My wife is a naturopathic doctor and midwife who serves the communities of Santa Monica, Venice, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Beverly Hills and Calabasas, among others. These are the wealthiest, whitest enclaves of Los Angeles. As a result, they are the the areas with the highest incidence of measles and pertussis in the United States. Further, she teaches a vaccine workshop every two months - what the vaccine schedule is, what it used to be, how long the vaccines are effective, the risks you take by not vaccinating your children, what you can do to protect your unvaccinated child's health, what you need to do to protect the health of your community, etc. In addition to her doctorate, she also has a bachelor's in math. Her father, a Ph. D organic chemist, is lead scientist for a multinational testing firm and holds eight patents related to diabetes testing. And while those on the militant science side love to deride her school because she had to take two courses in homeopathy, those on the woo side love to deride her school because she had to take a full year of gross lab, complete with cadaver studies. She doesn't spend a lot of time on "the internet." I do. In other words, we're pretty much at ground zero of this debate 24-7. And I gotta tell ya - everybody wringing their hands and linking to "jennymccarthybodycount.com" isn't helping, isn't making anyone change their minds, and isn't useful. You know how everyone derides /r/atheism for being a circlejerk full of meanies who have no interest in understanding the faithful? It's like that. REASONS PARENTS DO NOT VACCINATE THEIR KIDS - The vaccine schedule is roughly three times as deep as it was when you were a kid and all the new vaccines are made by for-profit companies. Are they likely harmless? Probably. But the studies done by the FDA do not guarantee this to the same degree as, say, heart medication. Lipitor has been implicated in up to 80 deaths; Merck paid settlements on 3500 deaths with Vioxx, settled with 27,000 individual patients for heart attacks, and was implicated in the deaths of 28,000 people by the FDA. This was a drug that had full clinical approval and was being taken by 2 million people when it was pulled. - The world is full of toxins that "we" used to endorse as safe. Asbestos, lead paint, CFCs, DDT, you name it - anything that was once profitable and is now toxic is a counterargument waiting to happen for any vaccine skeptic. - They aren't stupid, they're scared. Go do two Google searches real quick: Look up " varicella vaccine risks " and survey what you see. Now go look up " chicken pox vaccine risks " and compare. Notice how the anti-vax contingent's information is much more readable, much more accessible, and much more human-scale? If you're already in a position of not trusting the FDA, and the FDA's website is full of doublespeak and mumbo-jumbo that doesn't tell you anything human, do you really think you're going to dodge "compassionatesouls.com?" - Stuff we grew up with is now considered HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD BAD. Remember chicken pox? It sucked, but not that hard. The mortality rate from chicken pox in 1995, incidentally, was 0.0023%. That's 90 deaths from 3.9 million cases. We've been vaccinating pretty much every kid now and that 90 deaths dropped to 15 deaths in 2007. In exchange for those 75 saved children, on the other hand, things have gotten completely fucking out of hand: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/11/the-chicke... That's right: have you kid hang out with someone with chicken pox and you are "playing russian roulette with his health." - The vaccine schedule is arbitrary as fuck. Canada does a different one. Every country in Europe does a different one. Every country in Asia does a different one. Ever notice how your Asian friends all have smallpox vaccination scars? That's because their parent countries still consider smallpox a viable threat - it is, after all, one of the most easily weaponizable pathogens we know of and it's a picture-perfect bio-war agent. We still have some, Russia still has some, and 50 different strains have been gene sequenced so a clever lab could build smallpox from scratch. Yet I can't get me a smallpox vaccine without joining the Army. How 'bout Anthrax? We've seen that sonofabitch weaponized. Fuckin' Tom Brokaw got some in the mail. Where'd he get it from? Well, although no one has been able to definitively charge anyone, DHS slandered the fuck out of a scientist at USAAMRID, same place you'd get Smallpox from. So can I get an Anthrax vaccine? Not without jumping through a shitload of hoops. Keep this in mind as well - that thing that makes global warming skeptics believe more and more fervently in meaningless shreds of data the more you attack their facts? Same thing happens to the vaccine skeptics. They're not stupid. They just judge your data as invalid. The more you harp on your data, the less attention they pay to you. These are people who are experiencing a great deal of stigma and putting their children's health at risk (don't think they don't know it) because of the distrust and fear they have of the lobbying arm of "big medicine." They fucking cry out for education, and what everyone on this page (and every other page I've ever commented on) wants to tell them is "STFU>FO take your shot." "Denial is a powerful force." The minute you say that, you're flipping off your empathy switch. That helps no one. /rant out
