon101,

It is the responsibility of a loving parent not to harm their child(ren). It is not the responsibility of a loving parent to sacrifice their child(ren) to someone else's notion of the common good.

Apparently it is easy for some who has not suffered harm from vaccination to dismiss the experience of those who have. I see no morality in that position.

Here is what I wrote on this topic in 2003 (and I still think it holds true today):

"Avoidance Of Vaccine Truth But Not Consequences - Are We "Knee Deep in the Big Muddy"?" -

Amid the glib reassurances, the unremitting claims that "the benefits of vaccines (far) outweigh their risks", the CDC quietly released some of the results of eleven years of vaccine adverse events reported to VAERS.

During the period covered, over 125,000 adverse reactions to vaccination were reported.

Before anyone rushes to discount the import of these adverse reaction reports, let it be noted that according to the CDC report itself, "Overall, 14.2% of all reports received in VAERS during 1991-2001 described serious adverse events."

This translates to a good (or bad) 18,000 or so serious adverse vaccine-associated reactions.

And what are we to make of these 18,000 or so serious adverse reactions?

to be continued...

[Sheldon101]

"It is the responsibility of a loving parent not to harm their child(ren). It is not the responsibility of a loving parent to sacrifice their child(ren) to someone else's notion of the common good."

An interesting idea. But society's views of the common good for both your children and other children differ. That's expressed by vaccination requirements to be enrolled in school. It's also expressed in vaccination compensation laws that were designed to compensate those injured by properly made vaccines, such as Sabin's oral polio vaccine. And of course, its based on society's view that the public health experts, vaccine specialists and virologists know more than parents who have just decided that they know the truth.

The overall number of VAERS reports doesn't mean anything. Considering the huge publicity given to GBS, that there were only 6 reports last time I looked for GBS in connection with H1N1 vaccine probably means that, as predicted, there isn't a connection between flu vaccination since 1976 and GBS.

Part 2 and 3 and 4
Please see http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/VAERS.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5201a1.htm

[sandygottstein]

Part 2

All we really know for sure is that a passive reporting system, which is what VAERS is, receives notice of some fraction of serious drug or vaccine associated events. And that significant underreporting is taking place.

Shouldn't we know more than that?

Clearly, it is of critical importance that we get a handle on whether or not those 18,000 represent a large or small proportion of actual serious events. It is also clear, however, that even if there are no more than the 18,000 reported, that's a heck of a lot of serious adverse reactions potentially caused by vaccines.

And while nobody knows how many of these vaccine-associated reactions were, in fact, caused by vaccines, numbers like these are nothing to sneeze at.

But will the "experts" sneeze or investigate? Will they react with appropriate concern, choosing to thoroughly explore these troubling facts, trying to determine the extent of vaccine causality? Or will such associations, with a wave of their omnipresent magic wand, be cavalierly dismissed as coincidental?

to be continued...

[sandygottstein]

Part 3

If history is any guide, their response will be along the lines of the one the CDC already made in the recent report, when they wrote, in referring to vaccine-associated deaths, that the "IOM concluded that the majority of deaths reported to VAERS are temporally but not causally related to vaccination (20)."

But how could the Institute of Medicine know that? Didn't the the IOM once lament that they were "handicapped" by the "many gaps and limitations in knowledge bearing directly and indirectly on the safety of vaccines"? Haven't other more recent IOM reports corroborated that claim? How, then, could such a reassuring conclusion justifiably be drawn?

Moreover, since virtually all studies compare vaccinated children to vaccinated children, i.e., have no control group, no one really knows what the incidence of these kinds of "events" are among never vaccinated children. Thus, while the experts may like to claim the results of such "studies" prove all vaccines to be equally safe, the cold, hard fact is they may all be equally "unsafe".

