To vaccinate or not to vaccinate???

Orison, I use this example a lot.

Porkstock & ez, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I'm not fear mongering. I'm saying that adverse effects can be difficult to prove. I'm saying that I don't take for granted that the data is accurate.

I've been vaccinated, basically everyone I know has we're mostly all ok. And I do know people that have had serious vaccine injury as well. I don't know anyone who has died of measles, but I acknowledge that risk as well.

The purpose of vaccination IS herd immunity, not personal immunity. You can still get sick with something you've been vaccinated against (in any time frame, not just when a "booster" shot is needed), but herd immunity is proven and in itself will reduce your risk of infection.

I will vaccinate my kids. I don't need to be convinced to. I will not vaccinate them before they are 1 year old because I need to be familiar enough with their manner to recognize any change in behavior or personality.

 

I'm skeptical. Someone may think that they were injured by a vaccine, but it doesn't mean that they were.

What I've read is that if you are allergic to eggs, you could have a bad reaction and get sick that way. In the case of a live attenuated vaccine, you can get a mild case of a disease if your immunity is not good. People report getting sick after getting vaccines in other cases, but it happens so rarely (and with so many other possible causes) that it is not clear that the vaccine is the cause at all.

It's both. In some cases, the risk to an individual is not serious, but you should still get vaccinated to protect other people who can't get vaccinated, or whose immune systems are compromised.

Yes, but the chances that you will get sick from a disease that you've been vaccinated against are slim.

 

oh I agree. The current vaccine schedule is ridiculous. We've spaced my child's vaccines out a bit more than suggested. I dont remember him having to get the hep b shot as a newborn but I agree that is too young.

 

According to a study from the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), the case for the effectiveness of vaccines is in question.

Are vaccines for children effective? A study in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) provides data on deaths from infectious diseases over the last century. When this data is juxtaposed with the introduction of children's vaccination programs for a variety of diseases, we see that most vaccines for children have had little to no effect, and some may even be harmful. The highly revealing article below lays out the facts.

Since it's obvious from the AMA's own documentation that vaccinations have little or no effect on the outcome of infectious disease deaths, then there must be other issues at play. If one looks at the history of the 20th century in the U.S. then it isn't too difficult to see what has changed. This was the era of improved overall hygiene and adequate food.

It was when clean and abundant water became the norm. It was when systems to clean wastes from public water supplies became standard. It was when septic and sewer systems to separate people from disease-producing wastes were introduced. It was a time of relative plenty, when people grew larger because of adequate food. In other words, it was a time of relative wealth and public works for good water and sewage treatment.

Adequate food for the masses of people, along with sewage and clean water, are most probably the reasons behind the decrease in infectious diseases, not the medical system's vaunted vaccinations.

More here:

http://www.examiner.com/article/vaccines-for-children-not-effective

 

If you would like to make a quote from the AMA that actually states that vaccines don't prevent disease, feel free to do so.

The link you provided redirects HTTPS back to HTTP, and I have not interest in dealing with it.

 

Your point would be better served if you provided documented proof of the efficacy of vaccinations for infectious diseases instead of your belief.

In the meantime, tell me why you have a problem with this:

From the link I provided:

Finally, take a look at the chart for death rates from all disease causes. From 1900 into the 1920s, the infectious disease rate goes down at an impressive pace. This is a time during which there were no vaccinations against childhood diseases. The decrease in the rate of deaths continues at about the same pace well into the 1950s. Then, it starts to level out, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of children are vaccinated during this time.

Did you even look at the charts?

Here’s more:

Over the last 100 years, North America and Europe have experienced a substantial decline in mortality and an increase in life expectancy. The "theory of epidemiologic transition" attributes these trends to the transition from an "age of pestilence and famine," in which the mortality pattern was dominated by high rates of infectious disease deaths, especially in the young, to the current "age of degenerative and man-made diseases" in which mortality from chronic diseases predominates.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=768249

Do you have a problem with this source?

 

I in fact did provide documented proof of the efficacy of vaccinations. Please read posts #59 and #60 on this thread

http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/455807-to-vaccinate-or-not-to-vaccinate/?p=7634732
http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/455807-to-vaccinate-or-not-to-vaccinate/?p=7634733

Ok.

There are many problems with the conclusions being drawn from the charts in question. I'm not sure I'll even be able to point out all of them.


