Six Reason to Question Vaccinations

[Ivor the Engineer]

Skeptigirl, let's not get to insistent on sources for every comment made in the forums. Ivor made a remark in passing about the burden of colds in the USA; his source may not have been a specific scientific publication, but his link to the NIAID claim for this should suffice as reasonable evidence for his statement in the context of the discussion.
When a claim about something is strongly disputed, then the protagonists can put forward the case for the veracity of their respective claims, but I don't think a disagreement about how many people get colds should be a reason for two of my favourite posters to fall out.

I was tired of Ivor's unsubstantiated claims for good reason. I made a point of saying that particular unsubstantiated claim was minor. But since you and Ivor insist on defending his frequently unsubstantiated claims, then so be it. I am only going to review one page of Ivor's unsubstantiated claims. I have been in discussion after discussion with him and know he makes unsupported claim after claim.


One need only examine page one in this thread to reveal the pattern.

post 30

The way vaccination is sold to individuals at the moment is often by misleading them into thinking being vaccinated will protect them directly by a significant amount.

It displays a certain level of contempt for people to think they are too selfish and/or stupid to be persuaded by an honest argument for vaccination, which would highlight the benefits to the community over the individual.

False claims, no sources.

http://www.ohe.org/page/knowledge/schools/appendix/birth_rates.cfm

You will see from the table that in 1960 child mortality (age 1 to 14) was 1 in 1000. In the year 2000 it is 0.2 per 1000, giving a relative risk reduction of 5, and an absolute risk reduction of 0.0008 (0.08%). That gives a NNT of 1250 to save 1 life.

post 33

If only one person has been vaccinated in a population, anything less than 100% immunity merely extends the expected time before they get infected.

Realistically, vaccination only "works" if enough of the population get vaccinated. The lower the efficacy of the vaccine, the more people in the population need to be vaccinated for it to have a significant effect.

Then there are those vaccines that are pretty useless for prevention, such as the BCG, though supposedly this does reduce the risk of complications if you do contract TB.

False claims, no sources.

I posted a link to a page explaining the SIR model in one of the other threads (IIRC, it was the PBS / autism thread). That explains my reasoning here. Here’s the link for you:

http://www.rni.helsinki.fi/~kja/infect06/luento1PPT.ppt#1

post 35

That's why I put "works" in quotes. This page explains what I was thinking about. I was considering the number of cases in the population, as opposed to a vaccination providing immunity for a particular individual.

Sort of. It's really complicated, though.
Different vaccines all work differently, and the epidemiology of various diseases is all different from disease to disease. You have to look at each disease separately.
Back to the chickenpox vaccine, in Japan (where the vaccine was used sparingly) it looked (or was) over 90% effective with a single dose, and immunity lasted over 30 years.
In the US where it was used universally, the effectiveness dropped and vaccine immunity wanes more quickly. Because the vaccine works just well enough to slow down spread of the virus, but then you get something called "secondary vaccine failure"...where the immunity wanes because people aren't getting their immunity boosted by exposure to the wild virus.
But what's true for chickenpox isn't necessarily true for measles, or pertussis, etc. They're all different.

Interesting stuff, which indicates that vaccination programs are generally implemented not because of the individual benefits for those vaccinated, but for the entire community.

I point out this quote is not from the source, it is from another post of Ivor's, I guess.

This source does not support Ivor's conclusions and his interpretation of this citation is a pretty good example of his less than logical thought processes.

What does the source actually say about the "purpose of vaccinations" and "individual protection"?

Most discussions of life-long protection focus on individual protection. This is an important consideration for any vaccine. However, we as a society derive far more benefit by seeking protection for all by eliminating exposure to infectious diseases.

(emphasis mine in the actual citation quote and in Ivor's quoted post)

What does the source actually say about, "The way vaccination is sold to individuals at the moment is often by misleading them into thinking being vaccinated will protect them directly by a significant amount"?

