A new study from CS Mott Children's Hospital finds that 89 percent of parents think vaccine safety is the most important topic in medical research today. That makes sense, since the American pediatric vaccine schedule now includes 48 vaccinations before the age of six. Parents are facing vaccination choice issues at every pediatric visit.
Dr. Paul Offit, MD, whose RotaTeq vaccine is manufactured by Merck, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), have failed to convince the public that vaccines are fully safe and should be taken without question despite their full court press. You can check out Dr. Offit's presentation to the AAP on how and why to combat informed parental choice How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens America's Children for yourself.
I imagine that many (perhaps a majority) of Huffington Post readers are pro-choice and respect a woman's right to choose. Should a woman lose the right to make appropriate, safe medical choices in conjunction with her pediatrician for her child once she becomes a mother? If you are pro-life, does a mother's right to protect her child end when the baby is born?
Beating parents over the head with the "disease is only a plane ride away" has failed.
Clobbering parents with the concept of "herd immunity" rings hollow when your baby calf is the one who falls.
Bludgeoning parents of autistic children has failed to connect with parents in its utter transparency to protect corporate and governmental interests.
The vaccine safety community doesn't have big gun PR firms to coax the media into doing our bidding. There's no government support via PBS programs like New Sid the Science Kid Flu Vaccination Special Episode Now Available for Free Download on Flu.gov, enticing kids to get vaccines as if you're selling breakfast cereal.
How does Dr. Offit claim the "anti-vaccine movement" has a Svengali-like power over the media when the head of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius stated during the H1N1 vaccine campaign last spring in Reader's Digest "We have reached out to media outlets to try to get them to not give the views of these people equal weight in their reporting to what science has shown and continues to show about the safety of vaccines."
We have no glossy published books sent free to pediatricians to make sure they preach their talking points in lockstep. (Sure wish they'd get a copy of this book.)
Read the full article about the study in the University of Michigan Health System HERE .
Follow Kim Stagliano on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KimStagliano
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058170
If a three-fold risk is seen from exposure to one vaccine series, albeit the earliest in the U. S. schedule (if you discount prenatal exposures), what is the actual risk of the entire schedule for neurological damage and delay? And how concerned should we be about that prenatal exposure via flu shots? Is it worse?
I actually READ that study twice and it gave me the chills.
"Boys vaccinated (hep b) as neonates had threefold greater odds for autism diagnosis compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life."
There is SO MUCH that we don't know --- and yet we continue to jab, stick and jab, stick and jab.
Cut me MICK!
I can't speak for anyone else but my main issue with Offit has less to do with the millions he's made off the vaccine but instead with the complete conflict of interest that this presents. He is the main "talking head" who demeans parents about their vaccination choices, yet he's also making millions off this position. Again, not so much about the money but about the conflict that it presents.
An apology for the insults would be appropriate, but as expected, that's not what vaccination opponents tend to do. That's a difference I've found between those who support and those who oppose vaccination. Vaccination supporters tend to be more concerned about accuracy and less about ego. Parents should keep that in mind when deciding which information to trust.
You consistently and repeatedly make strawman arguments, vilifying those who disagree with you by marginalizing them and calling them fringe lunatics. But *I* should apologize to *you*
"This new comment by Caroknows belongs there and not top posted here."
I didn't make this comment, you did.
"An apology for the insults would be appropriate, but as expected, that's not what vaccination opponents tend to do."
So, where are the apologies for your repeated insults?
As I said before, those like you who so contemptuously dismiss others' arguments on the basis of a mislabel really deserve nothing but ridicule. Hypocrites are completely unworthy of my time, but I felt it was important to point out just how deep the hypocrisy of the "Vaccination supporters" runs.
pertussis. But babies do. And infants usually catch pertussis from infected adults. Pertussis bacteria cause inflammation in their small windpipes. Sometimes the inflammation is so severe that babies simply stop breaching. If the pertussis vaccine weren't available, babies would almost immediately start to die of pertussis.Before the pertussis vaccine was first introduced in the 1940s, pertussis killed as many as eight thousand babies every year in the United States. Some people might argue that the 1940s were a long time ago and that we now have at our disposal antibiotics and
intensive care facilities that we didn't have then. But antibiotics don't treat pertussis; they only stop transmission of the bacteria, making people with the disease less contagious, not less sick. When immunization rates in England dropped from 80 percent to 30 percent in the late 1970s, more than one hundred thousand children with pertussis were hospitalized, and about seventy died.
continued....
