Study quashes vaccine anxiety

[Pauly]

Now that's very interesting

Oh, I forgot to mention: Because of bad science and lawsuits surrounding the DPT in relation to seizures, my son has never ever, never been vaccinated for pertussis. Because of his history of seizures all he ever got was the TD.

This was around the same time our county was having a pertussis epidemic. Since he was under the age of one year (when pertussis is usually fatal) we had to be careful who he came into contact with. So I made it a habit to inquire of the vaccine status of anyone he came into contact with.

Only once did I encounter someone who said she did not vaccinate her kids... with a turned up nose of superiority in all its glory, not caring at all what the consequenses were for any other child.

This is one of the primary reasons I dislike those who do not vaccinate without good reason.

"So I made it a habit to inquire of the vaccine status of anyone he came into contact with.

Only once did I encounter someone who said she did not vaccinate her kids... "

Did you inquire about the vaccine status of only the children? Did you not worry that most every adult around was not vaccinated as well, and probably including yourself? So you were only fearful of unvaxed children but yet all those unvaxed adults didn't bother you? Why is that? You do know that vax only lasts 3-5 years, don't you?

What if you had evidence that the DPT and/or DPaT vax could induce a seizure disorder in a previously perfectly healthy child. Would this not be "good reason" to avoid the vaccine?

 

[Eos of the Eons]

What if you had evidence that the DPT and/or DPaT vax could induce a seizure disorder in a previously perfectly healthy child. Would this not be "good reason" to avoid the vaccine?

What if you have a better reason to get the vaccine, namely being that not getting it would result in your otherwise perfectly healthy child getting killed?
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/immunization/compare.htm

Diptheria:
Death: 1 in 10

Tetanus:
Death: 1 in 3

Pertussis:
Convulsions/seizures: 1 in 100
Death: 1 in 500

Compare that to Pertussis vaccination:
Seizure or convulsions: 1 in 14,000 doses

So, you have a choice. One in 14000 chance of a seizure with vaccination, or 1 in 500 chance of death without vaccination or seizures being 1 in 100 without vaccination.

Let's just hope antivaccinators don't cause everyone to stop vaccinations. The herd immunity would drop and we'd see a LOT more seizures whenever the disease whips through. We'd also see one out of every ten children dying when encountering diptheria.

We'd find out pretty quick that all the other "natural remedies" in the world won't save anyone from those stats. The only natural remedy that works is immunization. Stick in a weakened or dead form of the bug, and bingo-protection. Pretty darn awesome.

 

[Pauly]

What if you have a better reason to get the vaccine, namely being that not getting it would result in your otherwise perfectly healthy child getting killed?

You answered my question with a question.



Diptheria:
Death: 1 in 10

How many cases of diptheria have there been in the US in the past 50 years?
How many deaths (same time frame)?


Tetanus:

Death: 1 in 3

Same question as above

Pertussis:
Convulsions/seizures: 1 in 100
Death: 1 in 500

Compare that to Pertussis vaccination:
Seizure or convulsions: 1 in 14,000 doses

These statistics are not accurate. Many vaccine reactions go unreported.


So, you have a choice. One in 14000 chance of a seizure with vaccination, or 1 in 500 chance of death without vaccination or seizures being 1 in 100 without vaccination.

So you want me to make a choice with incomplete information?

Probably just a coincidence that my unvaccinated children are far healthier than my vaccinated.

Let's just hope antivaccinators don't cause everyone to stop vaccinations. The herd immunity would drop and we'd see a LOT more seizures whenever the disease whips through. We'd also see one out of every ten children dying when encountering diptheria.

Is that the best you can do? Scare monger with a disease that occurs how often?

We'd find out pretty quick that all the other "natural remedies" in the world won't save anyone from those stats. The only natural remedy that works is immunization. Stick in a weakened or dead form of the bug, and bingo-protection. Pretty darn awesome.

Immunizations are hardly natural.

 

[kellyb]

From your link, Eos..

(Whooping Cough): Prior to vaccine, 200,000 cases and 8,000 deaths per year in U.S. Over 400 confirmed cases in King County, WA in 1999. 69% of all U.S cases less than 5 years old, and almost half of these were younger than 12 months old.

