220 replies to this topic

[slothman92]

str8 outta Old Town, on 10 June 2012 - 02:22 AM, said:

BTW, it is worth remembering that it is much safer to be unvaccinated in a vaccinated population, than to be vaccinated in an unvaccinated population. So even if a parent genuinely  believes that their child is at a small risk from vaccination, they are acting immorally by letting other kids take a small risk to protect their kids from a big risk.

This is a good point I think about often. Hopefully, in my ideal world, the number with risk for injury that have altered of absent vaccine scheduales would not approach the levels that compromise heard immunity.

[slothman92]

Galactus, on 10 June 2012 - 07:31 AM, said:

No, it's true. There's absolutely no statistical link between vaccination and autism. That one is bollocks, pure and simple.

I was refering to increasing autism is a result of better testing

[MinDonner]

As we can all agree that autism and vaccines are unrelated, can we stop talking about autism in a vaccine thread? Continuing to do so is disingenuous at best and dangerously misleading at worst.

[slothman92]

Nukelavee, on 10 June 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

Here's a question that likely betrays my lack of knowledge of the anti-vaccine camp's info, tho - if teh vaccines can cause these problems... doesn't the disease itself have that potential, too?  That is, is it the viral content, the combination of viral contents, or the added stuff like various forms of mercury and aluminum?

The alluminum or mercury is the culprit in most peoples mind. I have also heard people theorize about the immune response but it is all speculation.

[slothman92]

ΜινΝτόννερ, on 10 June 2012 - 07:40 AM, said:

As we can all agree that autism and vaccines are unrelated, can we stop talking about autism in a vaccine thread? Continuing to do so is disingenuous at best and dangerously misleading at worst.

The lead advisory panel for for the US thinks it warrents further study, so I don't see why we can't talk about it.

[MinDonner]

And yet seventeen minutes ago you were claiming that you didn't support that position, you were just arguing with the "better diagnosis" hypothesis. Currently there is zero evidence for a link, I'm not really sure what arguing about it on a messageboard is going to achieve.

[Minaku]

Herd immunity has already been compromised in parts of California and Michigan, I believe.  I live in the crunchiest part of Atlanta and I can point to several children I know who aren't vaccinated.  The little brother of one of my new students is not vaccinated either, and he's my son's age.  If my husband and I try for a second child, and that child has not had a rubella vaccination, I would be nervous.  Chances are in my favor but you never know.

I'm going to go hard-line here and say that for a lot of new moms who "do the research," their decision not to vaccinate stems from a genuine fear of causing pain to their children rather than coming to a conclusion after gathering evidence.  It is a real fear.  No one wants to see a baby get 6 needles during his first doctor visit.  Admitting that you are afraid to cause pain to your child isn't the easiest thing to do either.  What if there's an adverse reaction, like a febrile seizure?  The parents feel as if it's their fault even if it isn't.

Oh, and how many people can truly research studies on vaccination when they don't have access to scholarly databases?  Any time a mom says she's done the research I eyeball her and resist the urge to ask from where she got the information.

Edit: Slothman, any time someone writes "this warrants further study" in a research report it means either:

A. Please someone else go and do this study because we cannot be arsed to, or
B. We cannot say with 100% surety that this is complete BS (thanks to general scientific principles) and we don't have the time/resources/desire to go into that particular field, someone else please do it, or
C. This is actually pretty interesting but we don't have time/resources to perform this study.

It's probably A or B.

Edited by みなく, 10 June 2012 - 07:58 AM.

[Seli]

Nukelavee, on 10 June 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

Galactus - but, isn't that what Sloth has been addressing?  Better screening methods to detect who could be at risk from vaccines?   And, by better, I assume he means methods that would be usable/in place to screen infants by the time they are (currently) given the shots?

Myself, I'm for vaccines, but, if my understanding of Sloth's point is right, I can stand behind developing ways to prevent the at-risk (if they exist) from being, well, put at risk.

...

