The AAP protests the anti-vaccine ads being aired by CBS

That letter was written just 2 cubicles over from my own! AAP represent!

Gosh, and up until now I thought the worst thing about CBS was the new Hawaii 5-0! This is inexcusable.

As a member of the AAP I am tempted to say, to little to late. Why is the AAP so late to the game? Why won't they call their own out for the same types of statements from the likes of Dr. Bob Sears and Dr. Jay Gordon, as well as their own CAM section? I hope I am wrong and this is the first step toward a more aggressive and enlightened approach from the AAP.

Aww, the American Association of Vaccination, I mean, Pediatrics is worried about their little meal ticket. As I said before such paranoia simply reveals the what a house of straw the vaccine program is. As I advised one of your acolytes, why don't you, and the AAP, just hold your breath till CBS takes down the ad

Aww, the American Association of Vaccination, I mean, Pediatrics is worried about their little meal ticket. As I said before such paranoia simply reveals the what a house of straw the vaccine program is. As I advised one of your acolytes, why don't you, and the AAP, just hold your breath till CBS takes down the ad

"..there is no inherent right to blast that free speech every hour..". Sadly it seems there is.
This is not a pedantic case in point. I often lament the freedoms of stupid people that our democratic, capitalist systems allow (Don Trump anyone?). But I wouldn't have it any other way either. When you look at the alternatives it's hard to see a better strategy to counter this situation other than the way the AAP now is. Lets stay tuned. My cynical bet is money speaks louder than ethics.

What's bad for public health, is good for America.

Nice letter, but way too late in the game. The AAP should be looking into their own re-certification processes. Their members must know of Dr. Jay Gordon's notoriety and his website, which tarnishes the reputation of the Academy.

CBS Outdoor wants to wait it out and hope that it will be forgotten, a sound decision looking at the attainments of their "executive" staff in the billboard trade. The only thing that's going to draw these nitwits out is attention by the press.

"Vaccines are safe." NO THEY AREN'T.
"Diseases like measles and pertussis (whooping cough) can have serious consequences, including seizures, brain damage and even death." SO DO VACCINES.

Would the APA be happier if that jumbo tron told people to go to the CDC website and research polio vaccine/cancer connection (aka. SV-40). Then lookup the FDA transcripts on porcine circovirus in P.(r)Offit's Rotovax?
It's not like their spreading fear, or even the real harsh government substantiated truth. All that screen is saying is "You have a right to decide, and you should research it for yourself." I think the public deserves better.
Personally I think it should say, "In the past, under the guise of vaccination your government 'accidentally' injected millions with a monkey virus (SV40) known to cause cancer. They have prevented widespread knowledge of this through control of the media, but their admission can be found on the CDC website. Furthermore the recently introduced Rotavirus vaccine was also 'accidentally' contaminated with a pig virus that many researchers believe may cause early sterility. Your government, having been made aware of the issue, has decided that considering no conclusive evidence exists on (the safety or danger of) introducing this virus into the human population, that they will simply give your children the vaccine and see what happens. Your children have become human test subjects in this governments 'accidental' experiment. Vaccine safety and screening is currently not sufficient to prevent such 'accidental contaminations'. If government regulation provided for your children's safety before financial concerns, this vaccine would have been recalled immediately. Proof of this allegation can be found on the FDA's website in their very own transcription logs."
So let them run the ad. It's harmless. Everyone likely to see it is sleepwalking anyway. It's not like they are actually trying to wake or inform the general public. If that was the goal they'd just hire the space and print in big bold letters "SV40 IS ANOTHER VIRUS THAT CAUSES CANCER, AND IS TRANSMITTED IN SPERM!" DO YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE HAVE SV40? IT ISN'T HPV AND THAT VACCINE WON'T PROTECT YOU AGAINST SV40. VISIT THE CDC WEBSITE TODAY AND LEARN MORE ABOUT SV40!"

What's bad for public health, is good for America.

That's a keeper, Sid. You should have it tattooed on your girlfriend's dong.

michele perhaps you would now like to educate us on the risks of a reaction to MMR or Pertussis vaccination versus the risk of contracting the diseases, and the potential side effects? Warning, do not quote Dr Jay or Jenny.

@michele

Taking the intellectually dishonest route, eh?

Of course vaccines have risks. They list the risks of them when you get vaccinated.

It's just that the risks of being vaccinated are a whole lot less that the risks of getting the disease.

@Chris Edwards

Citation please.

*AAP, *they're, You get the idea. Please pardon the typos/ neurological switches. I type faster then I think when I'm annoyed. Ignorance, oppression, failure of informed consent, and potential loss of freedom of speech tend to annoy me.
Before anyone says it. This is like yelling "fire" in a movie theater. That, would be chanting SV40, carrying stuffed monkeys and signs that read "Do you or someone you love have cancer?" in front of the Jumbo tron. I wonder if I can get a permit. Would anyone care to join me?

michele:

"Diseases like measles and pertussis (whooping cough) can have serious consequences, including seizures, brain damage and even death." SO DO VACCINES.

Citation please?

Chris Edwards:

Would the APA be happier if that jumbo tron told people to go to the CDC website and research polio vaccine/cancer connection (aka. SV-40).

Please tell us which of the present pediatric vaccines contain SV-40. Remember to show your homework.

Also provide any real scientific evidence that the vaccines cause more harm than the diseases.

*AAP, *they're, You get the idea. Please pardon the typos/ neurological switches. I type faster then I think when I'm annoyed. Ignorance, oppression, failure of informed consent, and potential loss of freedom of speech tend to annoy me.
Before anyone says it. This is not like "yelling fire in a movie theater". That, would be chanting SV40, carrying stuffed monkeys and signs that read "Do you or someone you love have cancer?" in front of the Jumbo tron. I wonder if I can get a permit. Would anyone care to join me?

I love the altie loons right now because they make feel like I'm such a cool person eh, taking vaccinations and doesn't afraid of anything. I just had 3 vaccinations in the last week. FOR SCIENCE!!! Tee hee hee!

(PS: I don't really love them. "Despise" is a more accurate term.)

Oh please pretend to be uninformed for the sake of argument. No current vaccine contain SV40, it was in the old polio vaccine. Not that I imagine the time line matters much to the cancer patients who got that one as children.
However the same government process that infected millions with a carcinogenic virus is now infecting children(knowingly and willingly) with porcine circovirus which was found to be contaminating the current rotavirus vaccine. The proof for this is in the FDA transcripts.
So 50 years later, your government inoculation program is yes, still failing to put the safety of children before the cost of the drug.
All this sign wants to say is think and decide...

I see that the usual cranks (Sid Offal) and pseudo-scientists re busy. Citations don't have to be given IF YOUR RANT IS ALL CAPITALIZED!!!!! eh, Chris Edwards.

Michelle, provide us with risk versus benefit statistics regarding "natural" acquiring of immunity or the immunity acquired through immunizations. (Hint) You might want to check out the CDC Pink Book, MMWR, Immunize.org or Immunization Action Coalition websites.

Chris Edwards:

That, would be chanting SV40,

Again, you are asked which vaccines have contained that in the last forty years. Provide the evidence, and they must be those we can find in a local medical school library. Cutting and pasting from your favorite website is not allowed.

