Yesterday I got a flu vaccine at work. The coughs and sneezes are beginning to sound like bad muzak around the office, so I figured it was time to give flu season the finger. I've actually never had a flu vaccine before. It just never occurred to me to do so. But now that I work in a corporate office environment, the handwashing signs over the bathroom sink and little pumps of antibacterial hand sanitizer glistening on individual desks are beginning to make sense to me. I don't want these people making me sick. I don't want to make them sick either. I like my coworkers a lot, but I wish we lived in a country that understood the value of a sturdy facemask. I live in Hollywood, a city so image-obsessed that the only time you see somebody wearing one of those is if they've just gotten their nose done.
But I digress. I noticed when I proudly bore the sticker proclaiming to the office masses today that I got my vaccination, a lot of people responded that they "don't do that" or they "don't believe in it." That struck me as funny. It made me wonder why, if a free flu vaccination is offered to you only steps from your desk, you would opt not to partake.
Of the 3,000 respondents in last month's Thompson Reuters-NPR health poll, about one-fourth voiced concerns about the value and safety of vaccines. There are all sorts of myths surrounding general vaccination, and a resurgence of fear-mongering came about following the H1N1 scare of 2009. In future discussions, we can address the long-debunked "vaccines cause autism" scam, propelled by the morally bankrupt Dr. Andrew Wakefield and popularized by the vacuously gullible (I'm being nicer in print than in my own head here) Jenny McCarthy, which caused irreparable damage to public health and set back measles rates to those from the previous decade. We can also get into the other anti-vaccination quackery that lights up my bullshit detector, like "cold weather causes the flu," "influenza is not a serious disease," and "antibiotics can treat the flu if I get it." But I don't want this blog post to take your entire lunchbreak to read. Instead I want to talk about the common response that I hear from well read, intelligent, trustworthy people who opt not to get vaccinated.
"The flu vaccine might make me sick." Nope. Sorry. First of all, the flu vaccine cannot and will not give you the flu. Injectable flu vaccines contain a dead virus. I would rather be exposed to buckets of dead virus in vaccine form than the tiniest sneeze oozing with live virus from somebody sitting across from me at the lunch table. Maybe that's just me, but I hate the flu. Maybe you're a fan? The inhaled influenza vaccine does contain the live virus, but here's the rub: the virus has been attenuated (weakened) and cold-adapted. This means that only your cold nostrils can actually contract the flu. The rest of your warm body cannot. Unless of course, you are a zombie. Then all bets are probably off.
I fear that a lot of people who get a flu vaccine are confusing feeling sick with getting sick. After you get a flu vaccine, your arm should hurt. You might feel a bit crappy for a little while. This is not a sign of illness, its a sign that your immune system is working to fight off what it recognizes as the flu. Once the antibodies bind to the various killed or attenuated viruses within the vaccine, they are marked for destruction by other cell types. Generally speaking, this will induce an immune response every time you are exposed, and it is highly unlikely you will get that particular strain of influenza in the future.
And lets not forget that we get flu shots during a time of year when the flu (and colds, and other infections) are highly prevalent. It can take around two weeks to develop a full immune response to the vaccine, so there is a chance that some people will get sick within that window. Here we are subject to a common psychological bias akin to food aversion. (Remember getting way too drunk that one time in college and puking up a bunch of chili? You couldn't eat chili for six months, could you? It wasn't the chili's fault! It was the Jager! Blame the Jager!)
Now, this is probably starting to sound like a local commercial for the Flu Vaccine Depot out on Route Nobody Cares. The truth is, no medical treatment is risk-free, and vaccination is not a simple discussion. Sure, vaccines are loaded with crap that I wouldn't want to consume in large doeses. But the ingredient list of the flu vaccine isn't arbitrary. Those preservatives are necessary for the vaccine to have a useful shelf-life. Yes, there are trace amounts of thimerosol and aluminum and even human proteins in many of our vaccines. So what? Toxicity depends on dosage. Paracelsus, the father of modern toxicology said that "Almost all substances are toxic under the right conditions." Think about it. Water can be toxic if you pump enough of it into your body.
Also, the reason we are encouraged to get vaccinated each year is that vaccines only protect against a few strains of influenza, and that evil little virus comes back around like a shape-shifting cockroach year after year. We haven't yet mastered the technology or the price-effectiveness to offer fast vaccines to mutating viruses. Although, with amazing developments like Craig Venter's synthetic cells, fast vaccines may be on the horizon, and microevolution may be thwarted by human ingenuity. But for the time being, some years the flu vaccine is more effective than others. That's just the nature of the beast.
I'd rather take my chances. The truth is, even though a new meta-analysis published in The Lancet only two days ago showed an overall efficacy for influenza vaccination hovering around 59% (in adults age 18-65, spread over the last 44 years), I'll take 59% over 0% any day. And not getting a vaccine is 0% effective against the spread of influenza.