And that was all within a couple of years of a fifty-point decrease in immunization rates. Within a few years measles, which has been virtually eliminated from the United States, would again find a home. Although measles infections are very rare in the United States, they're not rare in the world; every-year about thirty million people are infected with rhe virus. Because international travel is common, people with measles often come into the United States. For example, in May 2006 an unimmunized computer programmer brought measles with him from India. He worked at the John Hancock Tower, Boston's tallest building and home to five thousand other workers. Anita Barry, Boston's public health commissioner, remembered what happened when the city first offered vaccine to company workers. "Only about thirty people showed
up at that initial clinic she said, "I wish that a lot more people had shown up. And so did the company given subsequent events.'' Soon the virus spread to others in the building. Then it traveled a few blocks, infecting a member of the Christian Science Church, a group that doesn't believe in immunizations. "It's actually more contagious than smallpox'' said Alfred Dellaria, Massachusetts's chief infectious diseases official.
When fourteen more people were infected and the media alerted Boston residents of the growing outbreak in the Hancock Tower, thousands of people were vaccinated, and the outbreak subsided.
continued...
ut imagine what would have happened if no one in the John Hancock Tower had been immunized.
When enough people are unimmunized, rubella would again cause birth defects and fetal death. And mumps would be a common cause of deafness. In 2006 a mumps epidemic swept across several Midwestern states. The virus infected four thousand people, mostly young adults, causing seizures, meningitis, and deafness in about thirty people. The strain of mumps virus that was isolated in the
United States was the same as the one recently found circulating in England, where seventy thousand people were infected. The outbreak in England was worse because many more people were unimmunized scared by the false concern that the MMR vaccine caused autism.
This is an excerpt from Pages 181-185 of Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's
Deadliest Diseases by Paul A. Offit (2007) The complete four pages can be found at https://do cs.google. com/filevi ew?id=0B7T TKX7laEzvY zI1ZGMwNGE tYzJlMi00Z jc3LTk5ZTg tYzY0NzgzY zQ3ZjNk&hl =en
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B7TTKX7laEzvYzI1ZGMwNGEtYzJlMi00Zjc3LTk5ZTgtYzY0NzgzYzQ3ZjNk&hl=en
Sigh.
http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2010/02/22/vaccine-myths-3-1-the-scourge-of-childhood/
It only took six years from the time the mumps vaccine was licensed for the illness to morph from a mild childhood illness into one of the "scourges" of childhood.
1. The hearings today did not specifically discuss vaccines.
2. The earlier hearings did not discuss vaccines.
3. Most importantly, the scientists at UC Davis MIND Institute are those who see a link between environmental issues after a child is born and autism. They advise that pregnant women and infants and children not get vaccines with thimerosal. In practice, this means they should get thimerosal free influenza vaccine. Other than that, their only advice is for children who have a strong family history of immune disorders OR who have persistent infections or signs of immune problems. For those children, the MIND group suggests that this information be discussed with their children. Otherwise, they don't have a criticism of current vaccine policies.
Thank you for noticing and appreciating my post so much. ;-)
1) “The hearings today did not specifically discuss vaccines. The earlier hearings did not discuss vaccines.”
I never claimed that they did. There is more to achieving robust and comprehensive health in children than vaccination, Sheldon. Avoiding perinatal and pediatric exposures to toxic man-made substances in today’s world is critical for pediatric health. Indeed, the subspecialty of medical toxicology has been predominated by pediatricians for a long time.
2) “To summarize JonGH's exercise in excessive top posting.”
Sheldon, I don’t apologize for alerting parents in detail to today's US Senate hearing on the “Risks of toxic chemicals to children’s health.” Not one bit!
