Hepatitis, Diphtheria, Rubella...Each year millions of children are vaccinated in order to prevent potentially fatal illnesses like these. But should schools be able to mandate vaccines? Some parents see them as vital lifesavers, but others fear serious or perhaps even debilitating risks. How much authority should schools have in determining your child’s health?
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I AGREE COMPLETELY WITH THIS VIEW. THERE IS ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT MOST VACCINES ARE NOT ONLY UNNECESSARY, BUT EVEN HARMFUL. IT IS ABOUT TIME THAT PEOPLE BECAME MORE INTERESTED AND AWARE OF WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD. UNFORTUNATELY, OUR GOVERNMENTS DO NOT ALWAYS HAVE THE PEOPLE'S BEST INTEREST AT HEART AND SELL US TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER: IN THIS CASE THE PHARMACEUTICAL CONCERNS. AUSTRALIA SHOULD STOP BEING A FOLLOWER AND START BEING A LEADER. WE HAVE THE RESOURCES TO BE LEADERS IN EVERY ASPECT, NOT ONLY IN SPORT, WHICH WE ALREADY ARE, BUT ALSO IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES AND CULTURE. AT THE MOMENT OUR PROUD "AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE" SOUNDS MORE AND MORE LIKE "AUSSIE, AUSSIE, USA". DO NOT BE BLINDED BY THE MASS MEDIA, ASK QUESTIONS! PLEASE!
- miperrito42
July 14, 2009 5:42AM
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The concept behind all vaccination is herd immunity. It is the concept that as more people are immune, the lower is the likelihood that a susceptible person will become infected. This then leads to the irradication of the disease. But, this requires vaccination of almost all of the population. Therefore, to protect the species, everyone should be vaccinated unless it is medically contraindicated.
- jross72
October 18, 2008 7:20PM
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Vaccinated students contracted a disease b/c the vaccine wasn't effective, so it's their fault. You are very right, it isn't the unvaccinated students fault. However, how are you going to explain how one student gave this bad disease to 1/3 of those school children who didn't get vaccinated? Fault isn't the matter at hand, it's those unvaccinated students coming down with the disease and possibly result in death is what is important. For example, if schools required that students be vaccinated, say against measles, and 1/2 of those students did, then great. They don't have to worry about getting measles. But when a measles epidemic occurs in schools, whats gonna happen to the other 1/2?
- pioneerlinh February 19, 2009 5:09PM
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Vaccination numbers for measles mumps and rubella in the UK dropped recently because of worries that it may cause autism in children. While this was swiftly discredited in medical journals the message never filtered through to everyone, resulting in parents not immunising their kids. Because of this we have effectively reintroduced measles to the UK. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7872541.stm )
I would say that vaccination is definatly worthwhile if the disease is a serious threat and the vaccine is effective, as the above BBC story would agree.
- bjrhodes
February 23, 2009 9:37AM
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This was the point I was going to make. Glad to see someone already pointed out this logical fact.
Of course, there is NO justification for "public schools" in the first place. Education is MUCH too important to leave to government.
- KentMcManigal May 30, 2009 12:52AM
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I was a young child in the 1950's, when my mother was persuaded with many other mothers that it was best to expose young children to measles, so that immunity for life might be had. Some of my siblings did get the measles. I seemed immune already, as i recall and never got those lovely red dots on my face. I was the family member who "played in the dirt" everyday and who was intimate with the the nearby rural valley, fields and loved climbing trees, exploring generally and even played in a stream, where a local village drained it's (low-flow) septic-seepage. (My mom worked abroad where we were stationed, and i somewhat predated the latch-key kid era).
My counter vaccination argument-- What if school kids today got diseases from additional sources, such as failure to immunize through natural means, as i did? Perhaps much less invasive, external methods exist, to immunize kids, including rational nutrition, (and banning junk foods from schools ).
Therefore why not test kids for susceptibility, straightforwardly? Is our society too primitive to rule out dangerous experiments upon the public at large? Why not use external immunization? Is it the feared loss of profiteering which prevents rational approaches?
- TruthBeautyGoodness October 4, 2009 7:49AM
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"I was a young child in the 1950's, when my mother was persuaded with many other mothers that it was best to expose young children to measles, so that immunity for life might be had. Some of my siblings did get the measles. "
For centuries measles was a deadly disease, but after the introduction of the vaccine in the mid sixties the number of outbreaks dropped to nearly non existant... spiking only in unvaccinated populations.
This can be seen in the measles outbreak in 2006 (449 cases, vs 56 in 1998) which included the first measles death in the UK in over ten years.
"What if school kids today got diseases from additional sources, such as failure to immunize through natural means, as i did?"
Then you are accepting the high number of deaths that will correspond from allowing the disease to run through the population.
"Perhaps much less invasive, external methods exist, to immunize kids, including rational nutrition, (and banning junk foods from schools )."
Nutrition does not lead to immunization.
"Therefore why not test kids for susceptibility, straightforwardly?"
Test them for what? Cases of vaccine injury have involved very rare underlying conditions that are hard to detect without specific tests.
"Is our society too primitive to rule out dangerous experiments upon the public at large?"
There are serious ethical concerns with running such experiments... largely due to the risk of increased outbreaks in diseases (as has consistently followed reductions in vaccination ).
"Why not use external immunization?"
What do you mean by external immunization?
"Is it the feared loss of profiteering which prevents rational approaches?"
It is more like the reasonable fear of lethal outbreaks keeps such tests from being performed.
