Vaccines: how do I talk to my anti-vac wife about it?

[trusetheeker]

As an aside, may I jump all the way back to your wife's story of the cat. That also happened to my cat. She didn't die but she was one sick girl for a while. After that, she got no more vaccines.

Good on you, Hazel. Unfortunately, it takes being an obvious victim of vaccines before most people will dare to question the vaccine religion. I was easier in that I was willing to accept other people's tragedies as a rallying call.

Today I listened to this interview with Dr. Sherri Tenpenny as well as this interview with Dr Suzanne Humphries, M.D.. Between them, they have long been preaching what I've only discovered over the last 2 years.

Everyone has the right to choose who they believe in the vaccine debate. Not to be theatrical, but I'm sooner persuaded by dead/disabled victims than industry stats to the contrary.

Before you put a lot of faith in the industry stats and testimonies, you may want to watch The Origin of Aids: The Polio Vaccine (CBC 'Witness' 2004).

And you can read the writings of anti-vaxxers going back several hundred years all the way up to modern times and marvel at how the same basic message stays true all the way through - the vaccination myth is built on lies. If you follow this thread through, you'll see all of the links that I provided which of course were snubbed by the pro-vaxxers because that's what you have to do with any evidence against your system of belief.

I've done my work here as the anti-vaccination league only pays me by the thread, not by the post! To all of you, have a safe and vaccine-free holiday season

 

[Tatyana]

In ways, our children are less healthy than we were. They say that asthma is rapidly increasing, no doubt from air pollution and the fact that we keep children shut up in air-conditoned houses rather than letting them run around and get acclimated to the outdoors. A doctor once said that keeping our children overly sanitized weakened their immune system. They get no chance to build up a natural resistance to germs. Then, there are all the chemicals in our foods and BPA in baby bottles. Is this why we have more allergies today than used to be? What about the medicines that stop working because we take too much of them? Think antibiotics.

I am not condeming vaccines. I am saying that maybe we overdo in many ways, leaving the children with weaker immune systems which would protect them naturally. That is why I emphathize with your wife in her beliefs. There are two sides to every argument and a quandary left to fret over. Do we or don't we? How can we do enough without doing too much? How can we protect without being overly-protective?

I remember when it was recommended that we let children be exposed to measles while they were young before their immune system weakened. It would build up their resistance, we were told. The same with other childhood diseases. And, by the way, wasn't there a year when they did admit that the flu vaccine caused the flu epidemic that year?

Does one dare suggest a compromise? Vaccinate against the worst ones, the hardest ones to cure (polio?), and go easy with the rest. Just a thought. One thing that I do feel fairly certain about (even with no expertise) is that these multi-vaccines are not as safe as giving one now and one later. Slowly does it.

As an aside, may I jump all the way back to your wife's story of the cat. That also happened to my cat. She didn't die but she was one sick girl for a while. After that, she got no more vaccines.

If you think that a flu that is three times as deadly to children and pregnant women and killed far more children and pregnant women, directly killed patients, rather than the typical 40 - 50, 000 elderly or immune compromised people who sometimes die of complications from the flu, I guess it wasn't that bad.

We have studied influenza A viruses for years, we know how antigenic drift works, which is why there is often such a grave concern about it.

We are long overdue a global pandemic like the Spanish flu in the 1920s.

In the first 25 years of HIV/AIDs, 25 million people have died.

In the first 25 weeks of the 1918 flu, 25 million people died.

The population of the world was much lower at that time, and there also wasn't the same sort of global transport.

The flu virus isn't a live or attenuated virus, it is a subunit of the virus, so it is impossible to catch the flu.

Your immune system is going to do EXACTLY the same thing encountering the antigens from the vaccine or encountering the antigens on the wild virus.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of Spanish flu pandemic is that it killed young, healthy people (those with a 'strong' immune system).

Contrary to popular belief, a 'strong' immune system isn't always an advantage.

We feel dreadful when we have a cold because of the immune system response, all of the cells and cytokines produce the fever, aches, and pains.

There is this thing called a cytokine storm, where the immune system basically freaks out when it encounters something that is so foreign to it that it really isn't sure what to do about it.

