In light of recent outbreaks of measles and other vaccine preventable illnesses, and the refusal of anti-vaccination advocates to acknowledge the problem, I thought it was past time for this post.
Dear parents,
You are being lied to. The people who claim to be acting in the best interests of your children are putting their health and even lives at risk.
They say that measles isn’t a deadly disease.
But it is.
They say that chickenpox isn’t that big of a deal.
But it can be.
They say that the flu isn’t dangerous.
But it is.
They say that whooping cough isn’t so bad for kids to get.
But it is.
They say that vaccines aren’t that effective at preventing disease.
But 3 million children’s lives are saved every year by vaccination, and 2 million die every year from vaccine-preventable illnesses.
They say that “natural infection” is better than vaccination.
But they’re wrong.
They say that vaccines haven’t been rigorously tested for safety.
But vaccines are subjected to a higher level of scrutiny than any other medicine. For example, this study tested the safety and effectiveness of the pneumococcal vaccine in more than 37,868 children.
They will say that doctors won’t admit there are any side effects to vaccines.
But the side effects are well known, and except in very rare cases quite mild.
They say that the MMR vaccine causes autism.
It doesn’t. (The question of whether vaccines cause autism has been investigated in study after study, and they all show overwhelming evidence that they don’t.)
They say that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism.
It doesn’t, and it hasn’t been in most vaccines since 2001 anyway.
They say that the aluminum in vaccines (an adjuvant, or component of the vaccine designed to enhance the body’s immune response) is harmful to children.
But children consume more aluminum in natural breast milk than they do in vaccines, and far higher levels of aluminum are needed to cause harm.
They say that the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (and/or the “vaccine court”) proves that vaccines are harmful.
It doesn’t.
They say that the normal vaccine schedule is too difficult for a child’s immune system to cope with.
It isn’t.
They say that if other people’s children are vaccinated, there’s no need for their children to get vaccinated.
This is one of the most despicable arguments I’ve ever heard. First of all, vaccines aren’t always 100% effective, so it is possible for a vaccinated child to still become infected if exposed to a disease. Worse, there are some people who can’t receive vaccinations, because they are immune deficient, or because they are allergic to some component. Those people depend upon herd immunity to protect them. People who choose not to vaccinate their children against infectious diseases are putting not only their own children at risk, but also other people’s children.
They say that ‘natural’, ‘alternative’ remedies are better than science-based medicine.
They aren’t.
The truth is that vaccines are one of our greatest public health achievements, and one of the most important things you can do to protect your child.
I can predict exactly the sort of response I will be getting from the anti-vaccine activists. Because they can’t argue effectively against the overwhelming scientific evidence about vaccines, they will say that I work for Big Pharma. (I don’t and never have). They will say that I’m not a scientist (I am), and that I’m an “Agent 666” (I don’t know what that is, but I’m pretty sure that I’m not one).
None of these things are true, but they are the reflexive response by the anti-vaccine activists because they have no facts to back up their position. On some level, deep down, they must understand this, and are afraid of the implications, so they attack the messenger.
Why are they lying to you? Some are doing it for profit, trying to sell their alternative remedies by making you afraid of science-based medicine. I’m sure that many others within the anti-vaccine movement have genuinely good intentions, and do honestly believe that vaccines are harmful. But as a certain astrophysicist recently said “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it”. In the case of vaccine truthers, this is not a good thing. Good intentions will not prevent microbes from infecting and harming people, and the message that vaccines are dangerous is having dire consequences. There are outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses now throughout the United States because of unvaccinated children.
In only one respect is my message the same as the anti-vaccine activists: Educate yourself. But while they mean “Read all these websites that support our position”, I suggest you should learn what the scientific community says. Learn how the immune system works. Go read about the history of disease before vaccines, and talk to older people who grew up when polio, measles, and other diseases couldn’t be prevented. Go read about how vaccines are developed, and how they work. Read about Andrew Wakefield, and how his paper that claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism has been withdrawn, and his medical license has been revoked. Read the numerous, huge studies that have explicitly examined whether autism is caused by the vaccine…and found nothing. (While you’re at it, read about the ongoing research to determine what IS the cause—or causes —of autism, which is not helped by people continuing to insist that vaccines cause it).