For example, use of a cellular pertussis vaccines in Japan among 2-year-old children led to marked reductions of pertussis among younger children who were not targets for vaccination (20). Similar effects have been seen in the United States with Haemophilus influenzae type b and measles (21, 22). Any effort to induce life-long immunity requires that vaccines be used and used widely among targeted groups.

Ivor's logic? Because there was a reduction in a group not vaccinated, the vaccine must have been useless in the group actually vaccinated. Really? Then how did it work in the non vaccinated group?

You’ve lost me here, skeptigirl.

What does the source actually say about, "Realistically, vaccination only "works" if enough of the population get vaccinated. The lower the efficacy of the vaccine, the more people in the population need to be vaccinated for it to have a significant effect"? (emphasis mine)

When there are high levels of immunity in the population, the likelihood that a transmitting case will come in contact with a susceptible person is reduced, thereby resulting in indirect protection of the few remaining susceptibles, including those too young for vaccination, those with legitimate contraindications to vaccination, and those whose vaccination fails to protect them. While there is no absolute level of population immunity short of 100% that will guarantee elimination of disease transmission, it is clear that the higher the level of immunity, the lower the probability of significant transmission (19).

(emphasis mine)

That’s what I said. Look at the SIR modelling presentation.

What does the source actually say about waning varicella vaccine immunity?

Live attenuated viral vaccines are generally believed to induce long-term, probably life-long, protection among the great majority of individuals (9). Measles, mumps, rubella, and oral polio vaccines are in this category. Inactivated vaccines and toxoids usually induce shorter-term protection and require periodic boosters. Experience with a number of the newer inactivated vaccines, such as hepatitis B vaccine and enhanced-potency inactivated polio vaccine, is too limited to know the precise duration of immunity (15, 16). Immunologic memory, even in the absence of detectable antibody, may confer life-long protection.

In other words, nothing.

Taken out of context. I’m pretty sure KellyB had already mentioned the effects of the widescale use of the varicella vaccine in Japan.

And what does Ivor also misunderstand from the source in his next post?

SUMMARY
Life-long protection from disease through immunization can be accomplished through individual or community protection. Individual protection is the goal for vaccination against diseases that have inanimate or animal reservoirs or that pose risks for certain populations. Community protection is the goal for vaccination against diseases that are transmitted only from human to human. Community protection afforded by childhood vaccines has been highly successful against measles, rubella, mumps, and polio. However, outbreaks of measles, rubella, and mumps continue to occur, primarily because of inadequate immunization of children under age 2. Simplification of vaccination regimens, provision of incentives to care providers and parents, and increased access to care should improve vaccination rates in the United States. Better protection requires better use of available vaccines. Eradication of disease through vaccination is the ultimate goal of community protection. Elimination of the infectious agent is the most effective means of achieving life-long protection. The World Health Organization's (WHO) smallpox eradication campaign eliminated a serious disease as well as the need for a vaccine with frequent and severe adverse reactions. The discontinuation of smallpox vaccination in the United States has produced a savings of over $3 billion. Polio has been targeted by WHO for eradication by the year 2000. The eradication of polio and the elimination of the need for polio vaccination in the United States should result in a savings of $110 million per year in vaccine costs alone. Strong United States support is crucial for WHO to reach its goal. Any of the vaccine-preventable childhood virus diseases could be eradicated with sufficient national and international will. Measles and hepatitis B should be high priorities. The ultimate goal of vaccination is life-long protection of all individuals. Any disease of sufficient public health importance to warrant routine vaccination is of sufficient importance to warrant eradication wherever judged to be possible.

(emphasis Ivor's)

That supposedly supports the claim, "which indicates that vaccination programs are generally implemented not because of the individual benefits for those vaccinated, but for the entire community". (emphasis mine)

From the quoted text:

“The ultimate goal of vaccination is life-long protection of all individuals”

“of all individuals” means the entire community.

And then there is this claim in post #39, "Yes, it does. Only if the vaccination leads to 100% immunity does the incidence of the disease become irrelevant."

