I haven’t shared this with you before, but I have a terrible fear that the in-school swine flu vaccinations will bring out the crazies. There’s so many ways to be crazy on this issue: you can be autism-vax crazy, you can be home-school wannabe crazy, you can be Obama-is-implanting-a-chip-in-my-child crazy.
And, remember, if a lot of nutty people resist the program, it just proves that Obama is the black Jimmy Carter. Time to bust out the cardigan!
Update. Good Lord, check out the comments on the article I linked to:
When is Obama AND HIS FAMILY going to have the H1N1 flu vaccine? They should be the first and it should be televised. He and the doctor administering the shots will also have to put their hands on the Quaran and SWEAR its the real untested vaccine.
That’s right kids. Step right up and get your Kool Aid. Can’t start the brainwashing to early. Because the govt is your friend and here to “help”. Google “squalene”
Update. This is part of why the anti-vax stuff pisses me off so much. It’s tough enough for parents to raise autistic kids. The last thing they need is a steady stream of misinformation claiming that their child’s condition is their own fault.
Comrade Kevin
The anti-vaxers are similar to every other type of conspiracy nut, except that they actually have a real, demonstrable negative impact on the health of children. They are vile and despicable.
Rosali
Matt Lauer had an interview with the doctor who published the article in the Lancet that started the latest anti-vaccine movement. He refused to acknowledge all the follow-up studies that failed to replicate, and basically refuted, his findings. He’s become a vocal proponent of the cause celebre and seems to be unable to accept contrary evidence.
Nicole
And they get otherwise perfectly reasonable people up in arms about being “forced by the government” to protect their families’ health. I had a long, fruitless discussion with a friend who is bound and determined not to vaccinate her kids against H1N1, should a vaccine come available. Because she feels she’s very informed on the subject and can make an informed decision. Meaning she’s made up her mind, (’cause Oprah said), and no amount of facts are going to change her mind. I have such dislike for Oprah in giving airtime to the anti-vax thing, because she should know better.
beltane
I don’t know about all of you, but I’ve got five kids and my home is like the virus of the week club during the school year. I plan to push my way to the front of line to get this vaccine.
The Grand Panjandrum
Comment #1 from your link:
Comment #2 is just as good.
DougJ
Comment #1 from your link:
Yup.
grimc
Why limit insane ranting to vaccines as biological weapon when you can go to The Gubmint Created The Virus AND the Vaccine To Kill Us:
In her charges, Burgermeister presents evidence of acts of bioterrorism that is in violation of U.S. law by a group operating within the U.S. under the direction of international bankers who control the Federal Reserve, as well as WHO, UN and NATO. This bioterrorism is for the purpose of carrying out a mass genocide against the U.S. population by use of a genetically engineered flu pandemic virus with the intent of causing death. This group has annexed high government offices in the U.S…They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the “bird flu” virus and the “swine flu virus” in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S.
Link
Warren Terra
On a completely unrelated note, has anyone seen the (rather disappointing imho) recent Torchwood serial Children Of Earth?
Sloth
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN01495964
It’s soon going to dawn on these people that every single company making vaccine for the U.S. market is based outside the U.S., in a country with some form of soshulized medicine!
I doubt it will dawn on Megan McCardle to note that all examples of companies innovating here are, hmmm, not in the U.S.?
The Grand Panjandrum
@DougJ: These sort of people have always been around. The internet now gives them a platform to be read or hear. For many of these ignorant folks being loud makes them feel smart.
Kirk Spencer
Sucker bet: That should the children of these people come down with Swine Flu, they will be very loud in complaining about how the government didn’t take care of them.
John Cole
Should I feel stupid because I had to google squalene?
SpotWeld
I recent saw another journal that linked to a right-wing blog article on the Guillain-Barré syndrome and how the new flu vaccine would lead to so many deaths as a result of a similar reaction… *sigh*
Scientists, unlike conspiracy theorists, do learn from new evidence. Guillain-Barré syndrome has been identified and taken into account.
And these nut jobs are going to not get vaccinated, get sick and utterly ignore precautions to prevent the spread to people who can’t be vaccinated due to other conditions.
We’re seeing it with measles and I sadly expect to see it with this coming flu season. A little enclave of home schooling anti-vaccers will get hit hard and somehow it’ll all be Obama’s fault.
Jason Bylinowski
understandable concern + confirmation bias = that spaceman ate my baby
I used to kinda be one of the anti-vaccine people myself, so I kinda understand. I mean, I’m no scientist, right? and at first the idea made a lot of scary sense. I didn’t approach it from the perspective of “OMG, they’re out to get our kids!”, but more along the lines of “OMG, thimerosal has turned out to be this generation’s thalidomide – see, they even SOUND the same!” Of course, the facts have not borne this out.
Hindsight is frequently 20/20, and I read up on the issue before making a real judgment and in the end, I came down on the side of science. But I don’t care what you say, the whole rise of autism thing is creepy, and we certainly could stand to figure out exactly why there’s been a five-fold increase in incidence since the 1970’s…. but yeah, Jenny McCarthy pretty much needs to shut it and work on the horrific nightmare-inducing thing she calls a face. She was on one of the morning shows, the one where Kathie Lee drinks wine the entire time and just slowly unfolds into a stupor (yeah that one); it was pretty scary to watch the both of them be nutty together. Plus, it’s weird, maybe it’s just me but I don’t like looking looking at a woman who is so rail-thin that you can actually kinda see what their skull looks like. To me, that’s just not sexy, but hey.
AhabTRuler
@John Cole: Well? And…
Warren Terra
@ Sloth, #9
But that is Unpossible! It is only through the valiant sacrifices of 47 million uninsured American Heroes that medical progress can be made! Their pain, uncertainty, bankruptcies, and hastened deaths are a small price to pay if McMegan’s social peers get a new, better version of Ci-alis!
(Until John fixes that goldarn filter so the similarly named economic system can safely be mentioned without triggering Moderation, we really ought to punish him by bringing up the drug the filter is intended to exclude whenever it’s remotely relevant).
DonkeyKong
OK, I’m willing to forget the public option if a death panel is included in healthcare reform. I’ve been convinced by these post DougJ.
A wood panel with a ten penny nail pounded through it to wack these people upside the head.
Joel
@beltane: I’ve got -one-, and we’re like Virus of the Week. You have my sympathy. (Can’t have my vaccination, though!)
DougJ
But I don’t care what you say, the whole rise of autism thing is creepy, and we certainly could stand to figure out exactly why there’s been a five-fold increase in incidence since the 1970’s
I agree. And this is exactly what is so harmful about the pressure to run study after study confirming there’s no link with vaccination.
Let’s look for the real killers, you know?
El Cruzado
I dunno. Natural selection should weed them out of the gene pool eventually. “What, me vaccinate my kids against the Black Plague? You must be crazy!”
dmsilev
The phrase “sap and impurify our Precious Bodily Fluids” comes inescapably to mind.
-dms
jl
It will prove anything to the crazies, I will volunteer.
I was thinking I would like to have it, but I am just old enough to be out of the high risk category, age wise.
I just read that a serious lung attacking strain has appeared, which puts 15% of younger people hospitalized for the swine flu into ICU. So, I was thinking ‘hey, man, now maybe I realy should want that vaccine, but I am probably too old.’
So, folks, here is one progressive pro-health reform volunteer ready to get in line. Sign me up. Put my pic in the paper getting the shot, whatever.
AhabTRuler
@dmsilev: That an offer?
South of I-10
The vaccine crazies are already out in full force. Some of the people I have dicussed this with sound like the comments to that article. My pediatrician told me to get it for Little South if I can. I trust him. Little South had RSV and pneumonia when she was two. I’d really rather not take the chance of her getting pneumonia secondary to the flu.
dmsilev
@AhabTRuler: If you’ve recently consumed any liquid besides rain water or grain alcohol, I’m afraid your bodily fluids are already impure and there’s nothing I can do to make things worse.
Sorry.
-dms
Laura W
Love the new tag. Are you super funny today, or am I just easily amused?
kommrade reproductive vigor
There was a blog post on a Sarah Palin fan site titled “Don’t inject me, don’t infect me.” I was not at all surprised.
@grimc: International Bankers that control [X] is Dogwhistlese for Teh Evil Joo.
Really, these fucktards must think they’ve died and gone to Hell. They’ve still got to deal with the usual suspects who control everything (Jews, Catholics, gays in the entertainment industry) but now there’s a black guy in the White House.
Sleeping Dog
Obama, Michelle and the kids should get their shots on nat’l TV. Never mind the nuts will only whine that it was saline solution.
cleek
@The Grand Panjandrum:
and, the internet gives people who are a certain kind of crazy a way to meet and interact other people who are also that kind of crazy. it reinforces their crazy, whips it into stiff peaks, smears it around, gives it the illusion of substance.
SpotWeld
@John Cole
No, it’s a pretty esoteric thing. And frankly it’s such a specific bit of jargon it’s allowing folks to read into it and misinterpret what they want to see.
It’s like the radiation belt around the earth and the moon hoaxers. Radiation = deadly, therefore radiation around the earth = moon landing impossible.
Truth, certain types of radiation are easily shielded and the scientists and engineers planning the moon flight took the radiation into account.
The truth, once you scrape away the ignorance and irrational jumps into illogic, is often so banal and less threatening.
Laura W
@Laura W: oopsy doodle. It’s not so new. But hey! First time I noticed it. That’s all that counts (in my little self-revolving, self-referential world.)
The next-to-last samurai
Isn’t it sad that so many Americans can’t be happy unless they are afraid?
Cain
On the other hand, if they get swine flu and die, they’ll be God’s problem and God will have to deal with their bitching. But if someone close to them contracts it, I wonder what they’ll say then?
That said I don’t plan on taking the vaccine, I have a pretty good immune system (just came back from India where everybody got sick except for me) and it needs to be challenged all the time. I probably still have a high white blood cell and antibodies roaming around and I also try to be gross. hah. :-)
cain
cleek
@Cain:
if they swine flu and die, it’ll be the fault of the illegal immigrants who brought it here.
or maybe the Arabs.
or Obama’s stormtroopers.
or all three.
SpotWeld
Speaking of stripping away the stupid: here’s a blog post stripping away the “stupid” on squalene.”
Key quote:
Sloth
It will be Obama’s plan to reduce the surplus population, natch.
wasabi gasp
Yay for busts out of the cardigan!
Nicole
@Jason Bylinowski: @DougJ:
Interesting article from Scientific American on how the autism increase may be illusory more than reality:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-there-really-an-autism-epidemic
And Jason, that was a seriously awesome description of Kathy Lee’s show. I kinda want to watch it now.
Demo Woman
Bachman wants her constituents to slit their wrists, and now others are afraid of the vaccine. If this trend continues, Obama’s a shoo in for 2012.
jl
As I mentioned before in the comments, I work in the ‘death panel’ field. It is just research, but as Rush and Glenn and other luminaries would probably agree. it is all the same, and all equally sinister -secret plots to kill old people, or anyone my commufascist overlord Barry Obama Soetero finds inconvenient.
At any rate, I get to see the innards of the health care system up close, but thankfully non-personal (so far).
And I been thinking, what would be best course of action for my personal welfare, if stuff like what we have seen this summer keeps up in this great United States of ours?
And so, I been thinking, if stuff keeps up like this, what would be the best thing to do for me, in my old age?
And I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that, if this garbage keeps up, prolly time to consider LEAVING this country, and relocating in sufficient to qualify for the benefits of some responsible and well run socialized healthcare system.
I have a couple of decades to work it out. But that the direction of my thinking, much as I hate to admit it, even to myself.
The GOP and the reactionaries have sown the wind, but if this nonsense keeps up, we all may reap the whirlwind, whether that is fair or not.
Tim
It will be Obama’s fault because he scares people, so they’re scared of the vaccine, so they didn’t get it, so they died. If only Obama weren’t so scary!
madmommy
From what I have read about this strain of flu, those most at risk are the immuno-suppressed, the elderly and small children. For most people it’s just the flu. Not fun, but not the end of the world. I’m still on the fence about getting the kidlets vaccinated, but if their pediatrician reccommends it, I’ll do it.
As to the increase of autism, I wonder how much of it is that the ability to diagnose is so much better than ever. Is it possible that there’s really not that many more cases than there used to be, but that in the past children weren’t properly diagnosed?
Sean
Some background information on Squalene and the H1N1 vaccine from the good folks at ScienceBasedMedicine.org
Its an easy read and you’ll know what to say the next time you’re face to face with a bat-shit crazy delusional ignoramus.