That may seem like a lot of work, and scientific papers can seem intimidating to read. But reading scientific articles is a skill that can be mastered. Here’s a great resource for evaluating medical information on the internet, and I wrote a guide for non-scientists on how to read and understand the scientific literature. You owe it to your children, and to yourself, to thoroughly investigate the issue. Don’t rely on what some stranger on the internet says (not even me!). Read the scientific studies that I linked to in this post for yourself, and talk to your pediatricians. Despite what the anti-vaccine community is telling you, you don’t need to be afraid of the vaccines. You should instead be afraid of what happens without them.
Edited to add: This video is an outstanding summary of many of these issues. I encourage you to watch it.
“Humans try to make sense of the world by seeing patterns. When they see a disease or condition that tends to appear around the time a child is a year or so old, as autism does, and that is also the age that kids get particular shots, they want to put those things together. Parents watch kids more carefully after they get shots. Sometimes they pick up on symptoms then. Just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean that one caused the other. This is why we need careful scientific studies.”
Note: For people coming via a direct link, please also feel free to participate in a follow-up discussion
here.
1/13/15: Edited to update broken hyperlinks. If you find any additional broken links, please don’t hesitate to let me know. –JR
4/19/16: Edited again to update more broken hyperlinks. If you find more, keep letting us know and we’ll keep fixing them. –CM
Violent metaphors 
Please get your children vaccinated my son was born with SCIDS(google it) . We no longer have epidemics because of the advancement of medicine. I would be devistated if because of one persons choice not to vaccinate their child it could cause the death of mine be a smart and unselfish person think of not just yourself but of the many people that can’t be protected from vaccines. Your poor choice could kill my son.
Sally, I’m very sorry for your son’s condition. However, I’m not so sure you truly understand what you are asking, making such a generalized plea as you have done.
I didn’t vaccinate my children based on family medical history. On my side, there are several close relatives who have had autoimmune diseases and seizures. My children were given some vaccines without my permission, and as I feared, one of them developed an autoimmune disease from one of the shots. The disease he developed is one that is listed as an adverse reaction on the manufacturer’s informational insert. Had my son not been given the vaccine, he would not have spent 3 days in the hospital with a life-threatening disease that caused his immune system to chew up his blood platelets faster than his body could produce them. He wouldn’t have had umpteen gazillion follow-up visits to check and make sure that the treatment for the disease (which had a whole set of potential risks of it’s own and caused him to spend an entire day while in hospital throwing up and pressing his little hands to his head because he was in so much pain, and there was absolutely NOTHING I could do to help him feel better) was working as it was supposed to. His immune system wouldn’t have been compromised. How do you keep a child healthy by compromising his immune system?
I’m sorry for your son’s condition. But you have to understand that there are more sides to this story. I won’t say that you have no right to ask it, but no one has the right to remove another parent’s right to say “no” in response to such a request. I’ll not risk my child having a relapse of that disease. I won’t risk my other child developing it, or one similar, or for either of them to have seizures. These are all documented reactions that some people can get. The problem with adverse reactions is that you can’t know it’ll happen until it happens. So parents are left to do their own research and make their decisions for their own families. I would never ask another parent to put something into their child’s body because I believed it would protect my child. Someone used the phrase “taking one for the team” in this instance. One of my children has already done that. I could have prevented it, had I stood my ground.
“I didn’t vaccinate my children based on family medical history.”
Then just like Sally you should be encouraging everyone to vaccinate to protect your family through community immunity.
“The disease he developed is one that is listed as an adverse reaction on the manufacturer’s informational insert. Had my son not been given the vaccine, he would not have spent 3 days in the hospital with a life-threatening disease that caused his immune system to chew up his blood platelets faster than his body could produce them.”
Which is why it is listed as a table injury. it is still a rare event, and was actually more common in the era before measles, mumps and rubella vaccination.
From http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com/2011/04/acute-thrombocytopenic-purpura-mmr-and.html :
Yes she even says you need to rely on herd immunity for your children you not vaccinating is important so encourage others to help keep your kids safe!