The anti-vax "people" that tried to consult us weren't trying to "consult" you, they were trying to get you to join their side. That's what it's about - "sides." You're doing it now - "our side" and "their side." "Their side" is actually pretty militant when it gets down to it, by the way - the act of not vaccinating your kid is kind of a pain in the ass. I don't know if you had Jehovah's Witnesses who never got to go on field trips like I did, but if you don't have a vaccination on record with your school, you don't get to do a lot of shit. Yeah, there are people who just "knew that vaccinations caused autism, period." These are the ones who can usually be flipped at the doctor's office in about thirty seconds. It goes something like this: "Doctor, I don't want my kid to be vaccinated. Vaccines cause autism." "Actually, they don't. The whole argument was started by an English doctor named Andrew Wakefield who published an article that has since been retracted. His license was rescinded for falsifying data and for failing to disclose his financial incentives for causing a vaccine scare. Jenny McCarthy's son doesn't even have autism and even she's backed off her claims. Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy's Rolling Stone article has been widely discredited and the agent he implicated - Thimerosal - had been completely absent from vaccines for six years when he wrote it, and that was seven years ago. And while there are still some people who believe that vaccines cause autism, there isn't anyone who thinks that vaccines cause autism. So - if you have religious objections against vaccines that's one thing but if you have intellectual objections against vaccines, by all means state them because I'm just getting warmed up." If you've got an inkling that vaccines are bad, it doesn't take much to disprove it. But if you've got a firmly-held belief that vaccines are bad, being dismissive is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Btw, we had a couple of Jehova's witnesses that couldn't go on trips with us as well as a girl that couldn't sing secular songs with us in the classroom and thus had to sit in the hallway while we all did. -What do you think had the potential to scar her more, the hallway or signing frosty the snowman? -Firmly held beliefs can be very weird. If you've got an inkling that vaccines are bad, it doesn't take much to disprove it. But if you've got a firmly-held belief that vaccines are bad, being dismissive is exactly the wrong thing to do. -Firmly held beliefs are both wonderful and scary things, aren't they?! Death threats?? WTF? I just asked my wife what she thought of the whole anti-vax scene and her immediate reply was, "BPA, pesticides and antibiotics (increased bacterial resistance) these are the quiet enemies parents should be more concerned with, not vaccinations". Sorry if a bit erratic. NYE resolution to not eat meat -still in check. NYE resolution to only have 2 drinks -gone.
Fuck. I hate to say I told you so, but... http://hubski.com/pub?id=12384 Hopefully it lasted two or three days so you could at least say you tried! ;)
I think the frustration from the professionals' standpoint is that we live in a society where everyone gets their say, no matter how ill-founded. The CDC changed a few vaccine guidelines in response to parents' concerns a few years ago, with the caveat that the it was safe already, but these changes would make it "safer". Basically their point was that they were bending to political pressure to solve a political problem, when no actual science problem existed. The same thing happened with the removal of thimerosal. The public didn't react with gratitude; they reacted with "See, I told you they were lying. Why would they change if there wasn't a problem?!" This is what is begotten from compromise. Everyone's opinions count, to be sure, but in our society we often confound opinion and belief. Not everyone's beliefs count. Many beliefs are down right stupid. Unfortunately, news organizations care about ad dollars, so they cater their coverage of these issues to reflect the highest ratings, not the most well supported position.
