Need help in clearing misconceptions of medicine

Tapio

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Tapio
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A rather promimnent member of the Finnish woo-circles I know is starting to waver regarding some of her core-beliefs. But she's a tough one, quite well educated (as in brainwashed), and not ready to give up without proper evidence (which, I think, is admirable whatever the situation).

She posted me a question, which I thought I'd forward here (because you guys are just such gems when it comes to sharing reliable information :) ).

She claims disorders (especially ones relating to our immune system) like cancer, diabetes, asthma and different allergies have boosted in the last 20-30 years. And the reason she claims this has happened (as a believer in homeopathy) is because our immune system has been damaged by vaccinations and antibiotics.

SO, I understand this to be quite a bunch of...but, these are beliefs held by many people. Now, she asked me to find studies that measure the long-term affects that vaccinations, antibiotics and drugs created to alleviate symptoms, possibly have on our immune system.

I can manage some sort of search, but I'm pretty sure here in the Forums there's someone who's done this often before and is a million times faster, more thorough and professional in this subject.

Here's a chance for you to actually help in promoting critical thinking as far as in Porvoo, Finland.

Help appreciated!
 
While admittedly not knowing much about medicine, my first question would be, "What does diabetes have to do with your immune system?"
 
Looks like Paul Offit would be a good author to read:

Large scientific studies do not support claims that vaccines may cause chronic diseases such as asthma, multiple sclerosis, chronic arthritis and diabetes, according to a report in the March 2003 issue of Pediatrics. The report's lead author, Paul A. Offit, M.D.., chief of Infectious Diseases and director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, identifies flaws in proposed biological explanations for how vaccines cause chronic diseases and reviews current research on associations between vaccines and those diseases.
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http://news.bio-medicine.org/medici...llergies-or-other-chronic-diseases-3F-6341-1/

The article here:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/111/3/653
 
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The trouble is that she's conflating several different issues, some of which do have a grain of truth. Having an excessively sanitised environment, especially during childhood, seems likely to have an influence on incidence of allergies. The theory is that without repeated low-level exposure to various germs and such during development, the immune system will later over-react when it does encounter them.

However, this has nothing whatsoever to do with vaccinations or antibiotics. Vaccinations are exposure to things, and very much build your immune system up. That's the whole point of them. And antibiotics should only be given once you've actually been exposed, or at least had the risk of exposure, to something, so again they won't contrinute to this.

Another big problem is that the list of "disorders" is nonsense. Cancer, diabetes and allergies are not generally the same thing. Some cancers can be related to problems with the immune system, as can some diabetes, but it's just plain wrong to group them all together.

Also, given that she believes in homeopathy, you might like to point out that criticism of "drugs created to alleviate symptoms" is rather stupid on her part, given that that's all homeopathy claims to do, whereas the majority of real medicine actually tries to target the root causes.

Edit: Incidentally, and entirely anecdotally, I was born with asthma. I'm pretty sure I didn't have any vaccinations or antibiotics before I was born.
 
"What does diabetes have to do with your immune system?"
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Type One diabetes is an auto-immune disease. I'll let you do the rest of the research.
Type 2 diabetes is a combination of life style and genetic endowment.
•••

Tapio just the range of conditions she is referring to makes your task rather hopeless.
If she does not even understand vaccinations .....spend your time enjoying life not beating your head against a dull wall.
It's better for YOUR immune system :biggrin:
 
Ask her to look it up herself. All antibiotics and drugs have an insert that details long term outcomes. Here is an example insert: http://us.gsk.com/products/assets/us_amoxil.pdf

The vast majority has not been studied that extensively long term but many has been. However, it is not YOUR job to disprove her claim. It is HER burden to prove her nonsense. It is HER burden to provide evidence of these rising numbers that she claims. It is HER burden to show that our immune systems has been damaged.
 
Thanks for the fast responses!

Pax and macdoc, I understand what you're saying. Alas, with this kind of people it's quite hopeless to ask them prove their nonsense. Usually I'd not bother in trying to get something through like this. But I know this person quite well, and have witnessed in several occasions how she's just about to let go of her affirmations. That's why I'd like to play along with her asking me to prove something to her...because if this person changes her beliefs, it for certain will affect a whole bunch of others in a similar manner!

