From Kelley:
"Vaccine rejectionists lack even the most basic understanding of immunology and epidemiology. Vaccine rejectionists have no concept of risk."
Sometimes I think you say these things to see just how much of a ruckus you can stir up. I very clearly understand immunology and epidemiology. I also understand the concept of risk very well. I also know that the few rounds of vaccines I allowed my child to be given damaged him irreparably. He has serious medical problems now that we can trace back to when he started receiving the vaccines. Because of this I have been reticent to expose my other children to the same damaging toxins. I am not opposed to vaccinations in general, though I do not intend to allow my children to be damaged further by them.
You are welcome to call me a free-loader. I, however, know that the daily health of my own children stands higher on my scale of what is important than the idea of herd immunity. Call that what you will.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Kelley:
"I very clearly understand immunology and epidemiology."
How do you know that? Just because you think you understand it tells us nothing about whether you actually do.
From Rena:
Kelley,
Don't bother.
Anyone who dares disagree with Dr. Amy is, by definition, selfish, irrational, narcissistic, poorly educated, and - basically - stupid. Not that she'll give anyone an opportunity to demonstrate that they understand risk and/or any subject matter. She just gets traffic and ad revenue for being a ruckus stirrer, as you said.
Just thank G-d she's not practicing medicine any more. Moving right along...
From Madison:
As a part of immigration process I had to undergone 2 rounds of full set of all possible vaccinations (original medical documentation from my home country was not accepted even with translations).
I would not allow my child to play knowingly with a child who was not vaccinated.
From Amanda:
I agree with Madison. My kid will not be playing with any child I know to be unvaccinated. It just isn't worth the risk.
From Alex:
In reviewing a sampling of the vast amount of anti-vaccination lies that are all over the internets, I'm perplexed and amused by the recurring conspiracy theme. OBs aren't the only nefarious evildoing medical professionals, pediatricians are paid drug salesmen, peddling these toxins for Big Pharma. The CDC and the WHO are in on it too! Vaccines have never been tested! Adverse reactions are not even reported, the FDA is suppressing information because they're getting paid by Big Pharma too, and anyway, as long as you feed your kid magical organic food, it's actually beneficial for them to get all of these harmless, benign childhood diseases--it will prevent them from getting cancer, gallstones, and toenail fungus!!! My favorites are the sites with a long list of the evils of vaccines, with a conspicuous lack of citations. You have to send money for those.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Alex:
"In reviewing a sampling of the vast amount of anti-vaccination lies that are all over the internets, I'm perplexed and amused by the recurring conspiracy theme."
The part that I find so strange is that the conspiracy supposedly is so deep that doctors, immunologists and vaccine manufacturers continue to vaccinate their own children (and therefore knowingly and deliberately exposing their children to the dangers of vaccines) because it is more important to them to keep the secret than to protect their own children.
From Esther:
That's because we manage, somehow, to be part of both the Great Conspiracy and the Unwashed Sheeple at the same time. (rolling eyes).
From HiHelloHowRU2Day:
Rena, what do you know about vaccines that Dr. Amy doesn't know or can't discuss? You criticize her, but I don't see you making an argument in favor of rejectionism that you can justify. I'd love to read it, and bona fide citations please, as well, thank you. And as for Kelley, would you be willing to be personally and financially liable if a child gets an illness because you fail to vaccinate your children? You know, it's not just about YOU, my dear, or your children. If you are not willing to be civilly and criminally liable for YOUR FAILURE to protect other children from your unvaccinated children, get them vaccinated. There is a price we all pay for the space we take up, and nobody asked you if you like it.
From Antigonos:
[Kelley] I also know that the few rounds of vaccines I allowed my child to be given damaged him irreparably.
~~~You cannot KNOW this, you can only BELIEVE it.
Further, this belief of yours puts your other children at substantial risk, as well as the children of other parents. I wonder you can sleep at night.
From Antigonos:
[Dr. Amy]The part that I find so strange is that the conspiracy supposedly is so deep that doctors, immunologists and vaccine manufacturers continue to vaccinate their own children (and therefore knowingly and deliberately exposing their children to the dangers of vaccines) because it is more important to them to keep the secret than to protect their own children.
~~~Here is a quote from the independent midwives in Kent [UK] via NHS Blog Doctor:
"Induction of Labour
Thousands of women in this country with normal pregnancies and healthy babies are being put at risk every day in maternity units across the country. Yet like lambs to the slaughter they pack up their bags and head for the hospital in the belief that the doctors, who instigate the barbaric treatment they are about to undergo, are saving their babies lives.
"Many of them then spend the next few days in excruciating pain over and above that what is experienced in normal labour in an effort to drag their unready and unwilling bodies into labour. Their bodies are filled with drugs that may compromise their long-term health so they begin the spiralling cascade of interventions that all too often culminates with entry through the theatre doors.
"The women and their families thank the doctors and hospital guidelines for saving them from the problems they had, problems that are often itrogenic in origin. And so the myth, that their bodies are failing them in the one thing women are best at, procuring a future generation, is perpetuated.
"To add insult to injury my colleagues, midwives, who by definition of their title should be the protectors of women and babies, help daily to continue this unnecessary practice. Induction of labour for no medical reason has become a socially acceptable procedure. **
Kent Midwifery Practice."
~~~It's all of a piece.
From Katie:
To those of you who wouldn't let your children play with unvaccinated children, if your kid was allergic to peanuts, would you allow him/her to only play with other children with peanut allergies? After all, if he plays with or at the home of a child wihtout peanut allergies, he might be exposed to peanuts through the unwittingness of the parents. Or do you also keep you chilrden from playing at the homes of people with cats or dogs? Zoological diseases readily pass from pets to children, and you wouldn't want your little one to get, say, salmonella poisoning from her friend's pet beagle (we KNOW where that tongue has been!). Same for the children of smokers; do you keep them away from those children too?
Do you demand medical histories from your children's teachers, babysitters, the bus driver, lunch servers, or security guards? During the winter, does your anti-non-vaxed kids rule apply to the flu as well?
And besides, illnesses like polio don't magically appear in nonvaccinated children, and considering we are 'polio-free,' to ban your child from playing with another one that isn't vaccinated against polio, for example, is knee-jerk at best and hysterical at worst. Your kid is a lot more likely to get hurt playing with the aforementioned beagle.
From sarahz:
I have to LOL all dag gone day when otherwise scientifically minded folks accept 'vaccines' with a sort of blanket approval. Do you accept all 'drugs' or all 'pharmaceuticals' or all 'antibiotics' or all doctors or all hospitals or all surgeries with the same one size fits all approval?
Of course not.
Each vaccine is different just like each disease is different. The formulas are disparate and the side effect pictures as well as the contraindications are all unique. Each patients health situation differs even temporally. Each patient is on different medications and those may interact with the vaccine in various ways.
I just can't take anyone seriously who talks about vaccines as if all past, present, and future vaccines are the same and need to be accepted or rejected as a group.