-Sean
DougJ
Interesting article from Scientific American on how the autism increase may be illusory more than reality:
My sister is an autism researcher. She says it does look like there has been a real increase (though maybe not as much as diagnosis rates would suggest).
Cain
@cleek:
Of course! But they’ll still be dying, will they a) stick to their principles and face it like real libertarians and ask their neighbors and priests to help them out just like Ayn Rand told them they should or b) cry like a baby, and beg for the government to give tehm their God given right to that vaccine, and in fact they should be first over the those DFHz cuz they love the troops and blah blah blah.
cain
Nicole
@Cain: and odds are, you’ll be fine even if you get H1N1, unless it ends up being like the H1N1 of 1918, when it was those with the good immune systems who were most likely to die- because the immune systems rose to the challenge and basically suffocated their hosts in an attempt to protect them from the virus. The old and sick were more likely to survive because their compromised immune systems couldn’t react as well or as fast. Weird, huh? I don’t know if a flu like that has happened since then- does anyone know?
Sloth
A cytokine storm. H5N1 – bird flu.
wasabi gasp
BTW, my GFs PCP told her just yesterday that all the swine flu hype is just that, hype.
Rosali
I’m sure that RFK, Jr’s support for the Vaccine–>Autism link lent credence to the movement.
Nicole
@DougJ: Which I think is the conclusions the article came to- though the two studies it mentioned at the end were interesting- in particular the one that observed as autism diagnosis increased, diagnosis of other learning disabilities decreased.
Rob
I too, had to Google squalene.
But I haven’t gotten a flu shot since I got out of the military, 10 years ago. And I haven’t had the flu either in all the time. [Proof! j/k] Invariably, after my flu shot, I’d feel horrible.
Call me uneducated, or a conspiracy theorist or what have you, but barring an acute condition of some sort, I avoid the medical community as much as possible.
As for Torchwood: Children of Earth, that was brilliant, imho. Appealed to my base cynicism… and given governmental history – Tuskeegee, MKUltra/LSD, just the stuff we verifiably know about – I’ve no doubt that it is an accurate portrayal of the venality possible at the highest levels of power.
Well, that and the existence of Dick Cheney.
Nicole
@Sloth: Was the H5N1 the same thing as in 1918 where the young and healthy were at higher risk than the older and sick?
Downpuppy
Back in 1976, one of the reasons Ford lost was the Swine Flu panic. For the kids out there, they tried to vaccinate everybody, only it turned out the vaccine was useless, a little dangerous, and the epidemic was a dud.
On the one hand, we’ve made a lot of progress in 33 years, and there are already a bucketload of H1N1 cases.
On the other hand, this is medicine, and things that seem obvious, like “Don’t inject kids with mercury!”, aren’t always what they seem.
So I’ll most likely have the little pup vaccinated (I skipped it in 1976, and she may have been exposed back in May), but be absolutely respectful of anybody that comes down the other way. And keep at least 4 fingers crossed.
Debbie(aussie)
Anti vaccinators are scary indeed. Jason @ 14, I have been wondering if the seemingly large numbers of autisim diagnoses is due to what Anna mentioned in her Kennedy tribute; those with any form of mental illness were ‘put away/disregarded’. We are just coming to the end of our flu season here is Aus. (Spring sprung yesterday/today) In our small city of Ipswich we have had 3 people die of swine-flu, but all had other underlying health issues, as appears to be the case in almost all swine-flu related deaths. Children do seem to be most likely to catch it tho, especially primary age (elementry for you , I think).
beltane
@madmommy: One of my son’s is high-functioning autistic. A generation ago he would never have been diagnosed. Likewise, it wasn’t too long ago that the children with severe autism would have been institutionalized without anyone being too fussy about the diagnosis.
Nicole
Oh, and I liked Children of Earth. But I didn’t watch much of Torchwood the series, so I don’t have anything to compare it to.
Is anyone watching Being Human? Is it good?
jl
@Nicole: SARS maybe? We may have had an epidemic similar to 1918 quashed due to quarantine and rapid local area vaccination programs in Asia over the last several years.
I personally doubt that something as deadly as the 1918 flue could arise again. Due to conditions arising at end of WWI, it was as if civilization decided to create an experiment in how to incubate a deadly flu epidemic.
The same rough pattern seems to be occurring now -after an initial mild epidemic with relatively mild cases, the new strain is mutating rapidly as it travels through new populations, and more serious strains are likely to evolve to take a second and bigger bite out of humanity during a subsequent epidemic.
This has probably been the pattern for thousands of years, but we hope control efforts are more effective and directed than in the past.
Unless of course, the crazy people have been empowered enough to interfere with health professionals and researchers.
xj - not the auto
@dougj – #19
I believe autism is the diagnosis du jour. We have a name and some treatments (a.k.a. hammer) and all sorts of related symptoms (a.k.a. nails). The term autism covers such a wide range of behaviors.
I’m not saying that the symptoms aren’t real, but it reminds me of when my kids were young and ADD, ADHD, were on the rise. suddenly all sorts of kids were ADD where there were just “problem” kids 25 years earlier when I was young. I have a feeling that these things were around a long time, but just ignored or affected individuals coerced into some comformity. How many diagnoses of autism are made in the third world or in europe? (I have no clue, but am curious – didn’t bother researching for this)
Sloth
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/08/eye-opening_new.html
There’s a link to the WHO report there, but he culls out the highlights.
If it does not mutate, the primary worry would seem to be that the health system could be overwhelmed, especially ICUs. Normal flu is already quite a load – we have essentially no immunity to H1N1. Without herd immunity, it could be very widespread.
Hence the push to immunize as many people as we can.
Rosali
Here’s the Dateline episode examining the vaccine/autism controversy.
Citizen
In the mid 1980’s I was relatively versatile and informed on this issue. This was after my son died 5 days after his first DPT vaccine @ 7 months old. Michael became violently ill within 30 minutes, that lasted for two days, he got better but weird for a couple more, then he died.
The coroner said it was SIDS. Of course a sick child, by definition, cannot dies of SIDS, but I dug into that, promoted prevention info, hosted fundraisers and believed it for awhile. Then I followed other leads, met a large community of families w/damaged or dead babies.
The corker was sitting on a vaccine educational panel with my ob/gyne/ pediatrician who announced to the group that he did not, would not vaccinate his own children. But he had strongly encouraged me to have Michael vaccinated, even tho my other children had very difficult reactions to the DPT vaccine.
Must say, I really don’t understand the dead certainty of most posters re: vaccines while most everything else from the medical/pharm industry is suspect.
What makes childhood interventions so pure?
Debbie(aussie)
I really loved Children of Earth. Am a Torchwood and Dr Who fan.
Rosali
@Citizen: My sympathies.
madmommy
The sad part is that the best way to keep a huge outbreak of any flu from happening is for people to stay home if they get sick. But for a whole lot of people, taking time off work is not an option. If you don’t have sick days, you don’t work, you don’t get paid.
Fern
@xj – not the auto:
I was one of those “problem kids” who grew up before ADHD was invented, and I sure would have benefited from earlier diagnosis and treatment – it would have spared me and my nearest and dearest a lot of heartache. As it was, I was not diagnosed until I was almost 50.
JK
Vaccinations? Wingnuts don’t need no stinking vaccinations. They’ve got leeches and prayers.
South of I-10
@Nicole: Over the summer, I read John Barry’s book on the 1918 epidemic. Really interesting, but probably not the best thing to read in the midst of a pandemic.
Nicole
@jl: I just googled it (ended up on that liberal rag, wikipedia) and the highest mortality rates for SARS are the over 65ers, though the rates for all age groups are a lot higher than for influenza.
While there I read the article on the 1918 flu and it reinforced what you said- that the war led to a reversal of usual behavior with flu (sick people staying isolated at home), and that fed the epidemic. Interesting reading.
Rosali
@madmommy:
And the best way to contain the spread is to treat those infected. But if they don’t have insurance, it just increases the chances of contagion. Yet one more argument for why we need to make sure everyone has coverage.
Debbie(aussie)
Am sorry you lost your child after dpt vaccine.
But….. if every parent stopped vaccinations we would go back to children dying from polio, diphtheria etc. It is happening already in areas with large populations of non- vaccinated children. It is never an easy topic to discuss because of tragedy involved.
Joel
I don’t have to Google squalene to tell you that it’s an intermediate in sterol synthesis (as in, cholesterol).
jl
These questions about the value of vaccination, and more generally, the value added of medical and public health interventions are as old as vaccination and medical and public health interventions themselves.
Read about the history of small pox vaccination. Benjamin Franklin was attacked in a political campaign for killing his son (or was it a nephew) with a supposedly foolish early small pox vaccination.
It is easy to say that it is all a waste of time, when you do something and nothing happens. It is also easy to gripe when less was done and a very bad epidemic occurs.
As far as I know, Paul Ewald was the biologist who first systematically researched the evolutionary pressures on infectious disease, the interaction of control efforts on evolution, and how evolutionary pressures should direct surveillance and control efforts for rapidly evolving infections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_W._Ewald
I will look to see if he has any secret connections to the sinister Obama.
Ye gads! the Wikipedia entry says Ewald has spun some theory that homosexuality is cause by a virus!!?? Lord, well, research is community effort, and I would hope that hypothesis is given some skeptical testing.
HRA
Hmmm – don’t know how if any flu ever has reacted the way Nicole has described it. I do know in my prior job back when they had an infirmary and it was staffed by a doctor and nurse. They dispensed a flu shot to the employees unless you were allergic to duck feathers. I could not be injected. I caught the flu. I lost a week of my life. I had no idea where I was at all. Since then I have had only very slight occasions of flu like illnesses and not really often as well. I am hoping there is an immunity in place.
Two coworkers got the flu shot a few years ago and both of them ended up in the hospital. One of them quit working. The other one carried a portable oxygen device to work till she quit. I am sure instances such as these have happened in other places and have lent fuel to the debate.
I lean towards autism being diagnosed more now than before.
Fern
@Debbie(aussie):
I wonder how many people are still alive who remember the pre-vaccine days, and what it meant to have epidemics of horrible, horrible diseases like polio and diptheria.
Nicole
@Citizen: I’m so sorry, Citizen. My sympathies as well.
I think your doctor was very negligent in recommending vaccination when your other children had bad reactions. I don’t claim to be an expert on this at all, but it’s my understanding that one of the reasons vaccination is important is so that the rare number of people who can’t tolerate vaccines will also be able to go through life without being at high risk of catching disease. Herd immunity happens at about 95 percent immunity, meaning the other 5 percent don’t have to be immune to the disease; they’ll likely not get it because most of the population is immune. By getting vaccinated (those who can tolerate it), we protect other people (some of whom may not be able to be vaccinated) as well as ourselves.
The panic caused in Great Britain by that false report linking autism to the MMR vaccine resulted in a drop of child vaccinations to 80 percent, and that was more than enough opportunity for a measles outbreak that sickened over a thousand kids and killed a few of them.
wasabi gasp
Another BTW, the guy who rents the apartment above my folks garage was just sent home today from his job at the USPS for a minimum of 48 hours due to an undisclosed illness.
When I stopped over my folks place earlier in the day, my pop just finished using ammonia on the doorknobs.
madmommy
@Rosali:
Exactly!!
Honestly, health care is quite possibly the most boring topic in the political spectrum. And yet this summer we have seen the rightwing bring the crazy like nothing I’ve ever seen. And now it’s the flu vaccine. I understand these people are confused. The world doesn’t look like it did when they were kids. But sweet jeebus, people! Come, join us in the 21st century. It’s not that bad, really. I’ve heard there might even be pie!
TheFountainHead
Maybe I’m slow on the draw here, and this is more than a little off topic, but I keep seeing this video of Rep. Mike Rogers and his opening statement about Healthcare and about how awful this bill is. Has anyone seen a decent takedown of this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NCvNDLfc
wasabi gasp
@wasabi gasp: I forgot the LOL, my pops is a wingnut.
Demo Woman
I have to admit that I did buy cold and flu medicine to have just in case. If there is an epidemic or pandemic, drug stores supplies might be low.
Nicole
@HRA: Again, it was the 1918 flu, and it was, as far as anyone knows, a fluke. But it was one of the weird things about it- that it killed the young and healthy. Check out the wikipedia article on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_influenza
I first learned of it in the People’s Almanac (anyone else remember those?). It was in the Natural Disasters section. I loved that section- Krakatoa was my other favorite entry. I was a morbid child.