In the Netherlands there has been a high-uptake, monitored, continuous vaccination program for at last 50 years. There even is a built-in control group since some religious groups and anthroposophic communities refuse vaccination (it is a voluntary program).

I am not aware of all the screening for side-effects showing any groups at increased risk (in the context of the thread). Which is an indication that while there might be individuals that are at a higher risk of adverse reactions, they are difficult to find. Especially since there are many competing hypotheses on what influences auto-immune diseases, allergies etc that all might be true at the same time, but with different processes in different people.

[Nukelavee]

Well, understanding our systems is a work in progress, with any luck we will eventually be able to reduce the number of theories, hopefully reducing side effects (if they really exist).

In the mean time, for all those parents worrying about the pain of a needle series...ever dealt with a child with measles or chicken pox, or....?

I think you'd regret not getting the needles if you spent a week trying to flay yourself.

[slothman92]

Seli, on 10 June 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

In the Netherlands there has been a high-uptake, monitored, continuous vaccination program for at last 50 years. There even is a built-in control group since some religious groups and anthroposophic communities refuse vaccination (it is a voluntary program).

I am not aware of all the screening for side-effects showing any groups at increased risk (in the context of the thread). Which is an indication that while there might be individuals that are at a higher risk of adverse reactions, they are difficult to find. Especially since there are many competing hypotheses on what influences auto-immune diseases, allergies etc that all might be true at the same time, but with different processes in different people.

This sounds very interesting, could you provide a link to more information?

[Aemon Stark]

slothman92, on 10 June 2012 - 12:31 AM, said:

What do you mean by good papers? What are your qualifications? The only real way to decide is to read the paper and see if the methodology is thourough and the conlusions draw from the results are appropriate. The journals are all rated by JCR if that helps you.

If you don't want to believe they are *good* because they go against the majority of other papers then believe that. Their results are their results, i don't see any reason for them to fabricate or falsify their results, we saw how that turned out for Andrwe Wakefield.

The highest quality evidence takes into account the results of many studies and weights them according to their own quality. This is represented by a systematic review, and the Cochrane review I posted is the gold standard for that. Almost as good are meta-analyses which similarly combine the results of many studies to arrive at an overall conclusion. Next comes a randomized controlled trial where variables are actually controlled not just "adjusted for" after the fact. Continuing down the evidence hierarchy we have cohort studies and case-control studies, where prospective studies are to be preferred to retrospective ones.

Finally, we have the paper you linked, which is a cross-sectional observational study, so there is actually no experimental control of variables. An actual trial would assign neonates to either a "vaccine" or "no vaccine" group and then follow them for a period to determine whether there was a differing risk of autism diagnosis (or whatever other outcome you want to use). If a trial is not possible, you would follow babies who had been vaccinated or not from birth, and follow-up later for that outcome (a prospective cohort study).

This study has several problems. First, the outcome variable was "a dichotomous (yes/no) variable created in response to the following survey question and presentation of a card with a choice of diagnoses: “Looking at this list, has a doctor or other professional ever told you that [sample child’s name] had any of these conditions . . . ( i.e., autism)?” Refusals to answer, responses of “don’t know,” and missing values were counted as missing data."

This is a retrospective subjective outcome that is subject to recall bias and probably some element of selection bias. They also treated the "don't knows" or "refusals" as missing, which means they were excluded from the analysis, but that introduces non-response bias. The authors appear to make no attempt to account for this.

Stunningly, the actual numbers suggest that this study was not adequately powered. The number of girls with autism (n = 9) is so small that the analysis was conducted on boys only. Except even in the autism group, there were only 31 observations, 9 who had been vaccinated and 22 who had not. That's against the non-autism group, with 1258 who had been vaccinated and 6092 who hadn't. Once again, they exclude data on the vaccination status where there is a "don't know" or "refusal" or incomplete response, without accounting for this non-response bias. However, with such small numbers, the bias could actually be considerable, and the data is still self-reported and subject to recall bias.

