Six Reason to Question Vaccinations

[Belz...]

But all these seatbelt campaign adverts you saw on TV (clunk click, on every trip) kept showing you pictures of crashes and never told you the actual probability that you would be involved in an accident. They were just playing on people's fears to increase the number of people wearing seatbelts. And they are coercing people by making it illegal to not wear a seatbelt. People should be allowed to make their own decisions on seatbelts.

Actually that raises a good point.

When you're not wearing a seatbelt, you become more of a danger to other people, namely because you can become a missile due to the crash, or because you're no longer in the vehicle to take control of it after the event.

Same with diseases, of course. When you're contagious, you place other people at risk.

 

[Belz...]

<small derail>
The psychology of that can be interesting. When the seat belt law came into force I was against it, simply because I was against compulsion. However, I noticed an interesting thing, once it was law. I was belting up without any second thoughts. Why?

I realised that before it was compulsory, if I was a driver, some little thing in the back of my mind was whispering, hey, do you think you're likely to have an accident? Is that why you're fastening the seat belt? And of course I didn't like this feeing that I might be heading for an accident. If I was a passenger, I subliminally felt that fastening the seat belt was an implicit criticism of the driver's ability - hey, do you think this person is likely to have an accident?

Once the reason for fastening the belt was simply that "it's the law", all that went. No subliminal bad feelings, just do it.

I had no idea that was how I was thinking until after the law came into force.
</derail>

Rolfe.

Subliminally ?

The only reason why I did it was because I didn't want to die !

 

[Deetee]

I'm just pleased to see that having looked at the evidence, Ivor agrees that the evidence for the efficacy of seatbelts is highly questionable.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I'm just pleased to see that having looked at the evidence, Ivor agrees that the evidence for the efficacy of seatbelts is highly questionable.

Where did I say that? All the studies I've found so far have always shown a substantial decrease in mortality and injuries, except when seatbelts have been used incorrectly, such as an adult-sized seatbelt restraining a small child.

I can say with confidence seatbelts save many lives and avoid even more injuries every single year. Can you say the same about flu jabs?

 

[Deetee]

Where did I say that? All the studies I've found so far have always shown a substantial decrease in mortality and injuries, except when seatbelts have been used incorrectly, such as an adult-sized seatbelt restraining a small child.

I can say with confidence seatbelts save many lives and avoid even more injuries every single year. Can you say the same about flu jabs?

Yes.
We went over the studies.
They showed a substantial decrease in mortality, and you concluded their efficacy was highly questionable (on the basis of one study indicating the possibility of bias).
I just assumed you would be consistent, and call the safety belt studies highly questionable too.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You are simply talking about the difference between group-based data (in this case, the group is children in the U.S.) and individual data. It is not unreasonable to look for correlations using group data. It is done all the time. Comparing countries in terms of average alcohol consumption and rates of heart disease would be one example. However, as you point out, it is less accurate - especially for particular kinds of questions (associations with infant mortality being one). Which means that in some cases, even though one can go through the motions of applying the test and finding a correlation, one cannot conclude that there is an association. Especially if both variables are simply progressing over time (as in the case of infant mortality and vaccine uptake).

Linda

I can't quite tell if you are agreeing with me or not? So I'll answer anyway.

Not unreasonable at all to look at the group. The problem is in this particular case, the data has been analyzed and Beth is claiming a relationship which has been shown NOT to be there.

I ask, are Nikes related to the infant mortality rate? Maybe we are wasting our health care dollars on Nikes and that is making more babies die?

If I see the data, I might decide it is worth a closer look and as absurd as the connection is, maybe there is a relationship causal or not. But if I then take that closer look and find the real relationship isn't there, rather it just appeared to be there because of an unrelated decision to group certain data together, then I no longer have the relationship. The observation was an illusion.

We drive on the right, they drive on the left. But wait, they drive on the right in Canada. There is only a relationship if we don't look at all the data or we don't look at the data properly.

That is the case with Beth's claimed "relationship". It doesn't exist. It isn't a real relationship. And that is the point I have been making. Not that such a relationship is too coincidental to matter, but that there isn't a relationship unless you ignore the actual facts involved.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

However, it's all getting mooter and mooter. After this comment, I decided to look more closely at Beth's graph.

....

And Skeptigirl, I wasn't looking at infant mortality rates. I was looking at the mortality rates of children under 5.

Your graph from post 328

You claimed: "It's German[y], Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Immunization rates for measles with child mortality rates. Pretty clear connection."

Your links in the previous post were to this data: Infant mortality rate

Infant Death Rate (most recent) by state

Immunization, measles > % of children ages 12-23 months (most recent) by country


You didn't cite a child mortality rate source. Here's one from UNICEF:

UNICEF under 5 mortality rate per 1,000 live births.