Huh? So if the vaccine reduced the incidence of measles to near zero it isn't relevant?

You have taken my comment out of context. It was in response to Cuddles post which stated receiving a vaccination against X means that you will never contract X. To understand this comment, you need to comprehend the point Linda’s made in an earlier post. She explained how the incidence of the disease can actually make the chances of a single vaccinated individual in an unvaccinated population contracting X can be much higher than an unvaccinated individual in a vaccinated population contracting X. It’s a similar concept to Positive Predictive Value and Negative Predictive Value.

In the same post Ivor claims after citing a source explaining how BCG vaccine benefits people in high prevalence TB areas, "A figure of 50% on average does not seem very effective at preventing TB." Not only does he have a poor understanding of the citation he quotes, but if it were to be interpreted as he claims, he is saying a 50% reduction in a disease responsible for 2 million annual deaths worldwide is not useful!

“50% on average”. Worst case that could mean 100% effective for some strains, 0% for others.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...med.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus

The BCG vaccines will celebrate the 100th anniversary of their discovery in a decade at the beginning of the next century since Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin had presented it before the Academie des Sciences in 1908. At present tuberculosis kills more people than any other infectious disease about 3 million people a year, including almost 300,000 children under 15, and is producing over 7,000 deaths and over 24,000 new cases every day. Therefore, WHO declared a global health emergency in 1993. More worse, recently multi-drug resistant tubercle bacilli are emerging rapidly making TB patients incurable. Under these situations we need a potent anti-tuberculosis vaccine. So first of all, we must check the century-old BCG before proceeding further. At moment, the BCG vaccines are being used worldwide in the largest quantities in the world, but still most controversial vaccines anywhere. I would like to describe here their success and failure in the combat against the white plague. 1. The Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI). In 1974, when the EPI was launched by WHO, less than 5% of the world children were immunized against six infectious diseases including tuberculosis. In 1995 statistics, BCG gave the highest vaccination coverage, 87% higher than any other 5 vaccines of EPI for children. The BCG in EPI must have saved a lot of infants as the vaccine, has been proved to be most effective against the blood-born tuberculosis of child type. 2. The efficacy of BCG vaccination against tuberculosis. Results of each 10 of randomized controlled trials (RCT) and Case-control studies (CCS) showed the protective efficacy against tuberculosis as uncertain, unpredictable, as protective efficacy varied from 80% to 0%. More recently, a Meta-analysis of selected papers on BCG field trials which were so far collected. They recalculated vaccine protective effect separately for pulmonary TB and for meningeal/miliary TB in the trials. As the result, it was found that protective effect against pulmonary TB could not be calculated, but protective effect against meningeal and miliary TB was calculated as 86%, 75% respectively, in RCT and CCS, being higher than against pulmonary TB. 3. The duration of BCG efficacy against tuberculosis was confirmed to continue for 15 years after vaccination. The incidence of every form of tuberculosis decreased steeply during the 15 years following vaccination. 4. BCG revaccination. A WHO statement was issued in 1995 mentioning that there is no definitive evidence that repeated BCG vaccination confers additional protection against tuberculosis. Therefore WHO has not recommended to repeat BCG vaccination because of no scientific evidence to support this practice. Multiple BCG revaccinations are not indicated in any persons. 5. Complications with BCG Second IUATLD study (1988) on complications induced by BCG was reviewed, especially following two points: 1-2) Regional suppurative lymphadenitis 3) Generalized lesions: fatal cases 1-2 Several African regions had experienced that the risk of outbreak of suppurative BCG lymphadenitis was low for vaccines with Glaxo and Japanese strains, but much higher for vaccines with Pasteur. This experience in nineteen eighties has led EPI to replace the Pasteur BCG vaccine with less reactogenic BCG, Japanese or Glaxo BCG to solve the outbreak of suppurative adenitis complication. 3 At moment, the only contra-indication of EPI BCG vaccination is symptomatic HIV infection (AIDS), but in the future asymptomatic HIV infection should be placed on alert, because fatal BCG generalized disseminations have already been experienced by HIV positive vaccinees although in a few cases in USA. 6. BCG seed lots for use of vaccination in the world. Nearly 10 seed lots (BCG) are being used in the world at present. However, they are more or less different each other in various characteristics: morphological, biochemical, biophysical, immunological, vaccinological and so on. None of them is the same

So it looks like I was correct.