- MrBook October 4, 2009 12:12PM
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"Then you are accepting the high number of deaths that will correspond from allowing the disease to run through the population."
No, my point is that I was naturally immune, due to elements of lifestyle and/or perhaps my own recessive genes which my siblings lacked.
"Test them for what? Cases of vaccine injury have involved very rare underlying conditions that are hard to detect without specific tests."
Then let the focus be your "very rare underlying conditions"-- Pinpoint causes and effects. Consider preventative measures. Why continue on with thoughtlessness of internally invasive immunization. Instead support the immune system by providing for it's particular needs. Perhaps your "very rare underlying conditions" refer to unhealthy conditions of life needing correction, (even in our day and age).
So you might argue and instead focus on some narrow issues of statistics. Statistics lacking the controls of reasoned, healthful lifestyles. Indeed nutrition and lack thereof plays a huge part of disease susceptibility. We see billionaires bragging about sending pharmaceuticals by the ship load to Africa, purportedly to improve public health . Yet far better health is to be achieved if these recipients could have normalized diets, municipal hygiene technologies and financing. Also sustainable-local-economies will help greatly. Remove the incentives for slavery which still today sneaks in through sweat shops and very unsafe living conditions generally. The list goes on. Scholarship is to be found which supports these mere sentences.
"There are serious ethical concerns with running such experiments... largely due to the risk of increased outbreaks in diseases (as has consistently followed reductions in vaccination )." Touche- I seriously doubt this assertion. Let us chart this out using the best scholarship on both sides of the argument. Surely a concept-experiment is far safer than experimenting directly on the public with newly formulated vaccines .
"What do you mean by external immunization?" This refers to the difference between internal medicine and external medicine. External medicine or therapies are the least invasive and extremely effective when proper remedies are applied. When healthful lifestyles are lived, as a precondition. When mixed practices are not conflicting. In my case immunity from measles was apparent at around age six, when my siblings got the measles, i didn't, we lived in close quarters daily, as young children .
"It is more like the reasonable fear of lethal outbreaks keeps such tests from being performed." I agree. let us prevent mass-experimants using designer-vaccines!
PS-- I am fine with self quarantine-- I am not sending kids to any schools . Don't create public unrest with outrageous vaccine police , (just because populations of people mix all sorts of disease vectors into their lives-- In which the experts find troubles in sorting out causes and effects of outbreaks).
- TruthBeautyGoodness October 5, 2009 3:04AM
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“No, my point is that I was naturally immune, due to elements of lifestyle and/or perhaps my own recessive genes which my siblings lacked.”
Or you experienced a mild form of the disease that your body was able to handle without showing symptoms.
“Then let the focus be your "very rare underlying conditions "-- Pinpoint causes and effects.”
We are… take the Hanna Polling case, her condition was caused by a very rare reaction between the vaccine and a very rare underlying mitochondrial condition… she is one of the few people in medical history to even have the reaction.
“Consider preventative measures.”
A vaccine is a preventative measure.
“Why continue on with thoughtlessness of internally invasive immunization.”
What is so invasive about immunization? A vaccine is a controlled exposure to a weakened or dead form of a known pathogen. It is actually very similar to what likely happened to you as a child where you were exposed to a form of the disease that your body was able to fight off without causing symptoms.
“Instead support the immune system by providing for it's particular needs.”
Vaccines do that, by ‘educating’ the immune system about what a pathogen ‘looks like’ so that it can be recognized in the future. All the immune boosting vitamins and such can’t help you if the body does not know what to target.
“Perhaps your "very rare underlying conditions" refer to unhealthy conditions of life needing correction, (even in our day and age). “
Possibly some of them are, but since they are so rare they have to be examined on a case by case benefit. Again I use Hanna Polling as an example; her condition is a genetic one.
“So you might argue and instead focus on some narrow issues of statistics.”
Narrow? How else are we supposed to study the effects of vaccination or disease of a population of more then three hundred million?
“Statistics lacking the controls of reasoned, healthful lifestyles.”
I’m not sure what you are getting at here… the statistics are looking at the incidence of diseases in the general population. Since many people live unhealthy lifestyles they have to be included because they can get sick and spread pathogens.
“Indeed nutrition and lack thereof plays a huge part of disease susceptibility.”
Are you seriously suggesting that by diet alone you can prevent smallpox or polio?
- MrBook October 6, 2009 6:07AM
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“We see billionaires bragging about sending pharmaceuticals by the ship load to Africa, purportedly to improve public health .”
They do improve health… look at the incidence of polio and smallpox within those populations between now and before the vaccines were made available, then look at the incidence of polio in areas where vaccinations are refused. Nigeria is a good example, as due to the actions of extremists the percentage of the population vaccinated has dropped below the level needed to maintain herd immunity. This has been followed by a resurgence of the disease in both the regions the extremists are active in and in surrounding regions. This can also be seen in Bangladesh, which borders India (where polio is still endemic)… Bangladesh experienced a resurgence in polio in 2006 due to the import of the disease from India.
“Yet far better health is to be achieved if these recipients could have normalized diets, municipal hygiene technologies and financing.”
Vaccination is part of improving the health of a population, it is not in opposition to that heath improvement.
“Also sustainable-local-economies will help greatly. Remove the incentives for slavery which still today sneaks in through sweat shops and very unsafe living conditions generally. The list goes on. Scholarship is to be found which supports these mere sentences.”
Then please offer citations. I do not disagree that improvements in hygiene and diet help prevent the spread of disease… but those are only part of improving public health.
