I wrote this note in response to a post on "Peachhead2," a parents' bulletin board.
"With all due respect to Dr. Gordon's article and his opinion posted [on Peachhead2] I would love to hear [another] doctor's opinion about the H1N1. I talked to a neurologist last week and he mentioned to me the concern being young children and the possibility of being hooked up to a respirator."
It is exactly this kind of absurd, exaggerated rhetoric (not from our Peachheader, but from the doctor she's quoting) that is creating anxiety and fear and making it harder to make an informed intelligent decision.
The possibility of your healthy child "being hooked to a respirator" because of Swine Flu is incredibly small. To imply otherwise is an unintelligent scare tactic.
I am very much aware of children and adults who have suffered severe and even fatal consequences from Swine Flu. You may know someone or, if you're a health care professional, you may be caring for one of those patients. There is no way to minimize how devastating this is. 70-90% of those patients belonged to high-risk groups, and it was for them that the H1N1 vaccine was created. Media and government misinformation may actually lead to fewer of these high-risk children having access to a vaccine they need as they are moved aside by people with better access to medical care.
I believe I have seen dozens of children with Swine Flu. This H1N1 Influenza is uncomfortable, inconvenient and could certainly even be life-threatening to a very, very small number of people. A doctor implying that it's actually an extremely dangerous part of this or any other winter is doing a disservice to you and the community. Many other (non-vaccinable) illnesses pose a far greater threat. And even they should not keep you away from your usual life's schedule. A related worry is that the community's focus on Swine Flu might lead to a missed diagnosis of other febrile winter illnesses.
The vaccine is not dangerous but will cause harm to a tiny percentage of those who receive it.
(Youtube videos circulating and scary vaccine-reaction stories are not a fair characterization of the facts.)
The illness will also cause harm to a tiny percentage of those who contract it.
Declaring this a "national emergency" while vaccines are not even available to 99% of people was ill-advised to say the least.
I have practiced medicine through the era of polio, HIB meningitis, and much more. I've diagnosed two cases of botulism, one case of diphtheria decades ago and cared for patients with tetanus. I have seen hundreds of children and families survive pertussis -- with no whooping cough fatalities in thirty years of practice. I have hospitalized children with RSV many winters in a row. For doctors and the government to imply that we have a dangerous pandemic on our hands distorts the entire community's approach to health care, scares people and, yes, the anxiety provoked is causing more medical problems than the disease itself.
Below is an interesting new article about the European flu shot. An adjuvant is a chemical which "jump starts" or irritates the immune system and causes it to respond to a smaller amount of actual vaccine. This saves money for the manufacturer and also "stretches" the vaccine supply. There may be unintended consequences to creating that much irritation/inflammation in the immune system and in the entire body.
This journal article addresses this topic. The American H1N1 vaccine does not contain an adjuvant at the present time, but the president's declaring a "national emergency" may allow the addition of the chemical discussed in the article.
Med Microbiol Immunol. 2009 Oct 23.
Bhakdi S, Lackner K, Doerr HW. Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, University Medical Center, Augustusplatz, 55101, Mainz, Germany, sbhakdi@uni-mainz.de.
Programs for vaccination against the new influenza A/H1N1 targeting many hundred million citizens in Europe and the USA are to be launched in the fall of this year. The USA is planning to employ a non-adjuvanted vaccine, whereas European nations are opting for inclusion of MF59, the adjuvant contained in an alternative seasonal flu vaccine, or the related adjuvant AS03 that is contained in a recently developed H5N1 vaccine. We draw attention to unappreciated hazards of using adjuvanted vaccine in Europe. Evidence from animal experiments in conjunction with clinical epidemiological data indicates that, quite irrespective of cause, stimulation of the immune system may accelerate atherogenesis. Application of adjuvanted flu vaccines to individuals at risk may therefore aggravate the course of underlying atherosclerotic vessel disease with all the clinical consequences. The same may hold true for other widespread diseases that are propelled by deregulated immune mechanisms. Safety trials conducted to date have not specifically taken these possible side effects into account, and unexpected serious adverse effects thus may follow in the wake of a general vaccination program. A prudent consequence would be to establish careful survey systems alongside with mass application of new adjuvanted vaccines, or to hold mass vaccination in reserve for use only in situations of true need, such as would arise with the emergence of a more virulent new H1N1 virus strain, or to use non-adjuvanted vaccines in individuals who are potentially at risk for adverse side effects. PMID: 19851782 [PubMed -- as supplied by publisher]
This is not a discussion of vaccine safety, autism or similar issues. This is a discussion of medical honesty and integrity.