The sad but unavoidable truth is that we don't know for sure how many adverse reactions are occurring. Why don't we know that? Shouldn't we know exactly how many children have been harmed by vaccines? Shouldn't we know exactly how many once healthy children are now either vaccine-injured or dead? Shouldn't we know if it is hundreds or many thousands of children?

to be continued...

[Tuned IN]

What is moral about the weakest in society "offering it up " to protect the strongest?

The H1N1flu vaccination is a perfect example of this:
Although the vaccine has not been tested on pregnant women and is not recommend for children under 6 months, we have scores of low-risk pregnant women at > 7 months gestation lining up to be inoculated, largely due the manufactured hysteria.

Whether one is pro-vaccine, anti-vaccine, or safe-vaccine... what is moral about this????

Further, whether one is genetically and/or environmentally predisposed (Google studies AND successful lawsuits on mitochondrial disorders) to ASDs and a vaccine is the straw that breaks the camel's back, it is morally wrong to inject these kids without testing for these genetic or environmental markers.

It is selfish beyond reasoning; however you attempt to justify it!!

[Sheldon101]

H1N1 flu has gone after pregnant women much, much more than the seasonal flu. Getting vaccinated protects the mother, the fetus and even the infant after birth. Accordingly, pregnant women should get vaccinated in their self-interest as they can't shrug off the effects of the flu as well as others. So we don't even have to get to the morality issue.

Before you get to the morality of screening, you've got to prove that screening is useful taking into account false positives, false negatives and the value of accurate results. I don't think medicine has gotten there yet.

We do know that flu vaccination is exceptionally safe. We know that anti-vaxer parents arguments against other practices don't apply to flu vaccination. We know that H1N1 flu kills people who otherwise wouldn't die.

That's why morally it's so easy.

[sandygottstein]

Part 4

Shouldn't the fact that these vaccines are mandated amount to more than a lame excuse for not facing the truth?

If it turns out that autism is related to vaccination, hiding our heads in the sand will have done nothing to prevent the epidemic. Ignoring an unpleasant reality will merely have served to prolong and perpetuate it. The same can be said for the many other vaccine reactions reported to VAERS.

Enough with the excuses. Isn't it time to conduct the kind of studies which will bring us the knowledge we need?

How much death and disability will it take for us to take proper note? How much death and disability will it take for us to meaningfully care? Or will we stay "knee deep in the Big Muddy and the damn fools keep yelling to push on"?

[ddanimal]

Sandy-did you read this?
URL: http://eands.caltech.edu/articles/LXIX3/patterson.pdf

[mofmars333]

For more news that's gone viral, the Desiree Jennings story has hit schools all over the nation as kids are talking about her & spreading the word.

For those who might not know she's on the mend after being horribly injured after her seasonal flu vaccination & now the world is watching & listening to her.

http://generationrescue.org/desiree_jennings.html

[mofmars333]

Latest update material on Desiree, the Washington Redskin Cheer Leader & you've gotta see the comments, too.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/health/desiree-jennings-flu-shot-reaction-111909

[Sheldon101]

QUICK RECOVERY MAKES IT MUCH MORE
LIKELY IT WAS PSYCHOLOGICAL AND NOT PHYSICAL
----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­-----
Dr. Steve Novella in his Neurologica blog predicted a quick and sudden recovery for Ms. Jennings because her problem, while medically real, wasn't physical but psychological. That's what happened.
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1195#more-1195

Flu Vaccination: It's the morally correct thing to do.

[Tuned IN]

Hmmm.... Are you suggesting that homeopathic medicine work?

Mind, Body and Soul therapies can and do work for a lot of dis-eases...

Welcome to the community!! :)

[JohnDanStone]

I cannot think of anything which exemplifies the failure vaccine culture better than the attitude of Dyson - I wonder indeed whether he works for a licensing authority? What is instructive is habit of dismissing events unseen as coincidence or hearsay. The proof that the system is dysfunctional lies as much with such arrogant and unbalanced attitudes towards evidence as the evidence itself. Having systematically suppressed the evidence, the lack of evidence is then cited as proof of safety. I pointed out to Dyson how this had worked in a UK context:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/vaccination-a-conversatio_b_358578.html?show_comment_id=34892507#comment_34892507

There is as far are I can see no reply to this. It is, of course, a perfect system if you set out with the objective of protecting the pharmaceutical industry rather than the public.