As a mother of a child whom I sat with in the hospital for a week after an emergency surgery at the age of four months, I feel new vaccines have not been properly tested. You would definitely have a different out look on vaccines if your child received the rotoshield vaccine and within 4 days ended up in the hospital for intersuception (the floating intestines attached to the stomach wall causing them to telescope within themselves to create a blockage). They pulled the vaccine off the market a week after his discharge from the hospital do to it causing intersuception. It pains me to think that I could have prevented all of his suffering and our being blindsided by the thought of the possibility of losing our only child by saying no to new vaccine that was supposed to help prevent rotovirus. Now they have come out with a new vaccine for rotavirus I certainly hope for those mothers out there who choose to give their child this specific vaccine that it causes a whole lot less heartache than the last one they put on the market.
I’m very sorry for your child’s suffering! I hope he or she is doing well today.
“I feel new vaccines have not been properly tested”
Do you feel that because you’ve researched the testing regimen for new vaccines and compared it to an acceptable standard, or is it something you feel in your gut? I’m honestly curious; two paths to the same conclusion call for two vastly different conversations.
“You would definitely have a different out look on vaccines if your child received the rotoshield vaccine and within 4 days ended up in the hospital for intersuception”
That’s certainly possible. On the other hand, do you feel that such an experience might compromise my objectivity? Or that it’s a substitute for an analytical assessment of the known risks and benefits?
“rotoshield vaccine”
I am so sorry for your experience. Trust me I know about hospitals (my son had open heart surgery a couple of years ago for a genetic cardiac disorder). He also ended up in the hospital after a bout with rotavirus, so the disease is not benign. He was one of the the 137,000 emergency department visits and 256,000 office visits that occurred in 1989. (by the way, that page lies… since the article is more than five years old and it is no longer free to download)
Yeah, the day before he had the seizure from dehydration he was seen by our family doctor because of the more than a week of rivers of poo, and refusal to drink pedialyte. The doctor noticed he was quite chipper so the kid must have been on the mend. The day after the kid got IV fluids at the hospital our family doctor called to apologize.
Unfortunately your child was one of the several who was injured by that vaccine. But the VAERS surveillance system did provide an alert that after several thousands of those vaccinated it ended up with a much too high rate of complication, and it was withdrawn in less than a year of use. More information here.
I CAN’T BELIEVE PARENTS WHO DON’T VACCINATE THEIR KIDS AREN’T CHARGED WITH MURDER. VACCINATE YOUR KIDS– THINK ABOUT OTHER KIDS, PEOPLE WITH COMPROMISED IMMUNE SYSTEMS AND PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT TO DIE BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO STUPID TO READ THE ACTUAL SCIENCE BEHIND VACCINATION. You’re putting your own kids at risk – that’s cool with you? Sick, sick, sick.
Here’s an interesting metaphor: I unknowingly contract HPV, have unprotected sex resulting in a woman contracting the virus, she develops cervix cancer, but no repercussions for me because I was relying on females to have had the vaccine and thus “herd immunity”. <—-What I think everytime an anti-vaccine proponent makes that argument.
Abstinence until marriage and then only having sex with your spouse would prevent and stop STDs and these other related cancers.
I assume that is exactly what you did.
What if the future spouse has HPV? How do you guarantee that your child’s future spouse is not infected?
“no sex before marriage and then only with your spouse”
You are welcome to follow that rule if you want.
As a public health plan, that’s never worked.
Has any civilzation with more than 200 people ever been able to do that?
You might just as well say, “No body fluid contact ever. That’s the only way to be truly protected from STD’s. With artificial insemination andi IVF technology, skin contact is no longer needed, even for procreation.”
Or… We could use the information about human behavior and immunology that we do have (instead of fantasies about what someone thinks human behavior ought to be) to reduce the death and suffering that exists in the world.
Staying home would ensure you never get hit by a car
As a paramedic I can attest that even that isn’t strictly correct. I’ve been on several scene where a car ran into a house. Only dumb luck prevented anyone from getting hurt.
I guess it depends where you live but it wasn’t meant to be taken literal!
HPV is unfortunately a little different. If the woman does not get the vaccine (which I HIGHLY recommend), she is not protected.
Chris & Colin – good on you.
Thanks so much for this post–I fight the same battle every day with patients, and this is one of the most well-writted, evidence-backed arguments I have read. Love your blog!
I have read just now your post (and not beeing able to read exactly all the thousands of comments because my mother language is not english) and I have only a question: can you please suggest to me ONLY ONE study (please choose THE study that you consider best of all in this regards, so I don’t have to read hundreds of studies) that demonstrates that vaccines absolutely do not cause autism? Thank you very much.