1. Viruses do not cause all infectious diseases

2. Infections do not cause all diseases (e.g., cancer and heart disease are diseases, but are not infectious)

3. Vaccines are not the only medical method of combating infectious disease. As the article notes, a number of other medical treatments were introduced during the period of the graph, sulfonamides (1935), antibiotics (1941), and antimycobacterials (1944)

4. Vaccines are not available for all viral diseases

5. Even when a vaccine is available, not all people get the vaccine

6. Rates of infectious disease can be highly variable from year to year.


The only accurate test for the effectiveness of a vaccine is to compare the vaccinated versus un-vaccinated rates of infection in the same population. As post #59 indicates "Unvaccinated individuals are 22 times more likely to get measles than are those who have two measles vaccines" (source: NY State Department of Health).

In short, vaccines have shown themselves to be highly effective in preventing the diseases that they are intended to prevent.

Yes

Nowhere in the quote above does it state that "vaccines are not effective". What the quote above says is that the rates of mortality from infectious diseases have decreased, while mortality from chronic diseases has increased. No reasonable person could draw the conclusion that vaccines are not effective from the quote above.

There is also every reason to believe that Gregory L. Armstrong, MD, the lead author of the JAMA article that you cited, is in fact a strong supporter of vaccinations.

Armstrong comments on the increase of measles in Europe in this article http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_ParentingResource/travelers-imported-measles/story?id=13330042

I have no objection to the JAMA article, only to the conclusions that you are drawing from it.

 

Actually, you need to produce, or direct me to, the study from which the New York State Department of Health came to determine that "unvaccinated individuals are 22 times more likely to get measles than are who those who have two measles vaccines, usually given as measles." Such a claim must be backed by a study.

So why don’t you produce the study that shows the efficacy of vaccines? I trust you’ve seen one.

 

Don't really get the trend behind vaccinations. If you get a cold or the flu you just deal with it like we've been doing for thousands of years. Not going to inject an illness in me to escape a runny nose once a year.

 

most vaccines protect against life threatening diseases. The flu vaccine is really only intended for the very old and very young. The general population can handle the flu without any serious complications. The push in recent years for everyone to get the flu vaccine is probably just motivated by money.
I also think the chicken pox vaccine is stupid and pointless. But other than that and maybe a couple more, I would much rather take the vaccine than suffer or die from the disease.

 

From the link below:

Would you be interested in a vaccination that results in more than 5 times as much illness? If you take the seasonal influenza vaccination, that’s what you’re doing. The seasonal trivalent flu vaccine results in 5.5 times more incidents of respiratory illness, according to a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The study is particularly noteworthy because it was a double-blind placebo-controlled trial—and the researchers used saline solution, a genuinely inactive placebo, as a standin for the trivalent flu vaccine. Most vaccine trials utilize active placebos, which are substances that include ingredients used in the vaccines, making the studies meaningless—though this fact is almost never revealed in the writeups.

Subjects were followed for an average of 272 days. The active influenza vaccine adminstered was Sanofi Pasteur’s Vaxigrip. The trial included children aged 6-15 years. 69 were given Vaxgrip and 46 received the saline placebo.

With regard to effectiveness against influenza, the authors wrote:

There was no statistically significant difference in the risk of confirmed seasonal influenza infection between recipients of TIV [trivalent influenza inactivated vaccine] or placebo.


http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/study-flu-vaccine-causes-5-5-times-more-respiratory-infections-a-true-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-study/

 

First of all, I don't put much stock in flu vaccines, I don't take them despite all the prodding every year about 'free vaccinations'
However, the article in your link provides no link to the actual study and the good Dr Sherry admits to disregarding the study's stats as she prefers the kind of math that favor her own analysis.
But don't forget to buy her book!

 

So, you believe this study, and those who participated in it, to be fabricated?

Gabriel M. Leung, School of Public Health, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong. Tel: +852 3906 2001; Fax: +852 3520 1945; email:
gmleung@hku.hk

Our experimental study provides evidence consistent with temporary non-specific immunity against other respiratory viruses following influenza virus infection, a phenomenon that could explain the epidemiologic dynamics of respiratory virus epidemics described in ecologic studies.

Abstract
We randomized 115 children to trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) or placebo. Over the following 9 months, TIV recipients had increased risk of virologically-confirmed non-influenza infections (relative risk: 4.40; 95% confidence interval: 1.31-14.8). Being protected against influenza, TIV recipients may lack temporary non-specific immunity that protected against other respiratory viruses.

And the data given here . . .


Vaccinated Placebo(saline)

Any Seasonal Influenza

58 88

H1N1 (Swine Flu ‘Pandemic’)

58 0

Total Influenza Cases

116 88

Noninfluenza Viruses

Rhinovirus (common cold)

230 59

Coxsackie/Echovirus

160 0

Other Respiratory Viruses

97 29

Total Other Viruses

487 88

　

. . . you believe to be also fabricated? And what does Sherri Tenpenny have to do with this study and its results?