By the way, if you are one of those people who opt out of prophylaxis, please do your part by washing your damn hands. And sneeze into your sleeve, not all over your disease-laden paws. Of course, I'm now a lot less worried about your germs making me sick. So, hug me! I'm vaccinated.
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Women are smart enough to make their own medical decisions when.......
I look forward to your reply. Surely the same women who are smart enough to decide for or against abortion continue to be that smart after having children?
Oh. Wait. The vaccine insert states that a rare serious reaction can be:
encephalitis
seizures
epilepsy
paralysis
Guillan-Barre syndrome
... and no doubt countless other neurological disorders. But cause AUTISM? Why that's impossible! Encephalitis, sure, but not AUTISM!
All we are saying is that perhaps, maybe, just maybe, the rate of serious reactions is slightly higher than the 1 in a million or so that they admit to. Say, did you know that you don't have the right to sue them if their vaccine kills or injures your kid? I'm sure they still work extra super duper hard to make them totally safe though.
You mind find this helpful.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=lupus%20influenza%20vaccine
W&N
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/business/glaxo-to-pay-3-billion-in-avandia-settlement.html?_r=2&hp
"The cases against GlaxoSmithKline include illegal marketing of Avandia, a diabetes drug that was severely restricted last year after it was linked to heart risks. Federal prosecutors said the company had paid doctors and manipulated medical research to promote the drug."
Gee, do you think Glaxo, Merck, etc. pay doctors and manipulate medical research to promote vaccines??
Pharmaceuticals is a huge, global business with millions (?) of employees.
Of course some of them will be unethical or crooks. And when they get caught doing unethical/unlawful things then they pay the price and we all condemn them.
OTOH
When we have obvious healthcare fraud--like the vaccines cause autism nonsense--promoted by fraud and other assorted unethical and illegal actions such as death threats, what do the vaccine critics do?
They use the Net and books to hide the facts from parents.
A very striking contrast.
W&N
I get that all these vaccines have been developed to counter the toxic effect of contracting certain viruses and in many cases have been effective at doing so. However, having had the measles vaccination myself and later contracting a severe dose of measles (the doctors thought that I would die and couldn't understand how someone who had been vaccinated could be so badly afflicted), I'm not sure that the risk is worth the reward. I have also witnessed numerous vaccinated children suffer from whooping cough whilst my unvaccinated daughter and others did not. Anecdotal yes, coincidence maybe. Again still not sure that the risk is worth the reward.
I have seen data to show that by the time vaccinations (with the exception of Polio, smallpox) were introduced, numbers of deaths and injuries related to these childhood illnesses were not much different to after vaccination introduction. So, until such time as someone can show me hard scientific evidence, not epidemiological studies, which tests the number and combination of vaccines currently given to children, with the result that there are no adverse reactions, then I will reconsider my position on vaccination.
Here is the more important thing. If you were to ask toxicologists, they would point out that there is nothing toxic in vaccines.
Formaldehyde is synthesized in your cells and naturally occurs in your body at a higher level than found in vaccines. If you think about it a bit, vaccination results in a minuscule reduction in the concentration of formaldehyde in the body.
It should be self-evident that people that don't understand the science struggle to understand scientific conclusions.
Good news: we can all look at modern, developed countries with excellent sanitation and nutrition and see what happens when vaccination is stopped/significantly reduced.
UK, Sweden, US, Japan have all done the real word experiment. When you stop vaccinating lots of kids get really sick/die. But none of the health problems attributed to vaccines decrease.
How many more times do you think we should do the experiment before coming to a conclusion?
W&N
Hence, I do not need to inject additional foreign substances in my body to further overload my immune system. As a result, my family and I rarely get sick. I can't remember when I had a cold or flu last. Probably 10 years ago. As for my unvaccinated daughter, she has barely had a sick day in the last 3 years of attending daycare. Yet her fellow classmates, are constantly sick.
If you're going to bang on about epidemiological studies (not scientific studies), then let's play that game. Why do Japan and Sweden have the lowest infant mortality rates in the world (second only to singapore) and interestingly the lowest number of vaccination doses prior to 1 year of age? Hmmm something to think about.... The US has the most vaccinations out of the developed nations and it is ranked no 34 with 6.22 deaths out of every 1000 births.
Again, show me the scientific research (in a lab where no other factors can influence the results) that actually tests the current vaccination schedule and shows there are no adverse reactions.
Good news: the transcript is still available on-line and anyone interested in learning the facts is welcome to read all 262 pages:
http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/HG%20IN%20VACCINES%20-%20Simpsonwood%20-%20Internet%20File.pdf
And look at that, the conspiracy claim is an outright fabrication. And after a decade the vaccine critics still haven't figured this out.