But compare those figures to these from the CDC...
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vaccine/tdap/tdap_adult_recs.pdf

In 2004, U.S. adults 19–64 years of age accounted for 7,008 of 25,827 (27%) reported pertussis cases. The true number of cases among adults 19-64 years of age is likely much higher, estimated at 600,000 annually.

And only about 20 deaths a year from pertussis, in spite of the 600,000 cases.
My point is not "Don't get the vaccine". My point is just that pertussis is much, much more complicated of an issue than it's generally accredited as being.

Stick in a weakened or dead form of the bug, and bingo-protection

Now you know that's not exactly true. Unless the antigen is adsorbed to aluminum, your immune system won't even remember it.

 

[SteveGrenard]

I was talking above about the film The Constant Gardener, a fictional account involving illicit testing of a vaccine on Africans (Kenya). Coincidentally. twenty minutes ago, the following non-fiction report came in. Now if I could only talk about winning the lottery......

[SIZE=-2]Staff and agencies
07 May, 2006

WASHINGTON - POST

Nigerian medical experts have concluded that Pfizer Inc. violated international law during a 1996 epidemic when the company tested an unapproved drug on children with brain infections, The Washington Post reported.

The Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kano, Nigeria, was treating meningitis patients in 1996 when Pfizer administered the experimental drug Trovan to children.

The panel concluded the experiment violated Nigerian law, the international Declaration of Helsinki that governs ethical medical research and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Five children died after being treated with the experimental antibiotic and others showed signs of arthritis, although there is no evidence the drug played a part.

Six children died while taking a comparison drug, the newspaper said.

This is not about the children who died due to meningitis but rather about the unauthorized testing of an experimental drug.


[/SIZE]

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Unless the antigen is adsorbed to aluminum, your immune system won't even remember it.

Are you saying that if we don't dose ourselves with aluminum when we are sick (have a non-weakened/dead infection), we will not gain immunity?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yes it is!
That #7 was on the list of "Recipe for creating demand for, and interest in ,the flu vaccine".
And it was a presentation given by Glen Nowak, the Director of Communications for the CDC's national immunization program....

I guess that one is a matter of perception. On your side (if I may presume) you see creating a demand. I can see why. It's even in the title.

But on my side, I see dispelling flu vaccine myths, correcting misinformation that prevents people getting a vaccine with known benefits, and using marketing techniques (he calls it communication techniques) to bring vaccine use up to where it should be.

As to discussing vaccine while discussing the pandemic flu you can also look at that as, "Now that I have your attention." I don't see anyone saying get a regular vaccine and not mentioning it isn't for bird flu.

IOW, I see where you are coming from, I don't think the motive is vaccine overuse or profiteering or drug company influence on the CDC.


About the research on vaccine outcome, we have had similar results in a large study on reducing heart disease. Heart disease was reduced. Heart attacks were reduced. But the death rates were unchanged. In that study, homicide and suicidal deaths among men increased as heart disease as cause of death decreased. Why?

It could be pure coincidence.

It could be the interventions made people more violent.

It could be when you take away one cause of death, the survivors now represent an increase in the population of potential victims of the other cause of death.

It could be that the data is skewed and we aren't interpreting it correctly. When we all reach the maximum life span of humans the curve scrunches up. So while 1 of 100 die at a younger age 50 of every 100 are dying at an older age. What % of 90 year olds die each year compared to what % of 30 year olds? So if flu vaccine prevents death in a 90 yr old, how many years were added to that person's life? Prevent a flu death in a 30 year old and you may see a bigger impact on death rates.

It could be that we need to vaccinate more people to see an impact and we just aren't vaccinating enough of them.

And for flu, it could be that increased antibiotic resistance has increased the death rate from pneumonia as fast as flu vaccine has reduced it. Without flu vaccine we may have had an increased death rate.


The one thing that is incorrect to conclude from the study, though, is that the vaccine is ineffective. That has already been clearly demonstrated. And the study did not look at that.