Please dont threaten the income stream, the mutual back scratching, or threaten the lofty science of the established boys! NO! not the jumbotron, dont worry there will be plenty of lemming that buy into the vaccine myth.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fda.gov%2FAdvisoryComm…
You just made me go through weeks worth of feed, because If I couldn't get the FDA link, as opposed to the saved document. You'd call me a liar or a fool, so here it is...
URL link if it'll work, it's service listed... If it doesn't work use the link at the top of this page and (Their caps not mine v)
"VACCINES AND RELATED BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTS ADVISORY COMMITTEE
May 7, 2010
Hilton Hotel
Gaithersburg, Maryland"
Page 6.5 through 7
Agenda Item: FDA Introduction/Presentation of
Issues for Discussion
DR. BAYLOR: Good morning. I am going to provide a
background for today's meeting and set the stage for the day.
In February of this year, GSK Biologicals was
informed by an independent investigator from the University
of California-San Francisco that DNA sequences originating
from porcine circovirus were detected in two batches of
Rotarix, which is a live attenuated rotavirus vaccine. 7
GSK initiated experiments to confirm these results,
and conduct further investigations. Their tests confirmed
the presence of PCV1 DNA in Rotarix in the intermediates, in
the production process, the working cell bank, the viral
seeds from which the vaccine was derived, as well as the
final container.
GSK informed the Food and Drug Administration of
the detection of PCV1 DNA fragments in Rotarix. The Food and
Drug Administration began its own internal examination and
confirmed that the presence of DNA from PCV1 was in Rotarix
vaccine.
On March 22 of this year, the FDA recommended that
clinicians temporarily suspend the use of Rotarix vaccine
while the agency gathered additional information as a
precautionary measure.
"Although testing by the investigators at the
University of California-San Francisco did not find PCV1 DNA
sequences in Merck's rotavirus vaccine RotaTeq, the Food and
Drug Administration embarked on testing RotaTeq, and
recommended Merck do the same. Recently the FDA received
information from Merck that preliminary studies identified
fragments of DNA from porcine circovirus types 1 and 2, PCV1
and PCV2, in RotaTeq vaccine."

If it would make this easier I can mail you the transcript. Your site seems to have an extremely slow and awful delay on posting.

Zounds, the parallels between antivax-heroes and god-bots is astounding: the refusal to name *credible* sources for their assertions, the fingers-in-ears adherence to prescribed talking points, the frequent copy/pasting from authoritative websites, the worship of cult figures who they know will save them, the scientific conspiracy theories, the giving of their money & allegiance to known charlatans, the blind faith that only they and their prophets hold the Truth, the mistaken notion that because people think they're idiots they must be right and that they will have the last laugh at some indeterminate point in the future. Hell, both varieties of hysterical paranoid dogmatist even employ CAPS LOCK FURY (+0 Damage, -50 Credibility and +3D20 lulz) in a similar fashion, usually in place of actually supporting their ejaculations with reliable evidence.

Perhaps someone, somewhere, is fermenting two kinds of ignoramus in the same factory and cross-contaminating the vats.

Well we'd chant Porcine Circovirus, but it just doesn't have the same ring, I think Paul Offit would pay to have us shot, and it doesn't have the same your government has failed you for fifty years Push behind it. Hey did you slow the posting down so you can catch up on all the info us crazy people post? Maybe there's hope for you yet.
http://www.fda.gov/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/BloodV…
May 7, 2010: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting Presentations
-
May 7, 2010: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting Presentations
May 7, 2010: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting Presentation: CBER Assessment of Porcine Circovirus in Vaccines (PPT - 1471KB)
Philip R. Krause, M.D.
May 7, 2010: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting: Detection of Porcine circovirus (PCV) and PCV DNA Sequences in U.S. Licensed Rotavirus Vaccines and the Use of Emerging Analytical Technologies for the Detection of Adventitious Agents in Vaccines (PPT - 137KB)
Norman W. Baylor, PhD
May 7, 2010: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee: Monitoring Safety of Rotavirus Vaccines (PPT - 173KB)
David Martin, MD, MPH
May 7, 2010: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting FDAâs Approach to Adventitious-Agent Testing of Cell Substrates and Viral Vaccines: Traditional and Novel Methods (PPT - 350KB)
Keith Peden
-
Just read those and get back to me eh? Maybe worry if you inadvertently sterilized yourself or your children with a pig virus just to avoid a case of the runs...

Wolf Herpestein:

vaccine myth.

You will need to explain that more fully. For one thing you will have to explain what happened to smallpox. For the love of mud, in the age of PCR do not try to say it was another disease that has been renamed!

Please explain why measles incidence dropped by 90% in the USA between 1960 and 1970. Do try to be more creative than previous attempts.

Also, how many MMR vaccines (which covers three diseases) could have the fees of eight children being hospitalized in Minneapolis with measles paid for? Or how many DTaP or Tdap vaccines could be bought for the cost for hospital stays and funerals of ten babies who died of pertussis last year in California?

I am baffled that the notion of preventative medicine being some a big money maker. Mr. Herpestein, do you gain income from as a hospital supplier, or as a provider of child sized coffins? Come on, be honest. Those ventilators are not cheap!

Sooooo. You gonna post them? Starting to make me happy here. Making me think I actually made you look it up instead of just yelling "looney ass religious zealot" BTW I'm MENSA certified homegrown USA Humanist! Ah well, you have my email.
Look it up, I have a handful of relevant docs I saved to my external, just in case the government takes them down... I also have access to a pretty large knowledge base. Hey, have you ever even looked at PubMed? I hope you stopped posting me because I made you think and your researching your answers, Not just because you are an ostrich, That's a pretty sad stance for a man of science.
Let me know if you want to know more.

@24 - Chris

I'm also baffled by this notion of vaccines & preventatives being a huge money-spinner. Surely just letting people get sick would make more money for doctors and hospitals. Surely attempting to prevent people from becoming ill and then needing further treatment is working against the alleged profit motive?

Or am I being way too naive and is the conspiracy a lot deeper and baroque than that? Do doctors/Big Pharma want to sicken people with the vaccines so they'll get even more exotic diseases requiring vastly more expensive treatment? How much worse than preventable diseases like smallpox, pertussis, polio, tetanus, rubella, measles, diptheria, influenza, hepatitis et al can it get? Do doctors intentionally want kids to get sicker than that - sicker than fucking pertussis?? Do doctors WANT kids to "get" autism? Are people like Mike Adams and Joe Mercola actually the only doctors in the universe who understand how insidious modern medicine really is? Are all the advances in preventative medicine just a scam? Are most of the practising physicians in the world in league with drug companies to just fuck us all for money - are no doctors except the aforementioned alties with vested interests (note how much expensive alternative shit they're selling on their own websites) actually in medicine to help people?

Someone really needs to explain this to me, as from where I stand it really does smell like an uninformed, misinformed paranoid conspiracy theory.

Oh insanity, this man posts one comment out of every four. I just gave him FDA and CDC links and this is what he posts, The hey are you awake letter.

Chris Edwards:

I have a handful of relevant docs I saved to my external, just in case the government takes them down... I also have access to a pretty large knowledge base.

All you need to do is post the publicly available documentation to your claims. The cites on PubMed are sufficient.

Again, which vaccines used in the last forty years contained SV-40.

Now please explain this jumble of words:

I hope you stopped posting me because I made you think and your researching your answers,

WTF? What does "you stopped posting me" mean? Who is the "you" that is referenced? And, as far as research, the rule is that if you make a claim you provide the evidence. No excuses. Failure to provide actual evidence for your claims will show that you have none (well, that would be kind of obvious).

