Wow, reading up on the arguments between the pro-vaccination folks and the anti-vaccination folks, interspersed with the folks that just want to bring some common sense into the matter, has become a time consuming task. Here’s a great article titled “An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us” at Wired.com that actually is a pretty weak article; but provides a great source of information (and some amazingly incoherent rants) in the comments. I completely disagree with the article and think it looks like a pretty naive puff-piece for pro-vaccine folks (FUD), but what do I know?
Pretty good reading, if you are into the topic of vaccination.
My favorite comment is this one (Posted by: LizP | 10/23/09 | 10:59 am), which pretty much sums up my opinion on the matter:
Ignorance abounds…There is NO way to know from whence your illness arises – people are contageous LONG before they exhibit symptoms of disease! People all around you, who appear entirely healthy (including individuals who have been fully vaccinated), are shedding bacteria and virus’ with every cough, sneeze, and spittle-drenched “p.” WAKE UP! There are not enough vaccines in the world to prevent you from getting sick. What prevents you from getting sick from your exposure to all of the “bugs” is your intact immune system, good health derived from unpolluted whole foods, pure water, ample rest, and regular exercise, practicing hand-washing excellence, avoiding close contact with obviously ill people, and keeping your hands off of your face and out of your ears! Just because you choose to down Big Gulps full of corn syrup, devour food-like processed and “enriched” products, and couch-camp, rather than avail yourself of good health practices, don’t expect me pollute my body to possibly lessen YOUR risk; your lousy health outcomes, regarding virus’ and bacteria will be a direct result of your own conscious decisions. Further, for those of you who feel opting-out of some or all vaccines should disqualify families from receiving medical care and health insurance — think very carefully, it is our healthy families, paying into the insurance pool and NOT USING regular medical care, who are carrying the burden of your pharmaceutical lifestyle on our backs. Without us, the risk-pool is far deeper and your costs will sky-rocket! If we were not paying outrageous premiums, for insurance which we don’t use, we would have plenty of cash to pay out-of-pocket for emergency care, in the event of an accident.
Note to site owner: Please turn on some sort of formatting capabilities in your comments – these huge jumbles of copy are tough to read and make all the responses look a bit hastily written.
So what’s your take? Is there a logical, reasoned angle that everyone will hopefully find, one way or the other? Or are there too many competing interests that don’t have our well-being as their top priority to allow that to happen?
I'm Mitch, and this is my blog. I tend to blow the whole thing up and relaunch using a completely different platform every 90 days or so. You can learn more about me on my social site stuff (see links below) and by reading about me on this here site.
your snip that “pretty much sums up my opinion on the matter:” is pretty lame. Get kids vaccinated and if there isn’t enough vaccine, be more cautious than a usual flu season.
I approved the comment – but would like to know if anyone out there would like to comment with substance?
Gotta do better than just call me “lame”. Bueller? Bueller?
The comment by LizP makes some fair comments IF and only IF you are living in an environment where you do have access to “unpolluted whole foods, pure water…”
Even in a supposedly developed country like your own they are luxuries that a significant percentage of the population do not have.
I’m not saying that this means we should vaccinate instead of working to improve diet, clean water etc you need to do both.
Here in the UK we have over the last few years experienced a significant drop in the takeup of the MMR combined vaccine (due to some flawed research) and as a result the UK is now seeing a rise in the number of cases of Rubella. A disease that had almost disappeared in he UK.
Ok lame isn’t good enough. I added as my url a story I posted that had practical advice for folks in my neighborhood. http://kicktime.org/story/2009/10/16/21547/214 Perhaps you didn’t follow that. Specifically, the analysis you snipped over-emphasizes the live healthier and you won’t get sick rhetoric. Yes, of course live a healthier lifestyle, but also subscribe to the germ theory that would advocate immunization against this virus. We don’t need the waters muddied with this kind of coverage.
Sorry Lynn, I don’t follow. Are you advocating us blindly shooting up with whatever our good friends at the pharmaceutical multinationals brew up?