This is what is though to be the reason so many people died from the flu, and why some people continue to die and need respiratory support, they drown in their own lung secretions, due to the 'swelling' (flooding the area) part of the basic immune system response.

This is also why an elderly person can survive a blood transfusion accident, whereas a young healthy person would die quite quickly from disseminated intravascular coagulation (and cytokine storm from immune system freak out).

I personally love immunology, it has been a fairly large part of my studies at university and in my job, and it is rather complicated, and I find it frustrating that people really don't have the foggiest about it.

There is no such thing as 'building up' your immune system.

You get immunised so that your body will move through the innate to the more specific adaptive immune response where your body produces antibodies specific to the pathogen.

This typically takes about two weeks.

A lot of damage from a bacteria or virus can happen in two weeks, so once our immune system has encountered a pathogen, it creates memory cells that have the ability to create new antibodies quickly and by pass the two week delay of the innate immune system.

The antibodies (made by B cells) stick to the pathogen, cytokines are released to trigger and signal other cells, and then another macrophage (white cell with many names depending on the tissue it is in), eats the bacteria or virus.

Do you actually know some of the nasty things our immune system produces, especially the innate immune system?

Think free radicals and hydrogen peroxide and tryptase to dissolve through out own body tissues to get to where the pathogen is.

You really, really, really WANT the adaptive, antibody based immune response, and you want it as fast as possible.

So yes, you are terribly mistaken.

Terribly, terribly, terribly mistaken.


PS. Just because your sons have never had a cold or flu (which I would question), doesn't mean they are never going to catch any sort of infectious disease.

http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/10/1051.extract

The Five Cardinal Signs of Inflammation: Calor, Dolor, Rubor, Tumor … and Penuria (Apologies to Aulus Cornelius Celsus, De medicina, c. A.D. 25)

No, antibiotics have nothing to do with 'weakening the immune' and that term is almost entirely rubbish.

The only modern issue with the immune system may be 'the clean house hypothesis' that may, note may result in an increased risk of autoimmune disorders, which is NOT a weakened immune system but an overly active one.

As we no longer encounter as many parasites, one of our T helper pathways is not activated and it is thought the other T helper pathway is over active, resulting in more 'self' antigen presenting to the B cells which then make antibodies directed against self.

As well, we are born with just about every single pathogen we will encounter programmed in the genetic code of the immune system cells. Millions and millions of little antibody codes, however, it is just that the cells have to undergo affinity maturation, antigen switching and clonal expansion (about two weeks)before they can effectively deal with a rapidly dividing bacteria or virus.

No offense, but you are really clueless about what the immune system is.

Most people are.

In fact, if you asked people to tell you exactly what is the immune system, I would guess 80% wouldn't be able to name one component of the immune system.

We don't get the cytokine storm as the amount of antigen that we are given is just so small it really is just an epitope.

This is also the reason why adjuvents are in vaccines, as we need to enhance the immune response to the antigen to ensure that we do create memory cells.

The immune response to a vaccination can be cytokine ladened, and it often makes people feel like they have a mild flu, especially the first time they have the vaccine (as I did).

People mistake their own immune system's cytokine response from being immunised for being ill, because basically, it is our immune system that is creating all of the symptoms we associate with having a cold or flu for the most part.

If you have had one of those awful 'I felt like crap after having my flu jab', then you are an individual who is a candidate for the deadly cytokine storm if you encounter a new wild type influenza A virus.

If you felt that crap 'I caught the flu from the jab' from a tiny, tiny, tiny dose of the virus, a rapidly replicating, aggressive and novel virus is really going to cause your immune system to flip out.

Anecdotally, I have had so many flu jabs that now my arm doesn't even get sore, I have to press on the injection site to notice any sort of side effects.

This is the other issue people bring up, that the vaccine has to match the flu for that season.

Yes, this is true, but if you have had previous immunisation, and there are only something like 16 H (haemogglutinin) and 9 N (neuromidinase) spikes on influenza A that affect humans, and every year there are typically three strains of virus in the jab.

So even if the next global pandemic is something like H5N9, my memory cell from previous bird flu jabs would still recognise the H5 spike and start mounting the more effective antibody response to that spike.