[ddanimal]

JDS-what do you think of this? Are you aware of the link between fetal brain damage and maternal immune activation? Could immune activation in infants also cause brain damage?

eands.calt­ech.edu/ar­ticles/LXI­X3/patters­on.pdf -

[JohnDanStone]

Hi ddanimal

I tried your link before, but couldn't get it to work then, and and unfortunately still can't get it to work now. Perhaps need repairing in some way.

John

[ddanimal]

Here it is again:
URL: http://eands.caltech.edu/articles/LXIX3/patterson.pdf

[ddanimal]

From the report you cited:
"The paediatrician advising the court, Dr Lopez, decided against a diagnosis of autism not because Bailey Banks did not have autistic symptoms but because his condition was vaccine induced."

Classic! no wonder they cant find a link. Its a self reinforcing cycles.

Doctors are told there is no link>>
Hence, when doctors see autism damage from vaccines, they identify it as something else>>
The accumulated data from reporting systems indicates little autism>>
The accumulated data is used to inform doctors that there is no link>>

And the effect magically disppears.

[sandygottstein]

Great point, ddanimal.

[sandygottstein]

This could not have been said better. Thanks, John.

[Dyson]

John, your link does not load. I am unsure what your point is. If there are reactions of any frequency, they would show up in the studies, post marketing surveillance, epidemiological studies and reporting systems somewhere. The fact that there is not even a blip indicating anything going on means that I can safely conclude that many if not most of the anecdotal reactions are probably coincidental.

I am sure you can look around and find analogies in other walks of life

[mofmars333]

Medical Doctor Retracts H1N1 Vaccine Advice After Reading Insert!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r051fXtfng8&feature=player_embedded#

[ddanimal]

mofmars-read this! I think this is very important. How come the antivax community doesnt talk about this?Its hugely important.

eands.calt­ech.edu/ar­ticles/LXI­X3/patters­on.pdf -

[mofmars333]

Yes, Ddanimal, thank you!

This brave Spanish doctor in that great exposure you sent is now famous as her video has gone viral in the patriot & political internet communities, reaching many homes & is being discussed everywhere.

For those who don't know, this nun & is in internal medicine & sincerely credible. Her message connects with other factors that have come to the attention of our people.

Like this story that was posted a couple pages back & titled;

"You can't make this up"

http://www.unfictional.com/joseph-moshe-mossad-bioweapon-swine-flu-vaccine-westwood

Now I ask those who'll try & deny there's any fire to all the smoke in this matter, I ask them where they think Joseph Moshe is?

Google, "Microbiologist nabbed by FBI"

Microbiologist nabbed by FBI after warning us on live radio that vaccine is a bioweapon deployment is accused of threatening the Whtie House, was how media reported this incredible scene. One time it was reported & then hushed up. One time?

http://targetfreedom.typepad.com/targetfreedom/2009/11/microbiologist-kidnapped-by-fbi-warning-vaccine-is-bioweapon.html

Then we have Jane Burgermeister investigating who's filed criminal charges against those guilty of crimes against humanity that ties into the matter as well;

http://www.theflucase.com/

As that prior title states;

"You can't make this up"

[mofmars333]

This link worked earlier but doesn't now. Since the others of these same type links Ddanimals sent didn't work I thought I'd check this one to see if it, too, was disabled.