Anyone that does take the time to read the document will find some interesting facts like:
1. The data set was 110,000 US kids (page 34 of the PDF)
2. The controls were kids that were 100% unvaccinated (page 35)
3. Vaccinated kids had no difference in risk for autism than 100% unvaccinated (page 44)
4. This data is more than a decade old
Anyone that traces how the vaccine critics misrepresent this meeting and continue to make assertions like:
There is no data on unvaccinated kids
Unvaccinated kids don't get autism
Vaccinated kids get autism more often than unvaccinated
Will understand why these critics are marginalized to posting on the Net.
W&N
404 Error File Not Found
The page you are looking for might have been removed,
had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable
I guess they took it down so that they could doctor the numbers a bit to make it look like they'd actually done a legitimate study,now that WhiteandNerdy is calling everyone's attention to the Simpsonwood meetings.
(Wait--would any US pharmaceutical companies REALLY tweak their studies? Ever?)
But you didn't really try.
I suppose this is no surprise. As the postings here make very clear, in order to believe the vaccine critics requires an unfailing commitment to not fact-check.
I take it you haven't read the court rulings either?
W&N
In this case, he claims that unvaccinated kids were part of a study mentioned in the Simpsonwood meetings.
On what looks like the bottom of page 31, continuing on to page 32 (hard to tell, as the page numbers are blurred on the PDF), it says very clearly, "The next condition was for these children to be continuously enrolled during the first year of life. We wanted to make sure we captured all the vaccines given in the first year of life."
Not, "we wanted to compare unvaccinated children." No, these children were given all the vaccines routinely given in the first year of life. Says so in black and white.
"Finally, we excluded children who didn't receive at least 2 polio vaccines before the end of the first year of life."
So, children who were late with their second polio vaccine were not included. Children who didn't get ANY polio vaccine (i.e., UNVACCINATED CHILDREN, WERE EXCLUDED.)
So there were ZERO children in this study who had less than 2 vaccines. In other words, NO UNVACCINATED CHILDREN.
Thanks, W&N, for giving us this information, and for showing us what you are really trying to do.
Are we really suppose to be surprised that you failed to correctly read the words?
"Zero that is pretty obvious. They didn't get any vaccines..¬..That means that if the children don't have thimerosal it means they didn't get any vaccines." page 35 of the PDF.
And again on page 41 they point out that the controls (reference) group were unvaccinated kids; "In other words the children that didn't get any vaccines."
After all, if you did get the facts correct, then you would have to acknowledge that the courts are correct when they rule that vaccine critics are fraudulent.
Yes, like every other time, I try to get people to fact-check the vaccine critics.
W&N
Here is the FAQ from the NVICP program:
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/faq.html
Note question #1 in the administrative category. If you lose or if you win but don't like the vaccine court offer, you can sue in civil courts for vaccine injuries.
Here is the SCOTUS ruling that reaffirms the right of all US families to sue in civil court for vaccine injuries:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf
Here are some civil court cases where parents sued claiming that vaccines caused autism:
http://www.courts.state.md.us/opinions/coa/2009/112a08.pdf
http://www.neurodiversity.com/court/rhogam_decision.pdf
There are others...
Here are the omnibus rulings, appeals and transcripts:
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/node/5026
It is worth reading all the pages.
Particularly excellent examples as to why the courts are so offended by the vaccine critics can be found in Byers (~page 950 of transcript) and Krigman (~page 503) from the Cedillo case.
Bad enough that they got ~all the science wrong, but courts get a bit PO'ed when you are caught falsifying your credentials.
And there were best people that the critics could get to testify???
W&N
The justices, voting 6-2, said a 1986 federal law preempts claims that a drugmaker should have sold a safer formulation of a vaccine. The law, designed to encourage vaccine production by limiting patient suits, channels most complaints into a company- financed no-fault system that offers limited but guaranteed payments for injuries shown to be caused by a product.
“The vaccine manufacturers fund from their sales an informal, efficient compensation program for vaccine injuries,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. “In exchange they avoid costly tort litigation and the occasional disproportionate jury verdict.”
The ruling is a victory for the four companies that supply vaccines for the U.S. market -- Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Merck & Co. and Sanofi-Aventis SA. A ruling letting the parents sue Wyeth might have allowed suits by thousands of families that say vaccines caused autism in their children." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-22/suits-against-vaccine-makers-curbed-by-u-s-supreme-court-in-pfizer-case.html
You didn't understand your own link.
And you didn't bother to read the court decision.
It is at the bottom of page 6 of the PDF in very simple, easy to understand language.
See that is why I posted the actual decision. So we can all read it and see exactly what it says...