--------------------1960--1970--1980--1990--1995--2000--2002 ---- 2005 measles vaccination rates (your source):

United Kingdom ------ 27 --- 23 --- 14 --- 10 --- 7 --- 7 ---- 7 ---------- 82%

United States ------- 30 --- 26 --- 15 --- 10 --- 9 --- 9 ---- 8 ---------- 93%

Germany ------------ 40 --- 26 --- 16 ---- 9 --- 7 --- 5 ---- 5 ---------- 93%

Sweden ------------- 20 --- 15 --- 9 ---- 6 ---- 4 --- 4 ---- 3 ---------- 94%

Your graph makes little sense, your cited data is not what you graphed, and this data is not showing your claim of any correlation, relationship, or other between vaccine use and infant or child mortality rates. Let alone showing any relationship to number of vaccines routinely used in each of the 4 countries (data you didn't even look at, this data is % of measles vaccine coverage.)

So come again?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Yes.
We went over the studies.
They showed a substantial decrease in mortality, and you concluded their efficacy was highly questionable (on the basis of one study indicating the possibility of bias).
I just assumed you would be consistent, and call the safety belt studies highly questionable too.

No, they estimated a substantial decrease in mortality (~12-50% reduction in all cause death for people over 65 years-old), which given that only 5% of deaths in this age group are attributed to flu in the first place, seems quite amazing.

Then you have a very large study (70000+ individuals) that indicates all the effect of the flu vaccination during flu season can be accounted for by bias.

How about the alternative hypothesis that flu is the straw that breaks the camel's back for many elderly, sick people? I.e. if it wasn't flu that finishes them off, it would be something else?

This fits quite nicely with the above observations and the fact that even though the percentage of people over 65 years-old being given the flu vaccine has rocketed, deaths have not reduced anywhere near in proportion.

The CDC's answer to this? More flu vaccination is required! Talk about flogging a dead horse.

 

[Deetee]

How about the alternative hypothesis that flu is the straw that breaks the camel's back for many elderly, sick people? I.e. if it wasn't flu that finishes them off, it would be something else?

This is absolutely true - most deaths are actually because of secondary bacterial pneumonias like staphylococcus or pneumococcus. (Something pneumococcal vaccination may help prevent too? ).
I would not really regard this as an "alternative hypothesis", just a description of the normal natural history of influenza infection.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You keep forgetting to look at the whole equation Ivor. A vaccine is a simple relatively low cost (compared to a lot of medical interventions) intervention. You also seem to think it's just peachy to let people die because you'd rather spend your money elsewhere. I believe the people choosing the vaccinations can make that decision for themselves. We don't all have your warped sense of priorities. By your logic we should give up our TVs and X-Boxes to save the world. I'll bet you haven't taken your personal vow of poverty yet.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

This is absolutely true - most deaths are actually because of secondary bacterial pneumonias like staphylococcus or pneumococcus. (Something pneumococcal vaccination may help prevent too? ).
I would not really regard this as an "alternative hypothesis", just a description of the normal natural history of influenza infection.

But it isn't just influenza, it's pretty much all infections sick people get (including the common cold) which "finish them off".

All the flu vaccine appears to do in a few cases is change what's written on the death certificate.

You keep forgetting to look at the whole equation Ivor. A vaccine is a simple relatively low cost (compared to a lot of medical interventions) intervention. You also seem to think it's just peachy to let people die because you'd rather spend your money elsewhere. I believe the people choosing the vaccinations can make that decision for themselves. We don't all have your warped sense of priorities. By your logic we should give up our TVs and X-Boxes to save the world. I'll bet you haven't taken your personal vow of poverty yet.

As long as people are given a balanced appraisal of the evidence for the effectiveness of the flu vaccine, I'm quite happy for them to spend their money on whatever they want. When you are giving your appraisal of the evidence to people about the effectiveness of the flu shot, do you even mention studies that have shown it to be virtually useless?

In a perfect world no one would get sick or die. In the real world that is not an option. The only choice we have is how to use our resources to minimize the suffering of others. You think the flu vaccine is an efficient use of those resources. After looking at the evidence, I'm not so sure it is.

 

[fls]

I can't quite tell if you are agreeing with me or not? So I'll answer anyway.

Not unreasonable at all to look at the group. The problem is in this particular case, the data has been analyzed and Beth is claiming a relationship which has been shown NOT to be there.

I ask, are Nikes related to the infant mortality rate? Maybe we are wasting our health care dollars on Nikes and that is making more babies die?

If I see the data, I might decide it is worth a closer look and as absurd as the connection is, maybe there is a relationship causal or not. But if I then take that closer look and find the real relationship isn't there, rather it just appeared to be there because of an unrelated decision to group certain data together, then I no longer have the relationship. The observation was an illusion.

We drive on the right, they drive on the left. But wait, they drive on the right in Canada. There is only a relationship if we don't look at all the data or we don't look at the data properly.

That is the case with Beth's claimed "relationship". It doesn't exist. It isn't a real relationship. And that is the point I have been making. Not that such a relationship is too coincidental to matter, but that there isn't a relationship unless you ignore the actual facts involved.

I was attempting to clarify why we say there is no relationship even if a statistically significant correlation co-efficient can be obtained.

It's not because we know in advance whether or not a relationship exists (else why do the test?).

It's not because the relationship sounds silly. Pirates and global warming, Nikes and child mortality sound absurd, but vaccination rates and child mortality does not.