Try this one. It's in 6 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61ySNSQTR-Q&feature=related

[sandygottstein]

Dr. Roby Mitchell (MD, Phd) notes in his comments that there are far more people these days with impaired immune systems. This may be one of the most important outcomes from vaccination, i.e., life-long disability as a consequence of avoiding what was likely to be a short-term, self-limiting disease. Yet from what I can tell, other than in the veterinary community, we are not even looking at that possibility. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)

We may in fact be creating those very people who can neither handle disease nor vaccines.

In other words, by insisting that everyone get vaccines in order to protect the weak, we may be weakening the strong, albeit allegedly to protect the weak, but, in fact, actually creating them.

[ddanimal]

URL: http://eands.caltech.edu/articles/LXIX3/patterson.pdf

[ChildHealthSafety]

The most accurate, balanced, non-hysterical account of the swine flu scam.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/735.html

Source: A doctor of public medicine who became a nun in Spain. [Spanish with English subtitles].

Thorough, specific and no-nonsense,

Bottom line:

1. The 2009 swine flu is far less problematic than a mild flu season.

2. It is not a new flu. This type of flu has been seen before - it wasn't the end of the world.

3. It is unprecedented to require people to take 3 shots to deal with a flu.

4. Heavily drug industry influenced WHO changed the definition "pandemic," so low 3 people in one town with a runny nose qualifies (slight exaggeration)

5. Nations have handed sovereignty on public health to WHO without public discussion.

6. Substances (like squalene) are added to what is sold as a "limited" supply of vaccine. The science is dubious. Squalene in vaccinations in Gulf War I caused thousands of cases of neurological injuries.

7. There's no history of swine flu mutating. WHO's claim to predict the mutation months in advance, is an unlikely first in the history of science.

8. If flu does mutate the "vaccine" manufactured to date is useless,

CONCLUSIONS:

1. News media have let this scam go global by not exposing it. [ Blair and Bush pulled a similar trick to start the second Gulf War.]

2. Research on the Internet. You won't find out from TV or papers. Do your own homework.

[sandygottstein]

Let's hope all these injected viruses don't recombine to form more serious, or even lethal, ones as was found in the Science article ( on pubmed) I cited earlier:

Science. 1986 Nov 7;234(4777):746-8.
Two avirulent herpes simplex viruses generate lethal recombinants in vivo.

Javier RT, Sedarati F, Stevens JG.

While it is widely appreciated that infection with a virulent virus can produce disease in an animal, the ability of a mixture of avirulent viruses to produce disease by means of complementation or recombination in vivo has not been established. In this study, two weakly neuroinvasive herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) strains were simultaneously inoculated onto the footpads of mice. Many (62%) of the animals that received a 1:1 mixture of the viruses died, whereas the animals that received a similar or 100-fold higher dose of each agent alone survived. Of fourteen viruses isolated from the brains of ten mice that died after receiving the mixture of the two weakly neuroinvasive viruses, eleven were recombinants; three of these recombinants were lethal when reapplied to the footpads of mice. These results show that two avirulent HSV-1 variants may interact in vivo to produce virulent recombinants and a lethal infection. They also suggest that different genetic lesions account for the weakly neuroinvasive character of the HSV-1 strains ANG and KOS after footpad inoculation.

[cable1977]

Herpes virus and influenza virus are two very different viruses with very different structures.

The Herpes virus is a highly complex double stranded DNA virus with 74 genes coding 84 unique proteins of varying functions involved in replication and host evasion. The influenza virus a much less complex virus with a single stranded RNA virus with 8 genes coding 11 proteins.

What occurs in this article would occur just as readily if a person were to be infected naturally by two strains for the same virus (which occurs on a daily basis). You are constantly encountering similar strains of pathogens from the environment regularly.

Furthermore, children are not immunized against herpes virus at all, so this experiment is irrelevant. Even if you want to argue that children are getting multiple vaccinations, they are not receiving multiple strains of the same virus at any given time, each vaccination is one strain. And if children are getting multiple vaccinations of different viruses at the same time, those viruses are not going to combine together, that is not what this research shows. You could put the herpes virus, flu virus, and polio virus together and you would not have the same effect similar to how you could put a horse, a goat, and a cow in the same room and they will not suddenly breed to produce a new species.

