Recently, the fraudulent work of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who with his followers feverishly propounded a notion that childhood vaccines cause autism, fell further down the credibility ladder upon a detailed report published in the British Medical Journal. It turns out that cases reported in the original, retracted and long-ago renounced by his co-authors Lancet paper, were misrepresented from the start. To further clarify the subject, a review in the current New England Journal of Medicine details the history of the erroneous anti-vaccine movement.
The crusade against vaccines for once common illnesses like whooping cough, measles and polio has caused needless illness and deaths in children worldwide. Still, the debate may creep in on websites (such as this) and elsewhere. For doctors, patients and parents to understand to make sensible, volitional decisions, requires insight about why the movement attracted so many followers.
There are a few lessons in this story about communication in medicine and news:
1. People aren't always rational in their choices. If more doctors would acknowledge their patients' fear, rather than simply discounting their concerns as illegitimate, they might be more be more persuasive.
2. Misinformation spreads easily when people are under-educated. Journalists' and even some doctors' limited knowledge of basic science and statistics render us vulnerable to speculation and hype.
3. Sometimes even educated people are so desperate for an explanation, or for a solution to a medical problem, that they'll believe a smooth-talking scientist or doctor because they want to believe what he's saying is true. If vaccines were to cause autism, that would give people a sense of control, i.e. a way to avoid autism.
The truth is that, for the most part, we don't know why many diseases occur in some people and not in others. Not understanding is a frustrating and unsatisfying circumstance because it makes us feel powerless. We grasp at straws, when instead we should invest in research and better education.
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Let's have SAFE vaccines not harmful ones.
This controversy was brewing long before Wakefield and McCarthy and will continue to brew regardless of their involvement.
(Final)
As a MD and oncologist and cancer survivor, you are probably familiar with Bernadine Healy MD.
Dr. Healy's contribution to women’s health over her career (Harvard; Johns Hopkins; Director, Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic; Director, NIH) was significant. Healy launched many innovative initiatives aimed squarely at women's health during her tenure as the (first female) Director of the NIH including, for example, creation of the $625 million Women's Health Initiative -a long-term health study involving 150,000 women- that among other things revealed that HRT significantly increases women’s risk for breast cancer, heart attack, and stroke. The Women's Health Initiative study resulted in a permanent 15% annual reduction in invasive estrogen positive breast cancer in post menopausal women in the US.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_145.html
My point is, Dr. Healy is clearly not “under-educated” nor does she suffer from “limited knowledge of basic science and statistics.”
Yet, Dr. Healy has stated publicly this about the complex etiology of autism…
“This is the time when we do have the opportunity to understand whether or not there are susceptible children, perhaps genetically, perhaps they have a metabolic issue, mitochondrial disorder [e.g., Hannah Poling], immunological issue, that makes them more susceptible to vaccines plural, or to one particular vaccine, or to a component of vaccine, like mercury. So we now, in these times, have to, I think, take another look at that hypothesis; not deny it.”
"Nobody's going to turn their back on vaccines. But, it is the job of the public health community, and of physicians, to be out there and to say, 'yes, we can make [vaccination] safer', because we are able to say, 'This is a subset. We're going to deliver [vaccines] in a way that we think is safer.' I think that the public would respect that.”
-Bernadine Healy, MD
Former Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH). Current member, National Academy of Science, Institute of Medicine (IOM).
CBS News. July 28, 2008.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml
What we're seeing -in the bulk of the population- vaccines are safe. Vaccines are safe. But, there may be the susceptible group. The fact that there is concern, that you don't want to know that susceptible group, is a real disappointment to me. If you know that susceptible group you can save those children. If you turn your back on the notion that there's a susceptible group, that means that you are - um, what can I say?"
“I don't think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you're afraid of what it might show."
-Bernadine Healy, MD
Former Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH). Current member, National Academy of Science, Institute of Medicine (IOM).
CBS News. July 28, 2008.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml
"New American research shows that there could be a link between the controversial MMR triple vaccine and autism and bowel disease in children.
The study appears to confirm the findings of British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who caused a storm in 1998 by suggesting a possible link.
Now a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina are examining 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease - and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus.
Last night the team's leader, Dr Stephen Walker, said: 'Of the handful of results we have in so far, all are vaccine strain and none are wild measles.
'This research proves that in the gastrointestinal tract of a number of children who have been diagnosed with regressive autism, there is evidence of measles virus.
'What it means is that the study done earlier by Dr Wakefield and published in 1998 is correct........
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.html#ixzz1C9hRy9Gj
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.html#ixzz1C9h7kMfw
http://blisstree.com/live/the-rush-to-report-on-mmrregressive-autism-study/?utm_source=blisstree&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=b5hubs_migration
In response to your remark that, “Misinformation spreads easily when people are under-educated. Journalists' and even some doctors' limited knowledge of basic science and statistics render us vulnerable to speculation and hype.”
Do you think that epidemiologist Irva Hertz-Picciotto [1] of the University of California MIND Institute is “under-educated” or that she suffers from “limited knowledge of basic science and statistics?” Here is her opinion on whether vaccination can contribute to the pathogenesis of some cases of autism…
“Does this mean that we can say without a doubt that vaccines do not cause autism in some children? The answer to this question is “no.” There is emerging evidence that some children are immunologically compromised and therefore may respond in an atypical way to vaccinations. Clearly more research needs to be carried out on the relationship between the immune system and autism.”