“Touche- I seriously doubt this assertion. Let us chart this out using the best scholarship on both sides of the argument. Surely a concept-experiment is far safer than experimenting directly on the public with newly formulated vaccines .”
Alright… what do you want to look at first? The rate of infection for a given disease in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated populations? The worldwide rate of some diseases before and after the introduction of vaccines for those diseases?
“This refers to the difference between internal medicine and external medicine. External medicine or therapies are the least invasive and extremely effective when proper remedies are applied.”
You are talking about things like dietary changes and exercise ? Those are an important part of maintaining health, but they are not the sum total of health as even someone with a good diet and lots of exercise can get ill.
“In my case immunity from measles was apparent at around age six, when my siblings got the measles, i didn't, we lived in close quarters daily, as young children .”
How can you say for certain that you did not get the measles? It is likely that you were infected with a mild strain of the wild virus and did not become symptomatic (or that the symptoms were not noticeable). Your claim about diet seems to fall apart in this example as your sisters would have had the same diet as you did.
“I agree. let us prevent mass-experimants using designer-vaccines!”
Huh? Vaccines are tested before they are released into the population. Further there are vaccines in use that have been tested extensively for years.
“PS-- I am fine with self quarantine-- I am not sending kids to any schools .”
Though this can be effective it is not as effective as vaccination , as we are often contagious before we become symptomatic.
“Don't create public unrest with outrageous vaccine police , (just because populations of people mix all sorts of disease vectors into their lives-- In which the experts find troubles in sorting out causes and effects of outbreaks). “
I’m not sure what you are trying to get across here, can you clarify.
An interesting side note… I’ve learned of another positive side effect of vaccination and herd immunity. It exerts evolutionary pressure on viruses to lower their ferocity. A disease that quickly makes its carrier to sick to interact with others cannot spread very far, and as such there is evolutionary pressure on viruses to have long periods where they are transmittable but have mild (or no) symptoms.
In a given population as the number of vaccinated increases the number of vulnerable people someone infected with a disease has a chance to come into contact with decreases, thus decreasing the chance for transmission. A virus that multiplies quickly therefore has an even smaller chance of being passed on, while a virus that does not incapacitate has longer to spread through the population. The result of this pressure is that less dangerous forms of a given disease survive.
- MrBook October 6, 2009 6:07AM
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My personal experience is clear to me and disagrees with your suggested theory of my personal experience, (about my measles as a young child-- You completely sidestepped my combination of facts. You have a right to your suggested theory and we can leave it there).
As to lengthy shadow boxing debates-- My posting privilege is much smaller than yours appears to be, but here is a link to a pdf full of citations which is highly opposed to vaccination . It is from persons with credentials. I personally have no such credentials. So in case you are highly credentialed and wish to debate at that level, then perhaps you and your colleagues of similar opinion might like to address or perhaps invite some of these skilled experts to address the science and scholarship of the issues at hand.
Likewise, it is the individual responsibility of non-experts to determine which experts are closer to the truth and have the public interest at heart. We non-credentialed persons must also determine which protocol is "snake- oil " or profiteering and which side promotes better health . Governments are today preparing to enforce citizens to accept complex systems and pay heavily for them through taxes . A government by the people, requires the people to study the choices and vote by every means available (or suffer an unwanted bill of goods).
On Topic Citations through a pdf white paper-
http://www.garynull.com/SwineFluWhitePaper.pdf
- TruthBeautyGoodness October 6, 2009 6:37AM
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“My personal experience is clear to me and disagrees with your suggested theory of my personal experience, (about my measles as a young child-- You completely sidestepped my combination of facts. You have a right to your suggested theory and we can leave it there).”
How do you support your theory? Both are untestable because they are based on your recollections from your childhood. You stated that your siblings got sick while you did not, was your diet or activities significantly different from them? Were you older then them? If your ‘natural immunity’ was genetically based then why did it not extend to your siblings? What about your personal experience disagrees with my theory?
Your statement: ‘I seemed immune already, as i recall and never got those lovely red dots on my face.’ Is not a scientifically valid one, where as my supposition that you were exposed to a milder strain of the virus and thus had developed immunity seems to be a reasonable one. Yet it does not follow that by playing in the dirt an individual can gain immunity to a virus, because the chance of exposure is to haphazard.
“I personally have no such credentials. So in case you are highly credentialed and wish to debate at that level, then perhaps you and your colleagues of similar opinion might like to address or perhaps invite some of these skilled experts to address the science and scholarship of the issues at hand.”
I’m not a physician, I’m an engineer and a scientist… as such I have some skill at reading and reviewing the evidence in these matters.
“Likewise, it is the individual responsibility of non-experts to determine which experts are closer to the truth and have the public interest at heart. We non-credentialed persons must also determine which protocol is "snake- oil " or profiteering and which side promotes better health .”
And the only true way to differentiate the snake oil from the real stuff is through the Scientific process… in which the evidence clearly supports vaccination .
“Governments are today preparing to enforce citizens to accept complex systems and pay heavily for them through taxes . A government by the people, requires the people to study the choices and vote by every means available (or suffer an unwanted bill of goods).”
True, but again when the body of evidence supports vaccination.
On Topic Citations through a pdf white paper-
http://www.garynull.com/SwineFluWhitePaper.pdf
When you bore down into it the evidence they posit seems rather weak... they cite that vaccines are not 100% effective, but this is a known fact... they claim that improved sanitation would have eliminated measles while ignoring the measles outbreaks that have followed reduced vaccination (as well as not mentioning smallpox or polio).