The way people talk about 'vaccines' as if all of these chemical formulations are identical in terms of effectiveness, safety, or even color proves that we aren't dealing with science here, we are dealing with dogma.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
sarahz:
"The way people talk about 'vaccines' as if all of these chemical formulations are identical in terms of effectiveness, safety, or even color proves that we aren't dealing with science here, we are dealing with dogma."
Sorry. That pseudo-sophististicated mumbo-jumbo makes no difference. People who delay or refuse selective vaccinations for any life threatening vaccine preventable diseases are just as ignorant and irresponsible as those who reject all vaccines.
From Yehudit:
What is your definition of a "life-threatening vaccine-preventable disease". Most diseases have the potential to be life-threatening (or produce permanent morbidity) and more and more vaccines are being developed that prevent disease with varying degree of efficacy.
But there surely is a lower limit at which vaccination to a particular disease is deemed to be of such marginal benefit that it is not worth introducing. The UK has a committee that considers such questions, and I'm sure the US has similar. It clearly isn't rational to say that any "life-threatening vaccine-preventable disease" - irrespective of the frequency of mortality/permanent morbidity or the efficacy of the vaccine - will be subject to a universal vaccination programme.
Not least because public acceptance of vaccines for diseases that are very infrequently life-threatening and where the vaccine is only weakly protective will be low, take-up rates lower than needed to produce herd immunity and thus the vaccine programme ineffective. Not suprisingly, in the UK, research on the acceptability of vaccine programmes is done before introduction for pragmatic reasons. (i.e. any vaccine is useless if the public will not have it). Obviously, there is no accounting for a spoke in the works like the idiocy around MMR, but in general I think pragmatic approach that includes consideration of likely take-up (and health education needed to achieve sufficient take-up) is sensible. That must include evaluation of the benefits of individual vaccines, and not simply a blanket "vaccines are all good".
From Rena:
HiHelloHowRU2Day:
I vaccinate my children and believe it to be safe and livesaving. I am not what Dr. Amy would call a "vaccine rejectionist." In this particular case I happen to agree with Dr. Amy. I'm just discouraging people who disagree with her from trying to argue in a public forum. This is a blog written by and for people who agree with Dr. Amy.
From Amanda:
Katie - My kid is allergic to peanuts and his friends will have to come to our house until my child is old enough to know to protect himself and what to do if he has a reaction.
It is funny, however, that you brought up the everyday risks that people take (pets, etc.) I'd say that those risks are higher than the "risks of vaccines" that some people use as their excuse for not vaccinating their children. I wonder if THOSE people have pets, or peanuts, or let their children out of the house at all. The risk of being harmed by a vaccine is probably less than the risks of playing with a beagle.
From Katie:
Amanda,
And yet I also hear people here say they won't let their kids play with other kids who aren't vaccinated, even though the chance of their child getting an illness is similarly minute compared to the other risks their let their children take! And the flu question (would you let your kids play with other kids who haven't been vaccinated against the flu) is a lot more applicable to day to day life. I think that response (no antivax kids in my house!) is just as alarmist and the moment you start to investigate it an impossible to apply consistently approach to protecting a child from illness.
From Madison:
The peanut allergy argument raised by Katie does not fit the situation of unvaccinated play buddies.
But let's take the allegory further - why don't we have peanut butter parties where peanut allergic kids play and eat peanut butter products - similar to chicken pox parties. It should expose kids to the dangerous element in the most natural way and 'strengthen' them...
From Amanda:
Katie - How is my response any more alarmist than the response of the anti-vax crowd to the issue of childhood vaccinations? They choose not to vaccinate their children because if minute and often unprovable "risks". Wouldn't they be the ones more likely to never let Junior leave the house because a plane might fall out of the sky and hit him?
From Susanne:
To those of you who wouldn't let your children play with unvaccinated children, if your kid was allergic to peanuts, would you allow him/her to only play with other children with peanut allergies? After all, if he plays with or at the home of a child wihtout peanut allergies, he might be exposed to peanuts through the unwittingness of the parents."
Completely stupid and irrelevant analogy, since either a child has peanut allergies or he doesn't -- the rate of peanut allergies in the community has nothing to do with it. Peanut allergies aren't contagious, and there's no herd immunity principle. Duh.
From Yehudit:
I vaccinate my kids, hope that vaccination rates are high enough to keep up herd immunity, and will happily argue the toss about vaccination with any friends of mine who are considering not vaccinating.
However, I would also pay no particular attention to whether or not the children my kids play were vaccinated.
Just because I feel that there is a benefit to vaccination, and hope that the community feels likewise, doesn't mean I have to completely freak out that my vaccinated child MIGHT not have immunity, and MIGHT also come into contact with an unvaccinated and currently infectious child, MIGHT also contract the disease, and MIGHT also suffer permanent damage from said disease.
If my child was more at risk for some reason, I might feel differently. I vaccinate my children for all the main diseases currently offered in the UK. I hope they acquire immunity as a result. But to then start vetting their friends' vaccination status is taking the fear a bit too far. Suppose children are not vaccinated for some legitimate medical reason? Should that also make them social pariahs? If not, why not? (Unvaccinated people surely present the same level of risk to the vaccinated population, regardless of the reason for their not being vaccinated?)
From Amanda:
When I said I wouldn't let my kid play with unvaccinated kids, I was being facetious in an attempt to highlight the skewed perception of risk involved in refusing to vax in the first place. If it's too risky to get your kid vaccinated, then surely its too risky for me to let my kid play with your kid.
From sarahz.:
--"The way people talk about 'vaccines' as if all of these chemical formulations are identical in terms of effectiveness, safety, or even color proves that we aren't dealing with science here, we are dealing with dogma."
Sorry. That pseudo-sophististicated mumbo-jumbo makes no difference. People who delay or refuse selective vaccinations for any life threatening vaccine preventable diseases are just as ignorant and irresponsible as those who reject all vaccines.--
Yep, Name calling does't really work. How is chemistry psuedo-sceintific??? ARe you really asserting that all vaccine formulations are identical? Then why issue separate patents, let alone lot numbers?
I consider those who accept all vaccines across the board without reading the package inserts or exercising meaningful informed consent to be ignorant and irresponsible and myopic.
And all y'all vaxers who don't want your children to play with non-vaxers . . . Have you considered that non-vaxers don't want their children to play with yours???
Especially those peope who do not consider vaccines a 'health event' requiring competent aftercare and those who would think nothing of vaccinating a child with a live virus (which may be shed) and then taking them out in public, I don't think y'all will find to may non-vaxers on your answering machine looking for playdates. LOL.
From Dianne:
And besides, illnesses like polio don't magically appear in nonvaccinated children,
No, they don't. But they do appear and spread like wildfire in unvaccinated population when those populations are exposed to them. Suppose an unvaccinated child travels to a place where polio is endemic. Or immigrates or visits from a place with endemic polio. S/he brings the virus back with him/her and it spreads through the community, killing and injuring children who are also unvaccinated or in whom the vaccine failed, because of the lack of herd immunity. This happened recently with measles (see post below, among others) and there is no particular reason to think that it would not happen with polio. If enough people refuse to vaccinate, it inevitably will.
From angela:
... even though the chance of their child getting an illness is similarly minute compared to the other risks their let their children take!