Follow Jay Gordon, MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JayGordonMDFAAP
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Doctor Gordon writes:
"It is exactly this kind of absurd, exaggerated rhetoric ...that is creating anxiety and fear and making it harder to make an informed intelligent decision."
and "..... 70-90% of those patients belonged to high-risk groups, and it was for them that the H1N1 vaccine was created."
Nonsense. My vaccination prevents me from being infected and protects anyone else who I come into contact with from being infected by me. That includes those at higher risks from complications who become infected through not being vaccinated or not developing sufficient antibodies from the vaccination.
The flu vaccine is cheap, safe and effective. Widespread vaccination can prevent kids from dying. Maybe only a 100 or 200 kids , but those are still dead kids.
We understand many of you are genuine & have our well being at heart but you've been duped on many levels just as the rest of "US"
Our whole basis of relationship with our doctors is trust & that's been breached at the top & not the fault of decent & upstanding physicians.
The vaccination atrocity as referenced below, put on mankind, has finally been exposed for what it is.
Something meant for good was turned bad due to greed at expense of unsuspecting & trusting citizens.
We've been used as guinea pigs & cash cows & the fact can't be denied any longer as evidenced here in this thread as well as many others.
Big pharma & "ALL" cohorts have to clean house now & revert to the original focus of having our health & well being at heart.
To be continued:
Watch these videos & see what's been going on. This first documentary is by Dr. Gary Null who's filed suit against the FDA on the matter of the H1Ni1 vaccine;
"Vaccination Nation the directors cut"
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=6531447125053615129&ei=pxhBSv2YD5bAqwKtwfGVBQ&q=vaccines%2Bdangers&hl=en#
&
"Vaccination & The Hidden Truth"
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=13924
After seeing this eye opening & revealing exposure to truth that's spreading like wild fire, there will be no room left for doubt in minds of those paying attention & we can finally begin our road to recovery that will lead to the healing of our very sick nation.
Hopefully, Dr. Jay will investigate & listen to those facts.
Combine the growing number of damaged & dead children with the large percentage of diseased & chronically ill adults that make up our nation, who I want to add get to go to early graves, one begins to get the whole picture.
Add all that reality to the fact that it's all been right in step with continual increase of vaccinations & other toxins.
The deniers claim we resort to conspiracy theories when we crossed that line into "conspiracy fact" a long time ago & thinking people, paying attention, know it.
Dr. Gordan, I don't doubt may well be one of the innocent who've been fooled in this atrocity.
He says documentaries like the following are scary & untrue but I'm hoping he hasn't really watched it & added it with all other evidence that's presented itself.
You need to do the research & decide for yourselves because your children & loved ones well being & very lives are at stake;
http://www.youtube.com/user/informationsansprix#p/c/5B173BE99A025F19/0/32D_nIGtSnw
all the injury on genetics.
"Autism Increase Environmental Not Genetic – Says New Director of USA’s $30.5 Billion Health Research Budget"
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/autismenvironmental/
Really Sheldon - "Flu vaccination: It's safe, effective and the right thing to do for your community." Then go get vaccinated and let the rest of us decide whether or not we agree with you. Failing to get vaccinated does not equate to people revolting against their communities. The opposite argument could be made. The intranasal vaccine sheds and vaccinated people should avoid (at least) immunocompromised individuals for seven days - (http://pandemic.wisconsin.gov/docview.asp?docid=17839&locid=106). We can only hope you've sequestered yourself.
And Josephius - calling pandemic survivors "mutants"?!? SERIOUSLY?!? THAT"S GOING TO GET me TO TYPE IN CAPS. You've got to be having a vaccine reaction yourself to say such a thing.
These two constantly demand that we give them "proof" for our concerns about vaccines. BUT, THEY want to dance around our questions and concerns. When these two start telling us why 1 in 100 kids has autism...1 in 6 has a learning disability...1 in 9 has asthma...then perhaps they'll be taken for something other than pharma employees . Come on Sheldon and Josephius - tell us why childhood disabilities are skyrocketing. If not due to vaccines - then what?!?
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(ignoring the nasal spray vaccine because there are injected inactivated (dead) virus vaccines.