 

That's good, because their effectiveness is somewhat questionable:

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/02/27/cid.ciu105

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/04/23/measles-outbreak-traced-to-fully-vaccinated-patient-for-first-time/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1884314

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24144708

 

I simply wanted a link to the actual study Sherri Tenpenny was purporting to analyze in the article from the link you posted.

 

You're citing studies here, but the studies don't support what you claim. In the first study listed above, the authors state "Measles was eliminated in the United States through high vaccination coverage and a public health system able to rapidly respond to measles. Measles may occur among vaccinated individuals, but secondary transmission from such individuals has not been documented."

The statement "Measles was eliminated in the United States through high vaccination coverage" is not evidence that vaccines don't work. The study appears to be about rare cases of measles among people who have been vaccinated, and even rarer secondary cases from those people.


The next link that you list is an anti-vaccinationist article that refers to the study above. The article draws the conclusion that if a person gets vaccinated against measles, and then they get the measles, that means that vaccines don't work.

However, it is not the claim of supporters of vaccinations that the measles vaccine will make 100% of vaccinated people 100% immune to measles in all cases. Rather, the vaccine makes you much less likely to get the measles.

The third study that you link to is an abstract, not a full article. It notes a measles outbreak in Quebec City in 1989. It claims that 84.5% were among vaccinated people, and that 99% of the general population was vaccinated.

While the study is fascinating, few conclusions can be drawn from the abstract alone. This study was published in 1991.

Conveniently, the last link that you listed (also an abstract) is a follow-up study about the same outbreak. This study was published in 2013. Quoting from the abstract:

In other words, as long as the initial vaccine dose occurred after 15 months of age, the vaccine conferred strong immunity. So the only reasonable conclusion that I can see drawing from this study is that measles vaccinations should be administered after 15 months of age, not that "vaccines don't work".

While you have cited many studies, none of the studies that you cite support your conclusions.

 

I don't see any reason to conclude that the study is fabricated. The conclusions that "vaccines don't work" can not be reached based on this study for several reasons.

1. It's a single study with only 115 participants. Single studies with a low number of test subjects don't really mean anything by themselves. They do, however, justify follow-up studies and peer review

2. The study only used inactivated vaccines, and only one particular brand of vaccine.

3. This study found that the vaccine did confer immunity against influenza

4. An increased risk of other respiratory infections does not mean necessarily mean that the vaccinated test subjects, overall, got sick more often or more severely than the subjects in the placebo group. For example, lets say no one in the vaccinated group got influenza, and all of the subjects in the placebo group did. If 5 subjects in the vaccinated group then caught a cold, and none of the subjects in the placebo group did, then there would be a dramatically higher rate of non-influenza respiratory infections in the vaccinated group. The total frequency of respiratory infections, and the severity of those infections, would still be much higher in the placebo group.

5. A follow up study published in 2013 concluded that the study that you cited was in error. See below.

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/6/789.full

 

Okayz. Hearz sum studies.

• 1. a. b. Bisgard KM, Kao A, Leake J, et al. Haemophilus influenzae invasive disease in the United States, 1994-1995: Near disappearance of a vaccine-preventable childhood disease. Emerging Infectious Diseases 1998;4(2):229-237.
• 2. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l. Atkinson W, Wolfe C, Humiston S, Nelson R, eds. Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases. (The Pink Book) 6th ed. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2000.
• 3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Epidemiology of measles—United States, 1998. MMWR 1999;48:749-753.
• 4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Progress toward eliminating Haemophilus influenzae type b disease among infants and children — United States, 1987-1997. MMWR 1998;47:993-998.
• 5. Vitek CR, Aduddell M, Brinton MJ, Hoffman RE, Redd SC. Increased protections during a measles outbreak of children previously vaccinated with a second dose of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal 1999;18:620-623.
• 6. Salmon DA, Haber M, Gangarosa E, Phillips L, Smith NJ, and Chen RT. Health consequences of religious and philosophical exemptions from immunization laws. JAMA 1999;282(1):47-53.
• 7. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public-sector vaccination efforts in response to the resurgence of measles among preschool-aged children—United States, 1989-1991. MMWR 1992;41:522-525.

 

So who all everybody here changed their minds about vaccines after reading all the posts here?

 

Please check out what Dr. Cynthia Cristophani (spelling?) has to say about vaccinations, starting at 15:39. About chicken pox in particular starting at 17:04

http://youtu.be/e-PUrDEQn6E