Argh! This is true only because everybody else does vaccinate! Which brings us back to the topic at hand ... (Duh!)
From angela:
There seems to be some confusion in this and the previous thread, stunningly enough, about whether anti-vax'ers are free riders or not. The argument proffered by the "natural" sympathetic crowd, seems to be that since these people do not *realize* they are free riders, somehow they're not, or that this ignorance excuses them.
Actually the whole problem is that most anti-vaccinationists *don't* see it as a free rider problem. They don't see it as a free rider problem because ... well, they can't (unless it's pointed out to them). I don't know how else to put it, but it's classic C student mentality.
I think most of the anti-vax crowd (excluding the people who don't vax for religious reasons, who will never change anyway) really think, reflexively, without much thought, that the diseases that vaccines are meant to prevent just aren't as big a danger as the vaccines themselves (indeed, they even fabricate fancy arguments in support of this belief), and they don't seem to know that the whole reason for that perfectly understandable (though wrong) impression is ... because of ... vaccines! (Duh! Light bulb? Head?)
Of course most anti-vaccinationists aren't malicious free riders. They're frankly free riders.
From Amanda:
angela - Exactly. A good analogy would be someone who was starving but when offered a bag of potato chips worried about the trans fats.
From Emma B:
But to then start vetting their friends' vaccination status is taking the fear a bit too far. Suppose children are not vaccinated for some legitimate medical reason?
Also, there's a difference between not wanting one's children to play with unvaccinated kids, and not wanting them to go to school with unvaccinated kids.
My children are too young to have real friends, but I hope that when they do, I'll be acquainted with their friends' mothers, and trust those mothers to pay attention to their children's health status and not to invite my kids over when their children are sick or have recently been around someone else who is.
I do not, however, trust all of the mothers of my kids' school or daycare classmates to keep their kids home from school when actively sick, let alone in a latent phase. The sheer number of kids, plus the close quarters of schools and daycares, means that the chances of catching something is much higher than from a small group of friends.
This goes for non-vaccination illnesses, too. A close friend's son was a preemie, and she was VERY concerned about RSV (although the child actually was vaccinated for that). She wouldn't send him to a daycare or church nursery, but she'd bring him over to visit me and my girls. However, she trusted me to tell her if the girls had any sniffles at all, or if they'd been around other kids who did. So, when my babies eventually caught RSV (and became quite ill, to the point of needing albuterol breathing treatments), we managed not to pass it on to her son. The mothers at the gym nursery, where my babies got it to begin with, obviously weren't that considerate.
From Susanne:
"Actually the whole problem is that most anti-vaccinationists *don't* see it as a free rider problem. They don't see it as a free rider problem because ... well, they can't (unless it's pointed out to them). I don't know how else to put it, but it's classic C student mentality. "
Hey! That's my phrase, Angela! *g*
(You're absolutely right. They really don't understand herd immunity.)
From Susanne:
"But they do appear and spread like wildfire in unvaccinated population when those populations are exposed to them. Suppose an unvaccinated child travels to a place where polio is endemic. Or immigrates or visits from a place with endemic polio. S/he brings the virus back with him/her and it spreads through the community, killing and injuring children who are also unvaccinated or in whom the vaccine failed, because of the lack of herd immunity. This happened recently with measles (see post below, among others) and there is no particular reason to think that it would not happen with polio. If enough people refuse to vaccinate, it inevitably will."
What part of this is so difficult, Sarahz? Do you not get that the measles outbreak referred to in Amy's post is EXACTLY what was predicted if vax rates fell below a certain level?
From Susanne:
OBs aren't the only nefarious evildoing medical professionals, pediatricians are paid drug salesmen, peddling these toxins for Big Pharma. The CDC and the WHO are in on it too!"
The WHO is BRILLIANT when it comes to touting the public health benefits of breastfeeding, but completely messed up when it comes to touting the public health benefits of vaccination! It'd be so funny if they weren't so transparent in how they pick and choose!
Clue: If you want to use science to support bfing advocacy, then that very same science supports vax advocacy. No two ways about it.
From Yehudit:
The WHO is BRILLIANT when it comes to touting the public health benefits of breastfeeding, but completely messed up when it comes to touting the public health benefits of vaccination! It'd be so funny if they weren't so transparent in how they pick and choose!
++++++++++
Are you suggesting that the WHO doesn't strongly support immunization programmes worldwide? In reality the WHO is amongst the strongest supporters of vaccination programmes (and so it should be).
From Erica:
I think Susanne was being sarcastic. She meant that the same people will cite the WHO breastfeeding recommendations but also think the WHO is involved in a vaccine conspirany (because they support vaccination).
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
The vaccine rejectionists who protest that they are not free-riders should ask themselves this question: what would happen if all parents did what they did?
Right now, the risks of rejecting vaccination are small because widespread vaccination keeps the incidence of the diseases very low. If you skip your child's polio vaccine, the risk of the child getting polio is very low. Let's suppose that everyone skipped the polio vaccination. In a very short time, polio, which can be imported into this country by travellers, would be endemic. The levels of polio would rise to what they were before vaccination, and the incidence of permanent paralysis and death would soar.
It is pretty clear that if everyone stopped vaccinating, the results would be a disaster of major proportions. There is a basic tenet of moral philosophy which tells us how to evaluate our actions. An action can only be morally justified if it would be appropriate for everyone to do it. So if it is not ethical for everyone to stop vaccinating, it is unethical for individual parents to stop vaccinating. Otherwise, they are free-riders.
From Miss Belle:
I think MOST vaccine rejectionists are NOT ignorant that if the disease were prevalent and deadly where they live or travel to that the scales might tip in favor of vaccination. I have read many people on the MDC boards ( which has a new intrapartum death story BTW ) say they choose to vaccinate because they live in an area with a large illegal immigrant population.
Surely there are also some who would travel to India or Africa and not vaccinate though I suspect you may need proof of vaccination to do so.
Also, we all know that although they are rare, there are a very small subset of children who do have serious vaccine reactions. I think on the web it is best to take someone at her word. If Kelley says her child had severe vaccine linked damage I feel she in no way falls into "free loader" status. Medicine is always evolving, and if I had a child who sadly was in the small percentage with a severe vaccine related problem I would be terrified to vaccinate subsequent children in case the predisposition to the reaction could be familial. She would not be in my mind a "free loader" it sounds like her child more than paid a price.
From Yehudit:
An action can only be morally justified if it would be appropriate for everyone to do it.
++++++++
Hmmm, okay. Where does that leave us with carbon emissions? You can only drive your car, run your large fridge-freezer, numerous energy-hungry appliances... if it is appropriate for every person on the planet to do the same? Aren't the freedoms enjoyed by most of us who live in industrialized countries completely predicated on the idea that others will not do as we do? Which is by way of saying - I'm not sure (on the basis of the philosophy outlined) the moral position of the non-vaccinator is any worse than the position of the western consumer/polluter. The difference being that one is (fortunately) marginal, the other (unfortunately) mainstream.