A truly wonderful example of this is the following:
“Vaccines are portrayed as being indispensable and somehow better at disease protection than what our innate biological defenses and nutritional resources have accomplished for thousands of years.”
Vaccines use the bodies 'innate biological defenses' to protect against viruses by 'educating' those defenses... and the bit about 'nutritional resources' makes little sense as well (good health can help mitigate the severity of a disease, and otherwise speed recovery, but it does not help the body identify viruses).
- MrBook October 6, 2009 7:21PM
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"What about your personal experience disagrees with my theory?"
My immunities were superior to my siblings. It can be suggested that i played in more beneficial dirt than my siblings did-- Dirt which provided my immune system an inspiration. This was external medicine , no injection into my blood stream was required. Also our genes are not identical, nor was our dietary preferences or our habits.
Let's consider this vaccine recipe from the CDC- http://www.whale.to/vaccine/measles_virus.html Quote follows:
In an online paper entitled 'Isolation and Identification of Measles Virus in Cell Culture,' the CDC, the central Health Research authority of the USA, lays out how isolation of this virus should be done so it can be used, say for a vaccine. It instructs, first obtain from the patient a small sample of urine or fluid from the nose or mouth.
Next 'sacrifice' a marmoset monkey, take some of its cells, then make these cancerous, perhaps by exposing them to radiation, and then give them, on top of this, Epstein-Barr disease! Such extremely sick cells, the CDC informs us, are '10,000 times' more sensitive to the measles virus than are normal human cells.
Now add to these cells a toxin called trypsin. The CDC tells us to expect some cells to fall off the sides of the vessel as if they have been poisoned. They have been. Now add nutrients and glucose and leave for two or three days so the cells can somewhat recover.
Now add to the cells the sample gathered from the patient. After an hour, inspect the cells in the culture with a microscope to see if any of the cells are becoming distorted, or are floating free as they did when trypsin was added. If they are, the CDC says this is proof that measles virus is present and making the cells ill.
- TruthBeautyGoodness October 7, 2009 5:07AM
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You wrote "You are talking about things like dietary changes and exercise ? "
I speak of much more as in the word Holistic and the lack of government funding to extend the value of studies to include all possible disease vectors, contrasted with all possible vectors of immunity. Too complex would be it said? No surprise! The powers That Be avoid the bigger pictures, the deeper truths and the wider paradigms.
You wrote-- "Narrow? How else are we supposed to study the effects ofvaccination or disease of a population of more then three hundred million?"
I say-- Ha, try 6+ billion!
I had also written about-- “Statistics lacking the controls of reasoned, healthful lifestyles.”
You responded-- "I’m not sure what you are getting at here… the statistics are looking at the incidence of diseases in the general population. Since many people live unhealthy lifestyles they have to be included because they can get sick and spread pathogens."
Me-- Ahah! the unhealthy lifestyles must me studied along with all the support-systems as a disease vector! Currently your mentioned-approach lumps the unhealthy populations along with those who strive to abstain from unhealthy life styles. What sort of science is that? It produces a useless statistic in terms of finding causes and effects!
- TruthBeautyGoodness October 6, 2009 7:04AM
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“I speak of much more as in the word Holistic and the lack of government funding to extend the value of studies to include all possible disease vectors, contrasted with all possible vectors of immunity. Too complex would be it said? No surprise! The powers That Be avoid the bigger pictures, the deeper truths and the wider paradigms.”
That makes no sense. Disease vectors are well studied, as are methods of immunization (immunity can only form following exposure to a pathogen, allowing the body to recognize the pathogen when encountered in the future).
“I say-- Ha, try 6+ billion!”
Again, statistics is the only scientific way to study a population of any appreciable size
“Me-- Ahah! the unhealthy lifestyles must me studied along with all the support-systems as a disease vector! Currently your mentioned-approach lumps the unhealthy populations along with those who strive to abstain from unhealthy life styles. What sort of science is that? It produces a useless statistic in terms of finding causes and effects!”
What causes / effects are in question here? That healthy people recover faster and get less sick is well known… but it does not prevent infection.
Look at the worldwide rate of smallpox, measles, and polio. The rate of infection drops suddenly and rapidly when vaccination is introduced, and spikes when vaccination is reduced / removed. The measles outbreak in England following the MMR scare is a prime example of this, but so are the outbreaks of polio in Nigeria, India, and Bangladesh. In all those outbreaks there was not both a removal of vaccination and a sudden shift in the health habits of the population, it was just the removal of the vaccine.
- MrBook October 6, 2009 7:22PM
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"What causes / effects are in question here? That healthy people recover faster and get less sick is well known… but it does not prevent infection."
Causes and effects deserve more study beyond ivory tower assertions based upon severely restricted statistics. There are better methods and worse methods to 'prevent infection' (or preferably yet, to sustain good health ). The mantra 'prevent infection' ignores the importance of generally-acceptable living practices in the first place. Statistics ignore the fact that many populations are malnourished, that they lack sanitation and opportunity for hygiene and that they even lack calories ! Amazing! In the western-industrial settings, the industrialized statistical data is mixed with data from impoverished and repressed countries. Western-industrialized populations have very different causes and effects. Take the merca staff infection, for example. This merca infection is not prevented by any vaccine. Epidemics have ebbed and flowed for millennia before vaccines . The ebbing can occur naturally (not only artificially). Statistics confuse the causes of ebbing. Let us study this further before concluding. The flow or the causes of this pandemic have many questionable features, some of which might even be artificial. A sacred-set of broad-brush statistics for all people everywhere, regardless of specific causes and effects is not comprehensive science . It also prematurely triggers bad public health policies.To treat only one effect, such as a single infection, can miss the causes, the vectors, and consequently all the inevitable world problems. The advantage of missing or of smearing relevant causes and effects is an advantage of amassing colossal profits from gullible populations. This generally is managed by cozy media sponsorship, along with blackouts of competing science. Fudging statistics is cleverly achieved by extremely narrow foci. Pin-point foci like pandemic-vaccines can sound very impressive to the uninformed.