HRA
When I was a child, polio was an epidemic and the vaccines had not been developed yet. My parents did not allow me to go in crowds during the summer. That meant I was not allowed to go to the movies, the park, the civic pool, etc. It was a long hot summer. I remember whining about being a prisoner. I stopped it when my Dad showed me a picture of a girl in an iron lung.
The other disease then was tuberculosis. I do not remember it being diperthia. Tuberculosis patients were isolated in sanitariums until they were cured. It took years in some cases. Friends of my parents had a teenage daughter who was in one for 5 years. All I remember is she was in Perry. I don’t know if it was in NYS or in Canada.
jon
Bad reactions, no matter how rare, pretty much nullify the feeling of ease offered by statistics. I wouldn’t call out anyone as a fearmonger if horrible things happen to their loved ones. The tremendous amount of heartbreak and guilt that must be experienced when something voluntary–no matter how valuable to the rest of the population–results in something terrible could make anyone into a crusader against something that seems (and is) beneficial to 99+% of the population.
In a similar vein, if I won a large amount of money in the lottery, I’d take the check to a bank rather than a statistics professor or a mathematician.
Yes, some people can’t accept the idea that there isn’t a direct cause for their child not being “normal”. Others demand an explanation and will cling to anything to explain what isn’t necessarily explicable. To some extent, trying to use reason is their downfall, and it’s also the downfall of anyone trying to convince them of alternative possibilities. Some are believers in the Woo, while others had experiences that were almost like forced conversions. Calling them names isn’t necessarily productive, but I have no idea what will be.
South of I-10
@wasabi gasp: My mother has morphed from a reasonable person to a full-blown, Glenn Beck watching wingnut right before my eyes. It makes me sad.
Debbie(aussie)
Very true, Fern. We may be in for a rude awakening if the crazies keep at it.
arguingwithsignposts
Once again, I’m going to drop a link to a This American Life episode called, appropriately enough, “Ruining it for the Rest of Us.” There’s a part of the episode about the anti-vaccine folks:
The prologue is also interesting:
That explains the GOP in Congress, alright.
John T
When the wingnuts end up in the ER with swine flu and can’t pay the bills, will they continue to complain about “government handouts”? Oh yeah, I forgot, when a Real American gets help, it’s because he deserves it — not like those other people, they’re just freeloaders.
arguingwithsignposts
@South of I-10:
I’m so sorry about your mom.
Fortunately for me, my parents seem to have become a little more liberal in their old age (voted for Obama, they did). And they live “along I-10” in Texas, too.
HRA
Nicole, I remember reading about the Spanish flu in a book. That’s a good article in Wikpedia.
We had deaths of young people from the swine flu here. It’s making me wonder now if there is any connection.
I had the Hong Kong flu. I was a healthy teen. My parents were then in their late 50s and did not get it.
BR
Maddow’s interview of Ridge tonight showed again why she and Stewart are the last journalists left…
jl
Sorry to hear from Citizen about the death of his child. My condolences.
This part of his comment raised my eyebrows.
“The corker was sitting on a vaccine educational panel with my ob/gyne/ pediatrician who announced to the group that he did not, would not vaccinate his own children. But he had strongly encouraged me to have Michael vaccinated, even tho my other children had very difficult reactions to the DPT vaccine.”
That was a corker indeed. I wonder whether the doctor was free riding -if other kids were immunized, the doc’s would benefit from the effect of herd immunity.
I am very pro vaccine, but I do wonder about the increasing load of immunizations on young kids. I also wonder about Pharmaceutical and the medical-industrial complex influence in what seems to be a very aggressive and inflexible schedule being put on families. I have read about parents been pushed in ways that seem unethical to me about keeping up with very heavy and strict schedules for their kids.
Of course, companies are dropping out of production of some vaccines due to fears about liability and difficulty of production.
So, it is a complex problem.
There are different ways to provide immunizations. For example, the UK has used a different approach to immunizing for Rubella than the US, one that I consider safer and cheaper -it only immunizes women at around puberty. If I remember my reading on it correctly, it is safer for women and their kids (Pregnant women and infants with congenital rubella syndrome being the most vulnerable to serious damage), and spares the boys. I will have to check to see whether the UK is still doing it this way. The US immunizes everyone for Rubella.
I think debate and community involvement is needed for decisions on immunization, because the whole population’s welfare is affected, both those immunized and those not.
Some immunizations put very mild strains of the infectious agent into general circulation, and these crowd out the dangerous versions. But that means that unimmunized people are getting infected through social policy, and many are getting subclinical infections that are unnoticed.
I think it is possible to discuss the pros and cons of different policies without falling into easy cynicism or insane and paranoid conspiracy theories.
Cynicism is easy, until you go back and read about the toll infectious disease used to take on society, and the effect on lifespans.
wasabi gasp
@South of I-10: Condolences. It burns my ass that my folks have allowed the bullshit to set up shop in their otherwise sharp minds.
Bob In Pacifica
There are legitimate questions about the swine flu vaccine. Dr. Meryl Nass has a blog that discusses various public health issues here:
http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/
to include the problems regarding the anthrax vaccine given to US soldiers. She has a number of recent articles on the swine flu vaccine and specifically the use of adjuvanted vaccines for the swine flu.
Apparently, there are a number of other countries around the world that aren’t embracing the swine flu vaccine with adjuvants. You know, places with real healthcare systems.
From the UK Guardian:
“Several studies suggest up to 60% of GPs would oppose being immunised because they are concerned the safety trials will be rushed… The biggest reason given by those who said they would not have it was concern that the safety trials would not be adequate: 71.3% said they were “concerned that the vaccine has not yet been through sufficient trials to guarantee safety”. Half – 50.4% – said they “believe that swine flu is too mild to justify taking the vaccine”…
Just because rightwing wackos oppose swine flu vaccine shots for the wrong reason doesn’t mean that there may not be a good reason to not get it.
I get my regular flu shots every year, and plan on getting my regular flu shot this year. The swine flu shot? I’m waiting to hear more about it.
I worked at a VA Hospital back during the Ford Administration when there was a swine flu scare. Guillain-Barré syndrome cases from the vaccine back then. Yuck. I watched a concert musician slowly paralyzed at the hospital. Here’s an article about that swine flu scare and the problems with that rushed vaccine:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-1007.htm
Mike in NC
But what does Doktor Orly Taitz have to say about all this? Ignorant minds want to know…
Rosali
@John T:
When the wingnuts end up in the ER with swine flu and can’t pay the bills, will they continue to complain about “government handouts”?
Wingnuts won’t be the only ones in the ER. Many people who desperately want health insurance will end up there too.
BDeevDad
@South of I-10: I am forbidden from talking politics with my formerly liberal in-laws. My conservative in-laws actually voted for Obama. Sort of how converts are usually more extreme.
Debbie(aussie)
jl, in Aus We vaccinate girls at 13, and a woman planning to get pregnant has her immunity checked, for rubella.
Rosali
Local parents can get their kids exempted from state-mandated vaccines before starting school if they sign a form swearing that vaccines are against their religion. Many anti-vaxers have suddenly found religion.
I’m very bothered by people who seek to get around the law by claiming fake religious exemptions.
Fulcanelli
@Citizen: Very well put and very close to my own feelings on the whole matter. I probably won’t take the vaccine.
However, considering how the general population’s immune systems are compromised by everything from contaminants in our food, water and air supply to the deadly level of stress we live with daily and on and on, it’s probably a good idea for the general public health that people are vaccinated. But, I don’t think kids should be vaccinated at such a young age… barely months old babies. Too fragile at that age IMO.
I’m lucky to have the immune system of a dump rat, damn near bullet proof. I haven’t taken antibiotics in probably 18 years and the last few times I did, they didn’t work and made my stomach a fucking mess. I almost never get the seasonal bugs that come around yearly and if I do it’s off to health food store and within 3-4 days I’m back in the saddle.
Useful Factoids: The US National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out almost 2 billion dollars in settlements to litigants claiming vaccine damages since 1989, and has denied claims which could total potentially tens of Billions more.
Not ONE claim of Autism has ever been paid.
DTP and MMR seem to be the biggest risk, probably due to the sheer volume of use.
The program is funded by an excise tax on vaccines.
No oogga-booga scary statistics shit here, just good info to know as a parent and health conscious citizen.
My condolences on the loss of your child, Citizen.
jl
@Debbie(aussie): Yes, that is similar to what the UK policy was, or used to be (as I wrote, I need to check on current practice, since I last read in detail about years ago).
There was quite a debate in the epidemiological community about what was the best approach. Lots of interesting mathematical modelling papers, and statistical analyses, and immunological research, arguing for one approach or the other.
The danger of the US approach is that if you immunize all young kids, but miss enough so that total herd immunity is not achieved, then you end up pushing up the average age of onset.
So, then young women who come down with it, will come down when they are likely to become pregnant, threatening them and their children with dangerous illness.
Since Rubella is not a serious disease for kids, the UK decided a more targeted policy was safer. Just make damn sure all women were immunized by the time the were likely to become pregnant. If the boys tended to come down with Rubella bit later than they would otherwise, no great harm done.
So, which is better, the UK or Aussie way, or the US way. I think that is a legitimate subject for public policy debate. Unless one side decides to be completely unethical, and finance and encourage lunatics and fanatics.
Lesson being, the US is in a lose-lose situation right now.
Brachiator
@HRA:
What happened with your co-workers is sad, but there are two things to keep in mind. The flu shot is based on a killed virus and cannot cause flu itself. And no flu shot can guarantee 100% protection from all flu viruses that may arise during the flu season.
By the way, I recall hearing that there may be a flu shot for swine flu, and another for the more typical strain that is seen during the cold and flu season.
That said I don’t plan on taking the vaccine, I have a pretty good immune system
But even with a good immune system, you could get the flu, fight it off successfully yourself, but spread it to your loved ones, a child, your granny. And they might not be as fortunate as you are.
Meanwhile, the archives area of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe site (and iTunes podcast) has good information about the flu and vaccines and will be a good place to look for current developments
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
Dr Steven Novella’s science blog has some good stuff on H1N1 and Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
Novella also jumps on a surprising non-wingnut source of teh stoopid, the Huffington Post:
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?cat=6
Another good source of information is the syndicated Dr Dean Edell radio program.
Comrade Kevin
@Mike in NC:
Dr. Taitz, WHERE ARE THE FILLINGS? Tell me, or I’ll get Orthodontic Jake to give you a gelignite mouthwash!
Phoenix Woman
@Bob In Pacifica: You’re comparing apples and oranges. You bring up the swine flu vaccine, but then don’t link to anything dealing specifically with the questions you say exist about it. Instead, the rest of your post is about the anthrax vaccine.
Rosali:
That would be the supremely vile Andrew Wakefield:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5728998.ece
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=370
From that last link:
— Over the next decade, aided and abetted by useful idiots in the media, by British newspapers and other media that sensationalized the story, and the antivaccine movement, which hailed Wakefield as a hero, Wakefield managed to drive MMR vaccination rates in the U.K. below the level of herd immunity, from 93% to 75% (and as low as 50% in some parts of London). As a result Wakefield has been frequently sarcastically “thanked” for his leadership role in bringing the measles back to the U.K. to the point where, fourteen years after measles had been declared under control in the U.K., it was in 2008 declared endemic again.
— Worse, this fear was based on the worst science imaginable. First, no scientist not associated with Andrew Wakefield has ever been able to replicate his work. Second, as was exposed by U.K. reporter Brian Deer, not only was Wakefield paid big bucks by trial lawyers seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers for “vaccine injury” to do his studies on autistic children, a conflict of interest he never revealed and that had to be exposed through Deer’s investigations, but months before he published his Lancet paper Wakefield had applied for a patent on a an allegedly safer single measles vaccine that could succeed best if the safety of the MMR were called into doubt. Even after all of this came to light, leading to Wakefield’s correctly being dragged in front of the General Medical Council for charges of scientific misconduct. Even after this, he still enjoys a cult of personality that I can’t figure out, and is often portrayed as being “persecuted” by the British medical establishment. Third, was revealed at the Autism Omnibus proceedings when PCR expert Stephen Bustin testified about the shoddy methods at the laboratory used to do the PCR on the colon biopsies. In brief, the laboratory used was set up such that cross contamination between the plasmids used to maintain the measles virus sequences and the area where the PCR was done. PCR is very sensitive; if there is contaminating plasmid sequence, it is very easy to amplify and detect it even when there is nothing in your samples. Indeed, I’ve experienced this very problem on occasion in my own lab. Unfortunately, in the case of Wakefield’s research, no controls were done to make sure that contamination was detected in the negative controls. Finally, Wakefield’s results were roundly refuted in an attempt to replicate his work that was published last year. As you can see, Wakefield’s work and ethics are about as bad as it gets.