It means I sent four other comments before the sysop posted my fifth. Of course they want to censor times square. They are obviously censoring this conversation. Information control? That's how you justify feeing the youth of America porcine circovirus. I already answered the SV40 question. I was calling attention to the current similarity between then and NOW

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMateri…
DR. BAYLOR: Good morning. I am going to provide a background for today's meeting and set the stage for the day.
In February of this year, GSK Biologicals was informed by an independent investigator from the University of California-San Francisco that DNA sequences originating from porcine circovirus were detected in two batches of Rotarix, which is a live attenuated rotavirus vaccine.
7
GSK initiated experiments to confirm these results, and conduct further investigations. Their tests confirmed the presence of PCV1 DNA in Rotarix in the intermediates, in the production process, the working cell bank, the viral seeds from which the vaccine was derived, as well as the final container.

Taking the intellectually dishonest route, eh? "Of course vaccines have risks. They list the risks of them when you get vaccinated. It's just that the risks of being vaccinated are a whole lot less that the risks of getting the disease."
You are very very wrong, and they wouldn't be burying it this deep if you weren't
"They list the risks of them when you get vaccinated."
Maine actually just decided to make sure you don't know those risks (or ingredients), Now You are trying to stop people from informing NYC.
Take a child to a US pediatrician. Watch how it plays out in comparison to how you believe it should. No, they do not list the risks. If you ask about risks or ingredients your pediatrician will get mad, and scary, and begin yelling at and go as far berating a new mother clutching her two week old baby. You can not make them provide you with the package insert, You cannot possibly receive fair advice. You receive the standard AAP, AMA speech regardless of your questions or fears. They are not listening to the mothers.
If you disagree with them they will instantly "fire" you and leave you panicked, holding an insurance card and a newborn. Call your insurance fast, otherwise they'll call CPC and you'll have to deal with that mess.
Quote: "It's just that the risks of being vaccinated are a whole lot less that the risks of getting the disease." For a STD?? Oh no! They absolutely are not. They are vaccinating my child against diseases that are of no risk to her at all.
Hep B is a sexually transmitted disease that also occurs in IV drug users. NJ injects, and I might be wrong but I believe the CDC recommends, the injection of all newborns within 48 hours of birth. The shot only lasts 10 years, and the mothers are tested again at birth (Really, Actually drawing blood while they sew you back up). So my newborn has no risk from me, will not be injecting drugs, or having sex before she's 10(!) Why are you mandating that she be injected with such an irrelevant vaccine before she has a chance to develop properly; While we have no real information or studies on the current recommended vaccine schedule?
The CDC will admit that they have never conducted studies on the current vaccination load. Vaccines are tested for individual safety, not in the variety and frequency they are given. Anyone here on the scienceblog should know what chemical cocktails are, or why this information applies to the question at hand? Show of hands! :)
Don't defend it because it's science. Or because it's the accepted ideology. Defend it because you are our smartest minds, you have researched it, and decided that it is (or isn't) right.

Next, Why does my daughter need a Rubella vaccination before puberty? My understanding is that Rubella is only harmful to developing fetuses? Not two year old girls.
If you feel its a matter of "Herd Immunity" and my daughter is somehow required to protect some unknown mysterious pregnant woman and her child, I have only one thing to say to you. "Entitled to life, liberty..." So by forcing my child to carry any (as in .01%) risk for a vaccine which does not directly effect her health in any way you are removing her of her constitutional rights. Children have a right to life too. She should never have to endure risk to preserve the herd unless she personally has chosen said risk. I would never choose it for her.
I'm very tired, I think it's best if I come back tomorrow, and yell at you some more ;)

It's allowed if my favorite website is the FDA! Otherwise, you might need to read instead of just chant and repeat...

I thought you were going to bed.

It means I sent four other comments before the sysop posted my fifth. Of course they want to censor times square. They are obviously censoring this conversation.

Bit paranoid, are we? Scienceblogs has an automatic spam filter; comments with too many links are held up, regardless of where those links go.

Chris,

that was a very interesting link you finally posted. It is also clear that you didnt read it. If you had you would have discovered:

1) PCV1 has no known effect on humans
2) the vaccine was suspended in the US by the FDA, but was distributed in many other countries with no known extra side effects
3) rotavirus is a deadly disease and was responsible for great suffering until the vaccination came out
4) the societal improvements, both in terms of health, mortality and cost from the vaccine have been measured and show a very good response (read DR. PARASHAR's part)
5) the safety net for catching things like this is quite vast, which is why we are even discussing this in the first place.

Telling people you are a MENSA is truly points against you. From my experience, MENSA folks are self congratulatory people who score well on specific tests and are kookoo bananas when it comes to reality based assessments, like whether or not we are being visited by UFOs, big foot being in their back yards, a vast set of conspiracy theories, and of course whether or not the vaccination program is designed to turn the American population in acquiescing zombies.

More on mensa:

This is completely in line with my experience of Mensa. I am not at all surprised that you find conspiracy where none exists.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/my_morning_at_mensa.php

They are obviously censoring this conversation. Information control? That's how you justify feeing the youth of America porcine circovirus.

To say nothing of what they are doing to the soil.
Chris Edward's comments need more fishbarrel hatstand.

It means I sent four other comments before the sysop posted my fifth. Of course they want to censor times square. They are obviously censoring this conversation.

Censorship. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Your initial comments all posted between midnight and 3 AM local time where I live. I do actually sleep. Clearly not enough, but I do have to crash every night, just like everyone else. Then I had a couple of early morning meetings and didn't have time to peruse the spam quarantine until now. Your comments have been released, for the amusement of my more rational readers, who like their target practice.

Well, you used to stand a good chance of getting hepatitis B from yellow fever vaccine, because it contained human blood serum. And the risk of hep B from blood transfusions was also high. Research led to tests for hep B, safer vaccines and transfusions - and a vaccine for hep B.

Fascinating history - the yellow fever vaccine was in the 1940s, blood screening (in USA) became mandatory in 1972, hep B vaccine became available in 1981.

FTA:"Further studies have revealed that hepatitis B can be passed from person to person not only through blood but also through sexual contact or from a carrier mother to her newborn child. An important study in Taiwan by Palmer Beasley and colleagues in 1975 showed that nearly two-thirds of infants born to HbsAg-positive women became HBsAg carriers themselves. The hepatitis B vaccine protects people from all forms of transmission. Because infants or children infected with hepatitis B virus have an extremely high risk of becoming lifelong carriers of the disease, universal childhood vaccination for hepatitis B has now been adopted by more than 85 countries, including the United States."

Brad

Chris Edwards,
Tell me what you see when you look out of your window.
No, not that one, the one on the other side of the room.
See that black speck near the horizon? That's me in my New World Order regulation issue obsidian black AH64 Apache. Watching you.
Tut, don't swear now, Julie next door doesn't like it.
And no, don't bother firing up the laptop to alert your AoA cronies, I've downloaded a Stuxnet worm which activates whenever it encounters more than two consecutive words in upper case.

@Orac:

I do actually sleep.

I didn't know that blinking boxes of lights could sleep.

@Chris Edwards: For pete's sake. Would you think and have a little courtesy before screaming censorship? If you had taken the time to actually READ some of Orac's other postings, you would have 1)been aware of the hyperlink filter (it catches comments with more than a certain number of links, or several comments in a row with one link) and 2)Orac very, very, VERY rarely censors comments. He has banned, IIRC, only 3 people in the entire time he has blogged.

