Prepare Your Responses to Your Anti Vaccine Pals
So now that the boy sleeps and takes naps, and especially today, when I’m home with him because he had a fever and a cough this morning, I really try to catch up on blogging. And this means that I end up just reading and reading other people’s blogs, rather than actually working on my own posts. I’ve been trolling through our blog roll, and then through the rolls of other blogs, finding all kinds of great stuff.
This is an article which helped me to understand why it’s difficult to do a study on vaccinated versus unvaccinated children. Why is this important? Because that one dude at work won’t shut up about it. You know the guy. The guy who didn’t vaccinate his kid, and it makes me sick. The guy who says, “Look, scientists don’t know everything.” Do you know this guy? It’s really hard to argue with him, because no matter what evidence you show him, he truly believes that vaccines are dangerous, and that’s that.
I hope you don’t know this guy, but unfortunately, in LA, I know too many of him. Not actually being a scientist, I find it hard to argue my side. But even if I were a scientist, it probably wouldn’t do much good.
Some quotes:
The interest in “doing a study” seems to stem from the idea that the only way to find if vaccines are connected with autism is to study unvaccinated children and compare their autism prevalence with vaccinated children. This is not true and is – in fact – not even the most effective way to study the postulated connection….
And this surprised me, since I always hear this thing about the Amish:
Much of the blame for this wrong-headed fixation on “Just study the unvaccinated!” can be laid at the feet of Dan Olmsted, who claimed that the Amish don’t vaccinate and don’t have autism. Both claims – it turns out – are untrue. The Amish do vaccinate and they do have autism. Apparently, Mr. Olmsted didn’t look in the right places for his information about the Amish. And if you don’t look, you never find.
Siamang Said,
January 26, 2009 @ 12:28 am
Good blog entry on anti-vax here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/01/left_is_right_and_up_is_down_an_actual.php?utm_source=mostactive&utm_medium=link
Explains herd immunity quite well. If my kid ever gets the measles from an anti-vaxxer, I’m suing them, their quack, the school district and the state.
WonderingWilla Said,
January 26, 2009 @ 10:52 am
These two articles and the fact that there is now a Hib outbreak among the unvaccinated in Minnesota. Should go a long way to making the case. Alas, I think that the die hard folks are excellent shifters of goal posts. Maybe this most recent outbreak will persuade the alternate/delayed schedule crowd.
carovee Said,
January 28, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
Siamang, if your child is vaccinated against the measles he/she shouldn’t contract the disease even if exposed, correct? I thought the problem was un-vaccinated children infecting each other.
Toys Said,
January 29, 2009 @ 12:58 am
Great post! Unforutnatly I also know too many people who dont believe in vaccines!
Julie Said,
January 29, 2009 @ 4:43 am
No vaccination is 100% effective, as I understand it. Herd immunity means that 90% of the population has to be vaccinated, and when the numbers fall below that, then even vaccinated children are in danger of catching the disease.
carovee Said,
January 29, 2009 @ 11:31 am
Thanks, Julie. I really didn’t think it through.
Siamang Said,
January 29, 2009 @ 9:27 pm
Julie’s right. And that link gives a good explanation why.
Some kids, such as those on steroids for asthma, cannot take certain vaccinations. And so they rely on herd immunity to keep them safe. Babies cannot be vaccinated for certain things until older.
And yeah, vaccinations don’t work on everyone 100% of the time. The good thing about herd immunity is that it doesn’t allow a disease to gain a foothold. And remember a foothold is really a bunch of virus lurking in a population that’s sitting there and *mutating*. Evolving. Ugh. Very dangerous. We don’t want new improved strains popping up within our population and gaining a foothold in which to spread.
Lanie Said,
February 7, 2009 @ 9:21 pm
Rational moms? Ha! You ladies are dumber than a box of rocks.
abcdefg Said,
February 13, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
Here’s a new one for you to respond to:
Vaccines are the direct cause of most food allergies.
I found the following statistics on various websites –
AUSTRALIA: Australia has one of the highest allergic incidence rates in the developed world.
CANADA: Between 3% and 4% of Canadian adults, and nearly 6 % of children suffer from food allergies
GERMANY: The prevalence in children is 3 percent to 6 percent, but can be up to 30 percent in high-risk groups, such as children with eczema.
ITALY: An estimated 6 to 8% of the Italian population has food allergies.
JAPAN: about 7% of population had some form of food allergy.
MALAYSIA: about 30% of young children are likely to develop allergic disorders in the first five years of life.
SWEDEN: one out of 15 children with reported adverse reactions to food.
US: One in every 17 children under the age of 3 has food allergy.
And really serious food reactions are not all that rare – “A study in Arch Intern Med 2001 Jan 8;161(1):15-2, Anaphylaxis in the United States: an investigation into its epidemiology, concluded with “The occurrence of anaphylaxis in the US is not as rare as is generally believed. On the basis of our figures, the problem of anaphylaxis may, in fact, affect 1.21% (1.9 million) to 15.04% (40.9 million) of the US population.” PMID 11146694″
So is this epidemic of food allergies mostly among young children caused by being too clean (hygiene theory – food allergies are unknown in undeveloped countries) in the last 5 years or something else?
1960 – children received on average one or two vaccines
1980 – children received 8-9 vaccines
1990 – children were routinely given 10 vaccines
2000 – Children now receive 33 vaccinations before they enter school
2007 – Children are now to receive 48 doses of 14 vaccines by age six and 53-56 doses of 15 or 16 vaccines by age 12.
Vaccines contain an adjuvant that increases the body’s immune response to the protein in the vaccine. Something that the public and most physicians don’t realize is that the adjuvant can also contain a mixture of vegetable and animal oils that have a trace of food protein in them. This is a protected trade secret and does not have to appear on the package insert. The ingredients of many adjuvants can only be found by reading patents. What are these oils? Soy, sesame, peanut, wheat germ, corn, shellfish, fish, etc.
Can a trace amount of food protein in a vaccine cause food allergy? Yes. This has been known since 1839, when the French physiologist Francois Magendie injected animals to create a food allergy to egg whites.
The food industry has to label food that may contain trace amounts of peanuts or nuts but the pharmaceutical industry is exempt. Shouldn’t your doctor know if he is injecting a peanut-allergic patient with peanut oil?