Disclaimer: people should vaccinate for their own good and for the good of others.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Yehudit,
"Where does that leave us with carbon emissions? You can only drive your car, run your large fridge-freezer, numerous energy-hungry appliances... if it is appropriate for every person on the planet to do the same?"
If you think that the world could not support everyone producing carbon emissions the way that we do, then, yes, is is not appropriate for us to do it.
I am paraphrasing Kant, by the way. One of Kant's most famous principles is "Act only on a maxim that you can will to be a universal law." In other words, it is only ethical for you to do something if it would be ethical for other people to do it as well.
From Yehudit:
In relation to chicken pox, there is also the issue of duration of immunity. Since chicken pox is more dangerous in adults than children, I would want to be satisfied that the vaccine offered immunity that was as long-lasting as immunity typically offered by the disease. This vaccine is not yet offered routinely in the UK, but is likely to be offered soon. I think most likely it will be offered to teenagers (perhaps along with vaccine vs. HPV) who have not acquired immunity through having the disease. This is the same way in which BCG (against TB) is offered here, except for areas of high prevalence, where it is offered to infants. This seems to me to be a good balance, unless/until the issues of duration of immunity are clarified - otherwise we risk simply replacing outbreaks of chicken pox in children with outbreaks in young adults.
From angela:
Susanne,
Hey! That's my phrase, Angela!
I know 
, and I love it, because it is so much kinder than ... the alternative ... I often want to say. *sigh*
From Yehudit:
I am paraphrasing Kant, by the way.
+++++++
I know.
From Lori:
This goes for non-vaccination illnesses, too. A close friend's son was a preemie, and she was VERY concerned about RSV (although the child actually was vaccinated for that). She wouldn't send him to a daycare or church nursery, but she'd bring him over to visit me and my girls. However, she trusted me to tell her if the girls had any sniffles at all, or if they'd been around other kids who did. So, when my babies eventually caught RSV (and became quite ill, to the point of needing albuterol breathing treatments), we managed not to pass it on to her son. The mothers at the gym nursery, where my babies got it to begin with, obviously weren't that considerate.
Oh, Emma, you really tore the scab off an old wound for me. 
I had to be unbelievably careful with RSV and my son for his first 2 winters. Even though there is an RSV vaccine, it actually only lessens the severity of RSV if contracted, doesn't prevent it. We were told in no uncertain terms that RSV could land my son back on a ventilator or worse. So not only did I vaccinate him for all the normal stuff and RSV, but I had to questions everybody that invited us anywhere or that was coming to our house like it was the Spanish Inquisition. There are some friends that I knew would be kind enough to keep their sick children home and tell me and then there are people who take their sick children everywhere. As such, we didn't even go to playgroups until Aidan was nearly 2.
I am rambling here, but it is difficult to be the parent of a kid who could have serious respiratory distress or death because somebody decided that I didn't need to know Jimmy has the sniffles because they are just the sniffles. ARRGH!
Ok...rant over.
From Vicky:
PLEASE can you all read Ben Eltons "Blind Faith" (fictional). It's HILARIOUS and you will all absolutely love it.
Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleeeeeeeeeeeeese!
(Hint: Vaccinators are demonised and work underground. Society is basically made up of people who are ignorant, mememememe and practise lots of magical thinking.)
From Carrie:
Well, I think it's funny how the people who vaccinate don't really have any reason why they do except that they just purely believe that vaccines work.
Well, non-vaxers believe that vaccines don't work the way you think they do. So what's the problem...can't we have our own opinion without have name-calling and vile.
And by the way whoever wrote this:
"If you are not willing to be civilly and criminally liable for YOUR FAILURE to protect other children from your unvaccinated children, get them vaccinated. There is a price we all pay for the space we take up, and nobody asked you if you like it."
Whoever said we had to pay a price to be on this earth with you or anyone else. There is nothing in our Constitution about vaxing. And do you know that the CDC has given families large settlements after children had adverse reactions to vaccines?
Or how about the vaccine testing that gets done in Africa where children die because Merck screws up?
Vaccines have not been happening for that long. If you want to protect the herd at the cost of your child...go ahead because no one knows which child will have a reaction but I'm not willing to make the gamble on scientific evidence because we only know what we know now.
And as a doctor, if amy can't acknowledge that medicine has had and does have a vast amount of flaws, she probably graduated at the bottom of her class.
Hey, what do you call a doctor who graduates at the bottom of their class?
A doctor!
Do you think they took mercury out of vaccines to make us free-riders happy. No, it was a major flaw. Hmmm, wonder which one they will find next?
In my personal opinion, if I was sitting on the fence about any issues on this blog, amy wouldn't convince me of anything because her responses are empty and she gives no sources for her yes' or nos'
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Carrie:
"non-vaxers believe that vaccines don't work the way you think they do."
That's hardly a newsflash. Vaccine rejectionists don't know how vaccines work. They don't understand immunology. They don't understand basic science. They don't understand statistics. They are ignorant, gullible, and entirely unaware that they are ignorant and gullible.
Some laws are necessary to protect the rest of us from the ignorant and gullible, since there is little to no chance that they will ever understand or even make an effort to understand immunology, basic science or statistics. You've just offered a demonstration.
From Antigonos:
Vaccines have not been happening for that long.
~~~Roughly 200 years, for smallpox. Less for other diseases.
From Susanne:
"Well, non-vaxers believe that vaccines don't work the way you think they do. So what's the problem...can't we have our own opinion without have name-calling and vile."
Because we're not talking about what is the best movie around, in which case your opinion is as valid as mine and there is no quantifiable data. We're talking about something that can be empirically determined, and has.
I can have an "opinion" that 2+2=17 or that the square root of 9 is 4; that doesn't make my opinion worthy of listening to, and it doesn't make it equally as valid as the person who says that 2+2=4 and the square root of 9 is 3.
From Caryn:
So what's the problem...can't we have our own opinion
Certainly you are entitled to your own opinion. Everyone has a right to free speech. But the right to hold an opinion does not imply the right to hold an opinion without criticism.
Some opinions are wrong.
Some people sincerely believe, based on the evidence they accept, that the Earth is flat. They're entitled to their opinion. And other people are entitled to argue with them, mock them, and generally attempt to both a) change their minds with reference to the best available science b) change their minds using other debate tactics, such as humor and sarcasm, and c) convince other people of exactly why it is that the claim that the Earth is flat is wrong.
Whoever said we had to pay a price to be on this earth with you or anyone else.
Social contract theory. You know, the stuff the authors of the Constitution were accepting as grounds for writing the laws of the land.
From Antigonos:
Do you think they took mercury out of vaccines to make us free-riders happy. No, it was a major flaw. Hmmm, wonder which one they will find next?
~~~Actually, there is no REAL evidence that thimerosal caused ANY complications. And in the five years that it has NOT been in vaccines, the amount of autism has increased, not decreased, which would be the case if it was associated with vaccines. BTW, all the current evidence--not speculation--points to a genetic link from the father's side, irrespective of getting or not getting vaccinated.
From Susanne:
"BTW, all the current evidence--not speculation--points to a genetic link from the father's side, irrespective of getting or not getting vaccinated."