That is impossible. One reason is that the groups who are campaigning against vaccines first could not decide if it was the thimerosal preservative or the MMR vaccine (which one of the several used on this globe was always unclear).
Then when studies came out on each mode, they decided to move the goalposts and say things like it was the other ingredients or the number of vaccines. And when those studies were done, they changed their minds again.
So the best thing is to review the articles in Vaccine Safety: Examine the Evidence, and try to read the above article. There is a review of the studies that analyzed many of the studies that you might find helpful: Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies (a pdf of the uncorrected proof).
To get a complete overview of what has been happening over the past two decades read The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin. You might be able to find a copy translated into your language.
Here is a good systematic review published in a reputable journal which concludes “The current literature does not suggest an association between ASD and the MMR vaccine; however, limited epidemiological evidence exists to rule out a link between a rare variant form of ASD and the MMR vaccine. Given the real risks of not vaccinating and that the risks and existence of variant ASD remain theoretical, current policies should continue to advocate the use of the MMR vaccine.”
Thank you!
There is proof, yes actual scientific proof to back up the fact that vaccines ARE THE PROBLEM. If you don’t open your mind, you won’t be guided towards reading any of that information.
What study proves that?
Journeyofaspirit,
Please explain what that proof is, why it is so conclusive to you, and why it is more conclusive than the hundreds of well designed studies published in high quality journals and confirmed by other authors/studies that You have read or written yourself.
There are well-established, credible Universities all over the world who have discovered the very real side effects of these vaccines (more than just a rash or fever). Many ill symptoms start way later on in life, and contribute to the growing number of many health problems.
“Universities all over the world who have discovered the very real side effects of these vaccines (more than just a rash or fever)”
Then you can list their PubMed indexed studies. Please do that.
There are (insert general statement here) in the world, with (no specific evidence here) (another general term here). You successfully defended the pint of this article, I’m sure your aunts neighbors friends son told you about the ‘credible sources’
http://www.healingwell.com/library/health/thompson2.asp
Journeyofaspirit,
Would you please explain why you found that more convincing than the hundreds of studies to the contrary.
Sure. Here’s why. All of those studies are supporting some type of political agenda, and I believe those who have nothing to gain from their finds, except to increase the well-being of all. I am a Humanitarian, and an herbalist coming from a long line of Cherokee healers. I believe we were created to naturally defend ourselves from viruses, just as animals were. We must also take account our mental and emotional health, to increase the power of our natural disease-asskicking-immunity.
Native healing techniques failed spectacularly to protect first nations people from the diseases brought to North America from Europe. Why should they work now if they didn’t then?
Maybe journeyofaspirit does not know that after Columbus’ arrival that 90% of the native people died within two centuries, mostly from diseases like smallpox and measles. Perhaps she/he should look up the reasons of the Whitman Massacre in 1847.
The natives weren’t prepared for that type of attack. And the government thrived on that and still does to this day.
We agree, the first nations people were not prepared for that kind of attack.
Why?
What was wrong with their “natural disease-asskicking-immunity?”
“And the government thrived on that and still does to this day.”
Which government?
Spain? England? Venezuela? Peru? Mexico? France? Brazil? Chile? Cuba? Haiti? Costa Rica? Suriname? Uruguay? Guatemala? Canada? Panama?
Be specific, and explain how it works.
Journeyofaspirit,
I really do appreciate you taking the time to answer.
Would you please cite the exact reasons that you think ” All of those studies are supporting some type of political agenda.” If the connection is that clear to you, then you must have smoking-gun evidence from at least a few of the most conclusive studies. What is that smoking-gun evidence you are holding?
What is the political agenda you think is being promoted by all the studies demonsrating effectiveness of vaccines from all over the world?
What political agenda is being promoted by those publishing the website you cited?
Is it profit? How are the people behind the website you cited paid?
What was wrong, do you suppose, with the “natural disease-asskicking-immunity” of those who died from bubonic plague, or smallpox, or influenza or polio or syphilis in the thousands of years (okay, millions, but let’s not quibble) before there was an industry to sell us the drugs and vaccines that keep us from dying of those things?
If I were to answer each and every one of your many questions, there would still sprout from your mind, more and more circular questions. Let me ask you a question for a change? (not asking for facts here, so you actually have to look into your own Inner Guidance system) Do you believe there is Intelligent Design within nature?