This year CDC is recommending mandatory flu vaccinations for health care workers. It has been demonstrated that HCW's bring influenza infection to the patient. I have not yet read if vaccinating the kids is still an hypothesis or if it has been demonstrated that it prevents flu in the vulnerable populations. I know the risks and benefits of flu vaccine. I get one every year and give my child one every year.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What if you have a better reason to get the vaccine, namely being that not getting it would result in your otherwise perfectly healthy child getting killed?

You answered my question with a question.



Diptheria:
Death: 1 in 10

How many cases of diptheria have there been in the US in the past 50 years?
How many deaths (same time frame)?....

You make the same mistake as others have here. If you just want risk benefit strictly by the numbers and not with assumptions about what the rate of disease would be if we stopped vaccinating (which is of course more accurate but also based on a prediction) you need the risk of infection in an unvaccinated child vs the risk of vaccine in a vaccinated child. You can't use the rationale there is no disease risk when it is the vaccine that is preventing the diseases.

But even if you did use the current disease rate, to calculate disease risk, the denominator only includes unvaccinated people. And before you jump back too quickly here, vaccine side effects are calculated as per dose given, not per population.

If you go back 50 years you'd see very high rates of all these diseases. That's about the time the vaccines began to be introduced.

The risk of measles in an unvaccinated person is close to 100% in their lifetime. Per year it is lower.

In the Soviet Union not too long ago there was a raging diphtheria epidemic. That makes it a plane ride away.

Mumps outbreak is going on right now in both England and in the USA. The rate of serious complications is yet to be calculated.

 

[Capsid]

Now you know that's not exactly true. Unless the antigen is adsorbed to aluminum, your immune system won't even remember it.

I thought alum adjuvant is not included in the live vaccines?

 

[kellyb]

I guess that one is a matter of perception. On your side (if I may presume) you see creating a demand. I can see why. It's even in the title.

Well, initially I was just countering your claim that there was no fear campaign to get people to get flu shots.
Obviously, there is.

But on my side, I see dispelling flu vaccine myths, correcting misinformation that prevents people getting a vaccine with known benefits, and using marketing techniques (he calls it communication techniques) to bring vaccine use up to where it should be.

But really, it also included tips like "framing it in terms of 'worst flu season ever'."
That's not correcting misinformation.
That's using the media to spread misinformation in hopes of getting the public to behave in the desired way. (demanding flu vaccines).

As to discussing vaccine while discussing the pandemic flu you can also look at that as, "Now that I have your attention." I don't see anyone saying get a regular vaccine and not mentioning it isn't for bird flu.

Actually, up until this year, most people I talked to couldn't distinguish between the two. They just heard "birdflu-pandemic-get your flu shot" as one unified, nonspecific message.
As for the "Now that I have your attention" possibility, I'll just say that I don't morally agree with that method. It's dishonest and smells like propaganda.

IOW, I see where you are coming from, I don't think the motive is vaccine overuse or profiteering or drug company influence on the CDC.

I have no idea what the motive was/is. It could be a lot of things, and is probably a mix of a lot of things, in my opinion. But who knows.

About the research on vaccine outcome, we have had similar results in a large study on reducing heart disease. Heart disease was reduced. Heart attacks were reduced. But the death rates were unchanged. In that study, homicide and suicidal deaths among men increased as heart disease as cause of death decreased. Why?

It could be pure coincidence.

It could be the interventions made people more violent.

It could be when you take away one cause of death, the survivors now represent an increase in the population of potential victims of the other cause of death.

It could be that the data is skewed and we aren't interpreting it correctly. When we all reach the maximum life span of humans the curve scrunches up. So while 1 of 100 die at a younger age 50 of every 100 are dying at an older age. What % of 90 year olds die each year compared to what % of 30 year olds? So if flu vaccine prevents death in a 90 yr old, how many years were added to that person's life? Prevent a flu death in a 30 year old and you may see a bigger impact on death rates

The heart disease comparison isn't really a great parallel.
That would only be truly similar if the rate of heart attacks were reduced, but deaths by heart attacks in the treated group remained the same.
Fewer heart attacks, same amount of deaths via heart attack.
That is the sort of thing the flu studies are showing.
Somebody's numbers/methods must be off.
And regarding younger folks, Canada has recently done a flu study, too.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...uids=16624458&query_hl=12&itool=pubmed_docsum

It could be that we need to vaccinate more people to see an impact and we just aren't vaccinating enough of them.