It's not because group data cannot be used for analysis. Although, in this case, group data cannot be used to support the relationship that Beth claimed (increase in vaccines are associated with a decrease in child mortality) because it provides insufficient detail.

It's not because the relationship is indirect. Although, the more indirect the relationship, the sillier it becomes to label it as a relationship.

It's because she took a systematic bias and called it a relationship. Usually we attempt to remove bias, rather than celebrate it.

ETA: I should also clarify that your post was drawing attention to the possible lack of a statistically signification correlation coefficient depending on what/how the data is used (which is another good reason not to call it a relationship. ).

Linda

 

[Deetee]

Ivor, I hear your financial argument, but there will always be inequalities within a health care economy, and unless resources are limitless, choices have to be made to fund some things in preference to others.

So I agree, perhaps flu vaccine would be a less efficient way of using limited resources than say treating hypertension. But these are not either/or decisions at the moment within the UK at present. Instead, people are concerned about unavailability of drugs, such as cutting edge expensive chemotherapies which actually only have modest benefit. Interestingly, the treatment of influenza is a bit of a political hot potato, with NICE having proclaimed that the drugs used to treat it show no cost benefit, therefore they were against funding these widely on the NHS (as they have controversially decided for alzheimer drugs). I tend to agree with these decisions. But when the flu epidemic comes and my kids fall acutely ill, will I want some Tamiflu for them? - I guess I will.

Just regarding the vaccines - If they were all paid for rather than being free on the NHS, would you encourage any of your elderly parents/grandparents to buy a flu vaccine each year, or would you even offer to buy it for them?

 

[Belz...]

In a perfect world no one would get sick or die.

No, but we'd all be very famished!

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

Just regarding the vaccines - If they were all paid for rather than being free on the NHS, would you encourage any of your elderly parents/grandparents to buy a flu vaccine each year, or would you even offer to buy it for them?

I wouldn't discourage them. My summary of the evidence to them would be that the flu vaccine provides protection from flu that ranges from poor to good, depending on the match to the circulating strain(s) and the individual response to the vaccine. If they asked me what to do I would tell them that it would not do any harm for them to have a flu jab. So I guess that's passive encouragement. (Damn you Deetee! You've exposed my soft centre.)

I think the real question is how would you feel if a loved one died of flu and you hadn't encouraged them to have the flu vaccination? Isn't that the driving motivation for many of us?

 

[Beth]

However, it's all getting mooter and mooter. After this comment, I decided to look more closely at Beth's graph.

Your graph from post 328

You claimed: "It's German[y], Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Immunization rates for measles with child mortality rates. Pretty clear connection."

Your links in the previous post were to this data: Infant mortality rate

Infant Death Rate (most recent) by state

Immunization, measles > % of children ages 12-23 months (most recent) by country

I'm sorry. If you'll look in the upper right hand corner of that page, there are drop down menus allowing you to select from many different statistics. You can get all of the ones I referenced through that cite.

Your graph makes little sense, your cited data is not what you graphed, and this data is not showing your claim of any correlation, relationship, or other between vaccine use and infant or child mortality rates. Let alone showing any relationship to number of vaccines routinely used in each of the 4 countries (data you didn't even look at, this data is % of measles vaccine coverage.)

So come again?

Sorry you didn't care for my selection of statistics. Feel free to do your own analysis using whatever statistics you think are relevant. It's a nice site with links to many different databases. which appear to be credible.

It's because she took a systematic bias and called it a relationship. Usually we attempt to remove bias, rather than celebrate it.

I wouldn't call it a celebration of bias. Removing time trends is tricky and requires special software. Excel won't do it and I didn't want to spend hours on this, I just thought it might be interesting to look at the data. After all, I wasn't analyzing the data for peer-reviewed publication. I just thought it would be interesting. However, I will recant entirely. I don't wish to argue it anymore.

Clearly, the relationship between the variables of measles vaccinations and under 5 mortality rates is no more meaningful than the relationship between global warming and piracy. It's ridiculous to think that measles vaccinations rates have any impact on child mortality rates. I'm sorry if I offended anyone by implying that it might just because they are strongly inversely correlated in the recent history of some countries.

 

[fls]

Clearly, the relationship between the variables of measles vaccinations and under 5 mortality rates is no more meaningful than the relationship between global warming and piracy. It's ridiculous to think that measles vaccinations rates have any impact on child mortality rates. I'm sorry if I offended anyone by implying that it might just because they are strongly inversely correlated in the recent history of some countries.

The sarcasm isn't necessary. Of course we think that measles vaccination may have an impact on child mortality rates. The complaint is directed at the way in which you chose to answer the question, not the actual question.

Linda

 

[Mongrel]

Seatbelts are a benign, well tolerated (come on, discomfort while wearing them...give me a break)

derail

I still have a noticeable lump on my collar bone from when I snapped it 20 years ago, yep the seat belt can be uncomfortable at times.

/derail

 

[T.A.M.]

derail

I still have a noticeable lump on my collar bone from when I snapped it 20 years ago, yep the seat belt can be uncomfortable at times.

/derail

yes, but better your collar bone snap, than your Aorta Dissect.

TAM

 

[T.A.M.]

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/effectivenessqa.htm

TAM