Just for those of you who are unaware of this, IT IS STILL YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM THAT DEALS WITH THE INFECTION YOU ARE INFECTED WITH, it isn't like the vaccine is a 'magic stop infection bullet', it just gives your immune system a jump start.

For example, I am fairly positive I still caught the flu last year, however, it was very short lived and not nearly as miserable and morbid as the previous flu(s) I have had.

A vaccine will not STOP infection, if there is some nasty bacteria or virus floating around in your environment, you are still as likely to catch it, however, if and/or when you catch the pathogen, YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM WILL DEAL WITH IT IN A MORE EFFECTIVE AND TIMELY MANNER.

This is why the whole argument that 'vaccines weaken our immune system' is just utter rubbish and using it make you look like a science retard.

The immune system does EXACTLY the same thing, goes through EXACTLY the same set of stages if you are exposed to the vaccine pathogen or the pathogen in the wild.

I quoted a few of my old posts just to point out the fallacy about vaccines weakening the immune system.

To reiterate: the immune system is going to do exactly the same thing if it encounters measles virus 'naturally' or as a vaccine.

The only difference is that if a vaccinated child encounters the measles virus and catches it, that child's immune system has a two week head start, and it can start to make antibodies to the virus almost immediately rather than the two weeks of innate to adaptive immune response.


The immune system of a vaccinated child still has to deal with the pathogen, it isn't like vaccines prevent infections, they just have the immune system deal with them in a more effective and rapid manner before the bacteria or virus has done any significant amount of reproduction.


Bacteria and viruses can do a lot of damage in two weeks.

I personally think all of this 'let them get sick' and talk of 'weakening' is reminiscent of eugenics, and I find it quite terrifying.

 

[Tatyana]

Good on you, Hazel. Unfortunately, it takes being an obvious victim of vaccines before most people will dare to question the vaccine religion. I was easier in that I was willing to accept other people's tragedies as a rallying call.

Today I listened to this interview with Dr. Sherri Tenpenny as well as this interview with Dr Suzanne Humphries, M.D.. Between them, they have long been preaching what I've only discovered over the last 2 years.

Everyone has the right to choose who they believe in the vaccine debate. Not to be theatrical, but I'm sooner persuaded by dead/disabled victims than industry stats to the contrary.

Before you put a lot of faith in the industry stats and testimonies, you may want to watch The Origin of Aids: The Polio Vaccine (CBC 'Witness' 2004).

And you can read the writings of anti-vaxxers going back several hundred years all the way up to modern times and marvel at how the same basic message stays true all the way through - the vaccination myth is built on lies. If you follow this thread through, you'll see all of the links that I provided which of course were snubbed by the pro-vaxxers because that's what you have to do with any evidence against your system of belief.

I've done my work here as the anti-vaccination league only pays me by the thread, not by the post! To all of you, have a safe and vaccine-free holiday season

How can you believe in AIDs when you don't think that viruses or bacteria cause disease?

Haven't you vaccinated your children?

I personally think you are just pulling our legs and having a giggle about it.

 

[Estellea]

Good on you, Hazel. Unfortunately, it takes being an obvious victim of vaccines before most people will dare to question the vaccine religion. I was easier in that I was willing to accept other people's tragedies as a rallying call.

Today I listened to this interview with Dr. Sherri Tenpenny as well as this interview with Dr Suzanne Humphries, M.D.. Between them, they have long been preaching what I've only discovered over the last 2 years.

Tenpenny and Humphries are quacks who both dangerously mislead their gullible viewers with unsupported rubbish. The former has been tossed out of vaccine court for her obvious ineptitude and both are not held in regard by their peers at all. Preaching is an ironically accurate term to describe what they do though, considering their fact-free drivel.

Everyone has the right to choose who they believe in the vaccine debate. Not to be theatrical, but I'm sooner persuaded by dead/disabled victims than industry stats to the contrary.

Of course you have the right to believe in anything you want, doesn't mean you are right though.

Before you put a lot of faith in the industry stats and testimonies, you may want to watch The Origin of Aids: The Polio Vaccine (CBC 'Witness' 2004).