Also, many vaccines are killed viruses, killed bacteria, proteins, or toxioids, and this result only applies live viruses.

[Sheldon101]

1. The 2009 swine flu is far less problematic than a mild flu season.
4000 dead is still 4000 dead. Plus all those people in ICUs.

2. See 1.

3. So?

4. Heavily drug industry influenced WHO changed the definition "pandemic," so low 3 people in one town with a runny nose qualifies (slight exaggeration)
s101: Heard on "This week in virology" that WHO defintion correct technically, but public meaning of term is different.

5. Since this isn't true, there is no evidence for this.

6. Substances (like squalene) are added to what is sold as a "limited" supply of vaccine. The science is dubious. Squalene in vaccinations in Gulf War I caused thousands of cases of neurological injuries.
s101: Adjuvants allow more doses. NONE are in US vaccines. Squalene story about GWS false. Adjuvant containing vaccines are superior, except that you're more likely to have a sore arm. That's what happened to me.

7. For an influenza virus, 2009 H1N1 has been very stable.

8. If flu does mutate the "vaccine" manufactured to date is useless,
s101: http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2009/t091006.htm

Flu Vaccination: If you can avoid confirmation bias, you'll know it's safe, effective and the right thing to do.

[TakeSake]

Cable,

This is in response to the post in this thread, which is now hard to find:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/vaccination-a-conversatio_b_358578.html?page=2&show_comment_id=34879134#comment_34879134

ending with these comments:

"That is not an even remotely logical or coherent argument."
In what way?

"Thimerosal is a known anti-microbial agent. But what you are saying is because there are other ways to generate anti-microbial effects, that thimerosal is there for another reason beyond its anti-microbial nature."
My point exactly. Thank you for making it so cogently.

"The two statement do not even begin to logically follow one another."
Oh, but they do. You are clearly refusing to understand on purpose the argument I am making. Let me clarify for the third time:
1) Thimerosal is an anti-microbial agent.
2) Vaccines are packaged in 10-dose vials.
3) If Thimerosal is there to prevent cross-dose contamination, then:
3.1) Separate packaging will eliminate that problem, hence the need for Thimerosal, or;
3.2) A different vial design can prevent microbial contamination just as well without the Thimerosal.

Does it make sense to this point?

If it doesn't, please explain why. However, if it does, then the continued use of Thimerosal is due to either:
4) An extremely high amount of momentum in that industry, or;
5) A non anti-microbial reason for inclusion.

It is point #5 that is central to this debate.

[TakeSake]

Additionally:
"For example, my car has oil in it to lubricate the various moving parts. However, there are compounds other than oil that could do the same function, so the oil must be there for some other reason. Nope...not a coherent argument at all."

Here is a better analogy:

Cars use gasoline for motive power. Tetraethyl lead was added to the gasoline to make it run better.

Your argument: We must stay with tetraethyl lead. There is no alternative.
My argument: Lead is not a good thing to add to the environment. There are other ways to make it run better. There must be some other reason.

There is - it protected the valve seats. Alternative: hardened valve inserts and better engine controls. When was the last time you loaded up with leaded gasoline?

[Sheldon101]

Shifting to all single dose flu vaccine probably doesn't make economic sense to the companies that make vaccine in egg cultures. And it might make it impossible to produce all the needed vaccine quickly enough in case of the horror of an avian flu epidemic that has human to human transmission.

If somebody, the US government, wants to waste its money this way, it can be done. The US gov't is already spending a lot of money to get cell based flu vaccines produced in the US.

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2009pres/01/20090115d.html

[sandygottstein]

Why can't those who wish to pay for the cost of single dose vials be given that option?