Journeyofaspirit,
I’m asking about your understanding of the immune system and how immune system research is done. I’d be happy to answer questions about my thoughts on the topic of this blog.
I take no offense at your question, and I don’t think it was meant with any sort of malice.
I just think it’s pretty far off topic.
However, if you really want to have a discussion about my religious beliefs, I will ask Dr Raff is she would be willing to convey to you a FB page where you can contact me.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled program…
I admit that I’m asking a lot of questions, but here they are:
1) What is the political agenda you think is being promoted by all the studies demonsrating effectiveness of vaccines from all over the world?
Would you please cite the exact reasons that you think ” All of those studies are supporting some type of political agenda.” If the connection is that clear to you, then you must have smoking-gun evidence from at least a few of the most conclusive studies. What is that smoking-gun evidence you are holding that is so convincing of this political agenda they are promoting?
2) What political agenda is being promoted by those publishing the website you cited?
Is it profit? How are the people behind the website you cited paid?
4) What was wrong, do you suppose, with the “natural disease-asskicking-immunity” of those who died from bubonic plague, or smallpox, or influenza or polio or syphilis in the thousands of years (okay, millions, but let’s not quibble) before there was an industry to sell us the drugs and vaccines that keep us from dying of those things?
So you’re unable to answer a question on the topic of your own beliefs? It has much to do with this discussion, from one natural human to another. I haven’t claimed any religion in 10 years. I’m a Humanitarian, is all.
Unable? No. If I was unclear, let me restate,
If you want to have a discussion about my religious beliefs, I will ask Dr Raff is she would be willing to convey to you a FB page where you can contact me.
Now, back to vaccines and the immune system.
Again, I said this has nothing to do with religion. Vaccines and the immune system: okay, vaccines work against the Natural Design for humanity.
And since you are comfortable discussing politics in this topic, then it’s safe to assume that it’s painfully obvious that politics has everything to do with mandatory vaccinations.
I asked if you believe in Intelligent Design, and you cannot answer. It’s the only question I asked, and it’s important because those who believe in it tend to have more faith in their own immune system, knowing they were created in a fashion that allows them to fight off many illnesses naturally. Those who do not believe in Intelligent design put more of their power into the Government’s hands, and into the Mainstream media. There you will be led to many pushy suggestions, all of which are meant to lead people into sickness, despair, and defeat. That’s all I’m going to say about this.
Journeyofaspirit,
Again, I appreciate your response. You are under no obligation to respond to me at all and I thank you for the time and effort. You’ve been civil and respectful to me, and that is also appreciated. I learn somethimg from almost everyone I meet, even online, and it’s much easier to do that through this sort of civil discourse.
You can see from many of my other posts that I’m interested in how people come to the conclusions they did about the immune system and vaccines. In fact, I’m more interested in that decision-making process than I am in arguing or even discussing whether those conclusions are accurate.
So I hope you will permit to ask just the one question, but it is the same question for each of the claims you’ve made. Since you made several specific claims, I hope you don’t think it’s argumentative or circular for me to ask the same question about each claim.
“vaccines work against the Natural Design for humanity.”
Can you please explain how you came to that conclusion?
“it’s painfully obvious that politics has everything to do with mandatory vaccinations.”
Can you please explain how you came to that conclusion?
“knowing they were created in a fashion that allows them to fight off many illnesses naturally.”
Can you please explain how you came to that conclusion?
“Those who do not believe in Intelligent design put more of their power into the Government’s hands, and into the Mainstream media.”
Can you please explain how you came to that conclusion?
“There (gov’t and mainstream media) you will be led to many pushy suggestions, all of which are meant to lead people into sickness, despair, and defeat.”
Can you please explain how you came to that conclusion?
As I’ve mentioned, you are obviously under not obligation to answer any or all of these, but since you wrote them I was hoping you might explain the decision making process that got you to those conclusions.
Sorry, but you spout quite a bit of nonsense here.
“Again, I said this has nothing to do with religion. Vaccines and the immune system: okay, vaccines work against the Natural Design for humanity.”
False. Actually the concept of vaccination was discovered by watching what happened to people who milked cows infected with cowpox. They suffered a small reaction and became immune to smallpox. Your vaunted “Natural Design” (as if Nature was able to design anything) already included the possibility of immunization through interspecies infection.