That old English folk lore inspired a profiteer to heavily invest and establish the earliest rudiments of a vaccine industry is not a noble chapter for science-history. I recommend reading about the entire history of vaccines. That the earlier folk lore observed and suggested immunities does not prove that the best implimentation of these immunities should be through internal-injections, through intravenous vaccination filled with dangerous substances. Apparently some enhanced immunities were obtained merely by the labor of milk-maidens and not by vaccination, per se. This reminds me of my childhood memory about my measles recollections. Please study this earlier history of the pox diseases. Chances are that your nearby library lacks these segments of history, so please ask for inter library sources. Or easier yet, use the internet . For a long researched multimedia presentation, see this trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUMZ-O-OsG0 The DVD: http://www.vaccinenation.net/buy_dvd.php Books: http://www.vaccinenation.net/books.php Uncensored FAQ: http://www.thinktwice.com / The history of vaccines is not a noble history like many proud human discoveries which are noble by contrast. Another white paper: http://www.garynull.com/VaccinesDarkInferno.pdf
We need more comprehensive science and less profiteering. More science- jobs for scientists may solve more world problems. Tax more profiteers to pay for more science-jobs.
- TruthBeautyGoodness October 7, 2009 3:09AM
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Should Schools Require That Children Be Vaccinated?
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The Individual DOES MATTER
When my nephew received his first flu shot, his face swelled up and his throat swelled closed. It turned out he was allergic to eggs, which are used in flu vaccines. How simple it would have been to test him first and avoid a life-threatening reaction!
Until vaccines are administered with more regard for the individual, they should not be mandated. Children should be screened for allergies and predisposition to certain side effects and then given only the vaccines which will limit dangerous reactions. Until then, parents retain the right to make those decisions for their children.
- crunchymom October 20, 2008 1:21PM
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Cost Prohibitions
Let's step back and examine the economics of your proposal, however. The fact of the matter is that it would NOT have been trivial to "test him first." Allergy panels cost money and time, and when you distribute that across the entire population of a nation like the United States, that adds up to a prohibitive barrier to vaccination. You make medical decisions based not on what you do not know, but on what you do. Nobody knows that he has an allergy to anything until he has an allergic reaction. It's unfortunate that your nephew was in a minority group that had a reaction to that particular vaccination, but the fact remains that he's not dead, he was treated effectively, and the majority of other individuals will not experience that specific reaction, either because they have complete information already (you're not clear on whether your nephew already knew he was allergic to eggs and his parents failed to inform the administering professional or whether this was the first incidence of such a reaction) or because they're not in the right group.
- Brian Seiler
October 21, 2008 10:52AM
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Oh good, well as long as he's not dead...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/22/AR2005102200042.html
This is a Washington Post report on how rare complications from the flu are and how ineffective the flu vaccine is at truly curbing those risks, including how flu-related deaths in the elderly have remained steady over the last two decades even though the number of older people getting the flu vaccine each year has increased dramatically.
You are right, I left some parts out. They didn't know he had that allergy until he had that reaction. Then, when he turned 12 months old (just one month later), the doctor tried to give him the MMR, which contains eggs, and the doctor was well aware of the reactions and subsequent allergu testing that had been done. His mother asked if it had eggs in it and the doctor said he didn't even know. She made him check and sure enough, there it is.
This happened to my son, as well. He is allergic to dairy, and his doctor still tried to give him the DTaP. Ingredients and potential allergens are not included on the information sheets that the CDC gives to doctors to pass out to patients, and those sheets are generally given AFTER the vaccine is administered so parents can look out for a limited number of typical reactions.
If many legislators have their way, there will be no exceptions, even medical ones. Dr. Paul Offit, a very vocal proponent of vaccines (and a patent holder of vaccines - how convenient) and author of a vaccine guide for parents, is a pusher of this agenda. So, my son and nephew would still have to get those vaccines or else be barred from attending school.
Meanwhile, the vaccine is considered ON THE PACKAGE INSERT to be about 70% effective, if scientists happened to accurately predict which flu strains would be the most problematic in any given year. For people over 65, it is estimated at 30-40%, again if the right strains were predicted. Side effects of the vaccine include asthma and Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which is temporary paralysis.
Last year over 3,000 negative reactions to the flu vaccine (including 29 deaths) were actually reported to the government (estimates are that for every reaction reported, ten are not reported).
It's too expensive to test people for reactions before they get a vaccine when it isn't your child in the hospital.
Forcing parents to inject their children with a moderately effective vaccine every year is vile. No one should be able to force anyone else to participate in any medicaly treatment, let alone one as unpredictable and of limited benefit as the flu vaccine.
- crunchymom October 23, 2008 7:07PM
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Odd...
Flu shots are mandatory.
- SocialistBetty
January 6, 2009 1:33AM
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Ach.
Crap.
Flu shots are mandatory??????