Did anyone see the article (I'm not recalling the magazine, but it's a major one) about the sperm donor who was responsible for fathering something like a dozen or so children by different women, and there is a high rate of autism among those children because of the genetic link back to him?
From Dianne:
Well, I think it's funny how the people who vaccinate don't really have any reason why they do except that they just purely believe that vaccines work.
The "belief" that vaccines work is based on well controlled clinical trials demonstrating their efficacy and, ultimately, changes in infectious disease rates in the population. For example, small pox. For hundreds of years it was the dreaded scourge of humanity or at least Europe and then, even moreso, the Americas. After an effective vaccination program was put in place it became...extinct except in the laboratory.
Measles is actually an almost perfect controlled experiment. When almost everyone vaccinated, it virtually disappeared. Now, when people are "skeptical" of vaccination, it is making a comeback.
Vaccines that aren't demonstrated to be safe and effective either never come to market or are withdrawn as soon as the problem is discovered. If it were all about profit and whatever sinister conspiracy anti-vaxers believe is out there, there would be several HIV vaccines available. None of them would work (several have made it as far as clinical trials and failed, unfortunately), but they'd be around. They might even be mandated due to "big pharma" lobbying. But they aren't. Why not? Because they don't work. And vaccines--or drugs--that don't work don't become part of standard of medical care. Or if they do--doctors like everyone else, screw up sometimes--they get withdrawn when it is clear that they are ineffective or unsafe. Or changes are made in the way they are given.
Take measles as an example again. The link between autism and the MMR is nonexistent. However, there is a very rare (I think on the order of 1 in 2 million, but I may be wrong) but very serious adverse effect in which children, mostly boys, begin having neurological degeneration after the MMR. Once this correlation was established, the schedule was changed so that the MMR was given at 12-18 months instead of 6-12 months as previously. And that particular horrible effect disappeared. (Incidentally, the same effect can and does occur, more frequently, with a "natural" case of the measles. So this adverse effect, horrible as it was was never a reason to refuse the vaccine.)
So, the belief that vaccines do not work is based on...what? Show adequate evidence of risk or ineffectiveness and you'll probably convince everyone here, Dr. Tuteur included.
From Dianne:
And in the five years that it has NOT been in vaccines, the amount of autism has increased, not decreased,
It's not entirely clear that the incidence of autism is increasing over recent time at all. It may be changes in diagnosis. For example, I remember reading a paper (I'll try to find it if you're interested) which demonstrated that the incidence of autism + mental retardation was stable over time, suggesting that children who would previously have been incorrectly diagnosed as mentally retarded are now (hopefully correctly) being diagnosed as autistic. There may also be an increase in the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome and pervesive developmental disorder as doctors become aware of the diagnosis. There's probably a bit of the "disease of the month" phenomenon going on, similar to ADHD a decade ago, but most of the diagnoses are probably legit.
From Dianne:
Do you think they took mercury out of vaccines to make us free-riders happy.
Yes, I do. Thimerosal was removed from vaccines due to political pressure, not due to any evidence of it being dangerous. Ok, there was the danger that if it were left in more parents would refuse to vaccinate their children because of anti-vax propaganda leaving them vulnerable to infectious disease, but that isn't the same as a danger of the vaccine itself.
No, it was a major flaw.
And the evidence that it did any harm to anyone is???
From Susanne:
... Some mommy with a B in high school biology who read it on Teh Interwebz?
From Susanne:
Add polio to the list in your excellent post, Dianne.
From Questioner:
What do you think about delaying vaccinations? I know several moms who don't forgo faxing but only do one or two shots at a time.
From Dianne:
Susanne: Thanks. I could also have mentioned hepatitis A and B the incidence of both of which is decreasing in children since routine vaccination was instituted.
From A Sarah:
"Hey, what do you call a doctor who graduates at the bottom of their class?
A doctor!"
Snicker. Yes, and what do you call someone who takes piano lessons for ten years but never once plays in Carnegie Hall? Someone who knows how to play a piano. Which means that, even if they were the worst student at their music school, they - when compared to someone who has never seen a piano before - are WAY MORE LIKELY to be able to sit down at the piano and have some idea of what they're doing, rather than just banging randomly with their pointy-fingers.
Oh, wait, was that not the point of the joke?
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Questioner:
"What do you think about delaying vaccinations?"
It only serves to put their children and other people's children at increased risk. Those who delay vaccination also don't understand immunology, science or statistics.
From Another Amy:
People who delay or refuse selective vaccinations for any life threatening vaccine preventable diseases are just as ignorant and irresponsible as those who reject all vaccines.
What constitutes "life-threatening"? Is every disease on the CDC schedule really life-threatening? Is every disease other than chicken pox?
And again, it's the blanket labeling of everyone who undertakes an action to which you object. Do you honestly see no difference between the crunchier-than-thou MDC mamma type who reads on a few places that "OMGZ vaxing is TEH EVIL" and decides not to vax (along with rejecting most or all modern medicine), and the parents who have religious or even philosophical objections to certain ingredients, and think, "Yes, we know we're putting our child at risk for contracting/transmitting certain diseases but are willing to quarantine them in the event of an outbreak."
Not everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot, and not everyone who disagrees with you does so for the same reasons.
From carrie:
I'm going to say this and then I'm out of this discussion because I really don't believe that even doctors completely understand immunology or how vaccines affect the body of an infant.
How can you say homebirthers set up research to look good for us, yet believe that medical researchers don't? Do you know each of them individually and the ethics they follow? I think not.
Well, my doctor who is not crunchy by any means had a discussion with me about vaccines and agreed that we don't really know that much about them. And he could sit down and "play doctor" with some sort of idea of what he is doing, just like dr. amy.
So once again, it's just an opinion.
And BTW, measles was already on a decline in the 70's when the vax came out for it.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
carrie:
"And BTW, measles was already on a decline in the 70's when the vax came out for it"
Measles was declining in the 70's because the vaccine was introduced in 1963. If you can't be bothered to learn even the most basic facts about vaccination and if you are so gullible as to believe even the most obvious falsehoods about vaccination, you can't possibly make an informed decision about vaccination. Your children, and other people's children could suffer because of your ignorance.
From Chris:
Ahhh another case of "I am leaving this conversation." Drink up girls!!
From Antigonos:
[Dianne]It's not entirely clear that the incidence of autism is increasing over recent time at all. It may be changes in diagnosis.
~~~Yes, this is quite true. Orac on Respectful Insolence writes extensively on the widening criteria for "autism" that inflates the figures. But in any case, there is a whole generation of preschoolers who have not been injected with thimerosal AT ALL and "autism" still flourishes. If mercury/thimerosal were the culprit, we should see a drastic reduction.
From Caryn:
Carrie, physicists don't entirely understand how *fire* works. It doesn't keep us from using it, and someone with the opinion that we shouldn't use fire until we completely understood all of the possible implications of it would be justly ignored.
Some opinions map reality better than other opinions. The opinion that the Earth is flat is not "just an opinion", but also false. Why do we know that it's false? Well, when ships sail towards the horizon the last part to disappear is the mast. The shadow of the Earth on the Moon during an eclipse is round. Different stars appear at different latitudes. And we've got photos from space. A belief that the Earth is flat fails to account for these facts. Thus it is a poorer map of reality.
