Two remarkable essays & A shot of skepticism about vaccines won't hurt a bit (Deardorff)

[Guest guest]

From: binstock <binstock@...>

A recent project has me wallowing about in

disease rates before and subsequent to widespread

use of various vaccines. Several websites present

charts showing that, for many diseases, the rate

fell prior to vaccinations for the disease.

However, those charts are presented w/o citations

(or perhaps my browser wasn't presenting the

citations), and finding citations (articles or

texts) which support that graphs is not easy, and

the task is clouded by the trend towards

pro-vaccine hoopla in peer-reviewed articles,

increasingly so in the latter part of the 20th Century.

A recent Deardorff column (see below) generated

comments, one of which is noteworthy because it

refers to two online essays which delineate

challenges attending the task of documenting

disease rates. That comment and its links to two essays follow herein.

- - - -

posted by: MinorityView of Waitsfield, VT

One of the big pro-vaccine arguments is that

thousands of children will die if we stop

vaccinating. Are the numbers being thrown around

accurate? Here is some research:

Part I explains who did the research and how they publicised the numbers:

<http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2008/06/16/where-do-they-find-these-scary-s\

tatistics/>http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2008/06/1...

Part II looks at the numbers for diphtheria:

<http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2008/07/28/where-do-they-find-these-scary-s\

tatistics-part-ii/>http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2008/07/2...

- - - -

A shot of skepticism about vaccines won't hurt a bit

Deardorff Health and fitness reporter

August 31, 2008

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0831deardorffaug31,0,43372\

03.story>http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0831deardorffaug31\

,0,4337203.story

Measles cases in the U.S. are rising, and parents

who reject vaccination are shouldering much of

the blame. Nearly half of the 131 cases so far

this year involved unvaccinated children,

including 25 home-schooled kids in Illinois.

Health officials worry that as vaccination rates

decline, herd immunity is lost, increasing the

chance of a mass disease outbreak. Some

pediatricians, meanwhile, are frustrated that

they have to spend so much time convincing

parents that vaccines such as the measles, mumps and rubella shot are safe.

Questioning in itself is not a bad thing,

especially since the Internet has ignited an

information explosion, some of it inaccurate. It

does, however, reflect a larger crisis of

confidence in public health officials and policy,

which has developed partly because so many new,

seemingly unnecessary vaccines have been added to

the schedule and because no one can explain what

causes, how to prevent or how to treat the new

childhood disorders: asthma, allergies, attention deficit disorder and autism.

The number of vaccines children receive has

tripled since the early 1980s. In 1982, the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control recommended 23 doses

of 7 vaccines for children up to age 6.

Today's typical 6-year-old has had 48 doses of 12

vaccines. (Toss in the flu shot, which may or may

not be effective, and it boosts the number to 69

doses of 16 vaccines by age 18.)

Immunization against diseases that were once a

childhood rite of passage and that conferred

lifelong immunity, such as chickenpox, is now

required for public school in many states,

including Illinois. And the Hepatitis B vaccine

is routinely given to babies the day after

they're born, even though the illness is

contracted through blood transfusions and sexual

activity. Parents wonder: " Why can't the Hep B vaccine wait? "

But what really prompted questions was the 1997

decision by the Food and Drug Administration to

remove the mercury-based preservative thimerosal

from most vaccines as a precaution, due to

concerns about the " theoretical potential for

neurotoxicity " and the growing number of vaccines

containing thimerosal on the immunization

schedule. Though no evidence of harm has been

shown, a mental link to thimerosal was made, a

scarlet letter on vaccines that remains to this day.

Several recent developments have sparked other questions about vaccines:

• Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former head of the

National Institutes of Health, told CBS News that

she thinks " public health officials have been too

quick to dismiss the [autism-vaccine] hypothesis as irrational. "

• In March, government health officials conceded

that childhood vaccines aggravated a rare,

underlying cellular disorder in 9-year-old Hannah

Poling that ultimately led to autism-like symptoms.

• America might be over-vaccinating its kids and

health officials might want to re-evaluate and

adjust the immunization schedule, according to a

study in the New England Journal of Medicine. But

not because of health concerns; the vaccines

might just be unnecessary and waste a lot of money.

• A study in the journal Pediatrics found that 33

percent of pediatricians would strongly recommend

the rotavirus vaccine if it were up to the

doctor's discretion. But if it becomes an

" official " recommendation by the American Academy

of Pediatrics, that number goes up to 50 percent.

• Last year, a week after CDC announced that the

influenza vaccine was effective against only 40

percent of the season's flu viruses, it

recommended that all children over 6 months get a flu shot.

Vaccination, considered to be one of medicine's

greatest achievements, is a personal decision

that is often forced on people for the greater

good. Parents who question vaccines are simply

seeking information and advocating for their children.

We have the right to question everything that

goes into our children's bodies, whether it's

food, herbs, over-the-counter medications or

prescription drugs. Vaccines, which like any

medical procedure carry both benefits and risks, should not be an exception.

..

--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

Vaccines - http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccine.htm

Vaccine Dangers & Homeopathy Online/email courses - next classes Sept 08