That is the popular opinion, and why flu shots are now being pushed on children, since it's thought that they are the main spreaders of the viruses.
I just think the vaccine should offer substantial individual protection if it's going to be expected to create a herd effect.

And for flu, it could be that increased antibiotic resistance has increased the death rate from pneumonia as fast as flu vaccine has reduced it. Without flu vaccine we may have had an increased death rate.

That's a fair point, but in the age groups who are far less inclined to get the vax, have we seen an increase in flu deaths?

The one thing that is incorrect to conclude from the study, though, is that the vaccine is ineffective. That has already been clearly demonstrated. And the study did not look at that.

It looked at it and contradicted it. From an epidemiological point of view.

This year CDC is recommending mandatory flu vaccinations for health care workers. It has been demonstrated that HCW's bring influenza infection to the patient. I have not yet read if vaccinating the kids is still an hypothesis or if it has been demonstrated that it prevents flu in the vulnerable populations.

It was recommended before effectiveness was studied, but later studies showed a possible 33% decrease of influenza in vaccinated children. Which (going from memory) is similar to what the double blinded studies in adults show.
----------------

Mumps outbreak is going on right now in both England and in the USA. The rate of serious complications is yet to be calculated.

Speaking of that, can you explain to me how the Mumps vaccine seroconverts 95% of vaccinees with one dose, but one dose is considered to be 65-80% effective?

 

[kellyb]

I thought alum adjuvant is not included in the live vaccines?

I was speaking of pertussis specifically.
Of course live vaccines need no adjuvant.

 

[Pauly]

You make the same mistake as others have here. If you just want risk benefit strictly by the numbers and not with assumptions about what the rate of disease would be if we stopped vaccinating (which is of course more accurate but also based on a prediction) you need the risk of infection in an unvaccinated child vs the risk of vaccine in a vaccinated child. You can't use the rationale there is no disease risk when it is the vaccine that is preventing the diseases.

When cleaner, less crowded living conditions are more responsible for disease discline than the vaccine, it would be wrong to assume that diphtheria in particular would revisit. In fact, when Japan stopped the dpt vax for a few years, it was pertussis that became more widespread, no mention of the return of diphtheria. So no mistake made on my part.

"But even if you did use the current disease rate, to calculate disease risk, the denominator only includes unvaccinated people. And before you jump back too quickly here, vaccine side effects are calculated as per dose given, not per population."

Vaccine side effects are calculated with trial info, not real life experience.

"If you go back 50 years you'd see very high rates of all these diseases. That's about the time the vaccines began to be introduced."

If you go back 70 years you will see that the diseases were already on the decline BEFORE the vaccines were introduced. If you go back 50 years you will also see less sanitary living conditions and over crowding.

"The risk of measles in an unvaccinated person is close to 100% in their lifetime. Per year it is lower."

Measles is benign in most. Before the vaccine, measles were not feared, they were expected as a routine childhood illness, much like chickenpox used to be, before a vaccine was licensed for it.

"In the Soviet Union not too long ago there was a raging diphtheria epidemic. That makes it a plane ride away."

Finish your story, which people were affected exactly in the "raging" epidemic?

"Mumps outbreak is going on right now in both England and in the USA. The rate of serious complications is yet to be calculated."

Yeah, I heard. No deaths reported, yet. Some vaccine. High vaccine uptake, yet most who are affected have been vaccinated.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You make the same mistake as others have here. If you just want risk benefit strictly by the numbers and not with assumptions about what the rate of disease would be if we stopped vaccinating (which is of course more accurate but also based on a prediction) you need the risk of infection in an unvaccinated child vs the risk of vaccine in a vaccinated child. You can't use the rationale there is no disease risk when it is the vaccine that is preventing the diseases.

When cleaner, less crowded living conditions are more responsible for disease discline than the vaccine, it would be wrong to assume that diphtheria in particular would revisit. In fact, when Japan stopped the dpt vax for a few years, it was pertussis that became more widespread, no mention of the return of diphtheria. So no mistake made on my part.

"But even if you did use the current disease rate, to calculate disease risk, the denominator only includes unvaccinated people. And before you jump back too quickly here, vaccine side effects are calculated as per dose given, not per population."