Phoenix Woman
One thing to remember: Correlation does not imply causation.
Phoenix Woman
More on Andrew Wakefield, the antivaxer’s favorite prophet, from http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=370 —
Snarki, child of Loki
Someone needs to tell the anti-vaxers that the H1N1 vaccine is only available to US citizens, and that kids will have to provide their “long form” birth certificate to get vaccinated.
That should make for some interesting insanity.
arguingwithsignposts
Am I the only person who finds this term slightly off-putting when discussing human beings?
freelancer
@Brachiator:
Sweet,
you’re like the only other person I’ve run across that has independently discovered the SGU podcast and Steven Novella’s Neurologica and Science-Based Medicine.
malraux
Am I the only person who finds this term slightly off-putting when discussing human beings?
Yes.
jl
@arguingwithsignposts: No you are no the only person who finds it off putting. I do not like it either. But that is the term that is used by everybody who works in the field. I used to so people would be able to understand what I am talking about, and so that they would be able follow other sources if they decided to check out what I wrote.
freelancer
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s a medical term used by epidemiologists. It has unfortunate connotations, but science detaches emotion in favor of reason and being able to use rationality to discover what works and what doesn’t.
There are a lot of things in science that aren’t named accurately or even smartly for that matter. Planetary Supernovae aren’t actually planet sized, they are solar system sized, and man, are they gorgeous.
Comrade Kevin
@jl: I’ve been reading a book about Smallpox, and the way they managed to eradicate it is pretty amazing. When they would get a case somewhere in the 70’s, they would isolate the person, and give everyone within a radius a vaccination, and it would kill off that outbreak. Enough times, and they managed to get rid of it completely.
wasabi gasp
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m a bit tired of euphemisms as well, but fucknutclusterfuck immunity will frighten the children.
jl
@arguingwithsignposts: sorry, maybe you were making a joke.
Much of what we know about infectious disease control comes from diseases in animals and plants. Early research on immunity to antibiotics comes from work on pesticides and herbicides and immunizations in herds of farm animals.
You can read research that applies the same models to weeds, bugs, pigs, cockroaches and cows and humans. Maybe that is offensive to people too.
I assure everyone that if you want to do a google, or talk to your doctor about it, herd immunity is the most common term. Sorry. That is the way it is.
HRA
Brachiator: “What happened with your co-workers is sad, but there are two things to keep in mind. The flu shot is based on a killed virus and cannot cause flu itself. And no flu shot can guarantee 100% protection from all flu viruses that may arise during the flu season.”
Yes, most if not all vaccines are based on a killed virus. You are suppose to get a mild form of the disease.
As for my co-workers, I know one of them had contracted a severe case of bronchitis and then pneumonia prior to receiving the flu shot. The other one seemed healthy and I had no information if she had any prior ill health. Both of them were past midlife. So there may very well have been a valid reason for their reactions.
My point is I think there were other such cases across the country and that is where the naysayers on the vaccine are basing their opposition to it. I have not read anything about it before I saw it here. If there are anymore links to it, please post them.
jl
@Comrade Kevin: Yes, the small pox story is amazing. People got curious about why eradication programs worked with some agents and not others. Smallpox has special transmission and genetic properties that make it one of the ideal candidates for eradication through immunization. Or, at least people think so, from the theoretical and bench science research on why immunization can work for some bugs and not for others.
I am signing off now. the way things are going with healthcare debate in this country has made me very frazzled, as my reaction to the query about herd immunity perhaps reveals.
hamletta
I can perhaps shed some light on the rise in autism. As madmommy suggests, we have better tools for diagnosis today.
I used to publish a screening test for developmental/behavioral problems, and the whole concept of screening is a relatively new concept. One famous pediatrician, whose name escapes me at the moment, wrote a landmark paper called “The New Morbidity” about 40 years ago.
In it, he argued that since a lot of the childhood diseases had been largely conquered, it was time for pediatricians to focus on children’s developmental health.
It only recently became a recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics that all children be screened at each well-child visit. But you need to use a solidly validated screen, not just some checklist that hasn’t been tested on real kids.
Parent report is the most valuable source of information about their children’s development, because they’re incredibly observant, no matter their education or socioeconomic status.
Some older pediatricians are resistant to the concept, saying, “Well, screens are fine for doctors just starting out, but I can spot ’em.” Thing is, if the kid’s so delayed that you can spot it in a 15-minute well-child visit, you’ve already lost time. The parent probably knew something was a bit off long ago, and that kid could have been fully tested and getting intervention by now.
I’ve been out of Child Development World for a few years now, but last I heard, autism was still a big mystery. They were still working on diagnosis. One researcher I worked with was looking at early gross motor function in children who were later diagnosed as autistic.
Anyway, I wouldn’t attribute the rise in autism since the ’70s to anything but a refinement in diagnosis.
Comrade Kevin
@jl: Yes, thanks. From what I have read, smallpox has/had no non-human reservoir where it could lurk to strike again, which helped.
b-psycho
@John Cole: I had to google it too. Apparently it comes from shark liver oil.
LOL @ the order of results that came up. It went Wiki, shopping, the website of this quack, then Alex Jones. The Crazy pushed its way forward rather quick, huh?
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Good god! Squalene is a precursor for cholesterol! Our bodies have gobs and gobs of it! The stupid of comment #2 burns viciously…
Desert Rat
I hate to say it, but the comments will last until people and particularly children, start to drop like flies. It’s human nature.
But yeah, the stupid of the anti-vax crowd, and the stupid that is the rotting carcass that is the right in this country are likely to create an amazingly toxic brew of an outright epidemic this winter.
Little Macayla's Friend
It’s already been very personally described above that vaccination may involve an ethical dilemma, such as not vaccinating my child vs. my carrier child infecting the neighborhood / school children, but there are such things as allergy tests for vaccines (yes, a subset of issues there). In the last H1N1 peak, testing, such as it was, revealed a large percentage (1/3 of infected who didn’t show symptoms? sorry, will look for link) who could have been carriers. Thanks for post reminding us that everyone needs to stay informed. You could be a carrier. Two more possible sources:
http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/QA/qaH1N1pedvax.htm
http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/Flu/understandingFlu/2009h1n1.htm
Keith G
@Nicole: Npr’s sci fri explains flu genetics and why youngins sometimes suffer more.
Citizen
@nicole,jl, fulcanelli, y’all
Thanks :)
Seems I must put my personals up to get consideration on this topic. Not unlike our advice to Obama to stop w/the wonky talk and make it real.
As I said, am about 20 years out on the best/latest research but have not noticed med/pharma turning over a new humanity leaf. As a relative newcomer to the internet am astounded at the buy-in on vaccines – of every flavor! The ‘reality based community’ loves their science but rather violently ignores, um, the reality of the issue.
Vaccines leave significant damage in their wake, we know this but minimize it, obfuscate it. Not good for business, cost/benefit, yada yada.
Wish i didn’t, but think it will look like voodoo in 50 years.
It’s almost like magic, eh? C’mon.
Michael Gass
There is a difference between crazy and cautious when it comes to vaccines.
http://www.truthout.org/090109Y
The above link documents how the Veteran’s Administration is refusing to pay for a Marine who was put into a coma by a vaccination he was given before deployment.
However, it left Lopez in a coma, unable for a time to breathe on his own and paralyzed for weeks. Now he can walk, but with a limp. He has to wear a urine bag constantly, has short-term memory loss and must swallow 15 pills daily to control leg spasms and other ailments.
And even though his medical problems wouldn’t have occurred if he hadn’t been deployed, Lopez doesn’t qualify for a special government benefit of as much as $100,000 for troops who suffer traumatic injuries.
The hangup? His injuries were caused by the vaccine.
Considering that it was Bill Frist who helped push through a law immunizing Big Pharma from civil liability for making bad vaccines, it is very understandable to be cautious about vaccinations.
http://www.truthout.org/article/vaccine-makers-helped-write-frist-backed-shield-law
Washington – Vaccine industry officials helped shape legislation behind the scenes that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist secretly amended into a bill to shield them from lawsuits, according to e-mails obtained by a public advocacy group.
E-mails and documents written by a trade group for the vaccine-makers show the organization met privately with Frist’s staff and the White House about measures that would give the industry protection from lawsuits filed by people hurt by the vaccines.
The communications were made public in a report released this week by the group Public Citizen. Its study follows a February story in The Tennessean that Frist, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., ordered the vaccine liability language inserted in a defense spending bill in December without debate and in violation of usual Senate practice.
You don’t have to be crazy to be cautious.
Brachiator
@freelancer:
I must confess that in addition to songs and videos, my iPod is filled with science and skeptic-based podcasts. One of the best, but intermittently updated, is quackcast. I particularly like the author’s tough-minded style:
A few sample podcast titles available for download:
Influenza myths. The flu can kill you. What YOU can do to prevent it. Tonight on the 10 o’clock news. Plus, the truth behind Brittany’s hair.
Boost your immune system And die. A cursory review of the immune system and then a review of some medical literature that suggests boosting it will cause you to die die die die die die die die die die die die die…….. Got carried away. Were all gonna DIE!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry. I panic easy
Lets Kill The Children or A Defense of Vaccines Why vaccines, to quote Mr. Pooh, “Are a Good Thing.”
Huffpo. 32 Sentences and 57 taradiddles
http://www.quackcast.com/index.html
Another quote from the blog author:
freelancer
@Citizen:
For the life of me, I wish I could decipher your point here. Please expand on the whole “yadda yadda” thing.
Right Wing Extreme
JC,
I don’t think you should feel stupid about googling squalene, I am a pretty smart guy that does much work with the medical field and I had to look it up. Two thoughts on my mind here. The first is that the majority of the anti-vax nuts are tree huggers and natural foodies, therefore on your side of the aisle. Second, it is my observation that left or right doesn’t matter except for scope of those casting blame, but everything that goes wrong is the president’s, any president, fault. It doesn’t always make sense, but for some reason the man in office always catches the blame whether he deserves it or not.
JK
@Brachiator:
“surprising non-wingnut source of teh stoopid, the Huffington Post”
When I read that sentence, I was reminded of the book Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul Gross and Norman Levitt. I haven’t read the book, but I read some reviews when it was published. I recall being very disappointed to learn that some people on the left were as knee jerk anti-science as people on the religious right.
Citizen
The U.S. has never made an honest effort to track adverse reactions to any vaccine.
Can we have a mandated central reporting agency? Just fill in the blank:
spiked fever of 103 degrees, left arm fell off, no apparent reaction, seems freakin’ retarded, paralysis on left side, etc.
Brain Hertz
uh oh. I followed the demand to google “squalene” too. That led me to another article about swine flu vaccinations, with comments like this one:
[holds head in hands]
JK
@Brachiator:
It would be nice if someone started a thread where people listed their favorite educational, cultural, technology, science, reference, research independent study, or continuing education blogs, websites, and podcasts.
Mayken
@El Cruzado: Except that they will take a lot of people who aren’t crazy anti-vaccine wingers with them, especially children too young to be vaccinated and those old enough to have lost their immunity and haven’t gotten their boosters (mostly out of ignorance because doc do NOT push this!)
If they could go elsewhere and die without taking me and mine with them, they could have at. But until then, they need to STFU and get themselves and their progeny vaccinated.
GregB
President Obama needs to publicly get the vaccine shot in his penis so that we can determine if he’s circumsized.
-G
northquirk
I’m delurking just to say that my older sister (born 1971) has what would probably now be diagnosed as asperger’s syndrome. When we were kids, my mom had her tested almost everywhere in the country (NIM in VA, CDC in Atlanta) and the docs always said that my sister was normal and that my mom was just being over-protective.
A lot of scientific progress in the past 20 years has helped us recognize autism spectrum disorder. I don’t see how nutballs like Jenny McCarty encouraging people to stop vaccinating their kids helps any of us. Medical science (and doctors!) help us figure these problems out. Just because medical science from 20+ years ago dismissed undiagnosable problems doesn’t mean idea that random laypeople are any more well-equipped to understand complex medical and psychological disorders. It’s the doctors and scientists studying medicine who help us make progress, not random d-list celebrities.
freelancer
@Citizen:
FAIL.
Mnemosyne
@Jason Bylinowski:
My uneducated guess is environmental toxins, especially given what we’re finding out about phthalates and similar poisons.