Professor Yaffle, that's the kind of stuff I think she's looking for. Thank you very much!
 
Tapio, here's a solution fthat answers her myriad points, all at once.

Just tell her that our life spans keep increasing.

That ought to cover all of everything. Even better than 42. ;)
 
casebro said:
Tapio, here's a solution fthat answers her myriad points, all at once.

Just tell her that our life spans keep increasing.

That ought to cover all of everything. Even better than 42. ;)
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Unfortunately, the primary escape excuse they use is the "It is hygiene that has led to increased human lifespan, not medicine".
 
paximperium said:
Unfortunately, the primary escape excuse they use is the "It is hygiene that has led to increased human lifespan, not medicine".
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Which is rather ironic, given that hygiene may well be responsible for the increase in allergies she is complaining about in the first place.
 
paximperium said:
Unfortunately, the primary escape excuse they use is the "It is hygiene that has led to increased human lifespan, not medicine".
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Ask her for the data. In particular, I suggest she look at deaths in childbirth.

She'll find that there was a tremendous drop in about 1910 as hygiene standards improved. In that regard, she's right.

But what happened between 1920 and 2009? How does she explain the continued drop?

We're still dealing with the old one-death-per-customer problem. The reason people are dying of cancer at 70 is because they're NOT dying of polio at 15, childbirth at 18, or heart attacks at 45.
 
Tapio said:
She claims disorders (especially ones relating to our immune system) like cancer, diabetes, asthma and different allergies have boosted in the last 20-30 years. And the reason she claims this has happened (as a believer in homeopathy) is because our immune system has been damaged by vaccinations and antibiotics.

SO, I understand this to be quite a bunch of...but, these are beliefs held by many people. Now, she asked me to find studies that measure the long-term affects that vaccinations, antibiotics and drugs created to alleviate symptoms, possibly have on our immune system.
Click to expand...

I think this is a pretty broad request, so we may need to narrow it down. For example, what do we know about vaccinations and the immune system? We know a lot, and in incredible detail. There are over 31,000 papers in PubMed on the subject.

What vaccine? What immune disorder? What kind of 'effect'. Over what timeframe - what does 'long-term' mean? In what population segment? The papers are at this level of detail.

This is why we recommend some vaccines for some people in the population, but don't recommend other vaccines for other people in the population (smallpox vaccination was removed from the standard schedule). The goal is to set up a system that improves the population's health as much as possible.

There is another factor: what she has is two hypotheses. eg: perhaps there is an increase in four immune-related illnesses (cancer, diabetes, asthma and allergies), and if so perhaps one or more of them might be caused by two factors: antibiotics and/or vaccinations.

There are really eight questions so far, and that's without breaking cancer into its hundreds of different types diabetes into its autoimmune vs dietary types, and allergies into their different types. She also left out some type specimen autoimmune disorders like arthritis, lupus, colitis, and so on, for reasons that are not clear. It would be reasonable to include them, and about 100 other autoimmune disorders.

The question is very vague.
 
drkitten said:
Ask her for the data. In particular, I suggest she look at deaths in childbirth.

She'll find that there was a tremendous drop in about 1910 as hygiene standards improved. In that regard, she's right.

But what happened between 1920 and 2009? How does she explain the continued drop?

We're still dealing with the old one-death-per-customer problem. The reason people are dying of cancer at 70 is because they're NOT dying of polio at 15, childbirth at 18, or heart attacks at 45.
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So what you are saying is that vaccines DO cause cancer?

:)

(technically, "vaccines cause an increase in the number of cases of cancer that occur")
 
pgwenthold said:
So what you are saying is that vaccines DO cause cancer?

:)

(technically, "vaccines cause an increase in the number of cases of cancer that occur")
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Very true. Since Cancer is a disease of the old(usually), vaccines do lead to more old folk, ergo, vaccines cause cancer.
 
pgwenthold said:
So what you are saying is that vaccines DO cause cancer?

:)

(technically, "vaccines cause an increase in the number of cases of cancer that occur")
Click to expand...

Absolutely. So do seatbelts, helmets, and food purity regulations.
 
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