[cable1977]

"My argument: Lead is not a good thing to add to the environment. There are other ways to make it run better. There must be some other reason."

No....you are completely wrong. Just because there is an alternative or even a better way of doing something, it does not logically follow that there is another reason for continuing with the original method. There is absolutely no logical inference in that statement.

You can say that it would be prudent to chose one over the other, but that doesn't magically make some alternative reason for the thimerosal to be there. There may be a better way of getting the anti-microbial properties than thimerosal, but that doesn't stop thimerosal from being anti-microbial. Nor does it posit that there should then some alternate reason for it being there. The inference from your statement is that the companies are keeping the thimerosal in there for some diabolical purpose. It is conspiracy theory fearmongering pure and simple.

And I never once said you should keep thimerosal in vaccines. Nowhere did I write that. And as a matter of fact, thimerosal free versions of the flu vaccine are available as you suggest. Single dose vials of the flu vaccine are already available. As for your other design idea, I have no idea if it would work or not, and neither do you for that matter.

[nowGo4ward]

Industry and government officials should address your point..."Why is thimerosal in there?"

Researcher Dr. Frank Engley recommended ending the use of thimerosal decades ago. He found it was not a good "preservative" and extremely toxic.

http://www.worldmercuryproject.com/

(Click the May 24th, 2008 blog entry and click the video icon in the right hand box by the date.)

Thimerosal was used during the production of the 2004 Chiron flu vaccine that had to be scrapped because it was contaminated. It didn't prevent the contamination.

The FDA requested its removal from OTC products, like the contact lens solution I used to use, in the 1980s because about 15% of users were becoming sensitized (allergic) to it, as I did. The bottles "preserved" with them contained explicit instructions not to let the tip of the bottle come in contact with anything to prevent contamination. After a few weeks use, instant burning red eyes. If the substance can elicit such a strong immune response against itself, what else might it be doing to the immune system's functionality?

[sandygottstein]

And why would anyone assume that something the FDA requested by removed from topical solutions is okay to be injected?

[whoknew---]

http://www.cdc.gov/Flu/protect/keyfacts.htm

[sandygottstein]

Part 1

Here's what I consider to be a very important study:

Science, Vol 234, Issue 4777, 746-748

Two avirulent herpes simplex viruses generate lethal recombinants in vivo
RT Javier, F Sedarati, and JG Stevens

Abstract: While it is widely appreciated that infection with a virulent virus can produce disease in an animal, the ability of a mixture of avirulent viruses to produce disease by means of complementation or recombination in vivo has not been established. In this study, two weakly neuroinvasive herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) strains were simultaneously inoculated onto the footpads of mice. Many (62%) of the animals that received a 1:1 mixture of the viruses died, whereas the animals that received a similar or 100-fold higher dose of each agent alone survived. Of fourteen viruses isolated from the brains of ten mice that died after receiving the mixture of the two weakly neuroinvasive viruses, eleven were recombinants; three of these recombinants were lethal when reapplied to the footpads of mice. These results show that two avirulent HSV-1 variants may interact in vivo to produce virulent recombinants and a lethal infection. They also suggest that different genetic lesions account for the weakly neuroinvasive character of the HSV-1 strains ANG and KOS after footpad inoculation.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/234/4777/746

to be continued...

[sandygottstein]

Part 2

What this study shows is that even harmless viruses can recombine in the body and form lethal ones. We are combining all kinds of things, mostly in our children's bodies, without any real concern that there might be serious consequences to our doing so.

We do so at their own peril.

[Sheldon101]

Question:

Is it possible for inactivated (dead) split virion or subunit vaccine to come alive again and join with others outside of a Mel Brooks movie?

Answer: I don't think so.

[Dyson]

There is more risk of this hapening if someone were coinfected with 2 different types of flu virus concurrently.
In Egypt for example, there is quite a bit of H5N1 (avian) as well as H1N1 (swine), leading to fears we could get recombination to have a new strain with H5N1s lethal qualities, and H1N1s high transmissabbility.