- SocialistBetty
January 6, 2009 1:31PM
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A low amount
Deaths from Flu vaccine is roughly 1 in 10,476,712
negative reactions (with the estimated 10 unreported negative reactions 33,000) is roughly 1 in 9,200.
Negative reactions is an ambiguous term since more serious negative reactions are probably mixed in with minor reactions.
While being a parent of a child who suffers any type of negative reaction from a vaccine is surely a terrible and frightening situation. However, most people do not suffer any negative reaction. The variations the human body presents to us really does prohibit testing because the test creators would be constantly trying to catch up to the constant variation that each new person presents. In other words, a test that would have helped your child would fail to help another family's child. How would we learn that? Unfortunately, the hard way.
It's like many allergic reactions, many are learned the hard way. I have a sister and a nephew are also very allergic. But we had to learn each one (they have various allergies) one by one.
My sympathies are with you, but I would encourage you not to inflate your particular experience to mean that doctors don't care or that all vaccines are bad.
Personally, I have never taken or had my own daughter take a vaccine for the flu. The flu is a pain but it's no TB or other serious sickness that most of our vaccines treat. The other part of this though, is that neither I nor my daughters are allergic to practically anything. Funny how the genetics on this issue came out so different between my sister and I.
I posted those completely unscientific numbers above (I took your numbers and calculated them against the population of our country) to show that it is a statistical minority who suffer adverse effects. When we consider how many people died of the various diseases before we had vaccines to treat them, you will see the numbers were terribly negative.
Just consider measles, a disease that vaccines have practically eradicated here in the US, however, the World Health Organization reported that in 2007 "there were 197 000 measles deaths globally - nearly 540 deaths every day or 22 deaths every hour." This figure is a world wide estimate. The point is, a very simple and cheap vaccine can change this situation dramatically. Unfortunately, we are a long way from a vaccine that has a zero chance of negative effects.
- mangueken
March 3, 2009 10:53PM
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Deaths from INfluenza A
Each year millions of people contract Influenza A and approximately 100,000 to 200,000 people DIE from this infection, globally. They tend to be immuno-compromised, very young or old. While the prediction of RNA mutations making up the current season's flu is difficult to predict, you can be sure that the death toll would be substantially higher in a non-vaccinating environment .
- Citizen Deux
May 6, 2009 2:09PM
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Vaccinations are the result of the croooked medical industry
Vaccines have been linked to autism and many, many other problems. They really aren't all that effective either since vaccinated individuals can still contract said diseases.
It's part of the scam that Big Pharma and doctors are pulling on you to try to get you to waste money to pad their pocket books. Vaccines = poison. Rx drugs = poison. Period. Live naturally, use "natural medicine." These are the best defenses against disease...not a killed virus or something you can't even pronounce synthesized in a laboratory.
- bagpiper2005
January 26, 2009 6:45AM
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Simply Untrue
Are pharmaceutical companies bastions of ethical and moral behavior? Absolutely not. In fact, I despise them.
That does not, however, have *anything at all* to do with medicine. Medicine is not inherently corrupt merely because those who profit off medicine are corrupt. Vaccines aren't poison just because you think some companies are bad. It's true that vaccines have been linked to autism , however the first study that did so - starting this frenzy - was recently revealed to be a scam. Some guy had an idea for a new vaccine, so he "proved" that MMR "caused" autism so that he could make a lot of money. How is that not greedy & unethical just like "Big Pharma"?
I certainly understand your anger at feeling that you're being lied to. However, in your outrage you have simply been fooled by another liar. Vaccines have been in use for a hundred years, and there has been a spike in autism in the last 15 years. If anything, it makes more sense to believe that cell phones cause autism. Before vaccines, even in the US we were threatened by "childhood" diseases that killed and disfigured for life. High childhood mortality is natural. So dead kids = good because they're natural?
- lostlo
February 18, 2009 12:38PM
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I Lost ALL Faith In Modern Medicine...
When my GP wanted to put me on medicine for blood pressure that didn't merit medication (130/85, which is not deadly, and the whole 140/90 being too high is a load of crock too). Not to mention medical communities advocating for the mutilation of baby boys' genitals right after birth (anyone with any knowledge of intact male genitals knows that sleeve of skin has several necessary functions, but the medical community scares people into believing it's dirty and filthy and needs to be hacked off, however that's another debate altogether). There are other natural ways to lower your blood pressure without all the nasty side effects of medicine, and Big Pharma knows medicines carry side effects. They think this is a GOOD thing, because then people will need more medication and they get bigger profits.
The only reason you go into the medical/pharmaceutical industry is to get rich. You don't become a doctor to help people. You do it to pad your pocket book. Medical practitioners are greedy jerks, nothing more.
If modern medicine is so effective, how come we live shorter lifespans now than we did when it wasn't this advanced? Your comment of dead kids being good, well, children dying is unfortunate, but death is a natural process. We're overpopulated anyway, and need some form of population control (don't think by that statement that I advocate killing innocent children however).
Cell phones may very well cause autism . Heck, they've already been proven to more than double your risk for gliomas (a rare, but highly fatal brain cancer), and other types of brain tumors as well.
- bagpiper2005
February 18, 2009 12:55PM
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Life Spans
Why on earth do you think that human lifespans are shorter than they were "before modern medicine"? Please tell me what time period you define as "before medicine was so advanced" so that I can look up the relevant mortality statistics. I'd be fascinated to see the actual numbers.