That is page one. I don't have time to bother with the nonsense on pages 2-13 but anyone who cares to look won't have any trouble finding more of the same.

I think you will find that where I have made errors I have come clean, such as when I misunderstood about the hospitalisation rate for chickenpox of 1 in 500 being for cases, rather than all children. The other error I made is where I did not confirm that the likelihood of complications were given in the study which concluded that complications of chickenpox should be used to persuade parents to have their child vaccinated.

But if you really think I'm full of it, just put me on ignore.

 

[Beth]

I looked at the drop down menus. I found nothing there about child mortality from birth to age 5 nor anything resembling the annual figures you used. I assume I am looking at your citations from the wrong post. Since you weren't clear which site you were referring to and I can't find the numbers on the site you linked to that I looked at, just re-post the link to the numbers. If I still can't find them, I'll let you know.

I owe you an apology. I'm sorry. I had forgotten that I had clicked a link to another page from that one. Try this one: http://devdata.worldbank.org/query/default.htm You will have to select the countries, statistics and years you want the data for.

 

[robinson]

Care to provide source(s) for your claim that I rarely post sources for my claims?

Or is this just a blatant attempt to attack the arguer, rather than the argument?

Thanks for all the links Ivor. In the past I've experienced the same sort of low brow attack. After you go to the trouble of actually providing evidence, or at least reams of data, there seems to be a silence, or misdirection, or something.

Same for asking somebody for their reasons/evidence for what they stated. Sometimes they just try to pretend you didn't ask, or start making personal commentary, maybe hoping for an off topic flame fest, anything except looking at the studies, the questions.

It is like dealing with woos. Maddening I tell you.

 

[Belz...]

There are lots of 'public funds' going to prevent car accidents in the way of highway safety features and requirements car manufacturers install safety features which the consumer then pays for.

I was just jesting Ivor, Girl.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Thanks for all the links Ivor. In the past I've experienced the same sort of low brow attack. After you go to the trouble of actually providing evidence, or at least reams of data, there seems to be a silence, or misdirection, or something.

Same for asking somebody for their reasons/evidence for what they stated. Sometimes they just try to pretend you didn't ask, or start making personal commentary, maybe hoping for an off topic flame fest, anything except looking at the studies, the questions.

It is like dealing with woos. Maddening I tell you.

oh sure, resort to conspiracy after people took time to point out that not just any data will do, it has to actually be relevant and from a well-done study.

I can put together data that supports the moon is made of green cheese. Doesn't make it good data.

Until you decide to learn from others, then don't begrudge their attempts to enlighten you. Also don't accuse others of just ignoring what you present when they've done everything but.

 

[drzeus99]

What caught my attention was the title, "Six Reasons to Question Vaccinations". Here they are:

Quote:
1. Vaccinations are forced. For example, there are compulsory vaccination laws in every state. If something is good it doesn't have to be forced.

Not neccesarily. Problem is, many people are just idiots.

You can tell them that their whole family will DIE from so and so, show them ALL the VERIFIABLE PROOF, and state that they MUST get a vaccine to prevent them from getting this killer disease, as well as protecting others from getting it from them (if they didn't get vaccinated), and they STILL REFUSE to believe you or get the vaccine, thereby endangering themselves and others as well.

That statement would be correct IF people were all rational, logical thinking individuals. Problem is...we know that's not the case.



Cheers,
DrZ

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Thanks for all the links Ivor. In the past I've experienced the same sort of low brow attack. After you go to the trouble of actually providing evidence, or at least reams of data, there seems to be a silence, or misdirection, or something.