Answer?
Protect yourselves by getting vaccinated against H1N1, people.

[ddanimal]

But thats been known for a while.And I tend to agree with Sheldon that it seems unlikely that killed viruses could do this. Biology is complex and surprising however.

I could see this being a problem with vaccines that contain multiple types of live viruses. However, is it possible for two totally different types of viruses to combine and form a new one? If this was a danger, wouldn't it have already been observed in the form of a new viral disease?

I know its bad form to make the "wouldnt it have been observed somewhere" argument, but it seems reasonable in this case.

I think the concern about maternal immune activation, and the damaging effects of immune activation generally is more serious and more supported by evidence. Read this lecture:
eands.calt­ech.edu/ar­ticles/LXI­X3/patters­on.pdf -

[cable1977]

Herpes virus and influenza virus are two very different viruses with very different structures.

The Herpes virus is a highly complex double stranded DNA virus with 74 genes coding 84 unique proteins of varying functions involved in replication and host evasion. The influenza virus a much less complex virus with a single stranded RNA virus with 8 genes coding 11 proteins.

What occurs in this article would occur just as readily if a person were to be infected naturally by two strains for the same virus (which occurs on a daily basis). You are constantly encountering similar strains of pathogens from the environment regularly.

Furthermore, children are not immunized against herpes virus at all, so this experiment is irrelevant. Even if you want to argue that children are getting multiple vaccinations, they are not receiving multiple strains of the same virus at any given time, each vaccination is one strain. And if children are getting multiple vaccinations of different viruses at the same time, those viruses are not going to combine together, that is not what this research shows. You could put the herpes virus, flu virus, and polio virus together and you would not have the same effect similar to how you could put a horse, a goat, and a cow in the same room and they will not suddenly breed to produce a new species.

Also, many vaccines are killed viruses, killed bacteria, proteins, or toxioids, and this result only applies live viruses.

[Sheldon101]

This comment is 100% compliant with Huff-Po rules.
rev.2
BILL MAHER - Sometimes vaccination is the right thing to do
----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­-
Remembering that Maher generally opposes vaccination, let's take a more nuanced look at what he wrote. Just scroll up to see in context qualifications removed for space reasons.

"Vaccination is a nuanced subject, and I've never said all vaccines in all situations are bad."

":And I see that counts for Twitter, too -- my bad -- so yes, some people are not idiotic to get a flu shot."

"But just to reassure all those people who have such a romantic attachment to vaccines: I know, there are vaccines that have had their battles with the bad guys and won -- great! And if you have a compromised immune system and can't boost it naturally, as in poor countries where the children are eating dirt, then a vaccine can be a white knight -- bravo! Does the polio vaccine have the power to prevent children from getting polio, and did it indeed do just that in the 1950s? I believe it does, and it did...

"Instead of setting up this straw man of me not understanding germs or viruses, let's have a real debate about how much we should use vaccines and antibiotics. Of course it's good that we have them [vaccines] in our arsenal...

"I believe in science and I believe in studies to determine the truth."

Vaccination: Bill Maher knows that sometimes vaccination is the right thing t

[JohnDanStone]

Sheldon101

I am sure Bill will appreciate that you support his stand on this.

[ddanimal]

Study continued:

Adult offspring of influenza- or poly(I:C)-exposed mice display a localized deficit in PCs in lobule VII of the cerebellum, as do P11 offspring. Coincident with this are heterotopic PCs, as well as delayed migration of granule cells in lobules VI and VII. The cerebellar pathology observed in the offspring of influenza- or poly(I:C)-exposed mice is strikingly similar to that observed in autism. The poly(I:C) findings indicate that deficits are likely caused by the activation of the maternal immune system. Finally, our data suggest that cerebellar abnormalities occur during embryonic development, and may be an early deficit in autism and schizophrenia.