You're changing the subject. You read that whole rant up there about the actual, rational objections of the anti-vax movement and your answer is "denial is a powerful force." THERE IS NO DENIAL HERE. There are legitimate concerns that are not easily answered. It's all about risk management - most of the anti-vax crowd at this point is choosing a different method of risk management than the one you choose. Their way is hell on herd immunity and, from a statistical standpoint, puts their kids at much higher risk for several diseases that are largely unfamiliar to their peers. Their way, however, sure as hell isn't "denial." Meanwhile, your "data" is STRAIGHT UP FUCKING WRONG. Thimerosal was removed from vaccines as a preventative measure at the urging of the American Academy of Pediatrics. This isn't a bunch of entitled parents whining, this is the industry group that bloody well better know what's up urging a change based on safety. This change was based on studies done by the FDA that demonstrated that, yes indeed, with clumsy formulation you could push mercury levels above what was theoretically a good idea for small children. Yeah, you could likely do the same thing by feeding them too much tunafish... but then, we aren't insisting all babies eat tunafish. "The public" didn't really get going until Jenny McCarthy, who didn't even have a son until 2002, whose son didn't even get diagnosed until 2005, and whose life didn't hit the books until September 2007. Yet you choose to see this as a "facts vs opinions" debate. Here's a fact: The Lancet, a widely-respected (if not THE most widely respected) medical journal, published a paper theoretically linking vaccines and autism. Here's an opinion: That was a terrible fucking thing for The Lancet to do. However, if you're going to hold something up to the standard of a peer-reviewed medical journal, the "autism scare" passed muster from 1999 until 2010. The fact that vaccine skepticism still exists even now should indicate to you that it's about more than autism. (and always has been: http://www.dollkind.com/raggedy-ann-doll.shtml )
Peer review evaluates data and the potential impact of a study, and then decides if its publication worthy. What a peer reviewer very rarely does is to say, "Prove to me these data aren't fraudulent". One operates from a perspective that the data were gathered in good faith unless there is a reason to suspect otherwise. In the case of that study, the data weren't merely massaged and carefully selected to make a link that might not exist, they were actually fraudulent. They were made up with the specific intent to manipulate the peer review honor system so that some asshole lawyer and his clients could win a lawsuit against a drug company. It was fraud, plain and simple, and yet some people still look to it as if it is as good as any other study in any peer reviewed journal. Some things the science community is defenseless against. Fraud is one, but then I suppose most industries are vulnerable to fraud. Meanwhile, you are incorrect. Thimerosal has never ever been linked to any disease, and it is completely nonsense to compare it mercury found in tuna. Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, as opposed to methylmercury, which is what's found in fish and is toxic. Just because they contain the common element mercury doesn't mean they exert any type of common effect. One need only to look as far as methyl vs. ethyl alcohol to know that. It was removed as a political move, because doctors really get sick of being sued, which happens to them again and again whether they are at fault or not. These people are deniers in the same sense that people who don't believe in global warming, evolution or the holocaust are deniers. The data are there to evaluate and people chose to believe the opposite of what they say. In this case they say that the best way to protect your child and everyone else's from disease is to get vaccines. They don't see it that way so they must, by definition, be denying that this is the truth. The fact that they have concerns and medical data aren't super easy for lay people to understand doesn't change anything. All deniers have concerns of one sort or another.
As a precautionary measure, the Public Health Service (including the FDA, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics issued two Joint Statements, urging vaccine manufacturers to reduce or eliminate thimerosal in vaccines as soon as possible (CDC 1999) and (CDC 2000). The U.S. Public Health Service agencies have collaborated with various investigators to initiate further studies to better understand any possible health effects from exposure to thimerosal in vaccines." http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability... I never said it was linked to any disease. I said the FDA pulled it because of potential build-up. I just quoted you two paragraphs from the FDA. In order for me (or my wife) to explain this properly to someone afraid of vaccines, I have to explain enough organic chemistry to point out that ethyl mercury and methyl mercury aren't the same... and then they're likely to point out that while polypropylene glycol and polyethylene glycol aren't the same, either, both of them are banned in Scandinavia as food additives but only one of them is in the US. That's not denialism. That's people - apparently, like you - who think that anyone who doesn't have an organic chemistry degree shouldn't be allowed to point out that there are contradictions in behavior of the very organizations that are supposed to protect them. "These people" are likely your friends and neighbors. They'd likely turn to you for advice. Your advice, as I've pointed out, is "STFU>FO." And that's why you never change their mind.