The authors do admit that, as a cross-sectional study, no causal interpretations can be made.

Anyway, as to my "qualifications", here they are:

M.Sc. (Applied Mathematics), MMath (Biostatistics), MD Candidate (May 2013)

[Merentha]

slothman92, on 10 June 2012 - 07:41 AM, said:

The alluminum or mercury is the culprit in most peoples mind.

And that is an entirely theoretical position.  Ethylmercury has never been shown to come close to dangerous levels in humans and there is nowhere near enough in vaccine shots or anywhere else to get close to toxicity levels in humans.  Now, if you somehow hit toxicity levels, it MIGHT have effects similar to methylmercury.  Maybe.  And to my knowledge, aluminum has even less of a risk.

[peterbound]

Aemon Stark, on 10 June 2012 - 10:18 AM, said:

Anyway, as to my "qualifications", here they are:

M.Sc. (Applied Mathematics), MMath (Biostatistics), MD Candidate (May 2013)

Boomshakalaka!
Aemon has been waiting to drop that line for years, and this time it was completely appropriate.

Edited by peterbound, 10 June 2012 - 12:42 PM.

[Seli]

slothman92, on 10 June 2012 - 09:25 AM, said:

This sounds very interesting, could you provide a link to more information?

My initial information was in Dutch, but it seems the institution responsible writes yearly reports, as well as additional information on their monitoring of adverse effects. They are a bit long, but are full of information, for example there are age-breakdowns for some diseases showing why vaccination of young children is important.

pdf files of the report on 2011, 2009. And the separate adverse reaction report of 2010 (also looking back 1994-2010), that last one has a short section on auto-immune diseases and related possible problems.

Preface to the 2011 report:

Quote

Preface
This report gives an overview of the developments in 2011 for the diseases
included in the current National Immunisation Programme (NIP): diphtheria,
pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, Haemophilus influenzae serotype b (Hib)
disease, mumps, measles, rubella, meningococcal serogroup C disease, hepatitis
B, pneumococcal disease and human papillomavirus (HPV) infection.
Furthermore, surveillance data with regard to potential new target diseases, for
which a vaccine is available, are described: rotavirus infection, varicella zoster
virus (VZV) infection and hepatitis A infection. Moreover, meningococcal
serogroup B disease is included in this report, since a new vaccine has been
developed and registration will be applied for in the near future. This report
included also other meningococcal serogroups (i.e. non-serogroup B and C
types) to enable studying the trends in these other serogroups. In addition, data
on vaccines for infectious diseases tested in clinical trials and relevant for the
Netherlands are included in this report.

The report is structured as follows: Chapter 1 gives short introduction, while in
Chapter 2 surveillance methods, generally used to monitor the NIP, are
described. Recent results on vaccination coverage of the NIP are discussed in
Chapter 3. Chapter 4 focuses on current target diseases of the NIP. For each
disease, key points mark the most prominent findings, followed by an update of
information on epidemiology, pathogen and adverse events following
immunisation (AEFI). Results of ongoing studies are described, together with the
planning of future studies. If applicable, recent and planned changes in NIP are
mentioned. Chapter 5 describes new target diseases which might need
consideration for the future NIP. Finally, in Chapter 6 vaccines for infectious
diseases that are tested in clinical trials are described. In Appendix 2 mortality
and morbidity figures from 1997 onwards from various data sources per disease
are published.

This report informs the Health Council and Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport
(VWS) on developments with respect to vaccine preventable diseases.

[TerraPrime]

slothman92, on 10 June 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

This is a good point I think about often. Hopefully, in my ideal world, the number with risk for injury that have altered of absent vaccine scheduales would not approach the levels that compromise heard immunity.

Would you at least concede that at this time, the number of people who refuse to vaccinate their children is probably much higher than what the actual cases of children with potential adverse reactions might be? In other words, as we accept the possibility that some subset of children (say, X%) may react adversely to the current vaccination regiment, can you accept that the number of people refusing vaccination (Y%) is much higher that that number? In other words, is X =, or >, or <, than Y?

