[profound (OP)]

Many people have expressed doubts both in the efficacy and safety of vaccines as they have strong corporate backing from many vested interests who primary goal is profit and as a result of this they have appointed their own people into many safety and regulatory bodies.
A clear case of conflicts of interest.

Many "soothing studies" come from and are funded by the vaccine makers.Just in the same way every soap maker says theirs is the best...

A woman has been doing some research and found many documents which support the fact that vaccines are dangerous,not tested properly,have doubtful value and may cause many injuries.

She has also uncovered a lot of corruption in the field and conflicts of interest which have been aided and abetted by the government.A recent investigative report compiled by Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic, Ph.D., uncovers more than 30 years of hidden government documents exposing these vaccine schedules as a complete hoax, not to mention the fraud of the vaccines themselves to provide any real protection against disease.

http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf

The JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization) made continuous efforts to withhold critical data on severe adverse reactions and contraindications to vaccinations to both parents and health practitioners in order to reach overall vaccination rates which they deemed were necessary for 'herd immunity,' a concept which ... does not rest on solid scientific evidence," explains Dr. Tomljenovic in the introduction to her paper.

The information Dr. Tomljenovic gathered speaks for itself. Not only did the JCVI routinely ignore questions of safety as they came up with regards to the ever-expanding vaccination schedule, but the group actively censored unfavorable data that shed a "negative" light on vaccines in order to maintain the illusion that vaccines are safe and effective. Beyond this, the JCVI regularly lied to both the public and government authorities about vaccine safety in order to ensure that people continued to vaccinate their kids.

Interestingly as far as the MMR vaccine is concerned, this critical piece of information not only reinforces the legitimacy of Dr. Wakefield's findings from 10 years later, which were illegitimately declared to be fraudulent by the establishment, but also illustrates just how painfully long this scam has been taking place.

The JCVI's official policy was to cherry-pick unreliable studies to support its own opinions on vaccines rather than rely on independent, scientifically-sound studies to make vaccine policy recommendations.

The eye-opening, 45-page paper goes on to explain how vaccine schedules were established through the calculated downplaying of vaccine safety concerns and the over-inflating of vaccine benefits; the promotion of dangerous new vaccines into the pediatric schedule through deception; the discouraging of vaccine safety follow-up studies; and the widespread brainwashing of the public through manipulation and scientific sleight-of-hand tricks.

I would strongly urge everyone to download this pdf file and save it and spread it around before it mysteriously disappears.

It should also be put on facebook and twitter to alert people to this danger from vaccines.

For example hard copies should be sent to all the tv stations,newspapers,teachers and doctors.
I would print this out and shove it in the face of anyone advocating vaccination through their power point "training" by corporate interests.


Maybe regulatory bodies just to let them them know we know about their deception and deceit.

Children especially need to be made aware of this as they will be the victims ultimately from this danger.

Parents need to be advised as well about how their children are being put at risk by corporate interests.

Here is the pdf.Make sure you save it and spread it around.

http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf

[CliffordK]

Certainly not all vaccines are the same.

Vaccines are given for a variety of reasons including prevention of death and dibilitation, as well as preventing the inconvenience of illness itself.  With many families having two working parents, the effects of illness and loss of school or work should not be underestimated. 

There have been a few resounding successes with vaccinations including the global elimination of Small Pox, and virtual eradication of Polio.

That doesn't mean that all vaccines fall under the same categories as Small Pox and Polio.  However, perhaps they shouldn't be lumped together either.

According to the CDC, there is no link between SIDS and Vaccines.  Even so, it has to be kept in perspective.  Mumps, for example, has a mortality rate of 1 to 2%, Measels, about 0.3%,  SIDS, about 0.6%.  If a small portion of the SIDS deaths are related to vaccines, say 10%, that would reduce the prevalence to 0.06%, and thus the risk of vaccine associated SIDS would be much lower than the combined risk of no vaccines.

Of course, there is the issue of "herd immunity".  As more individuals are vaccinated, the prevalence of the disease in the population decreases, and thus, also the likelihood of morbidity/mortality for the unvaccinated from the disease also decreases.  If nobody would be vaccinated, the prevalence would likely increase again.

Some diseases such as chickenpox get to be more serious if contacted as an adult, and morbidity due to shingles caused by the same virus should not be underestimated. 

Rubella has low morbidity/mortality for all, but one population group, unborn fetuses.  While technically one would only need to vaccinate teenage girls for the disease, by vaccinating all young children, the prevalence of the disease in the population can be reduced, and thus also reduce the risk to the unborn children.