And you can read the writings of anti-vaxxers going back several hundred years all the way up to modern times and marvel at how the same basic message stays true all the way through - the vaccination myth is built on lies. If you follow this thread through, you'll see all of the links that I provided which of course were snubbed by the pro-vaxxers because that's what you have to do with any evidence against your system of belief.

Excellent advice . Don't pay attention to you know, evidence and statistics; believe the testimonials and unreviewed paranoid screeds from non-scientists. Pssst, the polio vaccine had nothing to do with HIV/AIDS, but again, show your work as I've not seen anything even resembling credibility come forth in your posts.

Este

 

[pakeha]

...We vaccinate children at a young age because before we developed antibiotics and vaccinations, almost one quarter of children died before the age of five.

This point can't be repeated enough in a discussion of vaccination- child mortality HAS descended dramatically. Do the anti- vaxxers have an alternative explanation for that?

...The immune system of a vaccinated child still has to deal with the pathogen, it isn't like vaccines prevent infections, they just have the immune system deal with them in a more effective and rapid manner before the bacteria or virus has done any significant amount of reproduction.
...

So if I've understood this correctly, the vaccination enhances the immune system's reaction to the pathogen.
Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

 

[Rolfe]

"Enhances" is a difficult word. What it does is to pre-warn the immune system. I liken it to training, or even to a fire drill. You get someone to go through the motions of responding to the emergency, even though there is no actual danger at that time. Then when the danger appears for real they're primed and ready, and the danger is combatted.

Tatyana made a good analogy when she spoke about giving the child a two-week head start against the illness. Normally it takes about two weeks for the immune system to get into gear and start producing an effective antibody response to a pathogen. During that two weeks the body is fighting with much weaker defence mechanisms. The patient gets sick, and may actually succumb. But if you can give the body a two-week head start, by running a "fire drill" against the pathogen in advance in a safe setting (by using a form of the pathogen which does not cause illness), then illness and possibly death can be avoided.

That's how it works.

Rolfe.

 

[Hazel]

Of course the counter argument is that it SEEMS that our children are getting weaker because all those that would have died before the advent of vaccination and the use of antibiotics now actually live and thus give the impression of an increase in unhealthy children.

Well, there's a thought. You are right about greater survival. To me, though, that does not rule out our new "dangers" of pollution, chemicals in our food and over-medication. And I do believe that letting our children live a more "natural" life where they get more chance to build up resistances is very advisable. Our problem is finding that fine line between too much and not enough. In all honesty, do you see the numbers of children outside playing that you used to see? Where are they? Everyone knows the answers to that question.

 

[excaza]

Huh? Moderation and common sense say you don't drink three shots at one time.

I can drink three shots at one time without an issue.

Common sense also says you shouldn't drive a car while strapped into a snowboard. Neither that nor your alcohol handwave have nothing to do with vaccines. Or did you think you had a slam dunk because both of them contained the word 'shot?'

 

[Clayton Moore]

Good on you, Hazel. Unfortunately, it takes being an obvious victim of vaccines before most people will dare to question the vaccine religion. I was easier in that I was willing to accept other people's tragedies as a rallying call.

Today I listened to this interview with Dr. Sherri Tenpenny as well as this interview with Dr Suzanne Humphries, M.D.. Between them, they have long been preaching what I've only discovered over the last 2 years.

Everyone has the right to choose who they believe in the vaccine debate. Not to be theatrical, but I'm sooner persuaded by dead/disabled victims than industry stats to the contrary.

Before you put a lot of faith in the industry stats and testimonies, you may want to watch The Origin of Aids: The Polio Vaccine (CBC 'Witness' 2004).

And you can read the writings of anti-vaxxers going back several hundred years all the way up to modern times and marvel at how the same basic message stays true all the way through - the vaccination myth is built on lies. If you follow this thread through, you'll see all of the links that I provided which of course were snubbed by the pro-vaxxers because that's what you have to do with any evidence against your system of belief.

I've done my work here as the anti-vaccination league only pays me by the thread, not by the post! To all of you, have a safe and vaccine-free holiday season

The Origin of Aids: The Polio Vaccine (CBC 'Witness' 2004)

Interesting mention of synthetic vaccines at minute 42.