I'm MENSA certified homegrown USA Humanist!

Of great, another "meber". Claiming Mensa membership as an argument from authority is a sure sign of a crank. The ALL CAPS is just a bonus.

In case anyone has trouble with this concept (and there are a few who do, for some reason), free speech rights in the US require that the government not prosecute you just because you have unpopular, controversial, or even hateful views (e.g. Westboro Baptists) or because you attempt to propagate those views in the public sphere.

Free speech rights do not mean no one is allowed to complain to CBS about advertisements they are displaying which are meant to lure people to anti-vaccine activism, or that CBS must somehow continue to air the advertisements if they feel they are hurting CBS' public image (and therefore bottom line) by doing so.

@Chris Edward

You say that SV40 in vaccines caused cancer. Let's see what pubmed has to say:

* No implication of Simian virus 40 in pathogenesis of malignant pleural mesothelioma in Slovenia. (PMID: 21302609) - No causative relationship found.

* The role of polio-vaccine in pleural mesothelioma--an epidemiological observation. (PMID: 18756898) - No causative relationship found.

* Simian virus 40 sequences in blood specimens from healthy individuals of Casale Monferrato, an industrial town with a history of asbestos pollution. (PMID: 19070904) - Found SV40 in healthy patients, i.e., it is circulating even among those who did not receive the vaccine. Also suggests that it may play a synergistic role with asbestos in MM.

* No detection of SV40 DNA in mesothelioma tissues from a high incidence area in Sweden. (PMID: 18225586) - No causal relationship found.

* Simian virus 40 and mesothelioma in Great Britain. (PMID: 17675661) - No causal relationship found.

* Is there a role for SV40 in human cancer? (PMID: 16963733) - A review stating there is insufficient evidence to support a role for SV40 in human cancer.

I could go on, but I don't want to get into a Gish Gallop. Suffice to say, recent research suggests that SV40 does not play a causative role in human cancer. Furthermore, looking back at the incident, FDA took the right course of action to halt production until vaccines could be screened for the contaminant, ensuring only pure vaccines made it to patients.

In a similar vein, the PCV1 contamination of some rotavirus vaccines was handled swiftly, even though the protein fragments presented no danger to humans.

@Chris Edwards,
Censorship here is almost non-existent while over at AoA it is almost universal. In which world would you prefer to live?

That SV40 crap you are so fired up over sounds pretty horrible but children given a vaccine over 50 years ago to prevent polio, a most terrible, debilitating and deadly disease, survived polio-free for fifty years. Not bad when you consider those productive and happy years spent without the shadow of polio.

Cancer in aging adults is not uncommon. I've heard it said that most people will die from cancer if they live long enough. The key is to live long enough and vaccination enables that better than any other preventive system.

Unless I missed it, I haven't seen your proof of SV40-cancer link. Maybe soon?

TechSkeptic, you overlooked one of Chris Edwards' biggest mistakes, namely, no PCV1 virus was found in the vaccine! Despite being a Suuuuuuuuper Geeeeeeeeenius!, Chris Edwards consistently misread "fragments of DNA from PCV1 were found in Rotarix" as "the virus PCV1 was found in Rotarix" every single time, even though those are two entirely different things!

This is somewhat similar to reading the sentence "The restaurant served John a beef stew that had bits of fish in it" and running out in the street screaming "They fed John a live fish! Those vile villains shoved a live fish down his throat with no concern for what its sharp fins and tail would do to his delicate inside! In fact it was probably a piranha and any minute now it's going to chew its way through his stomach lining! LIVE FISH!"

I'm a former Mensa member myself, so I can guarantee everyone that Mensans are not all like Chris Edwards. Chris Edwards, however, is pretty typical of the kind of Mensa member who brags to strangers about being a Mensan: far too concerned with making sure people think he's got all the right answers, and too lazy or self-righteous to double-check his work, or carry out any of the other efforts that are needed to actually obtain the right answers.

Chris E, so your proof that vaccines are dangerous is that two batches of vaccine were found to be contaminated with something, that the contamination was caught before the batches were widely distributed in the U.S., and that in the areas where it was released, there were no reported complications?

Your proof that they're dangerous is that the system works?

And I've seen three elderly relatives die of complications due to post-polio symptoms, and I never got to meet three more of them because it killed them the first time. You'll have to do better than shouting "monkey virus!" to convince me that the protection is really worse than the disease.

It's a bit late, but the DC wrote a poem about the Jumbotron messages.

Chris E.:

The CDC will admit that they have never conducted studies on the current vaccination load. Vaccines are tested for individual safety, not in the variety and frequency they are given.

That's an area I know pretty well, and you are wrong. Vaccines developed for the pediatric market are tested concomitantly with other vaccines. It would be unethical to skip vaccines for the purpose of testing a new childhood vaccine alone. Vaccines aren't tested in a vacuum.

Is there a study looking at the risk of the whole vaccine schedule versus no vaccines? No, of course not, it would be unethical to run it.

@triskelethecat

"I didn't know that blinking boxes of lights could sleep."

It's called low power mode or suspend mode.

@Craig,
Low power mode is a good answer but is it necessary?

The American Academy of Pediatrics is a professional trade organization which is designed to protect the professional interests of its members.

As a group and it's personal members have financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies.

One of the main activities that it's members partake in is the act of medical vaccination. Anything that opposes the activities of it's members is an attack on the viability of the organization itself and it's corporation partners.

This is not a child safety issue for the AAP. It is a self serving act of trade protection.

"It's not personal. It's just business. You'll understand." BANG!

Antaeus Feldspar,

In fairness to Chris, while he did confuse PCR detection of fragments for complete virus detection, it would appear likely that the live virus was present in the vaccine.

However, if Chris had bothered to use his Uber-MENSA intellect, he would have read the rest of the link that he had provided. GSK had contacted more than a few experts and found that PCV1 does not show any evidence of being able to productively infect human cells. There were three cancer cell lines including HeLa *tips hat to the late Mrs. Lacks* but none of them resulted in the production of live, infectious viruses. So, while there may have been the possibility of live PCV1 virus (Rotarix is not a killed vaccine after all), it would be highly unlikely to infect humans.

Killed vaccines using the same cell banks used in making Rotarix tested positive for PCV1 contamination at the early stages of development but after the killing and purification stages, tested negative.

As Dweller42 said, this simply shows that the system works. Nothing is 100%. We're humans and we all make mistakes. However, there are measures in place to minimize the chances of adverse events. I will however agree that this contamination should have been avoided in the first place and probably could have by using more stringent QC (say assaying for a panel of known pathogens, human or porcine prior to using new batches of cells) but that's just my opinion.

@Craig,
Low power mode is a good answer but is it necessary?

What to do with these people:

Give them a chunk of land where they can live as they choose, subject to two conditions:

One, in the event of an outbreak of a deadly disease in their community, they are subject to quarantine: nobody gets in or out without being vaccinated.

Two, in the event that the child death rate from vaccine-preventable diseases in their community exceeds a threshold *that they themselves can set,* the experiment is over and the place gets shut down. (You see the logic bomb in that one, right?)

For economic support, they could be given federal contracts to produce the kinds of stuff that are normally produced by slave (prison) labor, but at realistic contract prices that provide dignified wages. Or put them all on the federal dole for all I care, guinea pigs deserve free accommodations.

And then we may as well take bets on how long they last.