This is a critically important topic. It is also an extremely complex one. Numerous studies investigating children's environmental health are ongoing, and our knowledge is evolving rapidly. Parents are concerned about childhood exposure to highly neurotoxic substances such as lead, arsenic, and mercury compounds (heavy metals). Parents are also concerned about exposures to other toxic substances such as phthalates, bisphenol A (endocrine disrupter), organophosphate insecticides, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).
Did you read Dr. Frederica Perera testimony, Sheldon? If not, you should. It is powerful and extremely informative.
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=c9fbef98-ee5d-2a2d-65cd-21bcd5313f8f&Witness_ID=45f7aaea-3eda-4536-b371-9e9ef9998e5c
Perhaps if you were a parent you could relate better to the concerns of parents.
“This morning, I will be testifying before the US Senate Committee... When I received the call to do this, truthfully, I was a little nervous. The topic is “Risks of toxic chemicals to children’s health,” something I have been interested in for a long time, and more so after having three kids of my own.”
“As things stand now: Out of the roughly 80,000 chemicals in commerce, only around 200 have been tested, and only five have been restricted. I guess I always assumed watchdog groups and the government had evaluated and signed off on the safety of the chemicals we encounter in our lives.”
“Make no mistake, learning things too late can be wildly dangerous. In the 1940s, the pesticide DDT was declared harmless to humans and animals. Advertisements showed housewives cheerfully spraying it all around the house, on the couches, even spraying the dog. Today, DDT is banned in this country. We sometimes find out chemicals we thought were harmless are not safe at all.”
“Lead is another example. Over the last 50 years, the acceptable levels of lead in the human body have been lowered every decade. Now, we know no amount of lead is safe.”
-----------------------------------
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/26/gupta-chemicals-around-us-we-must-know-more/
“Experts all over the country told me a similar thing. In the United States, chemicals are innocent until proven guilty. And, the only way they are proven guilty is by health effects turning up in people who have been exposed, often years later. In some ways, that makes us all guinea pigs.”
“And, in case you are curious: What I am describing isn’t the same all over the world. The EU has adopted a different standard to evaluate chemicals. It is more of a precautionary approach, and goes by the acronym REACH.” [2]
-Dr. Sanjay Gupta
October 26, 2010
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/26/gupta-chemicals-around-us-we-must-know-more/
--------------------
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/05/13/lead.poisoning.landrigan/index.html
[2] http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2010/06/05/gupta.us.eu.regulation.cnn
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39852323/ns/health-health_care/
Drug Maker GlaxoSmithKline has to pay $750 million because they sold adulterated and improperly made drugs.
These stories are similar how?
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/ID/229731
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_id=1ab3cf42-802a-23ad-4a3a-686da83bf6d0
Today’s hearing on the “risks of toxic chemicals to children’s health” may also be relevant to vaccine safety because vaccines have contained and some still contain two known neurotoxic compounds whose use was grandfathered in by the FDA because they have been used since the 1930s (i.e., the ethylmercury based vaccine preservative thimerosal, and aluminum based vaccine adjuvants). In the case of thimerosal, for example, is it wise to intentionally inject an organomercurial and known neurotoxicant into an infant or pregnant woman, given that perinatal exposures are so risky? Is it really wise to inject ethylmercury into infants or pregnant woman thus adding to their heavy metal (Hg, Pb, As) body burden?
1) “There is no doubt that mercury, in a variety of forms, is neurotoxic.”
2) “The level of [ethyl mercury via injection] that is “safe” to the developing nervous system has NOT been determined.”
3) Indeed, it is undetermined “what, IF ANY, level of mercury exposure is safe to the developing infant.”
4) “The University of California MIND Institute supports the removal of thimerosal (ethyl mercury) from all vaccines, and encourages parents to specifically request that the vaccines given to their children be thimerosal free.”*
-----------------------------------------
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, PhD, MPH.
Professor of Epidemiology; and Chief, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health, Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California at Davis.
Isaac N. Pessah, PhD.
Professor of Toxicology (Department of Molecular Biosciences); and Director, Children’s Center for Environmental Health and Disease Prevention, University of California at Davis, M.I.N.D. Institute.