Keith G
@Citizen:
Not really.
My younger cousin died in a car wreck, yet his family still drove. Bad things happen, but on the whole the reality of the issue is that our society is better off with agressive vaccinations as a walk through any older cemetary will display.
Also some one up thread mistated about flu vaccs having live virus that make ya a lil bit sick. No, no. Quite dead genetic materal is used to start production of anti-bodies. Regular live vaccs are measles, mumps, rubella, polio, and varicella and if ever there is a need small pox.
freelancer
I accidentally bolded my link, so it is hidden:
http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/default.htm
Keith G
@freelancer: free, I’ll do you one better:
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/default.htm
Mnemosyne
Maybe they can give it a catchy name like the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS. Yep, too bad nothing like that exists.
Brachiator
@JK:
Sadly, the need to believe weird things is a human trait, not an ideological one.
This probably has come up from time to time, and no doubt will come up again soon. Meantime, I think some of the science blogs noted by John on the right hand side of this blog is a good place to start.
I would also throw in Skeptic Magazine and the Southern California Skeptics society site (yes, I used to be a member). The current issue of the magazine has a fun and illuminating article, “Everything I Needed to Know About Skepticism I Learned from Scooby-Doo.”
The magazine site:
http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/
Skeptic Society site:
http://www.skeptic.com/
JK
@Brachiator:
I’m familiar with Skeptic. They do some great work.
On a side note, it’s amazing that there’s so much despair and demoralization among liberals and progressives despite the fact that a Democratic president is in the White House and Democrats have healthy majorities in both houses of Congress. I didn’t think I’d feel this miserable so soon after Inauguration day.
hamletta
@Mnemosyne: I love you man, but “uneducated” is the operative word in that post.
Brachiator
@JK:
I think that some progressives believed that they would immediately get everything that they wanted, about an hour after Obama’s inauguration. And some also apparently believed that after they cast their vote, their work was done and they could leave the rest to somebody else.
I recognize the challenges, and sometimes am saddened by the insane hostility directed at Obama and the Democrats. But I look at the victories, especially the Supreme Court selection, and am pretty happy, if not outright dancing in the streets.
More importantly, we have been spared this horrifying alternative reality: “Vice President Palin says swine flu vaccine unnecessary, you betcha. Also, too.”
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
Citizen,
Very sa dstory re. your son. The old DPT vaccine contained whole pertussis-cells, and had a lot of adverse effects, because of incomplete inactivation of the pertussis bacteria in some batches. It was withdrawn in 1991, replaced with acellular petussis antigens. It’s a lot safer.
Keith G
@hamletta: Mnemosyne is the mother of the muses.
JK
@Brachiator:
Vice President Palin
Cue the image of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Scream.jpg
Makewi
Obama is Carter redux, black or otherwise. If he can figure out why the comparison is so apt in the next 6 months or so, then he can be more like Clinton and survive to fight again.
On the side, it is fascinating to watch the right devolve into madness in the same way the left did during Boooooosh.
Uloborus
Sigh. Okay, I will start with Citizen.
First, your story is horrible and terrifying. Lord god, I feel bad about it, and I hate to tell you this: Anecdotes are not science. And that, basically, is it. It is, in fact, known that people die from vaccines. Nobody’s denying it. Doctors don’t like to talk about it, because people go ‘what if it’s my children?’ and miss the point.
The point is, you’re LESS likely to die with the vaccine. Actually, to a doctor, that’s the entire point. In fact, as was pointed out in the Squalene article, a lot of the stuff you can die from with these vaccines you’re just as likely to die from without it. And your odds of having a bad reaction are nothing compared to your odds of catching, say, Whooping Cough and dying from it.
Which makes cases like yours no less awful and tragic. I do not like even correcting you, but children die all the time because they weren’t vaccinated, because they heard about the few poor people who make up the statistics.
Vaccinated children are safer. Much, much safer. The research is exhaustive, it gets redone over and over and over. Claims to the contrary are quickly disproven. Your average doctor gets no money at all from vaccinating your children. He believes the research because it’s really hard to question it if you know anything about how science is validated.
It is not foolproof. And doctors are supposed to be on the lookout for those people who might be at higher risk. As a community and as individuals, they bend over backwards to make sure that the greatest number of people are saved by vaccinations with the least risk.
In medicine, nothing is safe, but the evidence is clear and overwhelming. Vaccination is a very, very good thing.
There were other people who said things I wanted to correct, but… you know, all my basic points are included here already.
Ruckus
@Fern:
I remember polio and the vaccinations, shots at first then sugar cubes. (Did TL get the LSD delivery system idea from this?)
I remember everyone I knew getting the shots, standing in line, it seemed like the whole world was getting stabbed with needles. (OK I was a child). But what I remember most were the people I knew with polio. Two of my friends mothers had it, one had an iron lung in her front room. And one of my lifelong hero’s is a girl I grew up with who had it. She put up with taunting and being ostracized because she had to wear braces and crutches for most of the 12 years we went to the same schools. I never saw her waver in her resolve to be treated normally. But her shinning moment was when she came to our 10 year hs reunion. No braces, crutches and she walked like she owned the world. Sometimes when I’m down I think of her spirit and I know that I can get through almost anything.
Ruckus
Another thing that those of us who are old enough not to have gotten all the vaccinations as very young children was we got to have lots of sick days off of school. With nice stuff like mumps, measles, chicken pox (oh and BTW this comes back later on in life as shingles, which is also way fun). I feel like I spent most of my childhood in bed with one disease or another. And there are others that I didn’t get, like polio. People died from many of these diseases or have life long problems. So I wish that I had been able to get vaccinated and not have to go through all or at least most of that. I wonder how many of those with young children now or in the recent past did not become exposed to many of these diseases due to most people getting vaccinated in the generation or two before them and therefore they didn’t/don’t realize what most of the vaccinations prevent.
Anne Laurie
@Jason Bylinowski:
As others have already pointed out, some part of that increase is due to the fact that schools didn’t have a category for “autism” until the 1980s. In the days before a special-needs diagnosis mandated at least some attempt to mitigate its effects, pediatricians were (quite reasonably) hesitant to label their young patients with an untreatable mental illness that would brand them as uninsurable for the rest of their lives. There was always the hope, however faint, that the rare Temple Grandin would “outgrow” their disability, or at least drop out of the school system and “disappear” before impacting the neighborhood’s good reputation.
Same thing with ADD/ADHD, which in some ways is a sort of shadow or surrogate for the more severe neurological disorders. When I was in grade school in the 1960s, the only “treatment” for hyperactivity was doses of anti-epilepsy or anti-psychotic drugs that basically stunned the forebrain and had a range of horrible side effects (otherhorrible side effects). So all but the most severe cases were treated with primitive forms of negative-reinforcement behavioral therapy such as physical punishment (spanking), isolation (detention or suspension), and covert or overt encouragement to the victim to remove him- or herself from the educational system as soon as legally permissable. Now that we’ve improved both our methodology and our pharmacology, there’s a lot more incentive for the parents of an ADD/ADHD child to admit they’ve got a problem… and in some much-discussed cases “helicopter parents” are reported to be deliberately gaming the system so that their perfectly ordinary offspring get “benefits” like extra tutoring, non-timed tests, etc. On the other hand, plenty of adult ADD cases are being “post-diagnosed” when an ADD child is identified — because suddenly the parents, grandparents & collateral relatives have a name for the “willful stupidity”, “bad behavior”, “spaciness”, “lack of moral fiber” and other character flaws that have plagued them all their lives.
Andy K
My snark radar is off, Doug, but I hope you know the truth.
Carol
One thing too, is that there is less of a stigma on having a child diagnosed with a developmental disorder now that there are more tolerant approaches to mental illness. Years ago, a diagnosis may well have led to institutionalization if the child was in the least bit troublesome. Many parents would have balked if ADD or ADHD was diagnosed, fearing their child was headed toward lockdown or a lifetime of stigma.
About herd immunity: a better way to describe it for those who don’t really get the concept is this: people can only catch the disease from people who have it. The more people who are vaccinated and therefore don’t have the disease, the fewer chances there are of catching the disease through casual contact. If all your relatives are vaccinated or immune by other means (they caught it before) then you will need to go outside to get ill. If all your co-workers are vaccinated, then you have to be unemployed and homeless to become more likely to catch it. If the homeless and street people are vaccinated, the disease has to come from somewhere else they don’t vaccinate: if the entire country is vaccinated, then the disease has to come from somewhere else in the world. Interlocking circle.
Ironically, it is vaccination that allows Jenny and other d-list celebrities to opt out of vaccination. Things would be different if they had to fear, like in the real old days, that a fan would breathe on them and they could catch something pretty deadly like TB or whooping cough. They know that the ordinary middle-class kid has their shots.
Wile E. Quixote
@Rosali
Leading me to wonder where he and the egregious Betsy McCaughey learned this technique.
Wile E. Quixote
@Ruckus
My father contracted polio when he was three and it completely paralyzed his left leg and partially paralyzed his right. My Dad was amazing though. He wrestled in high school, was in marching band, went to college at Texas A&M and was a member of the Corps of Cadets, all of this while wearing a brace on his left leg.
My Dad turned 67 this year. He works for Lockheed at Bangor, supervising missile loading operations on the deck of a Trident submarine. He’s an amazing man, when I had my accident six years ago and found out that I was going to lose my leg he was the one who first gave me the news. I thought about things a lot that night, I had to make a decision the next morning as to whether or not I should go through more surgeries to try to save my leg (I’d already been in the hospital for five weeks and had been through 12 surgeries) or choose amputation. I thought about it and made the decision to have the doctors amputate. One of the things that made going through this experience so much easier for me than it is for others was that I had my Dad as an example. I figured that if he was able to accomplish everything he has with one leg completely paralyzed and the other partially paralyzed that I’d be able to make it with 1.5 properly functioning legs and a prosthesis.
My Dad spent months in hospitals as a child, he suffered incredibly, and he’s one of the *luckier* polio survivors, only his legs were affected. My sisters and I never had to worry about that, we had the polio vaccine and MMR. The anti-vax whacks drive me insane, they’re either ignorant bastards have no idea how bad these childhood diseases were and how bad they could become again. Or they’re selfish bastards who figure that they can free-ride on the fact that everyone else gets vaccinated, the so-called “herd immunity”.
Wile E. Quixote
@Citizen
Was it a reaction to a vaccine that made you this stupid and ignorant? Or were you born that way. I mean I’m sorry about your son, but just because you went through a horrible loss doesn’t give you the right to make shit up. The FDA is as serious as a fucking heart attack about adverse event reporting. Do you want to know how serious they are? Well let’s suppose you work for a pharmaceutical company, you might be, say, an IT guy. So you’re at a conference, an IT conference, you’re not in drug development or manufacturing, you’re just in IT, you’re a code monkey or systems weasel. So you’re at this conference and you overhear someone saying that their sister took compound X, which your company manufactures, and had an adverse reaction. You are required by law to report this to your company’s QA department and they’re required to report it to the FDA.
The FDA isn’t perfect, but it’s far from the corporate controlled regulatory agency that the left demonizes it as or the anally retentive bunch of safety Nazis that the right demonizes it as. What gets me are the various anti-vaxxers who on the one hand condemn the FDA and call it the tool of big pharma and on the other hand sell various and sundry untried and untested therapies for the autism that vaccination *supposedly* causes such as chelation therapy. So we’re supposed to believe that the FDA is a bunch of vaccine pushing corporate tools but that the doctors pushing the untried and untested theories completely unregulated by any government agency are completely and totally trustworthy.
Betsy
The trouble, and the reason we don’t cheerfully encourage them to do whatever dumbfuck thing they want re: vaccines, is that the people who suffer aren’t just them and their kids. The This American Life piece that arguingwithsignposts: cited above illustrates this in a terrifying way – older kid whose parents don’t believe in vaccines gets measles, but it isn’t too bad. He then spread it to other children, who then spread it further – long story short the people who were harmed the most were infants too young to get the vaccine. THAT’S who suffers when herd immunity is lost.
@arguingwithsignposts:
These days, I find it entirely appropriate.
Sloth
Yah. The other problem with flu is that we’ve managed to water down the seriousness of the disease. Most of the flus we’ve had over the last century or so have been relatively benign, but the potential for a very serious flu exists – and that would be disastrous.
We’ve managed to equate relatively minor colds (“I had a stomach flu”) with something quite a bit worse (“I was well in the morning but by 2PM I could not even stand and was bed-ridden for a week. The after effects lasted for a month.”)