-University of California MIND Institute consensus statement.
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/newsroom/vaccineposition.html
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/research/faculty_staff.html
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/23/another-study-questions-the-benefit-of-routine-mammograms/#ixzz1Byi6lNZE
The seasonal flu vaccine uptake rate for medical personnel is said to be no more than 40%. Hep B vaccine uptake rate is around 60% for same. So what, in your opinion, factors into the decision of medical personnel to reject vaccines?
As you can see from my many posts here, I support pediatric vaccination. But I do have some concerns (e.g., TCVs). And vaccinating infants on the day of birth with the HepB vaccine is another one of them. This study conducted by researchers at Stony Brook University Medical Center definately needs to be followed-up on.
Do you agree Dr. Gunter? Dr. Schattner?
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Gallagher CM, Goodman MS. “Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002.” Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. 2010 Jan;73(24):1665-77.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058170
“Abstract: Universal hepatitis B vaccination was recommended for U.S. newborns in 1991; however, safety findings are mixed. … Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine prior to 1999 had a threefold higher risk for parental report of autism diagnosis compared to boys not vaccinated as neonates during that same time period.”
-Carolyn Gallagher PhD
Population Health and Clinical Outcomes Research, Stony Brook University Medical Center, State University of New York at Stony Brook.
BTW, there are no mandatory laws regarding vaccinations.
Vaccine safety has not been studied on each individual vaccine prior to their release in the scientific sense of a true double blind study with a large sample ironically because of ethical issues involved with experimenting on children. Yet they are released and added to required immunizations in legislatures, only afterward after a decade or two is a a vaccine version recalled because of revealed problems, much as has been happening more and more like recently with drugs like vioxx and Avandia--or there have been many recent recalls for production problems like Paxil, children's Tylenol some are contaminated. The original batches of swine flu vaccine made a year ago were tested independently and had to be destroyed because they somehow accidently gotten contaminated with unrelated live virus. quality control is non-existent apparently, the chemical soup included in them is ridiculous.
The genetic marker has already been demonstrated and is recognized by the vaccine court.
I am not anti-vaccine. I vaccinated my kids. Vaccination is important. Vaccines work. Vaccines do significantly inhibit the development of disease (morbidity) against the strains of pathogens that we vaccinate for. This includes some pathogens that can cause serious illness and complications in children. By the way, many of the parents in the autism community who are accused of being “anti-vaxers” agree with everything I just stated above.
None of this means that vaccination does not seriously harm some children. Hence, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 which created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). Which in turn has paid out $1,938,523,762.48 ($1.9 billion) in damages from serious vaccine injuries since 1988 alone.
Yes, pediatric vaccination is extremely important to public health. And, yes, vaccination is tolerated well by the vast majority of children. But ~4 million infants are born in the US every year. If even small subsets of the population (say a total of 1% or even .01%) do not tolerate vaccination well and respond to vaccination atypically due to genetic (and/or other reasons); we are talking about thousands of children per year.
We need to identify these vulnerable populations. And we need to develop screening tools for these populations, so that they will not be “sacrificed” for the sake of the herd. That is what we are asking. I do not think that is unreasonable. That is the big picture.
*We can do better.
This bears reiterating. I am not saying that we should not vaccinate children. Absolutely not. I am saying that we need to better study why some children are seriously harmed by vaccination. We need to study how to identify vulnerable populations. Vaccine injured children and children with autism have been poorly studied (see Dr. Healy's brutally frank interview a few threads below).
We --urgently-- need to develop biological markers, tests, and screening tools for these pediatric populations, so that they will not have to be “sacrificed” for the sake of the herd. No child, no parent, and no family should have to be the victim of a serious vaccine injury.
Your position, though, is sound. One would hope that the crazy anti-vaccinators don't take it as a sign of weakness that our side is willing to take a middle path.
2. Misinformation spreads easily when people are under-educated. Journalists' and even some doctors' limited knowledge of basic science and statistics render us vulnerable to speculation and hype.
Fact is, it's mostly EDUCATED people , who've done their own research , that are anti-vaccine. Many of the studies which are published in Medical Journals, are done by people that somehow have ties to pharmaceutical companies, and therefore have a stake in promoting vaccines. Fact is, there ARE numerous side effects, sometimes fatal, in ALL vaccines. Just look up Gardasil...
Sorry, in my opinion, just because it's published in a Medical Journal, doesn't mean I'll trust it.
WRONG.
The latest data we have about autism spectrum disorder diagnosis is from 2007. This data is in regards ONLY to children born before 2004. While the vaccine companies began PRODUCING thimerosal -free children's vaccines in 2001/2002, they continued to sell and distribute the old thimerosal -preserved versions for as long as their shelf life was good. And pediatrici ans continued to use them. Our pediatrici an was still using thimerosal -preserved children's vaccines in 2004.
In other words, THERE IS NO DATA YET ABOUT THE RATE OF AUTISM IN CHILDREN WHO HAVE RECEIVED ONLY THIMEROSAL-FREE VACCINES, nor can there be, as children are receiving yearly doses of thimerosal -preserved flu shots, as are women in all stages of pregnancy. Yes, thimerosal crosses the placenta. And 90% of the flu shots available are preserved with thimerosal .
That's like the tobacco executives claiming that there was no link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.