"The Republicans’ war on science and reason"

Walter Ego said:
My question was do you have any examples of disease outbreaks being caused by vaccines in first-world developed nations?

The Salk vaccine caused outbreaks of Polio in the U.S or western Europe? Can you give some examples of this?

(Btw, the topic of this thread is The Republicans’ war on science and reason, not Robert Prey's war on science and reason.)
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The year the US decided to switch back to the killed vaccine, IIRC, there were about 10 cases of vaccine virus polio in the Americas and no wild polio cases.

When you have widespread wild polio the live vaccine is more efficient and the benefit by far outweighs the risk.

Once you eliminate all the wild polio cases as we have done on this continent, the killed vaccine shifts into the safer alternative when looking at risk benefit.

But because the virus need only be re-introduced from a continent it has not been eliminated from, we have to keep the population vaccine levels high to prevent that occurrence. When vacine levels drop, many cases of wild polio soon follow.
 
Ooops!!

Skeptic Ginger said:
That stuff won't fly here. We actually know how to read the science. There have been a handful of vaccine virus polio cases and never once was an outbreak or epidemic caused by a vaccine strain.
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Sorry to hear that on a board consisting of "critical thinkers" that some facts are not allowed. But when the student is ready, the teacher appears. To those who are ready, read all about

The Cutter Incident

"In 1955, Cutter Laboratories was one of several companies licensed by the United States government to produce Salk polio vaccine....

The Cutter incident was one of the worst pharmaceutical disasters in U.S. history and caused several thousand children to be exposed to live polio virus upon vaccination....

"...The mistake resulted in the production of 120,000 doses of polio vaccine that contained live polio virus. Of the children who received the vaccine, 40,000 developed abortive poliomyelitis (a form of the disease that does not involve the central nervous system), 56 developed paralytic poliomyelitis and of these 5 children died as a result of polio infection.[3] The exposures led to an epidemic of polio in the families and communities of the affected children, resulting in a further 113 people paralyzed and 5 deaths."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutter_Laboratories#The_Cutter_incident
 
Robert,

Thanks for that link. I would have been about 6 years old in 1955, and I remember the scourge of polio and the kids in the iron lungs and leg braces. But I do not remember this incident, which is horrific.

None of that changes my stance on vaccinations - one reason I'm likely here today to type this is that I avoided so many of the diseases that inoculation prevents.

Still, the linked incident is a tragedy and an important reminder there is rarely benefit without some modicum of risk.
 
Alferd_Packer said:
55 years ago?
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Please don't see me as a Robert Prey fanboy, but the question to which he was responding was:

"My question was do you have any examples of disease outbreaks being caused by vaccines in first-world developed nations?"

His response was fully responsive to that question, and informed me of an incident of which I was not aware.

If your point is that in 55 years vaccine safety has likely improved, well, duh.

But to err is human, both then and now.

I believe that vaccines are currently both safe and effective. But that does NOT mean they are not without some risk.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Please don't see me as a Robert Prey fanboy, but the question to which he was responding was:

"My question was do you have any examples of disease outbreaks being caused by vaccines in first-world developed nations?"

His response was fully responsive to that question, and informed me of an incident of which I was not aware.

If your point is that in 55 years vaccine safety has likely improved, well, duh.

But to err is human, both then and now.

I believe that vaccines are currently both safe and effective. But that does NOT mean they are not without some risk.
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Robert did answer my question with a citation and should be acknowledged for his response. I would suspect, however, he is too young to remember the pictures of children in iron lungs and the anxiety of parents caused by fears their children would get the disease.

The last reported polio outbreak in the U.S. was in 2005 in an Amish community in central Minnesota which was the first reported outbreak of polio in the United States in 26 years and that previous outbreak was also in Amish communities where parents typically decline to vaccinate their children.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301733.html
 
Robert Prey said:
Whether immoral or amoral, people who do promiscuous sex get high rates of STDs.
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When they are not careful.

It's easy to be careful.

Rubbers for intercourse or fellatio.

Dental dams (or plastic food film) for cunnilingus or analingus.

Every swinger's club and every gay bar or bathhouse in the country has condoms available for free, and 7-11 carries them, so there is no excuse.

ETA: Hint for you; If you make a radius cut on a rolled un-lubricated condom, you can then unroll it into a sheet suitable for use as a dam...
 
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Robert Prey said:
It's also called a statistical fallacy.
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I'd flunk you in any course I taught. You are clearly talking FAR past your actual knowledge or education, and have really zero idea of any of these things you are discussing or criticizing beyond the jingoistic talking points you have picked up from your ideological masters. How much do they pay you?
 