Same for asking somebody for their reasons/evidence for what they stated. Sometimes they just try to pretend you didn't ask, or start making personal commentary, maybe hoping for an off topic flame fest, anything except looking at the studies, the questions.

It is like dealing with woos. Maddening I tell you.

Robinson, the citations have to actually support what you are saying. Anyone can post a hyperlink.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You waste a lot of everyone's time here posting sources which have nothing to do with your statements. Maybe in your head there is a connection. But on paper (or the monitor) there isn't one. Instead of blurring this all into one long post, I'll break it up for you. Maybe if you just deal with a single issue you'll see the problem. No guarantees I'm going to bother going through the whole post. I already did that the first time.

http://www.ohe.org/page/knowledge/schools/appendix/birth_rates.cfm

You will see from the table that in 1960 child mortality (age 1 to 14) was 1 in 1000. In the year 2000 it is 0.2 per 1000, giving a relative risk reduction of 5, and an absolute risk reduction of 0.0008 (0.08%). That gives a NNT of 1250 to save 1 life.

How does this have even the most remote connection to your claim:

[Ivor:] The way vaccination is sold to individuals at the moment is often by misleading them into thinking being vaccinated will protect them directly by a significant amount.

It displays a certain level of contempt for people to think they are too selfish and/or stupid to be persuaded by an honest argument for vaccination, which would highlight the benefits to the community over the individual.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

You waste a lot of everyone's time here posting sources which have nothing to do with your statements. Maybe in your head there is a connection. But on paper (or the monitor) there isn't one. Instead of blurring this all into one long post, I'll break it up for you. Maybe if you just deal with a single issue you'll see the problem. No guarantees I'm going to bother going through the whole post. I already did that the first time.

http://www.ohe.org/page/knowledge/schools/appendix/birth_rates.cfm

You will see from the table that in 1960 child mortality (age 1 to 14) was 1 in 1000. In the year 2000 it is 0.2 per 1000, giving a relative risk reduction of 5, and an absolute risk reduction of 0.0008 (0.08%). That gives a NNT of 1250 to save 1 life.

How does this have even the most remote connection to your claim:

[Ivor:] The way vaccination is sold to individuals at the moment is often by misleading them into thinking being vaccinated will protect them directly by a significant amount.

It displays a certain level of contempt for people to think they are too selfish and/or stupid to be persuaded by an honest argument for vaccination, which would highlight the benefits to the community over the individual.

Don't you think that an absolute risk reduction of 0.08% is a rather small benefit for an individual? That 1250 children have to be vaccinated to save one of them?

BTW, this also assumes all of the reduction in child mortality from 1960 to 2000 can be attributed to vaccination.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

post 33

If only one person has been vaccinated in a population, anything less than 100% immunity merely extends the expected time before they get infected.

Realistically, vaccination only "works" if enough of the population get vaccinated. The lower the efficacy of the vaccine, the more people in the population need to be vaccinated for it to have a significant effect.

Then there are those vaccines that are pretty useless for prevention, such as the BCG, though supposedly this does reduce the risk of complications if you do contract TB.

False claims, no sources.

I posted a link to a page explaining the SIR model in one of the other threads (IIRC, it was the PBS / autism thread). That explains my reasoning here. Here’s the link for you:

http://www.rni.helsinki.fi/~kja/infe...ento1PPT.ppt#1

(emphasis mine)

How does a power point presentation on herd immunity support your claim vaccines ONLY WORK with herd immunity? Those are two separate benefits of vaccinations. Herd immunity doesn't even play a part in tetanus immunity and it plays very little part in hepatitis A immunity just to give two examples. And individuals have to get immunity in the first place for herd immunity to work. D'uuh!

And was the reader supposed to read your mind or read through some past thread to even find this source? And how is something you posted in another thread a source for your claims of fact in this one? It might be nice to explain your reasoning as well without having to read through another thread, but regardless, you did not support your 'facts' in the posts in question which is what the issue is here. The fact you cannot support them is a different issue.