By the way, you seem to be missing my point, which is not that all medicines are good, nor that all practitioners of medicine are kind (although I disagree that everyone in medicine is a "greedy jerk," don't you think just might be over-extrapolation on your part?). I agree with you about some of the things you mentioned. My point is that you can disagree with things without spreading lies about them. There are factual reasons to be against all the things you mentioned, not just stereotypes and repeated misinformation.
- lostlo
February 18, 2009 1:32PM
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Lifespans
Life expectancy has increased since 1850. However, this increase is not automatic. Study the chart on life expectancy by age at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html and you will see that life expectancy at many ages in Massachusetts was actually lower in 1890 than it was in 1850. However, after about 1970, life expectancy at quite advanced ages rose. One reason for this is the control of blood pressure, which has reduced the incidence of stroke and other serious diseases.
When it comes to modern medicine, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- Michael Glass
February 22, 2009 3:03PM
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There is no proof
Vaccines are very effective against a large number of diseases. You can see the difference clearly by comparing our country where the over whelming majority are vaccinated and any country where vaccines are widely used or available.
No vaccine works a hundred percent of the time on a hundred percent of the people it used on. But that is hardly a good argument against vaccines.
There has been no documented proof that vaccines have anything to do with autism , not here in our country nor any other country. Even where the "controversial" vaccines suspected of causing higher rates of autism were removed, it made no significant change in the number of new cases of autism.
Finally, It's highly unlikely there is a Big Pharma conspiracy. Please check out the history of epidemics in just our country and how many hundreds of thousands, if not millions died regularly before vaccines came out. No matter how much a company makes on a vaccine, the low number of deaths caused by the diseases we get vaccinated for speak volumes about how effective they are.
- mangueken
March 3, 2009 11:07PM
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Key words....
"No SIGNIFICANT difference." The key word being "significant" here, which even so, implies that there was a change. Strike one.
There is nothing that a vaccine can prevent that a natural, healthy organic diet (which will boost natural defenses) and proper exercise (which also boosts natural defenses) cannot. This is the con of so-called "Western Medicine." They've labeled that the only way diseases can be prevented or cured as synthesized drugs/vaccines. This is where they're sucker-punching unknowing victims into handing over their hard-earned cash.
Whistleblower and undercover investigator Kevin Trudeau tells all in the excellent book "Natural Cures THEY Don't Want You To Know About." This explains the FDA-Big Pharma-Physician conspiracy, and gives a remedies for some common things. Organic eating in controlled portions, proper exercise, and the occasional natural product with known medicinal value is all you need to live a long and healthy life (plus did I mention that you don't get any of the ill side effects?).
As far as schools requiring vaccines, you just can't do that. You know as well as I do certain religions prohibit it, and to mandate vaccines would be a violation of the establishment clause. Therefore you can't mandate it for all students.
- bagpiper2005
March 4, 2009 10:46AM
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Strike one?
Significant is an important word and when used to talk about statistical models is very specific. Since, in this case, there was no significant change, or a change that can't be explained by normally occurring variations when collecting data, we can infer that the change in vaccines or how they were applied was null in relation to new autism cases.
This supposed "con" has saved millions of lives. Since the human body is capable of producing a myriad of variations of itself how do you judge that organic eating has a higher rate of success than the vaccinations? What are the controlled portions for the majority of humans, since we know that each individual will need more or less of different organic foods because not all bodies require the same amounts of vitamins and nutrients? What are the natural products with known medicinal values? And how will we know that the medicinal values will be effective for the majority of people, how will know what amounts to give and how will we know if someone is allergic to them or not?
To answer these questions one is forced to use the same scientific methods and tests that pharmaceutical companies use.
And as a final note, I'm against making exceptions based on religious beliefs when it comes to public health and safety issues. It's ridiculous to put communities at risk because of archaic beliefs, as if viruses and illnesses care what the belief system of the body they are attacking is. Luckily, there are a tiny minority of religions that can lay claim to the establishment clause.
- mangueken
March 4, 2009 5:19PM
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Natural Products With Medicinal Value?
Here are just a few:
*Rauwolfia (lowers blood pressure, calms tachycardia, natural sedative/sleep aid).
*Ethanol (boost HDL cholesterol, reduces risk of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke, reduces risk of developing hypertension, among other things)
*Cannabis (yes, it's a very potent pain killer and should be legal)
Those are some of the things we can use to treat common ailments without drugs or surgery. There's something out there for every ailment we can think of, we don't have to synthesize unsafe drugs in laboratories (and trust me all drugs are unsafe, at least these natural medicines don't have any nasty side effects...but as I said, side effects are intentionally added by the drug companies because they want to keep you sick, not make you better).
If you're going to argue that it has saved millions of lives (of which I HIGHLY doubt), then I'm going to make this argument: Western Medicine is then in turn to blame for overpopulation (which is a HUGE problem we face today). Of course we could fight that by putting a limit as to how many children you can bear, but you get my point.
I'm a militant atheist, but I believe in the rights of people to practice whatever religious dogma they see fit as long as they don't impose it on me. This is their unalienable right and you have no right to take that away from them.
- bagpiper2005
March 5, 2009 1:43PM
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We are talking about vaccines
None of the examples you listed dealt with problems that vaccines take care of.
I maintain a healthy skepticism towards any "conspiracy" type theory, as such this relates directly to your suggestions about pharmaceutical companies.
Your local library should reels of newspaper accounts of how many people died in the early 1900's from epidemics that today we have vaccines for.