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Robert Prey said:
Is that supposed to be an intelligent question???The Salk vaccine for one. The Swine Flu vaccine for another.
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Well, that was an ignorant thing to say.

The Salk vaccine is a KILLED vaccine. No live anything in it. Nothing.

The SABIN vaccine was weakened live virus that Sabin promoted because it required no needle and was though to provide more complete immunity. The downside is that caregivers who were not first vaccinated themselves could occasionally contract from the feces. This is why it is not used any more. The number of people harmed vs the number of people saved still showed a huge benefit from the Sabin vax, however.
 
Robert Prey said:
Sorry to hear that on a board consisting of "critical thinkers" that some facts are not allowed. But when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
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Get off your high horse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutter_Laboratories#The_Cutter_incident
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What this proves, actually, is that, if any changes are to be made to FDA regulations, inspections, reviews and oversight, the change must, in the interest of public safety, br FAR MORE STRINGENT.

Anybody who thinks that any for-profit business or industry is best able to regulate itself would probably buy a truck load of unicorn poo if it was priced right and the mark has an organic garden.

I can assure you that without the vaccine a lot more kids would have died from wild polio in that same time period.

(Is it possible that the far right hates vaccines because of the connection to FDR?)
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Please don't see me as a Robert Prey fanboy, but the question to which he was responding was:

"My question was do you have any examples of disease outbreaks being caused by vaccines in first-world developed nations?"

His response was fully responsive to that question, and informed me of an incident of which I was not aware.

If your point is that in 55 years vaccine safety has likely improved, well, duh.

But to err is human, both then and now.
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But, Robert also claimed:
Robert Prey said:
These stories are legion. This is just one....
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Apparently, these stories are so numerous that he only had to go back 55 - 60 years or to poorly administrated third-world distribution situations to find applicable stories among the "legion".
 
I would also argue:

The incident does not illustrate an outbreak from the vaccine, but an outbreak from misformed vaccine. It is like saying you heard a guy bought a BMW with faulty airbags, so all cars are deadly.

More to the point I would argue if this was an "outbreak" in that it started a contagion, or if the number of those fell ill correlated only with the those directly vaccinated.

But those are hair splits. Compared to the number of death prevented by vaccination, or the rate at which infection speads of diseases when the vaccine is not administered and herd immunity drops, the number of cases in the outbreak, as tragic as it was, becomes pretty much statistically insignificant.
 
leftysergeant said:
So teach them all how to put on a rubber. All actual needs of society, in this area COVERED. (Pun intended.)
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Just like all the other propaganda put out there by the "do your own thing" crowd, condom failure isn't even considered.

In 1993 the University of Texas analyzed the results of 11 different studies that had tracked the effectiveness of condoms to prevent transmission of the AIDS virus. The average condom failure rate in the 11 studies for preventing transmission of the AIDS virus was 31%.


http://www.prolife.com/CONDOMS.html
 
Tomtomkent said:
I would also argue:

The incident does not illustrate an outbreak from the vaccine, but an outbreak from misformed vaccine. It is like saying you heard a guy bought a BMW with faulty airbags, so all cars are deadly.

More to the point I would argue if this was an "outbreak" in that it started a contagion, or if the number of those fell ill correlated only with the those directly vaccinated.

But those are hair splits. Compared to the number of death prevented by vaccination, or the rate at which infection speads of diseases when the vaccine is not administered and herd immunity drops, the number of cases in the outbreak, as tragic as it was, becomes pretty much statistically insignificant.
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Bottom line: The assertion that vaccines are not dangerous and can be relied upon to not cause the very disease they are supposed to prevent, is a lie.
 
Robert Prey said:
Bottom line: The assertion that vaccines are not dangerous and can be relied upon to not cause the very disease they are supposed to prevent, is a lie.
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Bottom line: Everything has a risk. There is a risk with vaccines, though small. The link you posted was a horrible accident. Walking outside has risks. Driving a car has risks. Sitting in the sun has risks. Eating food has risks.

Vaccines help people, and have seriously curbed many diseases. This makes it worth the risks.
 
BenBurch said:
Well, that was an ignorant thing to say.

The Salk vaccine is a KILLED vaccine. No live anything in it. Nothing.

The SABIN vaccine was weakened live virus that Sabin promoted because it required no needle and was though to provide more complete immunity. The downside is that caregivers who were not first vaccinated themselves could occasionally contract from the feces. This is why it is not used any more. The number of people harmed vs the number of people saved still showed a huge benefit from the Sabin vax, however.
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Remember the Bubonic Plague of the 15th century? Remember the vaccine that ended the Plague?? No? Neither do I. What does that tell you?
 
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