Oh, but one more thing: they have to agree that if they do start dropping like flies, they can't go down the conspiracy trail about being poisoned or irradiated or whatever.

The same could be done to/for religious fundamentalist extremists, subject to conditions pertaining to child abuse including molestation (let's be realistic about that!). Let them have their little theocracy and see how long it lasts.

As for alt med: hey, yoga is good exercise, it just doesn't cure cancer or give men better you-know-whats.

Your comments have been released, for the amusement of my more rational readers, who like their target practice.

He loves us! Orac really loves us!

@Craig: Sorry for the double post. I am thrashing my network error generator as I write this.

I will be sorry if Mr Edwards does not return. There is a lot of good info for him and I'm always hopeful for re-education, augustine excepted.

One of the main activities that it's members partake in is the act of medical vaccination.

I find the construction 'medical vaccination' odd, even for augie. Are there other kinds of vaccination? Is there troll vaccination?

There's homeopathic vaccination -- works as well as other homeopathic nostrums, and has a lot higher markup than medical vaccination, since you can just use tapwater.

Quote: "It's just that the risks of being vaccinated are a whole lot less that the risks of getting the disease." For a STD?? Oh no! They absolutely are not. They are vaccinating my child against diseases that are of no risk to her at all.
Hep B is a sexually transmitted disease that also occurs in IV drug users. NJ injects, and I might be wrong but I believe the CDC recommends, the injection of all newborns within 48 hours of birth. The shot only lasts 10 years, and the mothers are tested again at birth (Really, Actually drawing blood while they sew you back up). So my newborn has no risk from me, will not be injecting drugs, or having sex before she's 10(!) Why are you mandating that she be injected with such an irrelevant vaccine before she has a chance to develop properly; While we have no real information or studies on the current recommended vaccine schedule?
The CDC will admit that they have never conducted studies on the current vaccination load. Vaccines are tested for individual safety, not in the variety and frequency they are given. Anyone here on the scienceblog should know what chemical cocktails are, or why this information applies to the question at hand?

Let's see... Hep B can be transmitted by kissing, or by sharing food and drink, or by contact with non-intact skin. Any chance your daughter will be doing those before they're 10? Or for that matter, ever, seeing as how we now know that the Hep B vaccine doesn't wear off as was previosuly thought?

You may well be right that the CDC has never tested the vaccine schedule, but I'm pretty sure that's no more relevant than the fact that the IRS and the ATF have also never done that. The FDA tests all new vaccines, and to ensure that children aren't exposed to horrible diseases during tests, they're tested in combination with the existing schedule, not in isolation.

@michelle:

"Diseases like measles and pertussis (whooping cough) can have serious consequences, including seizures, brain damage and even death." SO DO VACCINES.

That's like saying that jumping out of an airplane with a parachute is as bad as jumping out without one, because both can lead to serious consequences including paralysis, brain damage, and even death.

In both cases there are risks in using the proven remedies... BUT THE RISKS ARE FAR FEWER THAN NOT USING THE PROVEN PROTECTION METHODS.

Seriously, I'm thinking that the anti-vax crowd come from the same population as the dedicated gamblers who keep the lights burning brightly in Las Vegas; they have no real understanding of probability, and no way of weighing risks vs. rewards.

As for those touting MENSA tests as qualifications, I turned down an offer from MENSA when I saw how many of their interest groups focused on astrology, crystal-reading, tarot, palmistry, and similarly woo-packed fields. High IQ just means that any resulting idiocy is more creative than usual... it's not a good measure of one's ability to usefully match abstract concepts to real-world cases.

-- Steve

That's a good one wintermute. Not true, but good nonetheless.

http://www.immunize.org/askexperts/experts_hepb.asp
Can HBV be transmitted in daycare via saliva, e.g., drooling infants?

Though HBV has been found in saliva, there are no data to suggest that saliva alone transmits HBV infection. There have been reports of HBV transmission when an HBV-infected person bites another person. In these reports, bloody saliva was usually present in the infected person's mouth and the blood was more likely the vehicle of transmission. HBV is not spread by kissing, hugging, sneezing, coughing, food or water, sharing eating utensils or drinking glasses, or casual contact.

It's called low power mode or suspend mode.

So, does that mean that Orac is an Energy Star appliance?

@15 - Chris Edwards

"potential loss of freedom of speech tend to annoy me."

You seem to be as woefully informed about the Constitution as you are about immunology and vaccination. Here is the text of the 1st Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The Freedom of Speech is freedom from government oppression of speech. Neither CBS, nor the AAP are governmental agencies, but are private entities. You do not have the "freedom" to advertise whatever you wish on a privately controlled network like CBS anymore than you would have the right to put an anti-vaccine propaganda sign on my front lawn.

The AAP is expressing their right to free speech by telling CBS that such ads are harmful. If CBS were to decide to remove the ad, then they would be exercising their right to determine what can or cannot be advertised on their network. Do hate groups also have the "right" to paid advertising space? Or can networks decide what types of ads they want to allow?

Here endeth the civics lesson.

Every parent is sure that their child will not be injecting drugs, or having unsafe sex. Would that they were correct. But a significant number of newborns do grow up to do those things.

Another group live drug-free lives, and are monogamously involved with someone who lies to them about using drugs. Or are "monogamously" involved in the sense that both parties have promised exclusivity, but one of them breaks that promise.

Do you really want to bet your child's health on the idea that her/his spouse will come to the marriage bed a virgin, and never cheat? That may be your ideal, but statistics show that far fewer people do that than say they believe in it.

What's bad for public health, is good for America. - Robert Schecter

It's refreshing to finally read Schecter's endgame from the source, though I've always known what game he is playing in his sad little world.

Chris E: Is there a reason you are sending links to powerpoint presentations that you haven't read? What were we supposed to take away from them? Try an be a little more specific next time.

Also, most regular commenters here have high intelligence and multiple degrees or extensive medical experience. Your credibility will be measured by your comments, not by your ego. Many here are attempting to give you a chance, if you really do have some good ideas and reasoning, you will find a receptive audience.

I don't buy car insurance because I'm planning to crash my car; likewise, I don't get vaccinated because I'm planning to partake in risky behavior. I do both because the world is an unpredictable place, and there is no way to tell which events beyond my control will impact me.

Sharon, I agree with you. My cynical bet is that money (AAP, pharma and their mega sponsorship of most of the networks, newspapers) wins out over ethics. If the AAP really cared, they'd grab a brain and do some REAL studies (not the Madsen crap) to ascertain safety of the overly aggressive schedule and thimerosal, aluminum, to name a few specifics, and they'd back the hell off with the schedule, like some European countries. They only have themselves to blames for all of this. If there really is a disease that needs vaccinating for, peoples' trust will have been long broken. Now, people feel they have been so badly treated (no real liability for vaccine manufacturers, no sympathy from people like you, not much in the way of awareness of the real risks of vaccines for some people) and this is what it has come to. Not surprising at all.

@Jen

"If there really is a disease that needs vaccinating for,"

Are you suggesting that there is no disease that requires vaccination?

So, Sid, what you're say is that thanks to the bite I received from a playmate I might've worried about Hep B, but only had to worry about contending with impetigo* because I was vaccinated.

* Yes, impetigo only requires contact to be infected. Said playmate was bleeding from the mouth after I punched him. Hey, we were six, and it was a really, really cool truck he'd stolen from me.

Jen, you persist in posting unsupported claims and failing to back them up with cites to evidence (and despite, I might add, multiple requests for such evidence).