That’s the point of my blog post in the first place: On the one side are people that think we need to flee into the woods naked and eat nothing but dirt; and on the other side are folks that think pills and shots will keep us young, healthy, happy and beautiful (reminds me of WALL-E actually). Both extremes are nuts.
Where’s the middle ground? If balance is to be found, then the “rhetoric” you infer needs to be cleared up from both sides – as the shinola is every bit as strong from the pro-vaccine folks. Surely you must see that.
Is this rhetoric?
George Carlin once did a skit about how as kids they used to swim in the dirty Hudson River. Actually, here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s
Now while that was a skit, I think it does have some basis in truth. There needs to be a balance… High risk patients (YOUNG children, the elderly and those with diminished immune systems) should definitely be vaccinated. But why should healthy people (who would normally survive the flu anyway) have to be subject to it? If it’s to “stop the spread”, that’s a farce…
The “superspreader” theory has been disproved (That’s the one that says there are some people who are in contact with a lot of other people, and they will carry the disease around to all the others). The current flu vaccine strategy (vaccinate 50% of the population) is based around that theory. Vaccinate the movers (which is why they recommend that parents and anyone in contact with large numbers of potentially sick people get vaccinated), and you’ll stop the spread. But have you ever noticed how the flu comes around anyway?
Brian hits on a key point… Vaccination will only work to ELIMINATE a threat if it’s 100% applied. This is the case with MMR, or Small Pox or even Varcirella (Chicken Pox). As long as those vaccines are given ubiquitously, the diseases will all but die out… But, as Brian points out, if it’s not 100%, the diseases will still fight back…
So why not just make enough flu vaccine for the entire country? Well, first off a lot goes into the making of the vaccine… Secondly, there are many strains of flu, and they are constantly evolving (which is why you need a new shot every year). Getting vaccinated isn’t even a 100% guarantee that you won’t get infected… In fact, a recent study showed that it may not have any affect at all on mortality rates:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200911/brownlee-h1n1
Are there risks with the vaccine? Minimal I’m sure (We’ve all heard horror stories, but how many people that you know first hand had one?)… So why not get it? Well, for me personally, I don’t see the need… And without a need, I’m not putting any pathogens inside my body. Actually, unless I (or society) will distinctly benefit from taking anything (even an aspirin), I won’t. I’m not against medicine or any forms of treatment. I’m against the abuse and overuse of them.
In fact, the overuse and abuse of anti-biotics has cause the development of pathogen strains resistant to them. So the logic behind this is take a disease that we could easily fight off ourselves, but take a drug to get over it faster. This in turn creates a new pathogen which is more resistant to that drug. Then, over time, that pathogen can become more aggressive and deadlier… Then, when you get sick with it you will die. Your immune system isn’t strong enough (because the pathogen is that strong), and the drugs are ineffective (because it’s grown immunity)… It’s not a fable or a stretching of the truth, it’s the actuality of the world we live in.
So call me irresponsible for not getting the vaccine… My immune system can handle the flu… Why should I take a dose (which is in limited supply), when someone who really needs it could use it?
http://www.examiner.com/x-13791-Baltimore-Disease-Prevention-Examiner~y2009m10d16-Woman-claiming-she-acquired-dystonia-from-a-flu-shot-may-have-it-all-in-her-head
Flu shots are safe. I don’t advocate putting any old fluid in your body because science comes up with it. I’m suggesting we need to use our heads and in this case getting kids protected is important. Maybe we just need to agree to disagree.
Thanks Lynn for the follow-up links on the dystonia story – this is exactly the kind of stuff I’m wanting to clear up, and am myself looking for answers.
Perhaps you misunderstood my intent, as I’m not pro- or anti- just sick of the FUD. After re-reading my post, it does look like I’m bashing vaccination, however I’m really intending to bash _mindless_ vaccination. The curse of Generation X, maybe
Glad to get to know you beyond Twitter.
Here’s a new article from WIRED that doesn’t exactly clear the subject up, at all:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/a-short-history-of-vaccine-panic/
Although it is good to discredit everyone on either side that is not factual – one gets the feeling at the end that nobody really knows for sure. Hrmph.
Any good links that are NOT sponsored by the usual suspects, something that can be taken at face value?