What evidence have you got that suggests that harm from vaccines outweighs the good from vaccines? Post it, please.
From Antigonos:
Did you know that when I went to school there were NO children with dyslexia?? Therefore it must be an entirely new condition, the result of some environmental toxin or a variety of vaccination that didn't exist in the 1950s! Quelle horreur! Maybe--wait for it, it's all clear now--dyslexia is entirely due to PCs, because there weren't any of those in the Fifties either! Or radiation from microwave ovens.
Of course dyslexia existed in the Fifties; but kids who had it were just called "stupid" [like The Fonz, Henry Winkler, who never finished high school]. Autism isn't caused by vaccination any more than it's caused by gamma rays from Mars. In fact, the entire "autism spectrum" is a grab bag of newly recognized "conditions", some of which probably aren't even pathologies, just normal human variations. Everything's got to be a disease these days. I was bored out of my mind in school because I learned to read spontaneously at age 3 and finished the reading text that was supposed to last me a full school year in the first weekend I had it, so I sat and fidgeted in class for the rest of the year. Today I'd be ADD, ADHD, and a bunch of other letters, and up to my eyeballs in medication. I'm lousy in arithmetic; today that must be a syndrome of some sort, probably traceable to drinking too much milk [calcification of the brain, doncha know?]
From Dianne:
Is every disease on the CDC schedule really life-threatening? Is every disease other than chicken pox?
Chicken pox can be life-threatening. And teratogenic. All the diseases on the CDC schedule are more life-threatening than the vaccine designed to prevent them. Notice what's not on the CDC schedule? Small pox. Why is it not there? Because at a certain point (sorry, I don't know the exact year...early 1970s I think) more people were dying or being harmed by the vaccine than were dying or being harmed by the disease. If measles, mumps, and rubella disappear or are contained worldwide to the point that the vaccine becomes more dangerous than the disease, the MMR will disappear from the routine schedule as well. (The same could be said for polio and other diseases with no non-human resevoirs).
From Alex:
Chicken pox can be fatal in healthy children, I think the mortality rate is something like 1 per 100,000, but it's especially dangerous in preemies and kids who are immunocompromised (and thus not candidates for vaccination). Widely vaccinating against it reduces the number of vectors who might spread it to those most vulnerable to serious morbidity and mortality.
From Susanne:
I'm going to say this and then I'm out of this discussion because I really don't believe that even doctors completely understand immunology or how vaccines affect the body of an infant."
Is there a field of medicine (or of science for that matter) that has been so completely studied that there is *no new information to be learned, ever?
From Dianne:
Is there a field of medicine (or of science for that matter) that has been so completely studied that there is *no new information to be learned, ever?
Gross anatomy may be getting pretty close.
From I'm not stupid:
Some people think the earth is flat?
We don't know the way fire works?
These are the things you guys are using to back up your choices?
So glad I'm not in your boat!
Measles vax was introduced in the 60's but was not widely used.
There are books written by doctors, yes, doctors that oppose amy's opinion.
From chris:
"There are books written by doctors, yes, doctors that oppose amy's opinion."
Yes, there are. I disagree with Doctors every day. And do you know how we solve our differences? Statistics and Research. Like it or not.
From I'm not stupid:
Well, I like the research that I have read and that means I won't vax. Like it or not, right?
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
I'm not stupid:
"I like the research that I have read and that means I won't vax."
Right. You are making an unethical decision and taking advantage of others by being a free rider, all because you "like" what you have read. You clearly have no idea whether or not it is true, but you "like" it. That's supposed to convince us that you are not stupid? Better try again.
From Susanne:
"Well, I like the research that I have read and that means I won't vax. Like it or not, right?"
i'mnotstupid --
Do you know what herd immunity is? Do you not believe in it, or just not care?
From Alex:
Well, I like the research that I have read and that means I won't vax. Like it or not, right?
This is why I feel that vaccination should be compulsory. You can't reason with some people, and they just can't be compelled to do the right thing. A good proportion of parents will not be willing to vaccinate their children unless there is zero risk from vaccination, which of course is not possible. At the very least, I think that schools should uphold mandatory vaccination, with exemptions only allowed for religious reasons or health contraindications. Exemptions for philosophical or personal beliefs are a slippery slope. And I hope to see parents who do vaccinate taking the non-vaxers to civil court when their kids are infected by non-vaxed kids. Does anyone know of a situation where this has already occurred?
From I'm not stupid:
Okay, change my 'like' for 'I believe' in the research I've read that votes against vaxing.
If the U.S. ever comes to a point where we are forced to stick needles and drug newborns with immunizations....we will no longer be a free country.
I'm sure you all enjoy your freedom here yet you are trying to 'force' something on other people...not possible in the U.S.
And as far as herd immunity, like pp's if you guys are stupid enough to go along with that than call me a free-rider all you want because you guys are just conformists.
From Susanne:
"And as far as herd immunity, like pp's if you guys are stupid enough to go along with that than call me a free-rider all you want because you guys are just conformists."
What, do you not believe in herd immunity?
From Susanne:
i'm not stupid --
Now we get it. It doesn't matter what facts are -- it's just not cool to be a conformist! If everyone says the earth is round, just be a non-conformist and say it's flat!
From Caryn:
These are the things you guys are using to back up your choices?
Goodness, no. These are examples which show that the anti-vax arguments posted above are bad arguments.
Specifically,
1) I addressed the claim that all opinions are equally good and worthy of respect with the observation that some people have the opinion that the Earth is flat and this opinion is clearly false and not worth respect. Simply *holding* an opinion does not mean anything about whether or not the opinion is true, and people holding dumb opinions can expect to be challenged on them.
2) I addressed the claim that we shouldn't be vaccinating because we don't fully understand how vaccination works with the observation that we don't fully understand how fire works, either, but we are not about to stop using it.
Those are *awful* arguments on the part of the anti-vaccinators, and I've yet to see any data posted in support of their claims. Please post the data supporting the claim that the harm from vaccines outweighs the benefit from them.
From Squillo:
I'm not stupid:
Care to cite any of the research you mentioned?
"And as far as herd immunity, like pp's if you guys are stupid enough to go along with that" [snip]
For clarification, are we stupid to believe in herd immunity, or stupid to "go along with" vaccinating to sustain it?
From Caryn:
I'm sure you all enjoy your freedom here yet you are trying to 'force' something on other people...not possible in the U.S.
False. The government forces people to do things they don't want to do all the time, like paying taxes, in support of the general interest. They have also historically quarantined people in the event of disease outbreaks, whether or not they wanted to go.
In liberal democracies, the state has to be able to *justify* the use of state power in this way, and with vaccinations they do that by pointing to the rate of death in the absence of vaccination and the rate of death in the presence of vaccination.
From Susanne:
"False. The government forces people to do things they don't want to do all the time, like paying taxes, in support of the general interest."
Or stopping at red lights and stop signs and driving under a certain speed, for that matter. I know it's conformist and all.