Vaccine side effects are calculated with trial info, not real life experience.

"If you go back 50 years you'd see very high rates of all these diseases. That's about the time the vaccines began to be introduced."

If you go back 70 years you will see that the diseases were already on the decline BEFORE the vaccines were introduced. If you go back 50 years you will also see less sanitary living conditions and over crowding.

"The risk of measles in an unvaccinated person is close to 100% in their lifetime. Per year it is lower."

Measles is benign in most. Before the vaccine, measles were not feared, they were expected as a routine childhood illness, much like chickenpox used to be, before a vaccine was licensed for it.

"In the Soviet Union not too long ago there was a raging diphtheria epidemic. That makes it a plane ride away."

Finish your story, which people were affected exactly in the "raging" epidemic?

"Mumps outbreak is going on right now in both England and in the USA. The rate of serious complications is yet to be calculated."

Yeah, I heard. No deaths reported, yet. Some vaccine. High vaccine uptake, yet most who are affected have been vaccinated.

If you'd use the quote code instead of "" it would help.

You switched your argument to attack something I didn't say. You wanted to compare risk of vaccine outcome vs risk of disease outcome. Then you used the wrong denominator to calculate the risk of disease outcome. That's is all I addressed.

But since you want to play this game of twist, allow me to give you the correct populations and outcomes you need to compare vaccine risk to disease risk, and then if you wish to argue these are not the correct populations to compare, state your case.

What's the percentage of people vaccinated that either DIE from the vaccine or suffer permanent serious harm?

Compared to

The percentage of people not vaccinated who either die from the vaccine preventable disease or suffer permanent serious harm?

Using risk of becoming infected vs risk of vaccine outcome is not an appropriate comparison because herd immunity is protecting unvaccinated persons.

As to that better sanitation not vaccine nonsense, I have a longer post in the works to properly address Raven's position but here's a hint.

If it were living conditions and sanitation that prevented vaccine preventable diseases and not the vaccines, wouldn't the vaccine preventable diseases all have declined at similar times in history? How is it each disease declined right after that specific vaccine was introduced when those vaccines were introduced sometimes decades apart?

 

[jj]

If it were living conditions and sanitation that prevented vaccine preventable diseases and not the vaccines, wouldn't the vaccine preventable diseases all have declined at similar times in history? How is it each disease declined right after that specific vaccine was introduced when those vaccines were introduced sometimes decades apart?

Take Polio. Santitation makes it worse, it appears.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

But compare those figures to these from the CDC...
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vaccine/tdap/tdap_adult_recs.pdf

Pertussis and the rest of the vaccine preventable diseases are notorious for killing babies and young children. Thus, your quote on people over 19 may be true, but you are excluding the one group that needs the protection the most. The stats I used are thus more accurate when looking at how deadly the disease is, especially among young unvaccinated babies. Herd immunity is especially important to spare them.

Pertussis is a severe disease in young infants. About 1 in 400 infants die and 1 in 400 suffers permanent brain from Pertussis.

http://www.imac.auckland.ac.nz/new/editorial/prev_edit/edit_oct99.htm

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Immunizations are hardly natural.

They actually allow you to naturally build up your own immune system with natural protection from disease with natural whole or bits of the microbes.

Doesn't get more natural than that. Are you still ignoring How Vaccines Work?

And I see that you are ignoring that deaths are reduced even if a vaccinated individual shows signs of contracting the disease. We do all come into contact with the diseases...and a usual argument is that vaccinated people get it. Well, you might have 400 people. Let's say 40 get the disease. 10 of the 400 are unvaccinated. Let's break that down...all 10 of the unvaccinated people get sick, that's 100%. 30 vaccinated people get signs of the illness, but are back onto daily business much sooner. That's only 7.5% of the vaccinated population. This is not an unusual scenario, but if you want more "accurate stats", then try:

In a group of 100 children, all but 5 are fully immunised. There is an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease and every susceptible child becomes infected.