FACTS
At most, there's an extremely extremely tiny chance that the flu vaccination will cause any harm that doesn't clear up in a few days. The H1N1 virus is contagious. The vaccine is very effective in preventing infection and contagion. Anyone who is infected, can pass the virus on to another person who (whether they've been vaccinated or not), in rare but real cases, can be hospitalized, admitted to an ICU unit or die from the H1N1 flu.
To me it's a slam dunk, at a teeny, teeny tiny risk to myself, I can help others in my community avoid a very small but real risk of serious injury. I'd probably do the same for a dog, let alone those in my community who I come into contact with--- fellow students at school --- fellow workers--relatives--etc.
AUTISM
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As to autism and vaccines, I'd suggest starting at Neurologica and Science Based Medicine.
No, I'm not asking to be redirected around the internet. I would really like for you or Josephius to tell us why so many kids are disabled today - or chronically ill with the conditions I mentioned in my original comment. You come across as well read - I'd like you to read your response. I'd like to hear your scientific findings.
And...don't claim "genetic conditions" or "improved diagnostic methods"...we don't have autism and allergies a generation back in our family tree. We do have them now - with my children's generation. I'd like someone who is exonerating vaccines to tell us - if vaccines don't cause autism and allergies (learning disabilities, asthma) - what does?
It is insulting that posters are minimizing the side effects of vaccines...when some of us are living with dramatic consequences of a largely untested and bloated vaccination program.
"Whatever the reasons for the misconceptions, should the trends observed over the 20th century continue to hold in the 21st, the next influenza pandemic may be far from a catastrophic event."
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/AJPH.2007.119933v1.pdf
This is to be contrasted with the pharmaceutical industry hyping the threat of pandemic flu for commercial gain. For example, F Edward Yazbak's article about the avian flu scare back in March 2006 (originally published in Red Flags) pointed to a statement from Sanofi Pasteur going back as far as January 2004:
http://www.jabs.org.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2817
Of course, since January 2004 we have had two rather threadbare loooking attempts to promote a world pandemic flu emergency, and as Doshi argued more recently we need more measured responses from health officials to emerging infections if health policy is not to be distorted 'Calibrated response to emerging infections':
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/sep03_2/b3471
If we continue to have a carefully orchestrated panic every couple of years, as seems all too likely, the only beneficiaries will be the industry. That is to set aside the dangers of over-vaccinating the population.
I don't see here or in the earlier blog any temper or tantrums, let alone a tirade from myself. You didn't mention any other source for your quote so I assumed it was supposed to be in the article I had cited. Now, you accuse me of "quote mining" when it is you that have turned Doshi's views upside down by taking a quote out of context. And, of course, now you are furious with Doshi for not supporting you as well.
It is obviously essential that the last 50 years of public health policy should be reviewed historians as well as clinicians, not least, because historians are interested in "the politics" of policy.
Anyhow, do try and be sensible.
Some sense of perspective about swine flu is certainly warranted. It seems to be quite a bit less virulent than a typical seasonal flu, but it does kill some people. No one should be in a panic about it, but public health authorities should be preparing for the unlikely contingency that it might get substantially more deadly. The intense publicity campaign to vaccinate absolutely everyone certainly doesn't seem warranted (even if you've already had the swine flu, even if you have a history of adverse reactions to vaccines, don't seem to care: they seem to be shouting "everyone!").
"I found that declining mortality rates occurred
simultaneously with expanded influenza
vaccine coverage since 1980, especially
for the elderly (65 years and older)."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/10/1-dose-of-swine-flu-vacci_n_283010.html?show_comment_id=30788174#comment_30788174
When I pointed out that Doshi had never said this and didn't interpret the data in this way he continued to prevaricate relentlessly.
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/AJPH.2007.119933v1.pdf
You can search for the quote.
Thanks for bringing that up again John.
"I found that declining mortality rates occurred
simultaneously with expanded influenza
vaccine coverage since 1980, especially
for the elderly (65 years and older).19
However, recent research suggests that vaccination
is an unlikely explanation of mortality
trends. A 2005 US National Institutes of
Health study of over 30 influenza seasons
“could not correlate increasing vaccination
coverage after 1980 with declining mortality
rates in any age group.”19(p265) Other research
has reviewed available international studies
of inactivated influenza vaccine effectiveness
and efficacy. One study concluded that “evidence
from systematic reviews shows that inactivated
vaccines have little or no effect on
the effects measured."