 

[excaza]

The Origin of Aids: The Polio Vaccine (CBC 'Witness' 2004)

Interesting mention of synthetic vaccines at minute 42.

This garbage was refuted 20 years ago, why the hell is it still coming up?

 

[Clayton Moore]

This garbage was refuted 20 years ago, why the hell is it still coming up?

Progress via technology. Google it.

synthetic vaccines 2010

 

[excaza]

Progress via technology. Google it.

synthetic vaccines 2010

Synthetic vaccines 2010.

Article you posted, 2004. Nice detective work, Clayton.

 

[Clayton Moore]

Originally Posted by excaza View Post
This garbage was refuted 20 years ago, why the hell is it still coming up?

Synthetic vaccines 2010.

Article you posted, 2004. Nice detective work, Clayton.

Thanks.

 

[Estellea]

Well, there's a thought. You are right about greater survival. To me, though, that does not rule out our new "dangers" of pollution, chemicals in our food and over-medication. And I do believe that letting our children live a more "natural" life where they get more chance to build up resistances is very advisable. Our problem is finding that fine line between too much and not enough. In all honesty, do you see the numbers of children outside playing that you used to see? Where are they? Everyone knows the answers to that question.

Hazel, you would be interested in the Hygiene Hypothesis which is accumulating more evidence that our dwindling exposure to antigens that stimulate different arms of our immune system may be contributing to immune dysfunction. That along with over-cleanliness, antibiotic abuse (in both humans and agriculture) and over nutrition may explain a lot. However, vaccines prevent "a drop in the bucket" in the ocean of potential pathogens and antigenic exposures and do not appear to be a factor for increases in asthma, allergies and diabetes for example.

This garbage was refuted 20 years ago, why the hell is it still coming up?

Look at the links in his signature, you don't think someone like that is going to pass up on a conspiracy do you?

Este

 

[Senex]

I'm not sexist -- but sometimes I've dated women who weren't deep thinkers.

Occasionally putting them over your knee while discussing such things as vaccinations did a world of good. It's not our fault the woo hiits women harder than men.

 

[Hazel]

I'm not sexist -- but sometimes I've dated women who weren't deep thinkers.

Occasionally putting them over your knee while discussing such things as vaccinations did a world of good. It's not our fault the woo hiits women harder than men.

Neither am I sexist and often I have met men who were not deep thinkers. Walking away seems to take care of everything.

 

[Senex]

Neither am I sexist and often I have met men who were not deep thinkers. Walking away seems to take care of everything.

Yes, but were you walking with panties at half mast at the time

 

[Tatyana]

Well, there's a thought. You are right about greater survival. To me, though, that does not rule out our new "dangers" of pollution, chemicals in our food and over-medication. And I do believe that letting our children live a more "natural" life where they get more chance to build up resistances is very advisable. Our problem is finding that fine line between too much and not enough. In all honesty, do you see the numbers of children outside playing that you used to see? Where are they? Everyone knows the answers to that question.

I am not certain why you are lumping vaccines in with pollution, food additives and/or pesticides, medications and children playing outside.

Ironically, if a child is vaccinated, they are probably less likely to need as many antibiotics.

They will still build up resistances to diseases if you vaccinate them.

In fact, that is exactly what vaccination does, builds up resistance (memory B cells) in our immune system.

 

[pakeha]

"Enhances" is a difficult word.... But if you can give the body a two-week head start, by running a "fire drill" against the pathogen in advance in a safe setting (by using a form of the pathogen which does not cause illness), then illness and possibly death can be avoided.

That's how it works.

Rolfe.

Thanks, Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

We must remember that even fire drills aren't completely safe. Someone might trip on the stairs and twist an ankle. You have to go outside and it might be raining. You lose productive work time. (It may even be possible that some time, somewhere, someone died of a heart attack while a fire drill was in progress.)

The antivaxers are like people saying no, no, look how harmful fire drills are, don't hold them. Keep your children safe from these dangers, never have a fire drill at school.

You know it makes sense.

Rolfe.