This is not an existential question. This is a "there's lots of conflicting data and I don't know who to trust" question. The way you deal with those types of questions is by saying "well, this means this, this means that, and in my professional opinion as a biologist there are bigger things to worry about than vaccines." The fact that we're not even arguing about whether vaccines are good or not says a lot: all I'm saying is "you're arguing wrong" and you keep coming back with "DENIALISTS WILL NEVER CHANGE THEIR MIND." Change the tense - I'm willing to agree that no amount of argument from you will change their mind because you see them as infidels.
I personally have limited faith in the FDA. I do not fault anyone for having some skepticism in our profit driven pharmaceutical/medical machine. More to say...
Has anyone ever considered her a credible person? Did anybody even really remember her after, oh, 1997? Is she a person of standing? Is she noteworthy in any way? So when she stands up and says "vaccines gave my baby autism" why do we give her more credit than Anne Heche getting on Larry King and saying she's a half-alien named Celestia? http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/06/lkl.00.html ...I'm gonna go with "because people are scared to death of autism and they don't trust the medical establishment." So we're presented with two choices: 1) Restore the peoples' trust in the FDA (after all, they did catch thalidomide, which Europe didn't) or 2) Make fun of anyone who doesn't and call them doodyheads. "Make fun of anyone who doesn't and call them doodyheads" is the chosen path for all rebellion. They did it to Martin Luther King. Shit, they did it to Martin Luther. As a result, you end up drawing a comparison between Jenny McCarthy and Martin Luther. Does anyone really think Jenny McCarthy killed all those kids? Really? I think it's just an easy way to not have to think about it. The more easily you can dismiss something that strikes you as irrational, the more easily you can pretend to be wholly rational yourself.
I wholeheartedly agree that the #1 issue here is faith in the FDA. Unfortunately this country is in a love affair with profit-driven everything, including determination of federal safety regulations. I am in biomedical research, and friends and family have asked me about vaccines. I never mock them. Basically, I tell them that I am not completely trustful of the FDA, or some western medical practices, particularly the over-prescription of pharmaceuticals. However, there are some vaccines that have a long track record of safety, and are critical to prevent some deadly and debilitating diseases. I tell them that I think it would be dangerous to skip those vaccines. I am not very familiar with the schedule, but I have been told that it has gotten more aggressive. I'm going to consider spacing it out as much as possible with our kid. It seems common sense that stacking immune stimulants could be worse than spreading them out. But, I might be wrong on that, and I'm going to look into it. Let me know if you or your wife knows anything about this. I know that taking the time to understand people's fears, and educating them is a more effective way to deal with the issue than mocking and debating them. However, although people have certain rights even when based in irrational belief, those rights diminish when it hurts other people. My willingness to be understanding of irrational belief is going to drop pretty quick when someone is risking the health of my child. But absolutely, we need to steer the entire conversation onto greater scrutiny of the FDA, and getting the fuck tons of money that influence the FDA out. In fact, I think our #1 problem in this country is corporate influence of policy. So many of our problems spin out of that.
And that buffoonery - which I've been having out with #b_b - is the problem. Just so you're aware, spacing out your kids' vaccine schedules officially makes you a part of the "anti-vax movement." There are pediatricians who will refuse to see your kids. It is my formal opinion that any product that requires a prescription to purchase should not be allowed to advertise. If I could point at one point in history where it all started spinning out of control, that's the spot I'd point at.
I can live with that if there's good reason for it. Which I would like to know more about, but I'm not getting much on PubMed. It is my formal opinion that any product that requires a prescription to purchase should not be allowed to advertise. It's also the formal opinion of every government in the World except for ours and New Zealand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_marketing#To_use... As an aside, for anyone that doubts the value of the chicken pox vaccine, they should talk to someone that has neuropathy due to shingles. My grandmother lived with excruciating pain for a decade. I'm glad I caught the chicken pox, although I was 18 and it was hell on earth.