HPV is also a unique vaccine.  The risk of transmission would be low for young children, so it is not recommended until age 11.  While there is some morbidity from the disease, the main risk is a longterm cancer risk in women.  Initially the vaccine was only offered to girls, but it is now recommended for both boys and girls.  If the campaign is successful, potentially the number of PAP smears could be reduced, saving millions or billions of dollars per year, and, of course, reducing cancer and cancer treatments.

Flu Shots?
This may be one of the "optional" vaccines.  They have to be repeated every year as strains of the flu change.  While there are some high risk populations (very young children, and elderly), the majority of the population chooses the vaccine to reduce morbidity.  It is not pleasant to be sick with the flu.  One could certainly make an argument that the vaccine isn't necessary, but like other vaccines, the more people that are regularly vaccinated, the lower the prevalence of the disease is in the population.  And, perhaps even a lower mutation rate for the disease.  Of course, the flu vaccine doesn't prevent the common cold.  I don't think anybody knows whether the immune system becomes stronger due to occasionally catching the full blown flu, vs periodic exposure to flu antigens from the vaccine.

Anyway, the benefits of the MMR and DPT vaccines and reduction from disease risk far outweigh any potential vaccine associated risks.

[Bored chemist]

Incidentally, while the OP says that"herd immunity" is not based on scientific principles, this simply isn't true.
Imagine that you are the only person in the world who has not been vaccinated against some disease.
You are still protected simply because there's nobody to catch the disease from.
That's the principle of herd immunity. The vaccinations can protect people who are not actually vaccinated.


I know there's a lot of difficulty with the systems for licensing drugs and vaccines, but this sort of thing really doesn't help.
It's this sort of scare story which is responsible for the MMR tragedy where a  lot of kids were harmed because their parents were misled about the risks from the vaccine.

[profound (OP)]

Certainly not all vaccines are the same.

Vaccines are given for a variety of reasons including prevention of death and dibilitation, as well as preventing the inconvenience of illness itself.  With many families having two working parents, the effects of illness and loss of school or work should not be underestimated. 

There have been a few resounding successes with vaccinations including the global elimination of Small Pox, and virtual eradication of Polio.

That doesn't mean that all vaccines fall under the same categories as Small Pox and Polio.  However, perhaps they shouldn't be lumped together either.

According to the CDC, there is no link between SIDS and Vaccines.  Even so, it has to be kept in perspective.  Mumps, for example, has a mortality rate of 1 to 2%, Measels, about 0.3%,  SIDS, about 0.6%.  If a small portion of the SIDS deaths are related to vaccines, say 10%, that would reduce the prevalence to 0.06%, and thus the risk of vaccine associated SIDS would be much lower than the combined risk of no vaccines.

Of course, there is the issue of "herd immunity".  As more individuals are vaccinated, the prevalence of the disease in the population decreases, and thus, also the likelihood of morbidity/mortality for the unvaccinated from the disease also decreases.  If nobody would be vaccinated, the prevalence would likely increase again.

Some diseases such as chickenpox get to be more serious if contacted as an adult, and morbidity due to shingles caused by the same virus should not be underestimated. 

Rubella has low morbidity/mortality for all, but one population group, unborn fetuses.  While technically one would only need to vaccinate teenage girls for the disease, by vaccinating all young children, the prevalence of the disease in the population can be reduced, and thus also reduce the risk to the unborn children.

HPV is also a unique vaccine.  The risk of transmission would be low for young children, so it is not recommended until age 11.  While there is some morbidity from the disease, the main risk is a longterm cancer risk in women.  Initially the vaccine was only offered to girls, but it is now recommended for both boys and girls.  If the campaign is successful, potentially the number of PAP smears could be reduced, saving millions or billions of dollars per year, and, of course, reducing cancer and cancer treatments.

Flu Shots?
This may be one of the "optional" vaccines.  They have to be repeated every year as strains of the flu change.  While there are some high risk populations (very young children, and elderly), the majority of the population chooses the vaccine to reduce morbidity.  It is not pleasant to be sick with the flu.  One could certainly make an argument that the vaccine isn't necessary, but like other vaccines, the more people that are regularly vaccinated, the lower the prevalence of the disease is in the population.  And, perhaps even a lower mutation rate for the disease.  Of course, the flu vaccine doesn't prevent the common cold.  I don't think anybody knows whether the immune system becomes stronger due to occasionally catching the full blown flu, vs periodic exposure to flu antigens from the vaccine.

Anyway, the benefits of the MMR and DPT vaccines and reduction from disease risk far outweigh any potential vaccine associated risks.