Should we expect any different from your pointless comment this time?

Jen:

If the AAP really cared, they'd grab a brain and do some REAL studies (not the Madsen crap)

Again, please provide a critique of the multiple studies from Madsen from a qualified source? Not one written by a guy who has an MBA, but someone with actual scientific credibility.

Jen spewed: " If the AAP really cared, they'd grab a brain and do some REAL studies (not the Madsen crap) to ascertain safety of the overly aggressive schedule and ...." blah blah

Aggressive [uh-gres-iv], adj.
1 of 6: characterized by or tending toward unprovoked offensives, attacks, invasions, or the like; militantly forward or menacing:
Synonyms: pugnacious, militant.

Amusing how Jen claims to have the ability to ascertain the safety of a system that she assumes, as a premise, to be already dangerous.

Cyclical logic is cyclical.

First a self-identified member of the AAP complains that his organization was late and lame about supporting vaccination and attacking antivax dishonesty. Then, much
later, augustine calls the AAP a pro-vaccine propagandist group. Once again, augustine proves from his first comment what an uncaring, stupid, disengaged troll he is.

I'm all in favor of open dialogue, but I'm also in favor of GROWNUP dialogue. augustine has proven time and time again that he's unwilling, and probably unable, to function as a grownup or even stay on topic; so, IMHO at least, there's no good reason to tolerate him here.

Chris E:

Next, Why does my daughter need a Rubella vaccination before puberty? My understanding is that Rubella is only harmful to developing fetuses?

I'm very busy today, but this I need to respond to.

When I was in high school, there was a rubella outbreak in my neighborhood. Rubella vaccine declines in effectiveness more quickly than many others; a friend of mine (who had been vaccinated) developed rubella. She was out of school for two weeks. The disease is *usually* mild in older children and adults, but not always, and the extreme risk to infants means that you get quarantined if you get it.

Also, though you are confident your daughter will not have sex before age ten, and are apparently confident you know when her menarche will be, how can you be so sure? Either you are content to punish a future grandchild if she gets frisky in junior high, or you are quite certain that she cannot possibly ever get raped and become pregnant that way (though of course there is also the possibility you would simply favor aborting children conceived in this way).

I know, it's not fun making plans for worst-case scenarios. But life ain't perfect, and things go wrong -- if they do go badly wrong, you will be very glad you planned for them, or furious with yourself for thinking it couldn't happen to your family. Vaccines have extremely low risks; it's very hard to find something else that can reduce a risk that much for so little cost.

Why does my daughter need a Rubella vaccination before puberty?

So she won't infect someone who is pregnant?

@ Chris E #33

Damn Straight shouldn't be forced to vaccinate! That's the same reason why I never wash my hands, no matter what. It's my personal right to determine what happens to my own body. If someone gets sick when I shake their hand, prepare their food, or hand them something, it's their own damn fault!

Rights don't come with repsonsibilities, they're free!

Why does my daughter need a Rubella vaccination before puberty?

So she won't infect someone who is pregnant?

Why isn't the pregnant woman vaccinated? Does the vaccine not work. Did her vaccine already wane? You mean everyone needs very frequent rubella boosters because of the lack of effectiveness of the vaccine?

So you're saying that the daughter doesn't actually "need" it. It is some ambiguous pregnant woman somewhere who needs to be protecectd through vaccine herd immunity?

That was a nice altruistic ploy you used there. But she can't technically infect anyone unless she first has an infection and then be exposed to a susceptible person during that infectious time period. During that brief time period the vaccinated (but now has worn off because of vaccine failure) female must be infected during first trimester or shortly before pregnant. And then she is not necessarily sentenced to congential rubella syndrome. She her fetus is only at risk. Even then, if all of this still happens the fetus has a 50% or greater chance of not being affected. All of this because her vaccine failed to protect her.HMM.

BTW, Nice fearmongering, Callie.

Augustine, you know what we told you earlier. The vaccine is not 100% effective, nor can it be given to everyone. This is what is known as "improving the odds". If there's an outbreak and no vaccine, then the scenario you described is far more likely than you realize.

Thanks Todd W. for those links about SV40 and (no) cancer. I love (not) how people like Chris Edward continue to bring up a moot point like that.

@78 augustine

There are no "ambiguous pregnant women", there are simply pregnant women that you don't know. I understand you don't think of people you don't know personally as actual people, but there's yet another area where you're wrong. They are people. Just because you don't know them, doesn't make them less human or worthy of protection from ignorant, disease-ridden vermin like you.

Your characterization of someone you don't know does give a greater understanding of your callousness towards other people contracting harmful and/or fatal diseases though, you simply think that if you don't know them, they don't count.

"Why isn't the pregnant woman vaccinated?"

Maybe she's immunocompromised. Maybe she's a former patient of Dr. Gordon. Maybe she's the mother of the unvaccinated child so she didn't get herself vaccinated either, and the next child will pay the price.

@ Per Chris Edwards posting:

"Hep B is a sexual transmitted disease".

Hepatitis B is a sexually transmitted and blood borne disease, lesser amounts of the virus are found in other body fluids such as saliva and semen.

"The shot only lasts 10 years and the mothers are tested again at birth (Really, Actually drawing blood while they are sewing you up.)"

Post immunization testing of health care workers who have an occupational risk for blood borne hepatitis B disease is a requirement. Hepatitis B vaccine has been licensed in the United States for 30 years. And, repeat testing years after for the presence of the Hepatitis B antibody of health care workers, has revealed a high level of the antibody. Furthermore, the small number of health care workers who have antibody levels that wane are protected from infection by the body's anamnestic immunological response.

I beg to differ with you Chris, pregnant women are tested for hepatitis B during the first trimester, if they are negative, then they are not tested again before delivery. Results of the maternal Hepatitis B status are sent to the hospital, weeks before her due date.
The only women who are tested for Hepatitis B in the delivery hospital are those who have never been tested because they had no prenatal care. Other women who tested negative for Hepatitis B surface antigen, but are suspected IV drug users, will be retested later in their pregnancy or upon entry into the hospital in labor.

"So my newborn has no risk from me, will not be injecting drugs or having sex before she's 10 (!)"

Chris, make certain that she is not enrolled in day care or doesn't play with any children, where she could receive a bite from a child adopted from a foreign country who is infected with hepatitis B from birth.

You demand your rights as an American Citizen Chris. You demand that each and every parent of a child that plays with your child produce the prenatal Hepatitis B blood test and their immunization records...so that you don't have to immunized your kid against Hepatitis B...or any of the vaccine preventable diseases. (Playing the herd immunity game, eh.)

"potential loss of freedom of speech "
There is no loss, it's a privately owned screen, so CBS can do what it wants.
You can still self publish, run websites, even find plenty of publishers willing to publish you and put you in bookstores.
your rights are fine. if CBS pulls the ads, you have not lost any rights at all.

in fact, forcing CBS to run ads it doesn't want to take away THEIR 1st amendment rights.

(there could be possible breach of contract, but I'm sure all ads have clauses to cover when the broadcasting company pulls it, but again that is a civil contract and nothing to do with rights)

Chris wrote "So by forcing my child to carry any (as in .01%) risk for a vaccine which does not directly effect her health in any way you are removing her of her constitutional rights. Children have a right to life too. She should never have to endure risk to preserve the herd unless she personally has chosen said risk. I would never choose it for her."

Freedom only works when people can be held accountable for their actions. When there is no accountability, it leads directly to bad actions.