[Ixodes]

ΜινΝτόννερ, on 10 June 2012 - 07:40 AM, said:

As we can all agree that autism and vaccines are unrelated, can we stop talking about autism in a vaccine thread? Continuing to do so is disingenuous at best and dangerously misleading at worst.

The autism-vaccine issue is like the drowned god:  What is dead can never die.  It just keeps going and going and going...  I'll be honest:  One of my aspirations in life would be to take a big dookie over Wakefield's head, preferably while he is tied down but I'd take my chances regardless.

It's sad since it just obscures the more relavent issues of vaccine safety.  Vaccines hurt some people, there is no doubt.  There is room for improvement.  It's just that the population benefits can be so dramatic.  In my job, everytime I see a puppy die of parvovirus (completely preventable with appropriate vaccines) I want to scream.  I'm sure watching a child succumb to a disease that didn't have to exist would drive me over the edge.  I wish we had tools that allowed practitioners to identify those who would be harmed by immunization prior to giving the shots but that will never happen (at least in my career, I think).  Any discussion attracts contentious drama (see this thread, earlier, for example).

My personal feeling is that public health is one area where my underlying libertarian feelings can be squelched.  I have no problem letting physicians mandate standards, as long as they are evidence based.  Heh.  I had a somewhat contentious discussion with our local state senator about allowing third party sales of unpastuerized milk recently.  He doesn't like me so much now.

[TerraPrime]

Ixodes, on 10 June 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

I had a somewhat contentious discussion with our local state senator about allowing third party sales of unpastuerized milk recently.  He doesn't like me so much now.

Oh what's a few tens of thousands of E. coli? It don't hurt nobody, and it adds a certain cow fecal taste to the milk that is otherwise hard to acquire. :-p

[Ixodes]

TerraPrime, on 10 June 2012 - 05:06 PM, said:

Oh what's a few tens of thousands of E. coli? It don't hurt nobody, and it adds a certain cow fecal taste to the milk that is otherwise hard to acquire. :-p

If you look at the CDC website, there is a disease called "Brainerd Diarrhea." Ah, my home's medical claim to fame!   This is essentially a disease linked to unpasteurized milk where a person would get diarrhea that did not respond to any treatment.  IIRC, many people recovered in 4-6 months.  They could never find the infectious agent.  And that is just one of many!  So we get these nitwits that want to increase the number of people that have access to unpasteurized milk.  Yeah, ship this stuff all over the state, letting the pathogens brew to get to really high numbers before these people give it to their kids.

Every single piece of literature shows exponential increases in the amount of public disease when you don't pasteurize milk yet it doesn't get through.  In Minnesota you can choose to go to a farm and buy it from the farmer, but no, they want to ship it all over.  My local senator supports this (in the vein of letting people choose for themselves) and I was kinda blunt on how I don't want my kids' school mates painting the elementary school bathrooms with uncontrolled diarrhea for 6 months.  Yeah, Senator Paul and I had a..descriptive..conversation about this.  I brought all this literature for him to read and understand but it still went south.  As it ends up, I didn't change his heart and mind.  Meh.

I'll end this drift.  Vaccines save many, many lives.

[Aemon Stark]

Well, if you're lucky Sen. Paul will experience the effects of unpasteurized milk first-hand. Could sway his thoughts on the matter.

[MercenaryChef]

i drank the hell out of some unpasteurized milk as a lad. we had neighbors with dairy cows. we would often trade them produce from our garden or venison for milk. i recall the cream that would rise to the top poured over our breakfast cereal. this cream and milk had a flavor that i have never had met in my life. i am also as healthy as a proverbial horse.

that all said i would no more take my own anecdotal evidence as something that should be for everyone. sadly not all dairy farmers are as clean, conscientious, and sanitary as my boyhood neighbors. so, i have to side with the need to pasteurize milk.

and on topic, vaccination is probably a good idea as well.