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/aboutus/faq.html
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/research/faculty_staff.html
*http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/newsroom/vaccineposition.html
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/714387
“All forms of mercury are quite toxic, and each form exhibits different health effects.”
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/mercury.html
“Mercury in all of its forms is toxic to the fetus and children, and efforts should be made to reduce exposure to the extent possible to pregnant women and children as well as the general population.”
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/108/1/197
“Mercury is a neurotoxic agent that is particularly harmful to the developing nervous system.”
“Mercury exists in several forms. First is the volatile elemental form, which is liquid at room temperature [and used in thermometers]. A second form is inorganic compounds, such as mercury salts. Third is organic compounds, such as methyl mercury, ethyl mercury, and phenyl mercuric acetate. The organic forms of mercury are the most hazardous to humans because they are the most readily absorbed by the body and have the greatest uptake into the central nervous system.”
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/714387
October 25, 2010
“Senate panel examining how chemicals in daily life affect kids' health.”
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/25/senate.toxic.america.hearing/index.html
“Pregnant again after two miscarriages, Molly Gray was desperate for answers that could help prevent losing a third baby. When she heard about a small study to test the blood of pregnant women for chemicals, she signed up. The result was shocking: Gray's blood tested high for mercury, a heavy metal that can cause brain damage to a developing fetus."
"A Senate subcommittee Tuesday will examine how chemicals that Americans are exposed to in daily life might be harming the health of children, including those developing in the womb.”
“Somehow my son was being exposed to mercury, and that's a weight to carry because I feel like our job as parents is to protect them, to care for them, to nurture them and to keep them out of harm's way."
“A growing number of studies are finding hundreds of toxic chemicals in the bodies of mothers, and subsequently, in their babies after birth.”
“The organization's study found an average of 232 chemicals in the cord blood of 10 babies born in late 2009. They are chemicals found in a wide array of common household products, including shampoos and conditioners, cosmetics, plastics, shower curtains, mattresses, and electronics like computers and cell phones.”
“[Dr. Frederica Perera, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University] and her colleagues are following the children in their study from the uterus, through birth, and up to their first several years of life. They recently published a study in the journal Pediatrics demonstrating an association between the chemicals they found in babies' cord blood and later problems on intelligence tests and development.”
“The amount of chemicals measured in the cord blood of the babies seems to matter. The higher the concentration, the more the IQ among children seems to dip. The study is also being conducted among pregnant women in Poland and China, and finding similar results.”
----------------------------------
CNN. October 25, 2010. “Senate panel examining how chemicals in daily life affect kids' health.”
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/25/senate.toxic.america.hearing/index.html
-Lisa P. Jackson, US-EPA Administrator.
October 26, 2010
US Senate hearing, “Toxic Chemicals and Children’s Environmental Health.”
-------------------------------
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=c9fbef98-ee5d-2a2d-65cd-21bcd5313f8f
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=c9fbef98-ee5d-2a2d-65cd-21bcd5313f8f&Witness_ID=d9783076-0a81-4f6a-895a-c34d7f21cc4d
“TSCA was an important step forward at the time. But over the years, not only has TSCA fallen behind the industry it is intended to regulate, it has also proven an inadequate tool for providing the protection against chemical risks that the public rightfully expects.
Ensuring that our children are protected from exposure to environmental threats is central to EPA’s work. Children face greater threats from environmental pollutants than adults.”
“When TSCA was enacted, it grandfathered in, WITHOUT ANY EVALUATION, all chemicals in commerce that existed in 1976.”* [emphasis added]
“Further compounding this problem, the statute never provided adequate authority for EPA to reevaluate existing chemicals as new concerns arose or science was updated.”
-Lisa P. Jackson, US-EPA Administrator.
October 26, 2010
US Senate hearing, “Toxic Chemicals and Children’s Environmental Health.”
*Hmmm. Does this sound familiar? Just like a neurotoxic mercury-containing organic compound used as a preservative in the majority of pediatric vaccines from 1990-2000, and the majority of the flu vaccine supply TODAY. (thimerosal)
-------------------------------
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=c9fbef98-ee5d-2a2d-65cd-21bcd5313f8f&Witness_ID=d9783076-0a81-4f6a-895a-c34d7f21cc4d
October 26, 2010
10:30 AM EDT
A United States Senate hearing was held this morning on, “Toxic Chemicals and Children’s Environmental Health.”