From I'm not stupid:
As a whole, the benefits of vaccines are greater. I'm not arguing that. But for my children, the benefits don't outweigh the risks of them having a adverse reaction.
I'm not going to vax my child just to make sure that "just in case" there is an outbreak the herd will be okay.
end of conversation because I'm not going to change and you probably won't either.
From Caryn:
But for my children, the benefits don't outweigh the risks of them having a adverse reaction.
The risks are the same for your children and mine. And a rational person would choose the risks of the vaccine over the risks of the disease the vaccine is designed to prevent.
From Susanne:
"I'm not going to vax my child just to make sure that "just in case" there is an outbreak the herd will be okay."
You don't get it. The chance of an outbreak occurring is not a static thing. By not vaxing, you are INCREASING THE CHANCE that there will be an outbreak in the first place. Do you know that? Or do you not care?
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
I'm not stupid:
"I'm not going to vax my child just to make sure that "just in case" there is an outbreak the herd will be okay."
Right. We understand. You are going to do whatever you think will protect YOUR child, even if it is at the expense of everyone else's children. That's what it means to be a free-rider. You are willing to accept the benefit (the low chance of an outbreak, which is low only because of widespread vaccination), but you feel that you can foist the risk of complications on everyone else. That's unethical.
From I'm not stupid:
"Right. We understand. You are going to do whatever you think will protect YOUR child, even if it is at the expense of everyone else's children. That's what it means to be a free-rider. You are willing to accept the benefit (the low chance of an outbreak, which is low only because of widespread vaccination), but you feel that you can foist the risk of complications on everyone else. That's unethical."
Ha! straight from the doctors mouth.
From I'm not stupid:
I mean the part about the risks.
From I'm not stupid:
I have to say, I don't think I'm going to blog here because I find dr. amy extremely annoying. She doesn't have much fact and her comments are vile rather than someone who would even try to educate those that she thinks are mislead.
From Alex:
I have to say, I don't think I'm going to blog here because I find dr. amy extremely annoying. She doesn't have much fact and her comments are vile rather than someone who would even try to educate those that she thinks are mislead.
Not Stupid,
It's interesting that you say Dr. Amy "doesn't have much fact". You have presented zero evidence to support your claims. I think your retreat has much more to do with your lack of ability to defend your position than with how annoying Dr. Amy is.
Also, the Supreme Court has ruled on several occasions that required vaccination by the state is permissible, and that “the very concept of ordered liberty precludes allowing every person to make his own standards on matters of conduct in which the society as a whole has important interests.”
From CY:
I'm not stupid: "But for my children, the benefits don't outweigh the risks of them having a adverse reaction."
Just to clarify - why do you think your children, in particular, are at increased risk for adverse vax reaction? Are their immune systems compromised in some way? Or are you honestly unaware that by not vaxing your child you are in fact relying on the rest of our children to keep your children healthy? Do you consider vaccination a conspiracy of some kind or do you simply distrust medical science in general?
From Caryn:
You do realize that it takes very few unvaccinated members of a population to completely screw up the herd immunity and raise the rate at which the disease occurs in the population?
If enough people make the choice not to vaccinate their children, the commons collapses. Hence the ongoing measles outbreak. The risk to unvaccinated children is rising, and may, in the case of measles, already have risen above the relative risk of the vaccine. (Anyone here have numbers?)
I always wonder if those without vaccinations are prepared to shoulder the financial costs that would accrue to them if the government *did* need to enforce a quarantine. What would happen to your family if you couldn't go to work for three weeks? After SARS, the fed and state governments beefed up their ability to enact and enforce quarantine explicitly because they expect a severe disease outbreak (the type of disease is, of course, unknown) requiring quarantine for the usual public health reasons.
From Em:
Everyone stop feeding the troll!
From Katie:
You know DA, by your logic, if I were told that I had to kill my children to save all the children in my city, I should kill my children. For the greater good, you know. Would you do that? Would you kill you children if it would save 100,000 other children?
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Katie:
"For the greater good, you know."
That's not what I've said or what anyone has said, but it's much easier to pretend that it is.
Here's what I have said: Vaccines are known to have risks. We fully anticipate that some children will be harmed by vaccines. Most people vaccinate their children knowing this, because the benefits overwhelm the risks. Vaccine rejectionists take the benefit, but refuse to participate in the risks. That is unethical.
From Katie:
You say they don't participate in the risks, but by the very act of refusing the vaccine they are, and if they are properly informed, they can't pretend their kid isn't more at risk than other kids should an outbreak occur. That they are betting no outbreak will occur or that their kid won't get exposed isn't that much different to the parents who risk the adverse reaction. This was a point of great frustration for me with some of these vaccines. The chances that my girl will get exposed to polio are very, very, very slim, much like the adverse reactions happen very, very rarely. Honestly, I crossed my fingers and hoped that I wouldn't be one of those one in a million mothers whose child has an adverse reaction. She hasn't had an adverse reaction yet (beyond the normal swelling and soreness), but I still smart that I exposed her to that risk to protect her from another risk which is similarly highly unlikely. I didn't have the same problem with other vaccines because she is that much more likely to contract the illness, and that same logic led me to turn down the hep B vaccine until she is much older. It's all a game of chance.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Katie:
"You say they don't participate in the risks, but by the very act of refusing the vaccine they are, and if they are properly informed, they can't pretend their kid isn't more at risk than other kids should an outbreak occur."
They don't share the risks that come from vaccinating. They do share the benefit because the chance that they will be exposed to the disease is dramatically lower when everyone else vaccinates. Taking the benefits, but foisting the risks on others is unethical.
From Esther:
Katie, you might want to see this as well:
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/im...ion/
compare.htm
From Homebirthing Mama:
Do you have any idea what you're injecting into your children's bodies when you have them vaccinated? You're putting them at great risks. Vaccination is a conspiracy.
From Susanne:
That's right. Look at the black helicopters circling overhead. Elvis is still alive.
Would it be better if everyone stopped vaccinating tomorrow and all these diseases came back, Homebirthing Mama? Want to take your chances with polio? Even measles and mumps are killers, you know.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Homebirthing Mama:
"You're putting them at great risks. Vaccination is a conspiracy."
Vaccine rejectionism is the flat earth theory of the 21st century. It is a product of basic ignorance and fundmental misunderstanding, just like the insistence that the earth is flat.
From Squillo:
"Vaccination is a conspiracy."
To paraphrase Woody Allen, as conspiracies go, it's one of my favorites.
From A Sarah:
"Do you have any idea what you're injecting into your children's bodies when you have them vaccinated? You're putting them at great risks. Vaccination is a conspiracy."
Who is doing the conspiring? To what end? How does it benefit them? And how do you know this to be true?
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
A Sarah:
"Who is doing the conspiring? To what end? How does it benefit them? And how do you know this to be true?"
Great questions! I would add one more: Are we supposed to believe that doctors, immunologists and vaccine manufacturers are willing to vaccinate their children even though they know vaccines to be dangerous?