But before you bother adding more clutter to this topic, let me explain why what you have said here is wrong.

Ivor, "If only one person has been vaccinated in a population, anything less than 100% immunity merely extends the expected time before they get infected."

If one person is vaccinated, the vaccine either works and provides full immunity, partially works and provides partial immunity, or fails to work.

In the first case the individual is protected. In the second case the individual may still get sick but the illness will be milder than if they hadn't been vaccinated. And in the last case the vaccine will have no effect on the individual directly. A delay in infection would only occur if the vaccine was effective but a booster was needed later and wasn't obtained.

So what the he!! are you saying happens?


Ivor, "Then there are those vaccines that are pretty useless for prevention, such as the BCG, though supposedly this does reduce the risk of complications if you do contract TB."

"Supposedly"? That is the reason we give the vaccine and it is not "supposedly". This tells me you don't have a clue what we use BCG vaccine for and why it is not recommended for all populations. BCG is not used to prevent TB infection. It is used to prevent the rapid spread of TB to the nervous system in young children who are likely to be infected with TB because they live in areas where TB is rampant.

And your further claim, "So it looks like I was correct", citing a source in which you bolded the following:

Results of each 10 of randomized controlled trials (RCT) and Case-control studies (CCS) showed the protective efficacy against tuberculosis as uncertain, unpredictable, as protective efficacy varied from 80% to 0%.

does not support your conclusion, because once again, BCG is not used to prevent TB infection.

Not to mention you went out and found additional sources when the issue here was about you posting false and unsupported facts in the posts I pointed out. How does finding additional sources after the fact discredit my accusation you made unsupported claims originally? Where is the citation in the post in the first place? You claimed it was a false accusation you posted unsupported claims.

And getting back to the BCG, just what is your actual gripe here. BCG is 1), not useless, and 2), only used in specific populations where is is useful.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Don't you think that an absolute risk reduction of 0.08% is a rather small benefit for an individual? That 1250 children have to be vaccinated to save one of them?

BTW, this also assumes all of the reduction in child mortality from 1960 to 2000 can be attributed to vaccination.

You are changing the subject. My post was showing your repeated habit of posting unsupported facts. My post was not an invitation for you to repeat the arguments that have been addressed already.

And the answer is absolutely not. That benefit is well worth it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not neccesarily. Problem is, many people are just idiots.

You can tell them that their whole family will DIE from so and so, show them ALL the VERIFIABLE PROOF, and state that they MUST get a vaccine to prevent them from getting this killer disease, as well as protecting others from getting it from them (if they didn't get vaccinated), and they STILL REFUSE to believe you or get the vaccine, thereby endangering themselves and others as well.

That statement would be correct IF people were all rational, logical thinking individuals. Problem is...we know that's not the case.



Cheers,
DrZ

And in addition, in the case of many of the vaccines, the public has an interest in preventing individuals from spreading infectious disease.

The other issue which goes to what DrZ is saying here has been addressed in the courts. Parental rights do not extend to the right to withhold certain medical care from your child.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....

You’ve lost me here, skeptigirl.

...From the quoted text:

“The ultimate goal of vaccination is life-long protection of all individuals”

“of all individuals” means the entire community.

All of these comments refer to your claim ONLY herd immunity matters. It was a false claim. If you don't understand why then explain how herd immunity is accomplished without individuals in the herd getting immunity?

 

[T.A.M.]

A pharmaceutical company has come up with a vaccine for the common cold. It has been shown to be 90%+ effective in large scale trials performed over many years. I.e. we know it works well. You need to be vaccinated every year for the vaccine to be effective.

How much would you be prepared to pay for it?

I would easily pay $100-$300 per year for this. I lose about 2-4 days per year due to the cold, and my average earnings each day is considerably more than $300.

TAM

 

[T.A.M.]