“And since you are comfortable discussing politics in this topic, then it’s safe to assume that it’s painfully obvious that politics has everything to do with mandatory vaccinations.”
WTF? That you have forcefully included politics in this issue and someone else responded to your arguments on that part DOESN’T make politics have any relationship with the vaccine issue. By the same rule, I could start talking about pink ponies and, if someone called me out on it, pink ponies would have something to do with vaccines. Complete nonsense, sorry.
“I asked if you believe in Intelligent Design, and you cannot answer.”
In my case, no: I don’t believe in Intelligent Design. Among different reasons, because science doesn’t work on beliefs. That’s the realm of religion and superstition.
” It’s the only question I asked, and it’s important because those who believe in it tend to have more faith in their own immune system,”
A faith that didn’t save Christians from the plague or tuberculosis in the Middle Ages. A faith that didn’t save anybody in the Americas from the flu. A faith that didn’t save anybody in Europe from syphilis. Until vaccines and other treatments were developed, that is.
Please spare me your faith. It doesn’t heal infections that the body isn’t able to recognize and fight quickly enough.
While we are at it, please explain how you can heal gangrene without previous vaccinations and/or antibiotics… and no surgical removal either. Guess what? You don’t. The same happens with rabies.
” knowing they were created in a fashion that allows them to fight off many illnesses naturally.”
And does not allow then to fight off many other illnesses.
” Those who do not believe in Intelligent design put more of their power into the Government’s hands, and into the Mainstream media.”
Conspiranoid nonsense. We are talking medicine and science here.
” There you will be led to many pushy suggestions, all of which are meant to lead people into sickness, despair, and defeat. That’s all I’m going to say about this.”
Which is a whole big bunch of nothing.
I have a message for you journeyofaspirit I will post now at the end of the comments. so no one misses it.
I’m aware of how circular arguments work, and if you want a meaningful response, it’s best to ask one question at a time. Otherwise you appear to be gaslighting me.
” it’s best to ask one question at a time.”
Feel free to answer one at a time.
journeyofaspirit you are being baited but I believe you know. When you mentioned circular arguments that clued me. See my comment in reply to melhopkop on November 5, 2014 at 1:46 pm
Just because you don’t trust pharmaceutical companies, you shouldn’t think all the scientists around the world are lying and part of a conspiracy. Most of scientists don’t work for big companies, they work for universities and other labs that don’t gain with vaccines selling. Real scientists are not like scientists in the movies. Lots of them live on scolarships, and work for the love of science.
Haha. That worked great, saved native Americans from small pox!
As mentioned previously, you can’t fix stupid. I’m kinda shocked that you informed, intelligent, science- and fact-based rationale people continue to spar with the anti-vacc folks, who are just egging you on with nonsense. The words of my wise old mother are ringing in my ears, “just ignore them and they’ll go away.” I realize their children may die as a consequence, but our friend Darwin would suggest that this probably just needs to happen.
“I’m kinda shocked that you informed, intelligent, science- and fact-based rationale people continue to spar with the anti-vacc folks, who are just egging you on with nonsense.”
If you don’t tell me what to do with my time, I won’t tell you what to do with yours. It is actually kind of a challenge.
“I realize their children may die as a consequence, but our friend Darwin would suggest that this probably just needs to happen.”
Le sigh. They are often protected by herd immunity, so often nothing happens to them. But occasionally they will infect someone too young to be vaccinated (which did happen at Disneyland), and some who are immunocompromised. Since I have a child with multiple health issues who was denied protection from pertussis due to a history of seizures while our county was in the midst of a pertussis epidemic, I am very sensitive to the attitude that non-vaccination only hurts those who will not vaccinate.
So are Ms. Thompson’s credentials? Where are her references for the statements she makes?
I see some familiar people who are mentioned:
Dr. G.T. Stewart: A doctor who tried to make a name for himself in vaccine litigation, but that ended with a grievous error:
He is also an HIV/AIDS denialist.
Then there is Harold Buttram, who decided several years ago to defend a man who murdered his girlfriend’s baby by shaking it to death, but decided it was the vaccine.
She cites “Research by Coulter and Fisher.” Harris Coulter’s PhD was in Russian Political Science, he was a translator for the UN. Barbara Loe Fisher was in public relations. Neither of them are qualified to epidemiological research.