Even a minor flu (meaning it’s not killing a large percentage of the people it infects) can be a pretty dreadful thing – and can put considerable strain on an emergency care system already stretched to the limit.
Sloth
Of course they are. What they don’t have, by and large, is an entire national television network telling them that THE BLACK MAN IS OUT TO GET THEM, AIDED BY HIS EVIL MINION EZEKIEL EMANUEL AND HIS DEATH PANELS.
Counter productive doesn’t quite cover it.
Andrew A. Gill, SLS
David Dees is an anti-vaxer. That’s pretty much all you need to know about the movement.
If you don’t know who David Dees is, I envy you.
bellatrys
What “rise of autism”–? 18th, 19th century and earlier writings are PACKED with accounts of “naturals,” “mooncalves,” “cretins” and so on. Mostly they were treated like animals, driven out to fend for themselves or warehoused in horrible conditions (q.v. Bedlam) as society became more “civilized” – but just because the term “autistic” hadn’t been coined in past generations doesn’t mean they weren’t around, just because the medical profession hadn’t bothered to study and isolate out the different kinds of mental illnesses all classed as “madness” so carefully doesn’t mean that as many of them *weren’t* autistic.
When you start studying something that formerly you just shoved all together in one category and wrote off as untreatable, of course you are going to find that there are different causes and types of it – and when you start looking carefully you are going to see much more, whereas when you weren’t looking at all for something it typically doesn’t get diagnosed at all.
Higher reporting rates =/= higher rates of incidence: this is critical thinking 101 territory.
Oh, and I should add that the anti-vax thing is something I’d formerly only encountered on the Xtian right, due to the long- and deeply-held belief that vaccines are made from aborted babies…think I’m kidding? I first heard that argument against vaccination in the late 80s – along with the claim that “our ancestors did just fine without ’em” – something that made me question the sanity of my then-political compatriots because though a raised-and-trained theocon, I had *still* spent an awful lot of time in old churches and churchyards as well as reading 18th and 19th c history …and the one thing you can’t get away from is the number of tiny little gravestones and names with but a single date on them on family monuments.
Yes, our ancestors did “just fine” raising up families pre-vaccines, if you consider an 80% or even 100% childhood mortality rate in a family “just fine”…
bellatrys
“People do die on the operating table from complications of surgery; therefore no one should ever have an operation” is the “logic” of the anti-vaxers.
I wonder if they’re consistent about denying themselves *all* medical care, or just their children…? I mean, even going into a hospital for a blood test isn’t 100% safe – you could slip on a wet floor and crack your skull, after all.
geg6
I, too, am old enough to remember people with polio, having measles and mumps, and babies with whooping cough. I also work at a university in close contact with young people whose hygeine is often questionable. I get the flu vaccine every year. I plan to get both vaccines this year, per the recommendation of our HR dept. I really don’t have a lot of sympathy for anti-vacciners. Every medical treatment has a small number of adverse reaction cases, sometimes tragically resulting in deaths. But if we expect every treatment for everything to be 100% effective, there would be no treatments for anything whatsoever. My sister has Crohn’s Disease, giving her an immune system that barely works. Any flu could kill her and the odds of that are much, much, much higher than the odds of an adverse reaction to the vaccine. I prefer my sister alive, thank you very much. But perhaps others are not so concerned about the people around them and whether they live or die.
ironranger
Vaccinations for swine flue are expected to arrive in Oct according to Mpls Star Tribune yesterday, article on the work being done by MN Dept of Health to prepare for swine flu.
Regular flu shots are being given this week & next week in my area which is earlier than it has been in the last couple of years.
On Morning Joe Mika said she tried to get the swine flu shot for her kids but was shocked it wasn’t available yet. Joe said they knew about swine flu since spring, what have they been doing & Mika agreed. I thought everyone knew that flu viruses are always changing so the vaccinations have to be changed. The swine flu virus is new so how do Mika & Joe expect a vaccination in just a few months when it just surfaced in April.
Do Mika & Joe ever look up anything? Like googling is so hard to do.
bob h
Were the nutters themselves to boycott the CDC vaccine, it might provide some winnowing and be a good thing. These people are in such a state of apoplexy about Obama you never know. But if they affect the children’s vaccination program that could be very bad as children will be most vulnerable.
Xenos
@Wile E. Quixote: My dad had polio, too, but is about ten years older than your dad. He has had a lot of trouble with post-polio syndrome, and it kicked in at right about your father’s age. I strongly recommend researching this and planning for it.
The polio survivors from that time are a pretty remarkable bunch. Stubborn, feisty, cantankerous, unstoppable, and almost perversely optimistic.
satby
@Fern:
A Mom Anon
Jenny McCarthy and Oprah need to STFU about this,seriously STFU. Jim Freaking Carrey too.
My son was diagnosed PDD-NOS(a medical way of saying “sort of autistic”,but we really don’t know for sure)at around age 3. At that time (he’s almost 16 now)Asperger’s Syndrome wasn’t even a known diagnosis in the US. His diagnosis was recently changed to “likely”Asperger’s. There are no physical tests for autism and no known cure either,that makes it hard to get a definitive diagnosis unless the child is severely effected. This is what bugs the shit out of me about Jenny McCarthy’s books about her son Evan. He’s “cured”now,she had to “fix”him,lord help me it makes me want to scream and hurl. GAH! If the child is cured,he wasn’t autistic in the first place. If you read her first book about autism,she says he had massive seizures many times a day. Of course that would result in developmental delays and not typical behaviors,the poor baby was fighting seizures all day,his little brain and body had nothing left to devote to speech,language and other things.
The one thing she did write about that no one talks about is the toll on marriages and how in those dr’s offices it’s mostly the moms who deal with the issues that this brings to any family and couple. Beyond that,I seriously want to smack her in the ovaries. Oprah is giving her a freaking show of her own now on Oxygen,please no,god no. It’s hard enough for parents of autistic kids to find a good support network,this sort of crap just divides up parents against each other when we need all the help and support we can find. Which ain’t much as it is.
kay
Distribute the vaccine and funds to the states, per capita, and let the Glen Beck-follower’s governors figure it out.
We know this: if there is yet another conspiracy theory around this, national GOP leaders will happily exploit it, regardless of health and welfare consequences, see: advanced directives.
I don’t want to pay federal funds to counteract a concerted lie campaign by the right wing media and leaders. It’s a waste of money, if this is a genuine public health emergency.
The distribution is going to be at the state and local level. Let’s let the cost of rebutting lies and encouraging compliance fall where it should: on state and local governments with a high concentration of wingnuts.
Too, a lot of sick kids costs business interests, in productivity and absenteeism by their parents, and of course costs states, in emergency medical care. I have the feeling this isn’t a cause GOP leaders will advance. If they do, throw the costs of noncompliance back at them, at the state and local level. I don’t want to pay out tax dollars for a media campaign to rebut Glen Beck or chain wingnut emails.
Jackie
@Citizen: The ghosts of millions of people disabled and dead from the infectious diseases vaccines help prevent would sure as hell think it’s magic. They don’t work 100% of the time and ,rarely, some people have tragic adverse reactions.
Vaccines are victims of their own success. People have forgotten how awful the diseases they prevent were. When I was a kid and there were polio victims all over the place, most parents stampeded to get the polio vaccine. It was a miracle to stop worrying every summer that your child would be stricken.
J.D. Rhoades
@Comrade Kevin:
They are vile and despicable.
Actually, I know a couple of people who don’t trust vaccines, one of them a dear friend. She’s an intelligent woman, a hell of a writer, and she’s slightly to the left of me, if such a thing is possible.
But she had a child who was actually developing faster than her fraternal twin, until they were vaccinated, at which point the little girl almost immediately began developing symptoms of autism. The girl is profoundly autistic now, and my friend has been though 10 levels of Hell. She’s not vile and despicable; she’s scared and frustrated and tired and yes, angry. And she blames the thimerosal in the vaccines, because, yes, on the surface, injecting mercury into small children seems like a plausible explanation for this level of impaired brain function (there’s a reason for the expression “mad as a hatter”: the mercury used by hat-makers in the old days often resulted in severe toxic reactions, including insanity).
I happen to disagree vigorously with her on this point, but I would never regard her reaction as being “vile and despicable”, simply mistaken.
madmommy
@Jackie:
I think that’s a big part of the problem here. It’s been long enough that not many people really remember what it was like to have that fear for your children. I had mumps, measles and chicken pox as a kid. Every kid I knew did! I personally gave my entire 1st grade class the chicken pox. To not have to go through the misery of a baby or toddler scratching and ill is wonderful. And for most people chicken pox isn’t that severe an illness. I could not imagine dreading something like polio or whooping chough.
My kids went through the vaccine cycle in 2001-2004. One thing I found out when I first took my oldest for his shots is that the multi-dose shots each have the same amount of vaccine in them. So a baby gets a shot at 3 mos., 9 mos. and 1 year. The dosage remains the same, while the child gets bigger. It would seem to me that the likelyhood of adverse reaction would be with the first dose, which is the strongest based on dosage/child’s weight.
arguingwithsignposts
@jl: @freelancer: @jl: (and others)
I understand where the term comes from re: animal and plant research. I still find it off-putting. “science detaches the emotions from the words” is a fine sentiment for scientists, but words have power, and can encourage nut cases in their nuttery. I’m willing to bet there’s a fundevangelical preacher somewhere talking up the fact that vaccines are for the “herd.”
I can almost hear it now.
Anyway, I wasn’t making a joke, and I realize nothing is going to change the terminology. Just an observation and gut reaction, really.
jibeaux
Well, I learned from a comment at Newsweek that Obama plans to sterilize us through the public water supply. You know I’ve built up some immunity to crazy when I skip right past the implication that he’s some sort of comic book supervillain right to “you idiot, there’s not a federal water supply. Do you seriously think someone trying to sterilize the entire country would choose the path of going through hundreds of thousands of municipalities?”
Punchy
@John Cole: Yes
/rubs the undergrad biochemistry degree
someguy
Maybe the anti-vax people are not as nutty as everybody thinks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has looked at the situation and thinks that there are some problems with the vaccination that Big Pharma is working to hide from us. Sounds plausible to me – Pharma just loves to keep the money rolling in and they are known to lie about the risks of their drugs (just like they are lying about everything else in the health care debate) and RFK Jr. is a credible guy with real bona fides… I still get vaccinations but I’m not sure they are as safe as Pharma tells us.
jibeaux
@J.D. Rhoades:
The part I find vile and despicable is when they fail to vaccinate their children due to their fear, and go around pushing misinformation on people due to their fear. It is not vile and despicable to be mistaken about something, and I have some sympathy for the parents who are searching desperately for an explanation and have settled on correlation rather than causation. It does do some harm, I believe, in that you are not vested in trying to find the actual cause of autism and you may be affecting other people’s opinions with your addled thinking, but at least your friend is not directly putting other children at risk.
When you don’t vaccinate for mumps because you’ve heard your granola friends hyping conspiracy theories about it and it sounds true, and the baby who flew on the plane with you gets mumps and is desperately ill for a month (it was a This American Life episode), and you STILL don’t change your point of view on vaccines even though you’re an educated upper middle class person with a lot more than two brain cells to rub together but you just refuse to allow them to meet — then I’m okay with calling you vile and despicable.
bellatrys
A nice little retro glimpse into the joys of having kids die from diptheria – Rudyard Kipling weighs in in “A Second-Rate Woman” with more technical info here.
I’m one of the few of my generation in this country who got smallpox vaccinations (born abroad) and although I know the disease is extinct in the wild, and that the effectiveness does wear down over time, I find that pair of scars reassuring – some immunity is retained even w/o re-vaccinations according to the very old outbreak reports I’ve read, and in one of those “Dark Winter” scenarios I might be in a better position to help as a result.
bellatrys
re “herd immunity” – but we *are* animals, and pretending we’re not has caused an awful lot of stupidity and heartbreak. We’re not immune to the consequences of nature, and our shared biology and descent.
Woodrowfan
Betsy
@J.D. Rhoades:
How old is her child? They haven’t used thiomersal in infant vaccines since 2001.
Original Lee
@Jackie: Exactly. I remember being sick so often the year I went to kindergarten that the school told my mom I had to go full days for two weeks so I wouldn’t be held back. I had chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella, 5th disease, coxsackie, strep throat, and the flu. I gave all of these to my siblings. My youngest sister was a baby at the time.