Ivor, are you aware there is no specific agent designated when one refers to "the common cold"? The label implies a mild upper respiratory infection. There are over 200 known organisms which cause mild upper respiratory infections. The problem with your logic here is many of those organisms also cause serious morbidity and mortality. For example, the corona virus causes SARS but it also causes illnesses which would be considered the "common cold". Adenoviruses as well can cause a mild sore throat or fatalities depending on the genetic makeup. I imagine the one family of viruses most likely to be mild are the rhinoviruses.

RhinovirusesVery few fatalities are associated with rhinoviruses. A vaccine against rhinoviruses isn't possible today since there are over 100 versions. If there were a vaccine, the benefit would be in preventing morbidity, not mortality. I imagine a lot of people would love a vaccine that prevented the mild but annoying symptoms of the more common upper respiratory infections.

BTW, 62 million is a bit short of a billion. Do you ever post citations for your data or do you just make stuff up?

excellent post. Quite right. Any Vaccine which would be developed would have to have to provide protection against many, many various viruses for it to be effective to any degree.

Nice post Skeptigirl.

TAM

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
I think you will find that where I have made errors I have come clean, such as when I misunderstood about the hospitalisation rate for chickenpox of 1 in 500 being for cases, rather than all children. The other error I made is where I did not confirm that the likelihood of complications were given in the study which concluded that complications of chickenpox should be used to persuade parents to have their child vaccinated.

But if you really think I'm full of it, just put me on ignore.

You are full of it, but you aren't rude. I only have 2 people on ignore, they were rude.

The whole point of this exercise was because you made yet one more claim of fact without backing it up. I said as much. Then it turned into an accusation that specific claim didn't matter and I was nitpicking. You also denied you have a habit of claiming facts not in evidence.

I have no intention of rehashing page one of this thread. I provided a number of examples of your unsupported claims of fact. They were unsupported claims of fact. You can't claim they were supported by trying to defend them 14 pages later.

You also can't claim you support your facts by simply posting urls. The sources actually have to be relevant. At least on page one your sources did not have much of anything actually supporting what you said. If anything they showed how you readily misinterpret what you are reading.


And now, back to the thread topic.....

 

[robinson]

I can put together data that supports the moon is made of green cheese.

No you can't. That is a dumb statement, and doesn't mean anything.

Any Vaccine which would be developed would have to have to provide protection against many, many various viruses for it to be effective to any degree.

So? Why not make a vaccine with many viruses? All the current strains? The Flu vaccines are a best guess about what the next strain will be. Why not do the same with other diseases?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sampling circulating virus is not "guessing", rob.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Skeptigirl,

Vaccination only "works" if enough of the population get vaccinated because the chances of you vaccinating the people who are going to suffer significant consequences from the diseases are often low to very low.

For example, Varicella. How many people need to be vaccinated before it has a significant effect on mortality or serious morbidity?

Or, to use your one of your examples, Tetinus. Do you know how rare this disease is? The only way to realistically prevent the few people who get it each year (in the UK) is to vaccinate everybody.

I will accept that in communities where other factors make these diseases much more common or deadly, vaccination becomes more beneficial at an individual level.

But the concept you can't (or will not) grasp is since often only a tiny proportion of people would contract many of these diseases in the first place, or for very common diseases, suffer serious complications, the only way to prevent them is to vaccinate the vast majority of the population.

Vaccination offers large individual benefits when the disease it protects against has both of the following characteristics:

1) It is common.
2) It often causes serious and/or long-term complications or is deadly.

So while Ebola satisfies (2), it fails (1). Many vaccines tackle diseases which are rare (so fail (1)), or are generally not serious (so fail (2)). Thus the absolute benefits to the individual are low.

What citations do I need to provide to support this logical argument?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Sampling circulating virus is not "guessing", rob.

They don't sample the circulating virus, they sample a virus which is circulating several months before the flu season starts, and assume that it will be (closely related to) the circulating strain during flu season when they produce the vaccine.

I would use the phrase "educated guessing" to describe the process.

But hey, WTF do I know?