The Senate hearing was chaired by Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). Scheduled to testify….
*Lisa P. Jackson, US-EPA Administrator.
*Lisa Huguenin
New Jersey mother of child with autism and an immune system disorder
*Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent.
*Steven M. Marcus, MD
Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, New Jersey Medical School. Executive and Medical Director, New Jersey Poison Information and Education System.
*Frederica P. Perera, MPH, DrPH
Professor of Environmental Health Sciences; Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Director, Columbia University Center for Children's Environmental Health.
-----------------------------
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Home
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=c9fbef98-ee5d-2a2d-65cd-21bcd5313f8f
Wow.
I'm gathering more info now.
"Good morning. Chairman Lautenberg... My name is Doctor Sanjay Gupta. I am a practicing neurosurgeon and CNN’s chief medical correspondent. I’m also a father of three young girls. As a journalist and a father, I can tell you the topic of toxic chemicals and children’s health is very important to me."
Here's the video (3:57 minutes)...
http://www.cnn.com/video/?launchLivePlayer=true&stream=4#
-----------------------------
See also:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=c9fbef98-ee5d-2a2d-65cd-21bcd5313f8f
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=c9fbef98-ee5d-2a2d-65cd-21bcd5313f8f&Witness_ID=4f6b5b35-cc2b-4df2-9bcb-ff3656ad206f
“Back in the 1970s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent a pair of young investigators to El Paso, Texas. The CDC wanted them to look into whether the tons of lead coming from the stacks of a lead smelter were causing harm to children in the area. At the time, lead poisoning was considered all or nothing. Either you were sickened by lead or you were fine. Dr. Philip Landrigan and his colleague Stephen Gehlbach found children close to the smelter were, in fact, poisoned. Lead exposure caused vomiting, muscle weakness and convulsions. That was no surprise. But the CDC investigators found something else. Something unexpected. Children farther away, exposed to smaller amounts of lead, were affected, too. The symptoms weren’t so obvious parents took their children to the doctor. But the lead exposure had a profound, life-long affect on these kids with lower levels of exposure. There was a loss of intelligence, disruptive behavior -- a whole range of damage to the brain and nervous system."
"Now, we know no amount of lead is completely safe.”
-Sanjay Gupta, MD
October 26, 2010
US Senate hearing, “Toxic Chemicals and Children’s Environmental Health.”
---------------------------------
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=c9fbef98-ee5d-2a2d-65cd-21bcd5313f8f&Witness_ID=4f6b5b35-cc2b-4df2-9bcb-ff3656ad206f
Knowing this, how can we assume that there is some "safe" level of Hg or Al exposure?
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B7TTKX7laEzvYzI1ZGMwNGEtYzJlMi00Zjc3LTk5ZTgtYzY0NzgzYzQ3ZjNk&hl=en
The strawman provided in your link assumes that many of these parents you villify want to get rid of vaccines.
I know that epidemiological studies are not considered as part of safety or toxicology work.
They found that there was “…a higher percentage of the total Hg in the brain was in the form of inorganic mercury for the thimerosal-exposed infants (34% versus 7%).”
They also found that for both organic mercury exposures that “The half-life of inorganic Hg is too long (>120 days) to be accurately estimated from the present data.”
See http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7712/7712.pdf .
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TGG-4X1YCBB-2&_user=10&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1512530079&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8c53d9aaf571a1a3b712627120774e86&searchtype=a
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101022123757.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20889164
So, why is it OK to trust people who would use this without any testing or evidence of safety/efficacy, but the FDA, AAP, NIH, IOM, WHO, CDC, etc., are all untrustworthy?
---------------------
There is a certain range of the amount of heavy metals that is 'normal.' So you can do a urine test and compare the amount found to the normal range ( a reference amount). However, if you give someone a drug that removes heavy metal from the body into the urine, there is no reference amount to determine if the amount of the heavy metal is normal or abnormal.
That's why the experts argue against the use of 'provoked' or 'challenged' urine tests.