I was so relieved that my kids didn’t have to go through that, although my daughter did develop measles from her MMR, and boy, was she a sick cookie for 5 days. Apparently, 1 out of every 3000 children get measles from the MMR, which is still a better ratio than from before the vaccine. I also nearly lost my job because I ran out of sick leave while my kid was recovering from measles. She couldn’t go back to daycare until the rash had faded completely, which took over a week after the fever broke. Maybe the antivaxers don’t care much about this aspect because so many of them are SAHMs, but I am really glad I didn’t have to quit my job until all of my kids were done getting sick from childhood diseases.
I also remember my mother talking about her first fiance, who died from polio. He was in an iron lung for 6 months before he passed away, and she spent a couple of hours every day visiting with him. After years of those stories, you can bet I was very firm with my doctor about making sure my kids got the polio vaccine.
Lee
Here is some pretty sound advice about this coming flu season. Also what my wife (a doctor) has been saying about H1N1.
Betsy
@jibeaux:
Ha! That’s awesome. It made me laugh. Thanks.
Cyrus
I haven’t had any kind of flu shot for several years – I’m a single man with no kids, usually pretty healthy, no major pre-existing conditions that I know of in anyone I encounter regularly – but this thread is making me seriously consider getting whatever’s standard for this flu season just to stick it, no pun intended, to the anti-vaxers and/or to pick up their slack in the herd immunity.
scav
@bellatrys: yup, and don’t I find it entirely apt to explicitly string along behind you rather than just posting the point myself. baaaaaa.
arguingwithsignposts
@bellatrys:
But we don’t call it a “herd” of geese or a herd of ants (reference).
Believe me, I’m not disputing evolutionary biology, just the term’s connotation in a lot of ppl’s minds.
chopper
@jl:
that’s a bit of a myth. while kids get more individual vaccines today for more diseases, the actual overall amount of material their immune systems have to code for is less than 10% of what it used to be do to purer, more minimized vaccine material.
scav
So, in order to protect the fragile minds of the few that are probably going to argue anyway, we have to abandon a perfectly reasonable term about a generic pattern of activity when we apply it to a specific context, e.g. humans. Mob immunity? Ah, to be protected against the mob. Would that it were so.
chopper
@bellatrys:
exactly. its like arguing based on its absence from old medical records that leukemia didn’t exist 300 years ago.
Cyrus
@arguingwithsignposts:
Well, the language of heraldry, including literally dozens of different collective nouns for animals, was created in part to distinguish the educated from the riff-raff who didn’t have the time or money to be taught the difference between a “gaggle of geese” and a “skein of geese.” Such fine distinctions were created precisely to get in the way of understanding, so “herd” is as good a collective noun as any for a large group of largish animals living together but not all interrelated, in an impersonal medical or scientific context.
Bob In Pacifica
Phoenix Woman, the link to Dr. Meryl Nass’ blog, although it’s titled Anthrax Vaccine, discusses all sorts of public health issues including the swine flu vaccine. In fact, her last ten posts are about the swine flu vaccine. There is no bait and switch. Try it again. Here’s the link:
http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/
The other link takes you to an article at the CDC about the swine flu scare of 1976. I discussed that in my entry, having been working at a hospital at the time and seeing a patient paralyzed by Guillain-Barre syndrome, which was a symptom of that mass innoculation.
There are a lot of other posts here about presumed connections with vaccines and autism and other buggaboos of the right-wing. Science has investigated and eliminated those vaccinations as a cause of autism.
That doesn’t mean that vaccination programs aren’t without problems. The first polio vaccination programs actually caused a rash of polio cases. Subsequent polio vaccines used a weakened virus grown on green monkey kidneys. A Dr. Carbone suggests that the vaccine also carried the SV40 virus, and thus introduced that virus into the human population. Over the last fifty years SV40 has been found in many soft tissue cancer tumors. Some have suggested that the rise in many cancers, including breast cancer, lymphomas, etc., are because SV40 was introduced into humans through the polio vaccine.
There are many theories that the initial distribution of AIDS followed vaccination programs in Africa and the gay community in the U.S. The simultaneous appearance of Kaposi’s sarcoma and lymphoma in gay AIDS patients at the beginning of that epidemic suggests that rare virus was introduced into the gay community along with AIDS. It has subsequently all but disappeared from AIDS patients.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have your children vaccinated or get your flu shots. I am just saying that there are reputable people around the world who are questioning the manufacturing process of the swine flu vaccine. Go read Nass’ blog.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Nine girls and they never call, they never write ….
YellowJournalism
So many interesting articles on autism, H1N1, and vaccinations. Thank you all for the info. I can’t believe that there is already a backlash aimed at Obama regarding the vaccinations. I guess he’s trying to take over the governments of other nations, too, since we’re going to get the vaccine here in Canada.
One thing that cannot be stressed enough, though, in addition to getting a child vaccinated, is to teach them proper handwashing techniques. So many adults fail to model good handwashing and other hygiene behaviours. I’ve worked with so many kids who think that running their hands under the water for ten seconds is sufficient because that’s what mom and dad do. Even people who do wash their hands after going to the bathroom do not do it correctly enough to ward off the spread of infection. And then there are those who just walk out of the bathroom without so much as a hand rinse…
And sneezing into your hands is a big no-no now. It actually speads more germs than just letting the sneeze fly. People really need to start sneezing into the crook of their elbow. I like to describe it to kids like they’re Snidely Whiplash hiding his face before sneaking up on the unsuspecting Penelope. (Of course, I don’t use those references because it makes me feel old when kids look at me funny.)
brantl
I have to tell you, there are the anti-all-vaxers, and then there are the anti-thimerosol vaxxers, of which I am one. Thimerosol was made illegal for animals and only phased out for humans (it hasn’t been fully phased-out yet). Why? Because the animals are in our food chain, and cause buildups in our systems, and vaccines for animals represent low profit, whereas human vaccines represent high profit.
RFK, Jr. found a study that had been sequestered by the CDC (at the beqeust of big business) showing a link between thimerosol-laden vaccine and autistic-symptomed illness. The guy that wrote the study for the CDC, and sequestered it, after industry-only review, under the Bush administration? He went to work for Glaxxo-Smith Klein.
I myself saw my 2 year old (at the time) son’s behavior change markedly after he got his vaccinations at that time.
Believe what you want, everybody does.
gwangung
Same thing, far as I’m concerned.
Mention RFK, Jr. and that brands you as un-serious (and not interested in any other research).
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne: Heh.
CDT
@brantl, J.D, et al:
I’m with branatl. I recognize that correlation is not causation, the dose makes the poioson, and all that. Nevertheless, shortly after my son (now 15) had his second MMR shot, he developed a seizure disorder and then autism. He became and remains completely non-communicative. I have a good friend who had the exact same experience. There are perfectly sensible reasons to believe that, in individual cases, thimerosol-containing vaccines were a problem. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That doesn’t mean that we should all stop getting vaccines. It does mean that the rest of you should stop calling skeptical parents of kids with autism “vile, depsciable, and misinformed” — especially those with advanced degrees and professional familiarity with toxicology. It’s an odd thing for liberal bloggers to castigate people for being skeptical about the good faith of the government and big pharma. The past conduct of both provides plenty of reasons to be that way.
chopper
@CDT:
first off, the MMR vaccine has never had thimerosol in it. so ‘thimerosol from the MMR’ can’t be responsible for your son’s autism.
second, if it were thimerosol in other vaccines you’d expect to see a precipitous drop in autism diagnoses following the phasing out of thimerosol from most all vaccines which occurred years ago. there is not.
Xenos
Another thing to keep in mind about correlation with vaccinations is that there are so many of shots received in so many stages. You end up taking your child in every 6-12 weeks for shots, for nearly two years. So whenever you see this remarkable correlation between getting a vaccine and the appearance of autism symptoms, keep in mind that it is rare to have any moment within the first two years of a child’s life when it is not within a few weeks of getting a vaccine.
Xenos
@chopper:
Thank you – I was completely unaware of this. Ten years ago we had a pediatrician who would never give two vaccines at once – we had to come back two weeks later to get the second. This was done out of caution that too much too soon could be a risk, either to the child or to the effectiveness of the vaccine. Maybe this is not so necessary now.
chopper
@Xenos:
this. its like blaming your child going to high school for the neurological disorder that started showing symptoms during puberty.
CDT
@chopper.
Maybe it was dip-tet, which did have thimerosol. It’s been 14 years.
As for the studies, your point is fair but not conclusive. First, whether ethylmercury is a potential trigger of autism in any individual case is not belied by the fact (assuming it’s true) that it is not a trigger in a large number of cases. Second, with regard to the absence of a “precipitous drop” in autism cases, one must also take into account other potential sources of mercury (such as power plant emissions) and flu shots to pregnant mothers. It would be interesting to see, for instance, whether general environmental exposure to mercury has risen over the period of thimerosol phaseout, and in essence replaced the source. Certainly the fish tissue data demonstrate that mercury is pervasive in the environment, and seemingly more so than 10-15 years ago.
In any event, my point was not to persuade you that my point of view was correct. My point was that it’s insulting for people to assume that vaccine skeptics are uneducated and mis-informed boobs desperate to assign blame elsewhere. We’re not.
Original Lee
@CDT: I apologize if my comments were painting the antivax community with too broad a brush. Obviously there is a range of belief, knowledge, and experience in the antivax community, some of which is informed and some of which is not. I was primarily thinking of people like my aunt, who refused to get my cousins vaccinated because she calculated that it was lower risk of harm to her children if she took advantage of the local herd immunity, like my girlfriend’s sister, who refuses to get her children vaccinated because it’s not natural, and my husband’s coworker, who refuses to get her children vaccinated because she’s afraid of mercury poisoning.
One of my brothers-in-law is a pediatric neuropsychologist. His current theory is that autism is the outward manifestation of a myriad of different nervous system traumas, some of which can be triggered by immunological insults. He thinks part of the vaccine linkage that many parents make may be because the toddler’s nervous system goes through a huge ramp-up during the time period when the MMR vaccine is usually given, so that things that were almost unnoticeable suddenly become overt. However, he also believes that there are a certain number of children who react badly to vaccines to viruses, such as yours, and that the CDC and FDA need to do better tracking of behaviors after the MMR with a special screen for autism-spectrum disorders.
CDT
@Original Lee.
Well put, thanks.
MNPundit
Uh, isn’t it ACTUALLY their fault on account of their faulty genes?
(Yes I put it horribly, no I don’t think they shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. Yes I almost assuredly have faulty genes of my own which is why I am going to adopt a kid when my fiance wears me down, not force her to pop one out for me.)
Bob In Pacifica
brantl, you can believe what you want, but there is no connection between autism and thimerosol. Statistically, there are higher rates of autism in countries that never used thimerosol.
I would guess that when all is said and done they will find out that autism is either a genetic disease or a condition caused in utero or some combination of the two.
And finally, just because there are wackos who are against all vaccines because they think the black guy is trying to kill them, there are reputable scientists and doctors who have questions about the safety of the manufacturing of the swine flu virus.
chopper
@CDT:
well, an anecdote is hardly going to be more conclusive than the data. i mean, by that logic there’s no way to disprove thimerosal’s influence over autism at all.
yes, there are a great number of confounding variables when it comes to autism. but environmental mercury is not the same as the stuff in thimerosal. not even close.
all of this ‘it would be interesting to see’ stuff is interesting, but its hardly convincing of any sort of link between thimerosal and autism. its all ‘what ifs’.
CDT
@chopper
Many experts seem to think that the likeliest cause of autism is some combination of genetic and environmental factors. A genetic deficiency in ability to deal with heavy metals may be one possible culprit. Given that, it’s by no means unreasonable for people to suspect that some subset of autism cases is related to ingestion of a known neurotoxin. Those of us that suspect that are in a far different category than those who think the government is out to poison us via vaccines.
But, you seem to be the expert, and I’m just a hidebound naif living in the dark ages: what, pray tell, is the cause of my son’s autism?
chopper
@CDT:
of course. there are shown genetic links. environmental factors are unknown as of yet but suspected. but just because ‘environmental factors are a cause’ doesn’t mean this environmental factor is a likely cause, without some demonstration of more than correlation in time.
ethylmercury is not a known neurotoxin as far as i know. the mercury in it certainly hasn’t been shown to bioaccumulate as does methylmercury.
so what you’re saying is, if i can’t tell you what causes autism, your theory must thus be correct. sorry, it don’t work that way. i’m not the guy making the link between vaccines and autism. you are, so its on you to demonstrate it.