This is from page 942 under the heading "Implications for Influenza Vaccines"
The full quote really, truly, definitely doesn't support the efficacy of the flu vaccine for this group. Gotta love it!
This is, of course, a different article from the one I cited. However, in this one Doshi immediately goes on to say:
"However, recent research suggests that vaccination is an unlikely explanation of mortality trends. A 2005 US National Institutes of Health study of over 30 influenza seasons “could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group.”19(p265) Other research has reviewed available international studies of inactivated influenza vaccine effectiveness and efficacy. One study concluded that “evidence from systematic reviews shows that inactivated vaccines have little or no effect on the effects measured.”20(p915) ...."
So, it is not surprising that you didn't put me straight on the reference at the time. This is middle of page 942, if anyone wants to check.
From Peter Doshi 'Are US flu death figures more PR than Science' BMJ Dec 2005:
The quote Josephius is so pleased with is from this article:
Trends in Recorded Influenza Mortality: United States 1900 to 2004 by Peter Doshi, published in the American Journal of Public Health 2007
So: different article. Different journal. Different year.
Plus, I've never, ever seen a better example of a quote mine. Hilarious!
"So: different article. Different journal. Different year."
Yes. So what? And now you are going to go off on an irrelevant tangent too?
http://www.thevaccination.com/article/2/Should-I-get-the-new-H1N1-vaccine.html
This article will help people make informed decisions so please pass it everywhere & do your part to help educate the masses.
Read & learn more from the comments at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/24/obama-declares-swine-flu_n_332617.html?show_comment_id=33559421#comment_33559421
You can see those scary videos Jay Gordon writes about which are actually documentaries that many in the scientific & medical fields have been trying to expose for a very long time. You'll find them in my posts addressed to the Obama Administration.
Add all the information you gather from both side of this matter & decide for yourselves what's what.
Take no ones word for anything. Do your own research. Your children are too important not to.
And we know they are in just awful health overall, right? I suppose we can just sit back and see the devastation the use of an adjuvant will have. And when the flu season is over, you will follow up on how you let everyone know about this "major concern".
Let's see, how long have adjuvants been used? In laboratory experiments? In clinical testing? In public use? How many decades? And we need to freak out about this...why again?!
From the abstract (which is all you provided, no data, no analysis...just a quote from the abstract):
" quite irrespective of cause, stimulation of the immune system may accelerate atherogenesis."
Quite irrespective of cause. Now what does that mean, do you think? And, from the abstract, can we derive the contextual format for understanding what "may accelerate atherogenesis" means?
This article is all about anxiety and fear mongering....and that's exactly what you accomplish with it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1
(I won't give quotes from the article!)
I don't really care about "info on the web". I can find "info on the web" about anything. I want definitive answers with definitive information from primary source, peer-reviewed journals....not someone's web blog or some essay posted by another nut job. What had happened is that one group proposed...get that, proposed, that they investigate an adjuvant used in one of the vaccines prior to the beginning of the Gulf War. With everything that has gone into that hypothesis, nothing has come out in support of it. But, the internet has gone crazy with it. Even without a basis of support. That's why I....and you should too...discriminate as to what is a reliable source of information and what isn't.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/277/3/215
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9923872
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0002934300004058
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9638279
http://www.annals.org/content/125/5/398.abstract
In Canada, almost all flu vaccine will have the AS03 adjuvant added.. The price: it will be more painful than the injected US vaccine. The benefit? A seroconversion rate in healthy adults in the 95% plus range compared to\US rate of 85%. Because it gives a stronger kick to the immune system, it should be more effective in those with less a weaker system, including those with asthma, pregnant women and the elderly.
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/prodpharma/legislation/interimorders-arretesurgence/prodinfo-vaccin-eng.php
The squalene based adjuvants conceived to be safe (similar to fish oil and produced in body) and studies (with the exception of discredited GWS study) have proved in safe. Over 40 million Europeans have been vaccinated with a simlar adjuvant.
Spot the error?
Vaccination: It's Safe, Effective and the Ethical thing to do.
Archives of Disease in Childhood (2004) reported that asthmatic children significantly increased their risk of a hospital visit for asthma after receiving a flu vaccine. Furthermore, the risk for hospitalization was greater if asthmatic children had received the flu mist according to another study.