And the thing is, you have a right to your own body, but your body affects my body as well. If you don't get vaccinated, you affect more people than just yourself. And that is where the problem lies.

We cannot hold unvaccinated people accountable for passing illness and sickness to the people around them, because we cannot yet prove it with current technology. Without accountability you have free riders and people abusing others, since there is nothing to stop them. An unvaccinated person can pass disease around, killing the elderly and infants, and never have to pay a single dime or spend a day in prison, no matter how much destruction their poor choice wrought.

That is why, having no rules and regulation at all doesn't work. You will see the worst of human behavior, because no one holds unvaccinated people accountable for their choices. Thousands of people sick, dozens of babies dead, all because of choices the unvaccinated made*. But those victims had rights too, and by not vaccinating, you infringe on them.

With accountability, I would have little problem with people not getting vaccinations, since if a child they know dies and we can prove that unvaccinated person carried the disease to the child, then they could be sued by the other family and wages garnished for the rest of their life. You'd see rates of vaccination go way up once people realize they will be held accountable for their choices.

*Obviously all this refers to people without legitimate medical excuses/allergies that prevent them from getting vaccinated.

Hi Jen, nice to hear from you...
Please dont assume I have no compassion for children and adults adversely affected by immunisations. I am always very sad by that occurence. I am also saddened when children and adults die from vaccine preventable disease. Why do you choose to think that one is a greater tragedy than the other?

1. Inability to use line breaks or block quotes to format his posts.
2. Conspiracy theories on censorship
3. CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL
4. Exclamation points!!1!!!!!!1!
5. Mensa member

Kook bingo! I've got a bingo on Chris Edwards! Where's my prize?

I hope regulars here will forgive me for repeating the obvious, but...

Rubella is one of several diseases that have no animal reservoir. In other words, all wild viruses are produced by human cells. This means that we could eliminate them permanently if enough people were vaccinated. For example, no one would get rubella, congenital rubella syndrome would be consigned to history, and no one would need to be vaccinated against rubella ever again.

Considering the proven safety record of vaccines, I think eliminating rubella, measles, polio, hepatitis B and a number of other diseases is a worthy goal.

Orac, aka BIG PHARMA'S BIG MOUTH is in denial now, his main piece of evidence, the Dr.Thorson research that exonerates vaccines as the cause of autism is about to be thrown out the let's tell a LIE story Big Pharma window, or at least it will be looked at a lot closer, and raise even more suspicion. If there is anyone out there following this story and still thinks that the CDC, and Big Pharma is going to come clean on the travesty imposed on the children then they need to quite frankly get a brain scan to see if they have something up there.

OMG - I mean, the travesty of it all. The elimination of Smallpox, the near eradication of polio, the 95%+ decrease in incidences of measles, mumps, rubella, etc....

Oh yeah - horrible.....

@victor pavlovic,
Poe? If not, please read the half dozen (at least) posts explaining that Thorsen's alleged crime has nothing whatever to do with the science. And the study in which Thorsen was a minor player was corroborated by other research.

Reading for comprehension is a good idea.

victor pavlovic, what about the other more than two dozen studies that did not include Thorsen?

Orac, aka BIG PHARMA'S BIG MOUTH is in denial now,...

Pharma shill gambit; immediate loss of credibilty.

...his main piece of evidence,...

No.

...the Dr.Thorson research...

It's not Dr. Thorson's research, If you had read the OP you would know that he was a supporting player.

...that exonerates vaccines as the cause of autism is about to be thrown out...

Actually the research has not been called into question as a result of this because the charges don't concern scientific fraud, they concern financial crimes. If you learned that a company had an employee who stole money from it (essentially what Thorson is accused of)would you assume from that that their products were shoddy?

...the let's tell a LIE story Big Pharma window,...

You suck at this.

...or at least it will be looked at a lot closer,...

Nothing wrong with that.

...and raise even more suspicion.

Confirm ignorant preconceptions is nearer the mark.

If there is anyone out there following this story and still thinks that the CDC, and Big Pharma is going to come clean on the travesty imposed on the children...

You mean the dramatically improved chances of reaching the age of 20 alive and well?

...then they need to quite frankly get a brain scan to see if they have something up there.

Self awareness is not your strong suit is it?

@ Krebiozen: Polio is very close to being eradicated in the world. This year to date, there are 81 confirmed cases worldwide...as opposed to an estimated 350,000 cases of paralytic polio in 125 countries worldwide in 1988.

Also in 1988, the governing body of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a goal of global eradication of polio by 2000. Due to wars and civil unrest in many of the countries where polio was endemic, that goal was not met.

You can find information about the intensive international efforts to eradicate polio worldwide and see weekly reports of the exact locations of new cases by keying in:

Global Polio Eradication Initiative

Children enjoy the benefit of not having birth defects thanks to other children being vaccinated against Rubella.

Pregnant women cannot be vaccinated against Rubella. It's a live vaccine.

"Next, Why does my daughter need a Rubella vaccination before puberty? My understanding is that Rubella is only harmful to developing fetuses? Not two year old girls.
If you feel its a matter of "Herd Immunity" and my daughter is somehow required to protect some unknown mysterious pregnant woman and her child, I have only one thing to say to you. "Entitled to life, liberty..."

So you don't believe its worthwhile getting your two year old daughter vaccinated to protect "some unknown mysterious pregnant woman". What if that pregnant woman was your sister? Or your best friend's wife? Your child's teacher who may be one of the those who don't respond to the vaccine? If you knew the woman, would you have any more compassion for her? Or is it still simply a case of better yours than mine?

"So by forcing my child to carry any (as in .01%) risk for a vaccine which does not directly effect her health in any way you are removing her of her constitutional rights. Children have a right to life too. She should never have to endure risk to preserve the herd unless she personally has chosen said risk. I would never choose it for her."

Honestly, I have my doubts that you'll get your daughter vaccinated when she's ten or any age and even if you do, she may no respond. So how will you view your decision if one day she is the pregnant woman infected with rubella because of another parent who didn't feel their child needed to be vaccinated for a disease that "is only harmful to developing fetuses"?

"Next, Why does my daughter need a Rubella vaccination before puberty? My understanding is that Rubella is only harmful to developing fetuses? Not two year old girls."

Just curious -- do I understand you to say that you will deny your child protection against two diseases that are a threat to her (measles itself may have a 0.01% chance of *death*), on the grouds that the third component of the vaccine *might* contribute to the health of society more than to her health?

Allow me to correct my self. Measles has *at least* a 0.01% chance of death and may have as much as a 0.1% chance.

Cerise:

What if that pregnant woman was your sister? Or your best friend's wife?

Or his wife? Often times during the 1960s epidemic the women were infected by their own children who picked up the infection from school.

Next, Why does my daughter need a Rubella vaccination before puberty? My understanding is that Rubella is only harmful to developing fetuses? Not two year old girls."

All the responses to this really exposed how. Simplistically naïve of a comment it was. If that is the level of thought that ChrisE uses, it explains why he is so bloody wrong.

With regard to rubella vaccine:

Prior to licensing and availability of Rubella vaccine in 1969, The United States experienced yearly outbreaks of the disease and the resulting births of children born with CRS (Congenital Rubella Syndrome).