From Homebirthing Mama:
Actually, there are many doctors who vaccinate other children but not their own. I'm not going to argue with you over this. We each have our own opinions. I just want you all to know that I have educated myself on both sides of the vaccination issue. Have any of you looked at the other side? All parents should educate themselves and then decide what is right for their families. Whether it is to vaccinate or not, it's all about education and personal choice.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Homebirthing Mama:
"Actually, there are many doctors who vaccinate other children but not their own."
Really? If there are "many" than it should be easy for you to name a few. On the other hand, if you are simply making it up (as you almost certainly are), you won't be able to name any.
"I just want you all to know that I have educated myself on both sides of the vaccination issue."
LOLOL. You don't have a clue. What makes this ignorance especially dangerous is that you know so little, you actually think that you know about vaccination. I'd be willing to bet that you cannot even explain how the immune system works, let alone the biochemistry of vaccination.
I'll go out on a limb here, and bet that you have no formal education in science, and that you have no degree beyond a high school diploma. You have never read a single scientific paper from start to finish and you wouldn't understand it even if you did. Your "knowledge" is acquired from websites and books written specifically for gullible lay people like you.
From Esther:
Homebirthingmama:"Have any of you looked at the other side? (of the vaccination debate)"
I've more than looked at it. It's a cesspool of ignorance, stupidity and paranoia.
From Susanne:
"We each have our own opinions."
Again, if we're talking about favorite movies, your opinion is just as valid as mine. There are such things as scientific facts, though. There IS gravity. The earth revolves around the sun.
Do you understand that if enough people don't vaccinate, the diseases come back? Do you accept that as fact, or not?
From Mama Liberty:
"Are we supposed to believe that doctors, immunologists and vaccine manufacturers are willing to vaccinate their children even though they know vaccines to be dangerous?"
Well, I can't comment on vaccines, specifically, but I do have a family member who is a pharma rep. She says there is a running joke among reps that they do things to stay healthy because they don't want to have to use the drugs they are selling. Many doctors rely on pharma reps (this family member sells oncology drugs) to present new research, so if the pharma companies know something and keep it hidden, chances are the doctors are going to be none the wiser. And something like 50% or greater of articles in medical journals are ghosted by those on the payroll of pharma companies. I'm not saying there is a grand conspiracy. I'm just saying that there is a way things work in the medical industry and dangers don't come to light very easily or quickly.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Mama Liberty:
"I'm just saying that there is a way things work in the medical industry and dangers don't come to light very easily or quickly."
I find this statement very difficult to reconcile with your oft expressed opposition to consumer protection laws like those for licensing of medical professionals. If you believe that medical industries and professionals are inherently dishonest, shouldn't you favor even stronger protections for consumers?
"And something like 50% or greater of articles in medical journals are ghosted by those on the payroll of pharma companies."
I don't know if the number is anywhere near that high, but that certainly does happen. That's why you must actually read a scientific paper, and analyze the data in order to know whether the claims are true. In addition, authors should be (and already are) required to declare any competeing interests.
This is one of the primary criticisms of the Johnson and Daviss BMJ 2005 paper. Johnson should have declared his affiliation with MANA and Daviss should have declared that she is a homebirth midwife. Instead, they hid those facts behind unrelated job titles.
From Mama Liberty:
"I find this statement very difficult to reconcile with your oft expressed opposition to consumer protection laws like those for licensing of medical professionals."
Hopefully I'll be able to reply in more full detail a bit later, but in simple terms complicated regulations lead to complicated efforts to circumvent those regulations. Take Enron, for example. I believe the Enron debacle was able to take place because there is too much regulation of the energy markets. The knee jerk reaction is to think there wasn't enough regulation. I believe a free market favors transparency and information.
"If you believe that medical industries and professionals are inherently dishonest"
I don't think the medical industries and professionals are inherently dishonest. I think the *system* favors dishonesty. Believe it or not, I have a great a great deal of respect and admiration for modern medicine and its practitioners. And I think we could accomplish much more if we remove the shackles. But that means removing the shackles for everyone, including midwives and alternative practitioners.
"That's why you must actually read a scientific paper, and analyze the data in order to know whether the claims are true."
You left out another important piece. You have to know what is missing as well. Pharma companies have the option to withhold unfavorable research.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Mama Liberty:
"I believe the Enron debacle was able to take place because there is too much regulation of the energy markets"
It's not an opinion issue. On what factual basis do you believe the Enron debacle occured because of too much regulation?
From Mama Liberty:
"It's not an opinion issue."
Yes, it is Amy. The why of major events is usually up for debate. Especially in situations where there are many variables.
"On what factual basis do you believe the Enron debacle occured because of too much regulation?"
It is a fact that the energy markets are highly regulated. Let's start there. Do you agree with that statement?
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Mama Liberty:
"Let's start there. Do you agree with that statement?"
No.
That's not the place to start anyway. What specific crimes occurred. You need to start there.
From Mama Liberty:
"That's not the place to start anyway. What specific crimes occurred. You need to start there."
You can't tell me where to start when I am making my argument. Unless you are a mind reader, you don't know what argument I am going to make and how I am going to support my argument. If you want to have a real discussion, fine. But if not, let's move on.
From Alex:
"Many doctors rely on pharma reps (this family member sells oncology drugs) to present new research, so if the pharma companies know something and keep it hidden, chances are the doctors are going to be none the wiser."
I don't think this is true, and if some physicians truly "rely" on pharm reps for the information they use to make clinical decisions, that is poor practice indeed. There's nothing a drug rep can tell most of the doctors that I know that they themselves do not know in greater depth. Drug reps are not pharmacologists, they are sales people, most of whom have a baccalaureate degree in something not related to health sciences. Those with health sciences backgrounds are not nearly as educated as physicians or researchers. As Amy says, it's not possible to understand "the research" unless you read the entire study yourself, and have the necessary education and intellect to understand what you are reading. I think most physicians read the research for themselves, and are not simply spoon-fed the spiel of the reps. That said, I have mixed feelings about pharmaceutical marketing practices, because it's clear that the marketing does influence prescribing habits. Of course the pharmaceutical companies want to turn a big profit, but turning out bad drugs that are poorly researched will not be profitable in the long run. It's in the best interest of Big Pharma to produce a product that is safe and effective. The free-market system is really in the best interest of the consumer too, in my opinion. We take for granted the advances of the last few decades and what pharmaceuticals have done to improve and save the lives of many many people. Pharm companies have produced a huge number of great products in a short time, and they have to market their products, because without cash flowing in they wouldn't be able to produce new drugs.
And I really do sound like a shill for Big Pharma now. I'm laughing at myself.
From Amy Tuteur, MD:
Mama Liberty:
"But if not, let's move on."
Backpedaling already?
From Mama Liberty:
"Backpedaling already?"
No. Baiting are we?
From Susanne:
OK you two, I really would like to hear Mama Liberty's argument and judge for myself!
From Esther:
What Alex said.
And if I were a drug rep, I wouldn't want to use the meds I'm pushing either, not because they're bad meds, but because who wants to be sick enough to need them?
From Susanne:
Yeah, no kidding. What a dumb comment. Duh, no drug rep wants to be sick enough to use the meds that the company prescribes.
Commenting by HaloScan