That wired article seems pretty definitive to me. All the studies indicate no relation between vaccine and autism, and politicians mistakenly making the claim that there is a safety issue…for political reasons perhaps? Not seeing the data to support that vaccines are a problem.
Nice follow up to the wired article author taking abuse
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/10/26/defending-science-isnt-always-pretty/
My blog numbers are down after posting on the subject.
As someone who almost died from the flu, and who had kids in my elementary school classes (obviously years ago) with horrible cases of polio, I get very upset with people who think clean living and natural foods will save you from disease. You have no concept of how far we have come, moving from the horrors of nightmare epidemics to the use of vaccines. When I came down with the flu I speak of above, I was young, healthy, and fit. I just happen to spend a few hours on line in NYC waiting to get my drivers license while people were sneezing and coughing all around me. A number of days later I was in the hospital on an IV, too weak to stand up. Anyone who has experienced virulent flu will find anti-vaccination rhetoric arrogant and naive. It is also irresponsible, because if you do not get vaccinated, you have a better chance of infecting others.
@sunny – the question is where is the balance? Blindly saying vaccinations are good is just as stupid as blindly saying vaccinations are bad. I’m not saying either – just pointing out that the situation is full of FUD from both sides, and there’s not a lot of logic going on.
The anti-vaccine movement is an anti-science conspiracy movement.
To me, it sounds like you don’t trust scientists. You say you’re against ‘mindless vaccination’ as if the general population is equipped with the skills to comb through the data and come to the correct conclusion. You can liken it to me looking over some of your code and hoping to understand what it does — I can’t, because I’m not an expert in the field.
An anti-vaccinationist would shudder if I told them I trust the consensus of the scientific community. And it is a consensus. We’re not talking about one scientist who comes out of his basement and wants to inject you with a strange substance — no one would want to be injected by that guy. We’re talking about a global community of scientists. They’ve done the research, and they agree that vaccines work.
That’s why I said the anti-vaccination movement is a conspiracy movement. If you don’t think vaccines work, then you’re saying that this community of scientists is conspiring against the public. Either that, or you have the extreme hubris to say that their data is wrong. That’s me combing through your code and saying it won’t make a website, even though you, and all your programmer colleagues, assure me it will.
Thanks for writing Michael, happy to discuss.
I know nothing about an anti-vaccination movement. I’m happily signing up for the anti-pharmaceutical cartel movement though.
If I knew these scientists were actually independent thinkers and were researching for the sake of research, I’d be all for it. But they never find a solution. They always seem to find a disease that is just about to blow up and be a major issue. Then right afterwards one of the multinational pharmaceuticals announces that they have a solution, if you can pay the price.
The scientists are not conducting research, they are justifying a business plan. If they were actually practicing science, I’d defend them tooth and nail.
Let’s stick with your software analogy. Imagine my web software only ran on a special computer, and I was the only person that sold that computer. And that computer cost a $#%load of money.
There’s absolutely no conflict of interest or ethical quandary if I make a buck, right? Nope, that makes perfect sense, we call it capitalism!
Medical industry is not the same though. There are ethics and standards that are supposed to be practiced and they aren’t. Two questions for you then:
1) When the WHO announced that swine flu was a pandemic, did you notice the immediate press release from the pharmas that they already had a fix that was in trials? Timing is everything, what a coincidence…
2) Speaking of the swine flu, do you know where it came from? And the vaccine, how much profit did that turn? Was there not enough profit to justify helping impoverished nations combat the outbreak? I mean, the outbreak was bad enough to be called a pandemic right?
Back to the statement of ‘mindless vaccination’ – when the pharmaceuticals are bankrolling the researchers, and the solution always happens to be a product that is in a TRILLION dollar industry, something is up.
I’m a computer scientist, and it would be totally hypocritical for me to be anti-scientist. This isn’t science though. This is economics, and for the medical industry that is extremely questionable.
Here’s some independent research from someone that was NOT bankrolled by a pharma:
http://www.neiu.edu/~agkanali/ACTG450/Pharma.html
Hopefully you will at least understand my cynicism.