W&N
A study led by Dr. David Witt, chief of infectious disease at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Centerin San Rafael, shows the effect of the pertussis vaccine lasts only about three years. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/vaccine-response-pertussis/ “The vast majority of these were fully-vaccinated children,” Dr. David Witt, the medical center’s chief of infectious diseases, said in a press briefing during the meeting.
And, just posted yesterday at http://www.pediatricsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=88874 is a MAINSTREAM MD, and a MAINSTREAM STUDY, saying,
"The efficacy of the diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine wanes as much as 40% per year after the fifth dose, according to data presented here at the IDSA 49th Annual Meeting."
40% PER YEAR, after the 5th dose??? So, in someone who has had all 5 doses, the DTaP is STILL 92% ineffective 6 years after the last shot?
Yes, it's really sad, and it's ignorance.
It takes an unusual level of ignorance to not understand words like:
"ineffective"
"... wanes as much as 40% per year after the fifth dose..."
Or to even be able to calculate vaccine efficacy: the math is readily available on the Net for anyone that Googles it...
W&N
Don't you know the rules yet? The critics have spoken ex cathedra.
They already told us that 100% of people feel like crap after the vaccine. Thus you must be wrong.
Couldn't possibly be that they are wrong....
Please remember this before posting again.
Thanks,
W&N
And quite frankly, being a taxpayer, if that was how I got the shot then I am fine with that as long as they offer it. If they rescind it then give me the cost of my "free" shot.
http://www.disentangledreality.com/2011/10/value-and-danger-of-anecdotal.html
Is it right doctors are prescribing anti-depressants to kids?
The article sort of sounds as though flu vaccine will prevent colds, which it won't. It doesn't sound intentional, more like the result of writing a column that was a bit too long and then cutting it down to the specified number of words.
I do appreciate the lack of the usual fanatical insistence on the absolute impossibility of any harm whatsoever from vaccines. Most of the pro-vaccine stuff I read makes Jenny McCarthy sound almost reasonable.
Vaccines contain enough adjuvant to get an effective immune response to stuff that wouldn't otherwise elicit one. An effective dose of any drug is enough to have an effect. You can't have it both ways, saying that there's so little that it can't possibly have any undesirable effect because there's just such a tiny amount, while also saying that there's enough of it there to do incredible wonderful things for you. That's no matter what the drug is. Pro-vaccine rants almost always get that wrong. I don't think I've ever heard one flat-out say "no medical treatment is risk-free" before.
That post the Supreme Court ruling so that all readers can see that all US families can sue for vaccine injuries? So much for being off the hook for liability...
That post the US civil cases where all the vaccines cause autism argument have been ruled by multiple courts as junk science and that those that advocate these arguments characterized by the courts as lying to get money?
That link to the vaccine court where the vaccine critics behaviors such as fabricating their credentials or trying to bill the court for their trips to Europe, etc, etc are detailed?
Or they explain how parents can be deceived into believing that alt treatments are working when it is just fraud?
Are these the sites you are criticizing?
W&N
That post the Supreme Court ruling so that all reads can see that all US families can sue for vaccine injuries? So much for being off the hook for liability...
That post the US civil cases where all the vaccines cause autism argument have been ruled by multiple courts as junk science and that those that advocate these arguments characterized by the courts as lying to get money?
That link to the vaccine court where the vaccine critics behaviors such as fabricating their credentials or trying to bill the court for their trips to Europe, etc, etc are detailed?
Or they explain how parents can be deceived into believing that alt treatments are working when it is just fraud?
Are these the sites you are criticizing?
W&N
please write more scientifically and less journalistically.
Journalists often misuse statistics (perhaps because they do not understand them). But scientists and those who claim a scientific approach may not take such a liberal attitude to the truth.
If we take the statistic from the Lancet's study, for example, can we take 59% and apply it unqualified?
Or do we need to admit what it pertains to? 59% efficacy against those influenza strains present in the vaccine.
Now how many strains of flu am I likely to be exposed to in any given winter season? a lot
How many of them are present in the vaccine? a few, expected to be more prevalent
(Someone will have the precise numbers for 2011, but I don't think anyone will argue with this point)
OK, the overall efficacy comes down to something below 59% (for influenza).
Now how many bad colds (that people call 'flu') are actually due to a strain of influenza? about 20-25%.
So now we have a total efficacy of "avoiding getting a bad cold this year" of 25% * less than 59%
which is something less than 15%.
My point is that scientists look at all the facts and especially the context and caveats, and exercise restraint so they do not lose credibility by making easily disputed claims.
I look forward to an ongoing series of articles about science, exhibiting the best attributes of the scientific method and the dedication to truth that we all respect.
Please read it and then we can discuss the stats.
Thanks,
W&N