CDT
@chopper
I’m not claiming there’s an unequivocal link between autism and vaccines. I’m just pointing out why, for a variety of reasons, perfectly reasonable and well-informed people do not find the rejection of such a link to be entirely compelling in their individual circumstances. Having seen first-hand how government and industry-funded scientific studies are prepared, I happen to think that reading them with a bit of a skeptical eye is appropriate. Apparently you feel otherwise. How well you must sleep at night, knowing that the government and big pharma are rigorously looking out for your family’s best interests!
chopper
@CDT:
shrug. reasonable people believe all sorts of things sans evidence. but if there’s a causal link it needs to be demonstrated. screw this ‘well you can understand how some people think X’.
as a scientist i read everything with a skeptical eye but unfortunately that also applies to dudes asserting a causal relationship between vaccines and autism without evidence.
oy gevult. why is it every time i ask someone pushing the autism/vaccine angle for evidence it comes down to this? oh, this guy wants to point out there’s no proof, he must inherently trust the gummint and ‘big pharma’! its like a broken record.
les
These guys have posted sporadically lately, but they are good at the beliefs/tactics/whackiness of many groups like and including the anti–vaxxers, and the ways they’re alike:
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/
Flugelhorn
Interesting take on Vax-ers. It would seem that a large majority (At least the most ‘vocal’) of people here believe that there is no link to autism and vaccines.
On a similar topic, how do the people here feel about GE foods? Not as it relates to Autism, but in general. Good? Bad? Indifferent?
(As an aside, it is funny how many of you have moved the “Vaxers” into the “Republitard”, wingnutter category. Do you do that to everyone you meet that you disagree with? “Oh, must be a republitard!”)
gwangung
And most of us believes the Earth revolves around the Sun and Darwin got it mostly right.
Hint: at least establish a CORRELATION without handwaving it with “suppressed studies” that rely on a first graders’ comprehension on how companies work.
chopper
@gwangung:
i really don’t like the ‘you can understand how people believe it’ line either.
reminds me of the birfers and their ‘well, obama hasn’t shown his real birth certificate yet so you can understand why some people don’t think he’s a citizen.’ uh, well, i understand that some people are loopy, yeah. but that’s about where it ends.
Citizen
Just caught up w/comments, and thought I should finish up.
Apparently many of you are scientists and well versed on vaccines. I haven’t had a conversation on this issue in 15 years, as they are difficult and tend to dead end. I’m so out of it I didn’t know there was a right wing anti-vaxxer group. Or about Oprah. So thanks for the links and informed comments.
The mid-80’s were a turnaround in vaccine awareness, certainly for us laypeople. DPT: A Shot in the Dark, which aired on the east coast brought many of us together and so much good work was done to educate and improve. The National Vaccine Act, the reporting system (still voluntary after all these years), the pertussis vaccine became acellular, etc. If you think the CDC and pharma didn’t need a serious kick in the ass, I believe you are mistaken.
I will certainly attempt to open up a bit to the larger discussion and I ask the same of many of you. I’ll take your word for it that there are significant dishonest forces at work, but most of us are good faith parents trying to make sense of it.
No, I didn’t have my youngest child vaccinated, I lied to get the religious exemption and expected herd immunity to work in this case. All things considered, I believe I acted responsibly.
Thanks for kind thoughts and good discussion.
Wile E. Quixote
@someguy
RFK Jr. is completely full of shit. What makes him credible? The fact that he wrote an article for Rolling Stone? The fact that he’s an environmentalist who’s in favor of building wind farms, except when they’re in view of das Kennedybunker? The fact that his daddy was the egregious RFK Sr., friend of Joe McCarthy and enabler of J. Edgar Hoover’s wiretapping of Martin Luther King. The only bona fides and credibility that RFK Jr. has are in the minds of people who aren’t bright enough to realize that the Kennedy’s weren’t America’s last great white hope. If you’re not one of those idiots then RFK Jr. has about as much credibility as Liz Cheney; they’re both hacks trading on a famous name, hacks who never would have gotten anywhere if they hadn’t had famous parents, winners of the lucky sperm contest.
The doctor who came up with the link between vaccines and autism, Andrew Wakefield is a fraud with conflicts of interest who faked his results. Did you hear one peep out of RFK Jr. when this was revealed earlier this year? Hell no! RFK Jr. wrote that stupid article for Rolling Stone, “Deadly Immunity” based in part on Wakefield’s claims and has been keeping his mouth shut since Wakefield was revealed to be a fraud. Has RFK Jr. retracted his claims? About as much as Dick Cheney has retracted his claims that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were BFF.
RFK Jr. is a contemptible, opportunistic asshole just like his father was*. If you want to read a real piece of self-serving bullshit go find the article he wrote about how wind farms are good but wind farms built off the shore of Nantucket, where his family maintains das Kennedybunker, are bad because they violate the commons or something, basically it was a spirited defense of NIMBYisms and boiled down to “we should only build windmills where me and my rich white friends don’t have to look at them”. I’m glad that RFK Jr. suffers from vocal dystonia, since his voice sounds like he’s gargling rocks it means that he’ll never have a political career.
*Read Rick Perlstein’s brilliant Nixonland and learn about RFK’s flip-flopping on Vietnam. Perlstein goes into great detail on RFK’s flip-flopping and opportunism.
bellatrys
re “herd” – I also use “flock” and “pack” interchangeably when talking about us-as-social-animals, myself, for semantic & rhetorical reasons. I would use “hive” too but that’s too loaded with sfnal associations; I might start switching in “swarm” too, given all the stuff that entomologists keep discovering about internal politics and customs in social insect communities… frex, they’ve found that the best-off status-wise in wasp and bee and ant – that is, those who can afford to risk, you’d think – are the most risk-averse, because they also have the most to lose, whereas the most marginal are the greater risk-takers, because they have the more to gain. And while ants are supposed to be uniformly warlike, nest vs nest, there’s been discovered a veritable “empire of ants” that stretches across hundreds of miles of Europe, all cooperative and without strife… And the gestures for “looks nonthreatening” vs “I’m important, don’t mess with me” are remarkably similar among our so-very-distant formic kin. IOW, world weirder than we knew, film at 11.
–I should also note that at an impressionable age I read some old book far above my grade level about the history of epidemology and how they coped with stuff like Yellow Jack and tetanus and other infectious diseases Back In Ye Good Old Days and the play-by-play story of the development – trial, *errors* and all – of antidotes for them and the ongoing discovery of why & how it all worked. Completely morbid, not at all the sort of thing a nice Catholic middle-school girl should have been immersed in, and utterly fascinating.
No, I don’t have any illusions that The Medical Profession nor Big Pharma are omnipotent and omnibenevolent – no more than individual doctors and researchers are, or individual parents and school nurses and the guy who delivers the “Grade E But Edible” hot dogs to the cafeteria are – but once you study the steps and even on an amateur level the science behind it all, it’s a little more difficult to be convinced of the scaremongering – particularly when the scaremongers often have very and documentably impure/ideological motives (such as the rightwing “prolife” antivaxers of my acquaintance.)
Wile E. Quixote
@CDT
Many experts seem to think that the likeliest cause of autism is some combination of genetic and environmental factors. A genetic deficiency in ability to deal with heavy metals may be one possible culprit. Given that, it’s by no means unreasonable for people to suspect that some subset of autism cases is related to ingestion of a known neurotoxin. Those of us that suspect that are in a far different category than those who think the government is out to poison us via vaccines.
But, you seem to be the expert, and I’m just a hidebound naif living in the dark ages: what, pray tell, is the cause of my son’s autism?
Wow, cool rhetorical technique! When confronted with people pointing out the flaws in your arguments or that there’s no proof for any of the theories linking vaccines and autism or that prominent anti-vaxxers are frauds you just whip out your autistic child and use him as a rhetorical human shield. You’re not the first anti-vaxxer parent I’ve seen behaving this way and you won’t be the last, but this is the most contemptible argument from authority I’ve ever seen. Just because you’ve been through a tragedy doesn’t mean that you get a free pass for your lies, stupidity and nonsense.
Flugelhorn
@gwangung: Really trying to understand what any of that had to do with my post and the quoted bit…
CDT
@chopper.
It’s great that you’re a scientist. I’m a lawyer. One of the things that some lawyers in my field do is work very hard to ensure that scientific information appears in the public domain/before the jury in the most favorable possible light. They achieve that in a variety of ways, ranging from not disclosing the work of experts whose opinions don’t happen to support the desired position; to hiring all of the available credentialed experts; to asking for only certain sets of data to be analyzed by a testifying expert. That’s a long way of saying that invoking “scientist” or scientific studies doesn’t strike me as a conversation-ender. Over the course of two decades of working with scientists, I’ve found them to be perfectly content to cherry-pick or analyze data in a manner designed to support a particular desired outcome. It is particularly easy for them to opine that no causal link between x and y can be demonstrated. If there has ever been a defense side testifting expert in a toxic tort case who has acknowledged causation in an individual case, I’m unaware of it.
More to the point, as a scientist, you must recognize the difference between a study that fails to support a causal link and a study that affirmatively disproves it. The absence of evidence of a link is not, by itself, conclusive evidence of its absence. My read of the studies at issue is that they fail to support the hypothesis that mercury in vaccines caused the dramatic inrease in autism diagnoses. But that’s a different thing than saying that those studies affirmatively exclude vaccination as a triggering cause in any particular invidual case.
I know from personal observation that my son had an immediate and violent reaction to a vaccination; that this violent reaction progressed quickly into a seizure disorder; and that the symptoms of autism became manifest thereafter. Last time I was in court, personal observations counted as “evidence.”
Do I contend that the published studies support the vaccine-autism link? No. Do I recognize that they fail to do so? Yes. Do I run around contending that vaccines are responsible for causing autism in the general sense, or arguing that the general populace should avoid them? No.
But do I find these studies sufficient to rule out the possibility that, in my son’s individual (and perhaps somewhat unique case, given his companion Down Syndrome), they played a role in the onset of autism? No, because a) as you point out, there are many confounding factors at play; and b) I know what I observed.
My argument was not that you can understand why people might believe there is a link, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary. My point is that many people aren’t yet convinced that the studies fully answer the questions. Further, there are some cases — like that of the unfortunate poster whose son died as a result of a negative vaccine reaction and, perhaps, that of my son — where a negative outcome can fairly be traced to a vaccination event. My son’s case was not one where, looking back, one connects symptoms of autism with an immunization that was otherwise unremarkable at the time.
You know nothing about the circumstances of any individual commenter on this forum, nor what produced an expressed skepticism about the conclusiveness of the studies to date. To lump all people with legitimate skepticism about the conclusiveness of the statistical evidence or its relevance to individual cases to nutjob Obama birthers is shameful. My original point was that snarky bloggers and their followers should not be so quick to judge the skeptical individual, or to lump each honest skeptic in with cynical public crusaders or ill-informed conspiracy theorists. That point remains unrebutted.
Citizen
@Wile.
You’re being sort of a dick.
You’ll have to acquire a better bedside manner if you wish to engage parents to consider various causes for their injured/dead ‘anecdote.’ Jeesh.
So, Wile, if your child was injured or died with only a temporal connection to a vaccine, would you do the research, say ‘well, they say it’s all fine’ and have him/her vaccinated again? and again?
I doubt it, as that is just not sensible.
chopper
@CDT:
no study on earth could possibly ‘affirmatively disprove’ a link between vaccines and autism, unless the thesis is that vaccines are the *sole* cause. if vaccines are asserted to be one of a number of causes then there’s really no way to realistically ‘affirmatively disprove’ it.
‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ (where have i heard that before), but it sure aint supportive of the thesis. we learned that the hard way, didn’t we?
one of the first things you learn in science is that ‘anything can happen’. the second thing you learn is not to dwell on that and pay attention to the data – go with what you can prove, not with what you can’t disprove. because there’s a lot out there that you can’t disprove.
CDT
@ Wile
I’d respectfully suggest that, in addition to your bedside manner, you also work on your reading comprehension. I’m not even an anti-vaxxer, as you put it. Read my latest response to chopper. And I’m well over the events of 14 years ago. I’m not “whipping out” my autistic son as a rhetorical device. Rather, my pesonal observation of his negative reaction to a vaccination event is, you know, relevant to my argument that it’s perfectly reasonable for some parents to continue believing in the possibility of a vaccine-autism link, despite studies failing to find one in the aggregate.
The original reason for my post was my belief that this thread, like others of its kind, inappropriately lumped skeptics and charlatans into the same category, and inexplicably generated a wave of personal vitriol. Thank you for making my points for me.