-the 5 unvaccinated children become infected (100%)
-approximately 10 vaccinated children, who had not responded to the vaccine, also become infected (less than 10%).
As you can see, this doesn't prove that the vaccine doesn't work (85 didn't get the disease!) - only that most of the children had been vaccinated, so those who were vaccinated and didn't respond to the vaccine outnumbered those who had not been vaccinated. If there were 50 unvaccinated children out of the 100, and every susceptible child became infected, then 50 unvaccinated children would became infected and only approximately 5 vaccinated children.

http://www.imac.auckland.ac.nz/new/editorial/prev_edit/edit_oct99.htm

 

[RationalVetMed]

Measles is benign in most. Before the vaccine, measles were not feared, they were expected as a routine childhood illness, much like chickenpox used to be, before a vaccine was licensed for it.

Measles is benign unless you're one of those who dies of meningitis - this is a ridiculous and unsubstantiated statement. When I had measles in the 1960's I have distinct memories of my mother being seriously worried about the consequences; as a child I thought it was a wierd disease that gave you spots and got you off school for a while but my mother knew it was potentially lethal. Take off those rose tinted spectacles and get real - what on earth do you mean by "measles is benign in most"?

Yuri

 

[kellyb]

Pertussis and the rest of the vaccine preventable diseases are notorious for killing babies and young children. Thus, your quote on people over 19 may be true, but you are excluding the one group that needs the protection the most. The stats I used are thus more accurate when looking at how deadly the disease is, especially among young unvaccinated babies. Herd immunity is especially important to spare them.

That was my point, too, though.
In the same year that they figured out that the vaccine didn't work nearly as well as expected, and that there were hundreds of thousands of cases running around that in years past were misdiagnosed as other illnesses, there were still only about 20 deaths, most of which were in babies too young to be immunized.
So the figures gathered in years past are extremely suspect, as we are just now beginning to get a grasp on how this organism actually works and responds to immunization.

Although I do want to say that 20 deaths from pertussis is still 20 too many deaths.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Hmm, from your link:

In 2004, U.S. adults 19–64 years of age accounted for 7,008 of 25,827 (27%) reported pertussis cases.

That was my point, too, though.
In the same year that they figured out that the vaccine didn't work nearly as well as expected, and that there were hundreds of thousands of cases running around that in years past were misdiagnosed as other illnesses, there were still only about 20 deaths, most of which were in babies too young to be immunized.
So the figures gathered in years past are extremely suspect, as we are just now beginning to get a grasp on how this organism actually works and responds to immunization.

Although I do want to say that 20 deaths from pertussis is still 20 too many deaths.

It seems the stats hold among the infant age group. Especially with the complications after contracting pertussis from my previous link:

About 1 in 200 patients under the age of 6 months will die from the complications of pneumonia or brain damage.

Brain damage can be caused:-

-By interfering with blood supply to the brain during severe coughing spells
-By causing the infant to stop breathing
-By causing the blood vessels in the brain to rupture during coughing spells and bleed into the brain

So with the twenty dead, we would have had about 4000 sick infants if we follow along with the given stats. That's a lot in a population of others of all ages (how many infants under the age of 6 months are there in a population at any given time percent-wise?). About another 20 would have suffered permanent brain damage. I feel the stats are accurate in this case, I don't see them as suspect if there were about 4000 sick infants. 4000 is 0.66% of 600,000.

 

[kellyb]

It seems the stats hold among the infant age group. Especially with the complications after contracting pertussis from my previous link:



So with the twenty dead, we would have had about 4000 sick infants if we follow along with the given stats. That's a lot in a population of others of all ages (how many infants under the age of 6 months are there in a population at any given time percent-wise?). About another 20 would have suffered permanent brain damage. I feel the stats are accurate in this case, I don't see them as suspect if there were about 4000 sick infants. 4000 is 0.66% of 600,000.

Do you think the rate of underdiagnosis/misdiagnosis would be as high in infants, though?
Part of the reason why it's been so badly underdiagnosed in adults is because the symptoms can be so mild compared to what you see in babies, in addition to the misconception that it was gone.
I think for a while now if a baby ends up in the ER with pertussis symptoms, they're cultured for the bacteria.
Skeptigirl probably knows all about this subject.
Skeptigirl, do you think pertussis has been mis/underdiagnosed in infants at the rate it has been in adults?