It's been a long time since I've heard some one argue the "over population" myth. The problem with it has always been on what basis does one come up with a limit on human population? Since the proponents of this myth always rely on distorted interpretations of data as well as subjective analysis, it is considered a fringe theory. This could become a real theory and provide valuable knowledge that would influence many social / legal decisions if valid scientific methods were used. Since this is not the case and real data (WHO, UN provide examples) that in many countries, there already is a trend towards a lower child birth rate compared to the death rate, western medicine is again, not the culprit.
Today's modern world of global finance capital and the diminishing real wage value of work produced has already had a bigger effect on lowering the number of children born, at least in the so called "first world" countries. The baby boomer generation is pretty much the last generation that grew up in large families. Of course there are exceptions, but large families, like my mother's (she has 7 brothers and sisters) are pretty rare today.
I'm just an atheist, and I totally support people believing what they want until public health issues are in question. Then I think society has a responsibility to keep the general population safe from spreadable diseases. Public health cannot be allowed to be trumped by archaic beliefs. However, like I pointed out, at least this is a very small minority of people that can claim exception. But in some countries this is a serious problem. Their irrational beliefs are causing children to die from preventable disease.
- mangueken
March 5, 2009 2:17PM
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Why else would you go into modern medicine?
To help people? Yeah, sure. And I just named off the three biggest killers ever in history: heart disease, high blood pressure, and chronic pain which leads to suicide. These kill more people still today than any "epidemic" combined.
Read "Natural Cures" and then tell me there's no conspiracy. Kevin Trudeau has seen it all, as both a whistleblower and an undercover investigator. He reports his findings in his book. Of course, a lot of other things would be prevented if we stopped eating animal flesh but that's another point altogether.
So I also assume you support male genital mutilation for so-called " health reasons" (of course, there are no health reasons to perform this needless surgery right after birth).
Overpopulation IS a threat. I'm surprised at the lack of mathematical skills by both the UN and the WHO (hey, I have a degree in math so I can see right through their miscalculations). Population growth, as you know, is exponential. The estimated maximum human capacity of earth is about 13 billion. We're at almost 7 billion now, and since population growth is exponential we'll hit that pretty darn quick (within I'd estimate a few hundred years).
If your beloved vaccines are so effective then why are you worried about an unvaccinated minority? They won't get you sick will they? Or do you have some doubt these things actually work? That's the only conclusion I can reach given that you're so afraid of unvaccinated individuals. You shouldn't be worried at all, since your vaccinations are *so* effective right? Uh-huh, that's what I thought.
- bagpiper2005
March 5, 2009 2:30PM
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Clearly misinformed
Aspirin is the standardized, active component from the bark of a tree. Your "natural" medicines all have substantial side effects (cannibis reduces sperm count, impacts short term memory and may increase the risk for reproductive problems in men). Any "element" which affects the human body is a "drug" whether it has been isolated and standardized (tested to understand side effects, etc.) is simply a matter of processing.
- Citizen Deux
May 6, 2009 2:16PM
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Don't Trust The Governemnt
Vaccinating your children is an expression of total unwarranted trust in the U.S. Government. The science behind it is flawed from the start. It actually is a method of controlling the population and keeeping them sick and stupid to avoid revolt.Parents are told by lying school administrators that vaccination is manditory, and only relent when pressed to the limit by parents who know the real law regarding this subject. The schools always back down in the end when threatened with a lawsuit.Children's brains are damaged by vaccinations to the tune of a 10% reduction in I.Q., which is the desired result by the corrupt Federal Governemnt.Jonas Salk was a fraud, whose "victory" over polio was a result of his program luckily coinciding with a natural cyclic reduction in polio cases.
- thoughtful
February 4, 2009 11:34PM
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Busted!!!
The FDA is a corrupt administration. You should NEVER trust anything they have to say.
Props to you for realizing that.
- bagpiper2005
February 12, 2009 11:54AM
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Please read a book
If you want to be against vaccination, that's fine. You're entitled to your own opinion. However, I urge you to base your opinion on facts - both so you'll have a stronger position in arguments, and for the sake of your own health. The assertion that vaccinations are a government method of population control rests on the falsehood that vaccinations were invented by the US government. If you do a little reading, you'll find that this is not true. You'll find that the idea of vaccination and the first experiments were performed before the US government existed. Simply checking Wikipedia would show you one of the first attempts at inoculation was performed by a mother on her own children - because the prospect of your child dying of a horrible, contagious illness like smallpox (which could take out your whole family, not just one kid) is perhaps even more terrifying than a 10% decrease in IQ (which, by the way, is nonsense. Please cite a source for that claim, but I doubt you can because comparative IQ tests on infants = patently absurd).
- lostlo
February 18, 2009 12:45PM
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Out of your head...
If you have no understanding of the history of vaccines , the current measles crisis in the UK (resulting deaths) or the HBV problem in Maine - you have no business commenting in this forum. Public schools have an obligation to protect the health of the children in their charge (this extends, by the way, to Universities). Parents who opt out of vaccination should be free to do so, however, a public institution may be entitled to deny that child entrance for the good of public health.
- Citizen Deux
May 6, 2009 2:06PM
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SCHOOL ARE OFF BASE
This should be for choice of the parent.
- zman
May 30, 2009 10:02PM
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yes
there's a reason why there were developed, to protect the young and weak. There's also a reason why the WHO is trying to get everyone under 18 in the WORLD vaccinated. Vaccines prevent deaths , millions of deaths, and millions of healthcare costs for children and seniors.
Get vaccinated so you dont have to deal with the ugly part later.
- hsclubber
October 25, 2009 8:19PM
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