Why was this moved to COMPLEMENTARY medicine?

I am very surprised that vaccines come under complementary medicine.

Very odd.

What do you think of this then?

"http://journal.livingfood.us/2011/10/09/new-study-vaccinated-children-have-2-to-5-times-more-diseases-and-disorders-than-unvaccinated-children/

Longterm Study in Guinea-Bissau (1 Kristensen I, Aaby P, Jensen H.:“Routine vaccinations and child survival: follow up study in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa”, BMJ 2000; 321: 1435–41)

The children of 15,000 mothers were observed from 1990 to 1996 for 5 years.

Result: the death rate in vaccinated children against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough is twice as high as the unvaccinated children (10.5% versus 4.7%).


Or this German study:-

http://annedachel.com/2011/10/09/new-study-vaccinated-children-have-2-to-5-times-more-diseases-and-disorders-than-unvaccinated-children-journal-of-natural-food-and-health/

[CliffordK]

This topic was moved out of QOTW because all discussions under QOTW are staff selected, and presented on the radio/podcasts. 

One thing I would mention about your links above is that it is very dangerous to combine and make cross comparisons between data collected in 2 different studies, using different data collection and analysis methods, and collected from different countries, with different socio-economic status, different urban/rural mix, and etc.  Then making sweeping conclusions about the results of the two independent studies.  There are far too many confounding variables.

I was looking at the CDC Immunization Schedules

I might ask why so many vaccines are recommended in the 0-2 age group.

Polio is not endemic in the USA, and the risk is low with good sanitation.  There is no reason to start the vaccine course before age 2 or 3 (to be finished by school age or so), unless there is a belief the child will be traveling to endemic areas.  Still, until the disease is globally eradicated, it is good to vaccinate for the disease sometime (using IPV in places where vaccines are readily available, and the disease is not endemic), perhaps OPV, or IPV+OPV elsewhere.

I believe Hep A and Hep B were added to the regimen recently.  Again, it may depend on endemic areas for the diseases.  The risk of a child contracting Hep B if no family members have the disease is low, and administration could certainly be pushed back to later in childhood.  Hep A has a greater risk of transmission in endemic areas. 

I believe meningococcus often presents with low level symptoms and it is endemic in the USA.  It is devastating to those presenting with the fulminant disease.  I certainly would include it in the vaccinations as early as recommended.

MMR & DPT?  I don't know, administration times should depend on the prevalence of the diseases.

Mumps apparently has been resurging a bit, but most commonly in school and college age children. 

The number of Measles and Rubella cases are very low in the USA, and there is probably no reason to vaccinate before 3 or so.

Varicella, of course, is newly added to the regimen, and its relationship to shingles means that children will potentially be at risk for a very long time.

Anyway, you need much better controlled studies, as well as an evaluation of "herd immunity" and disease resurgences before deciding that vaccines are completely unnecessary.

[profound (OP)]

This topic was moved out of QOTW because all discussions under QOTW are staff selected, and presented on the radio/podcasts. 

One thing I would mention about your links above is that it is very dangerous to combine and make cross comparisons between data collected in 2 different studies, using different data collection and analysis methods, and collected from different countries, with different socio-economic status, different urban/rural mix, and etc.

1) This topic was moved out of QOTW because all discussions under QOTW are staff selected, and presented on the radio/podcasts.

Could the staff member who thinks vaccines are complementary medicine stand up and explain yourself?



2) So you are saying the results are invalid because it is TWO different studies.

now suppose you pretended one of the above 2 studies never was seen by you.

Would the Result: "the death rate in vaccinated children against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough is twice as high as the unvaccinated children (10.5% versus 4.7%)" be approved by you?

[CliffordK]

This was placed here because it is advocating care that it outside of the "norm".

2) So you are saying the results are invalid because it is TWO different studies.

now suppose you pretended one of the above 2 studies never was seen by you.

Would the Result: "the death rate in vaccinated children against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough is twice as high as the unvaccinated children (10.5% versus 4.7%)" be approved by you?

That is exactly the point.

The results of our survey with currently 11789 participants show that unvaccinated children are far less affected by common diseases than vaccinated children.
[...]
The prevalence of asthma among  unvaccinated children in our study is around 2.5%, hayfever 3% and neurodermatitis 7%.

A recent German study with 17461 children between 0-17 years of age (KIGGS) showed that 4.7% of these children suffer from asthma, 10.7% of these children from hayfever and 13.2% from neurodermatitis. These numbers differ in western countries, i.e. the prevalence of asthma among children in the US is 6% whereas it is 14-16% in Australia (Australia’s Health 2004, AIHW)

So, which part of the data sets are you wishing to ignore?
The unvaccinated data?
or the vaccinated data?