During the Rubella epidemic in the United States 1964-1965:

12.5 million cases

2,000 encephalitis cases

11,250 abortions (surgical and spontaneous)

2,100 neonatal deaths

20,000 CRS cases

The 20,000 CRS cases resulted in the following congenital disabilities:

deafness-11,6000

blindness-3,580

mental retardation-1,800

Other infants whose mother were exposed during pregnancy had increased risk of bone lesions, severe cardiac anomalies, microcephaly, splenomegally, liver impairments and thrombocytopenia with purpura. Following children exposed in utero to Rubella revealed increase risk for diabetes mellitus, progressive encephalopathy, autism and impaired cell-mediated immunity.

Rubella was placed on the "National Notifiable Disease List" in 1966 for accurate case surveillance by public health investigators.

When the rubella vaccine was licensed in 1969, there were 57,686 cases reported. Fourteen years after rubella vaccine was licensed (1983) less than 1,000 cases were reported.

The rubella vaccine is highly effective; > 95 % of vaccinees > 12 month of age and older have immunity after one dose of rubella vaccine. > 90 % of people tested 15 years after receiving the vaccine have immunity. Follow-up studies indicate long-term, probably lifetime immunity (CDC Pink Book-Rubella)

I think I had like six extra rubella vaccines in one year, 'cause my university kept losing/not receiving my medical records. Pretty sure I'd have noticed any side effects in that one.

/useless anecdote, n=1

@101
I did consider adding that to my comment but I assumed Chris E's wife is fully vaccinated with a titre regarded as protective or else he wouldn't have been so indifferent about getting his own daughter vaccinated to protect "some unknown mysterious pregnant woman". Or at least I would hope he'd be as concerned about the health and development of his expected child as he is about his daughter.

lilady:

Thanks for the info about rubella. If you compare the numbers to those in the Thalidomide tragedy, you'll see that the 1964-5 epidemic actually was worse.

Thalidomide - 10-20 000 affected infants world-wide over a four year period
Congenital rubella syndrome - 20 000 infants in one year in the USA alone.

How many antivaxers are going to accept responsibility for a Thalidomide-like disaster if they have their way?

T. Bruce McNeely

How many antivaxers are going to accept responsibility for a Thalidomide-like disaster if they have their way?

Somewhere between none and zero.

I noticed Chris E. has not returned - probably because we were unconvinced by him waving his Mensa membership.

Sid @#63!
You used immunize.org and CDC doctors and vaccine experts to prove your point?

I'm confused...I thought they would be the last sources you would use, but it's good to see you went to the right place for information this time.

Go back and keep reading, please.

I a bit confused I thought this was about informed consent . I looked at the 20 second add. All it said was be "Be informed" I am not sure what is wrong with being informed. I know what is in my kids cereal. I am told about the procedures for any surgery and the risks. I know that if I am pregnant that I shouldn't ride a roller coaster. I mean both sides can spew sites and both sides can sight peer reviewed research. Does the AAP and CDC and FDA have something to hide? Then why can't I know about possible side affects? And what is in the vaccines ? What is in them any ways ?? I've done my research on both sides, months in fact. But my feeling is this: If your child and my child where swimming in the ocean and a large wave came and swept them out to sea, you could only save one child whose child will that be?? I'll be saving mine, thank you.

I am bit confused! I thought this was about informed consent. I looked at the 20 second add. All it said was be "Be informed" I am not sure what is wrong with being informed. I know what is in my kids cereal. I am told about the procedures for any surgery and the risks. I know that if I am pregnant that I shouldn't ride a roller coaster. I mean both sides can spew sites and both sides can sight peer reviewed research. Does the AAP and CDC and FDA have something to hide? Then why can't I know about possible side affects? And what is in the vaccines ? What is in them any ways ??

@ mama shaw: Possible side effects are available on the VIS (Vaccine Information Sheet) that should be provided to the parent before the child is immunized. All the VIS for all the Recommended Childhood Vaccines are available on the internet at Immunize.org.

You could also ask your child's physician for the package insert to see what other ingredients are in the vaccine...to keep the vaccine stabilized and at full strength.

They're also available at nvic.org

I looked at the 20 second add. All it said was be "Be informed"

No, it said "Know the Risks" and directed one to the poorly lit corners Fear Alley as a way of remedying this marketed lacuna, along with a pretty lame attempt at flag-waving.

*corners of

ask your child's physician for the package insert to see what other ingredients are in the vaccine...to keep the vaccine stabilized and at full strength.

...otherwise it may just pop back into a full born human fetus, an African green monkey, or a chicken.

I love our trolls circular logic:

Current vaccination policies have reduced incidence of disease by upwards of 95% (or more), thus making vaccines unnecessary (or using the false dichodomy of "side effects are worse than the disease" or the "chances of catching the disease don't warrant vaccination.")

Of course, if vaccines were discontinued before eradication - over time disease incidence would return to historical levels (not overnight, of course) - especially in light of the ease of international travel (which has resulted in many of the current outbreaks of diseases in this country).

So trolls, what level of incidence would be acceptable to you to start recommending vaccination? Serious question - since in general you're downplaying these diseases because of their rarity (which was a result of the very vaccination policies you are railing against).

What exactly is your problem with the current eradication program? If we were able to eliminate the current crop of human-only diseases (measles & polio come to mind), wouldn't we be able to discontinue use of the vaccines without any threat to public safety?

Absolutely the AAP have something to hide - that's why the package inserts list all the ingredients and every reported problem that's ever occurred. Doesn't that look like a cover-up to you?

@ Narad: "directed to one of the poorly lit corners of Fear Alley"**

Welcome to my world! Where I know every friggen juice bar, book store, and vitamin shop. It ain't pretty!

On a more serious note, what motivates me to uncover the talking points and sales techniques of "Fear Alley" is, because in some obscene way, they appear to be diametrically opposite from I have studied, value, and have tried to apply in my own work and life: approaching *reality* through science, pushing people towards emotional independence _and_ a liberal education, using language to enlighten rather than "en-darken", and imagining a fair marketplace of products, as well as of *ideas*.

It amazes me that *more than 100 years after Collier's* nonsense like this is still exists and that a vanishingly small coterie of deranged "experts" can create so much mischief on an international scale. In more than one area of research ( vax, HIV/AIDS) Whew! I need a drink.

** still laughing!

On the First Amendment.

The shouting fire in a theater applies here.

Arguments against vaccines or the vaccination process is the same, and in a net universe of millions, far more dangerous than in a theater of a couple of hundred.

j.

British Medical Journal runs news story about the call to pull ads.

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d2639.extract

I can only post the extract - needs subscription to see full article.

"Vaccines are safe." NO THEY AREN'T.
"Diseases like measles and pertussis (whooping cough) can have
serious consequences, including seizures, brain damage and even
death." SO DO VACCINES.
Posted by: michele | April 14, 2011 1:32 AM
WARNING!!!: Being alive and healthy lifestyles can cause siezures, brain damage, and even death FFS!!! EVEN EBOLA AND LEPROSY OF THE GENITALS AND EVEN TINY BOOBOOS THAT EVENTUALLY CAUSE DEATH FFS!!! Quickly, please, place 6,23x10^23 molecules HCN into 6,23x10^24 molecule purified H2O and divide your mix back into a bigger container repeat 30x then drink it and you will avoid all that uneccesary suffering and even pills being thrown at U by REALLYBIGPharma F.F.SAKE!!
100% guaranteed FFSaaaaaaakes!! I only want to avoid needless suffering sob sob cry ffs.
AltruisticAllan

[citation needed]

One wonders whether mikmik is a bot, having simply copied two prior comments from other posters.