You can not ensure that the two groups are treated identically in two independent studies. 

In fact, their survey apparently collects data about vaccinated individuals, but they don't seem to be reporting that data.  So, they only compare their unvaccinated data with the KIGGS data, and do not compare the unvaccinated data with the vaccinated data that they collected with parallel surveys.

Even still, one has to make sure the data collection for all subjects is representative of the population as a whole. 

Similar socio-economic status, urban/rural mix.  Are some groups such as those with "issues" over-reporting?

Is there "blinding"?  A link to the surveys is on the SAME page that the results are presented.  Does that bias the participant selection or the data collection?  Or, the survey only including those that manage to find it, for whatever reason.

Ok,
So other studies.
The Guinea-Bissau study is complicated, to say the least.  And, even the authors cautioned against making sweeping conclusions with their data. Their mortality rate was VERY HIGH compared to the child mortality in the USA, UK, and Europe.
The BCG vaccine (not commonly used in the USA) provided the most benefit for survival. 
The Measels (MMR) vaccine also had a significant survival benefit.
DPT without BCG was worse than unvaccinated, but DPT + BCG was better than unvaccinated.
Polio was apparently similar.  They don't mention whether OPV or IPV was used.  OPV is more commonly used in the 3^rd world, IPV in the 1^st world.  Mortality may not be comparable between the two.  They also didn't mention children that only had polio, but not DPT and visa-versa.  Anyway, your summary seems to have completely ignored the positive effect of some vaccines and only reported the negative effect to some of the individuals receiving DPT, and reported mortality rates at least 10x higher than is commonly found in the western world.  Were 100% of the shots given following sterile procedures, using new needles?

The IAS study was extremely small, covering a period of 1 to 46 years, with not all groups being well age-matched.  I believe only members of the IAS (immunization awareness society) were polled which could certainly cause selection and reporting biases.

[CliffordK]

I'm not saying that there doesn't need to be further research in the association of vaccine and disease.

This is an interesting study indicating a possible connection between early dosing with DPT and Asthma. 
http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749%2807%2902379-2/fulltext
http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0091-6749/PIIS0091674907023792.pdf

Those children with the first dose of DPT after 4 months had about half the asthma rate of those before 2 months.  Keeping in mind that this last group of subjects was quite small. 

They don't discuss what conditions led to the delay in vaccinations, or if there are socio-economic, urban/rural, or breastfeeding differences between the groups.

It was noted that there is a shift from DPT to DaPT, with an acellular Pertussis component which may be better tolerated.  So, the study may or may not be representative of the current vaccination regimen.

[profound (OP)]

    Publication bias—the practice of selectively publishing trial results that serve an agenda—represents a systematic flaw of the scientific basis of medicine
    Bias includes publishing positive results but not the negative ones, not publishing retractions of fraudulent studies, and funding bias
    Half of all clinical trials ever completed on the medical treatments currently in use have never been published in the medical literature. Trials with positive results for the test treatment are about twice as likely to be published, and this applies to both academic research and industry studies
    In 2010, researchers identified all the published trials for five major classes of drugs, and then measured two key features: Were they positive, and were they funded by industry? Out of a total of 500 trials, 85 percent of the industry-funded studies were positive, compared to 50 percent of the government-funded trials
    Published studies are used by doctors and health agencies as the basis for making recommendations and writing prescriptions. When they’re given a radically skewed picture of the facts, they cannot make sound recommendations, and patients die

[CliffordK]

Perhaps with internet publishing, more "negative" studies will get published in the near future. 

Keep in mind that studies are usually published with a 90% or 95% confidence interval. 
An 80% confidence interval doesn't necessarily mean that the phenomenon doesn't exist.  It may in fact indicate a "trend" that just it isn't "statistically significant" with the trial size. 

And, usually the more marginal "trends" won't get published.  The researcher may choose to increase the sample size, or use other methods to try to get data that can be published.  Or, the trial may just become part of an unpublished pool.

Publishing "trends" that aren't statistically significant may be more confusing to the readers of a study than it is worth.

If there truly is no difference between the control and experimental group, that may in fact be worth publishing, but depending on the sample design and methods, the null result could also be due to some other experimental error.

I worked one summer on a study injecting a modified adenovirus into the external carotid artery in rats.  When we terminated the study, we couldn't find any evidence that the virus had made it into the brain.  Heck, I don't know.  It could have been too much time elapsed between injection and histology.  Or, perhaps I either killed the viruses, or they weren't active enough at the time of the injection.

Anyway, the null result would not have necessarily been indicative of a bad scientific basis of the study, but merely that the procedure needed revised, perhaps even something minor.

And, of course, in the competitive scientific world, a lab may choose not to publish incomplete methods that might be stolen by another lab before the error is corrected and the study is completed.

[profound (OP)]

you sound like an apologist for Big Business.you argument about theft sounds disingenuous at best.

hey folks just saw this paper about wonder cancer drugs for rats.let's copy it.never mind it takes 2 years and 200 k to replicate the study.

[Minerva]

you sound like an apologist for Big Business.you argument about theft sounds disingenuous at best.

hey folks just saw this paper about wonder cancer drugs for rats.let's copy it.never mind it takes 2 years and 200 k to replicate the study.

You sound like Pantodragon.......

[menageriemanor]

I can only say I well remember the polio victims in iron lungs and calipers, and that I saw enough of them to not be bewildered, when I was young, and I'm very pleased to say, I haven't knowingly seen them in decades, tho perhaps their treatment is far better.

The other seemingly evaporated problem that was a feature of my childhood, tho not reliant on vaccines, is goitres.  Mainly old ladies. Off I go on an old lady day dream...  One or two at every bus stop, it seemed... If I'd had a child, I would have got all vaccinations.

[profound (OP)]

Perhaps with internet publishing, more "negative" studies will get published in the near future. 

Keep in mind that studies are usually published with a 90% or 95% confidence interval. 
An 80% confidence interval doesn't necessarily mean that the phenomenon doesn't exist.  It may in fact indicate a "trend" that just it isn't "statistically significant" with the trial size. 

And, usually the more marginal "trends" won't get published.  The researcher may choose to increase the sample size, or use other methods to try to get data that can be published.  Or, the trial may just become part of an unpublished pool.

Publishing "trends" that aren't statistically significant may be more confusing to the readers of a study than it is worth.

If there truly is no difference between the control and experimental group, that may in fact be worth publishing, but depending on the sample design and methods, the null result could also be due to some other experimental error.

I worked one summer on a study injecting a modified adenovirus into the external carotid artery in rats.  When we terminated the study, we couldn't find any evidence that the virus had made it into the brain.  Heck, I don't know.  It could have been too much time elapsed between injection and histology.  Or, perhaps I either killed the viruses, or they weren't active enough at the time of the injection.

Anyway, the null result would not have necessarily been indicative of a bad scientific basis of the study, but merely that the procedure needed revised, perhaps even something minor.

And, of course, in the competitive scientific world, a lab may choose not to publish incomplete methods that might be stolen by another lab before the error is corrected and the study is completed.

Ioannidis, JPA. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS 2005. Med 2(: e124. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Angell, M. Industry-sponsored clinical research: a broken system. : JAMA 2008; 300(9):1069-1071.
Angell, M. Drug companies & doctors: a story of corruption [online]. The New York Review of Books 2009; 56(1). [cited Sept 2012]. Available at: http://www.nybooks.com
Bekelman JE, et al. Scope and impact of financial conflicts of interest in biomedical research: a systematic review. JAM 2003; 289(4):454-65.
Campbell, E, et al. Institutional academic industry relationships. JAMA 2007; 298(15):1779-86.
Gever J. Research fraud probe leads to criminal charge [online]. c 2012 Medpage Today. [cited Sept 2012]. Available at: http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/Ethics/17985
Thomas K, Schmidt MS. Glaxo agrees to pay $3 billion in fraud settlement [online]. c 2012 New York Times. [cited Sept 2012]. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com
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Harris PE, Cooper KL, Relton C, Thomas KJ. Prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by the general population: a systematic review and update. Int J Clin Pract 2012; 66(10): 924-939.

[yellowcat]

"his is an interesting study indicating a possible connection between early dosing with DPT and Asthma.
http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749%2807%2902379-2/fulltext
http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0091-6749/PIIS0091674907023792.pdf

Those children with the first dose of DPT after 4 months had about half the asthma rate of those before 2 months.  Keeping in mind that this last group of subjects was quite small.

They don't discuss what conditions led to the delay in vaccinations, or if there are socio-economic, urban/rural, or breastfeeding differences between the groups."

We know that respiratory infection can trigger asthma so my guess would be that the vaccine was less effective if given before four months. I would speculate that if given  too early there is a lack of immune response due to the presence of maternal antibodies, once these have declined there is a better immune reaction, giving rise to a population of memory B cells.