And on and on… just a bunch of blatant assertions with citation and references to unqualified “authorities.”
So why should we take Ms. Thompson as an authority instead of the researchers responsible for this list of studies: Vaccine Safety: Examine the Evidence? Be specific why those researchers from several countries not be trusted.
That is not a study, that is an opinion article.
But it has health, healing and well in the URL, so surely it must be providing sound advice!
Your assertion that there is “scientific proof” that “vaccines are the problem” is of course entirely false. There is not even any good supporting evidence, and proof ion science goes a very long way past simply the existence of some supporting evidence.
Always keep an open mind, just not so open that your brains fall out.
Just a thought. Never trust anyone with the name “”journeyofaspirit” for medical advice..
I’ve been following this thread & want to say a few things here… First, I’ve shared my story in an earlier comment, but here is a refresher. My oldest son grew up, from 5 months old, visiting a graveyard because his father died of a 100% vaccine preventable illness. So we opt to not play Russian roulette when it comes to protecting our children (my husband currently & our three boys together). Many routine vaccinations have been around long enough to show conclusively that the benefit far outweighs any potential risk. And they have been improved upon over time, making them even safer. Second, I’ve seem others touch on religion regarding their beliefs about vaccination. The thought is only those lacking faith in the Intelligent Design concept choose science & therefore vaccinate and those who belief in God opt-out, believing our bodies don’t need any help from science to stay healthy. Those little boxes may fit some people, but I refuse to be placed in one. I firmly believe in God. There is zero doubt in my mind that I’m fearfully & wonderfully made, on purpose, by a Creator. I also believe we’ve bern given this innate curiosity about the universe by Him. Scientific breakthroughs occur because we have a rational mind, designed for creating cures, medicine, and that includes a desire to create vaccination to prevent illness & death. I will not engage in a bs debate about vaccines causing autism. It’s been repeatedly PROVEN that autism is not caused by vaccination. At best, vaccines may be involved with other PRE-EXISTING factors to make symptoms of autism more discernible when already present in an individual. If you have anything that makes vaccinating medically contraindicated, then don’t do it. But if you are healthy, your child is healthy, vaccines are amazing things that can save your kid from the horrors of once common afflictions, like polio. Or from a sad death from a fulminant form of Hepatitis B, which took a previously healthy 20 year old man, my son’s father, & killed him a mere 6 days after his diagnosis. It’s your choice. Choose wisely. But stop expecting MY vaccinated child to protect your unvaccinated child. You can see right now that the porous American southern border is streaming in conditions we had under control before now. Cases of measles & rubella & if all healthy kids were protected, this may not be happening right now. Your irresponsible decision to not vaccinate is causing those unable to be vaccinated to be at risk due to the fallacy of herd immunity. Choosing not to vaccinate just because you don’t want to is not only irresponsible, it’s stupid. God loves you, but HE isn’t going to save you when disease runs through your town like wildfire. Not when He already gave you the life raft in the form of preventative vaccines. That’s all I want to say.
And I say, AMEN!
Thank you.
Thank you for using the brain your Creator gave you!
Well said!
Dear journeyofaspirit;
You are coming through as the voice of reason to those actually looking for truth & fact as these regulars here work you to distract from the real science. Thank you for your input.
The Vaccine Pushers for Profit & their parrots are working all over the net in over drive as they scurry to do damage control. And it shows. Many are paying attention these days & our team dominates this conversation as never before. Even with the distractors working 24/7 in gangs as you can see.
Hey major breakthrough. Great news. See my Face Book wall for details on how we finally are getting media attention https://www.facebook.com/marsha.mcclelland.3
If you don’t have FB look up 10-year-old struck with rare disease after flu shot and VIDEO.FOXNEWS.COM
Then look up Nancy Grace and ‘Nancy Grace Learns On Air That Families Cannot Sue Pharma For Vaccine Injury or Death’
Nancy exposes a lot & so does the doctor who tried to do damage control but failed. Our Becky Estepp, again, schools a quack doctor as she did another before her.
Look up ‘Becky Estepp of SafeMinds teaches Fox News Doc about Vaccines and Autism’
The devil is in the details.
Geeeeeez…And thet try to say we have no evidence. It’s everywhere & that lie, no matter how many times repeated, won’t be working any more. Vaccine injuries are not rare
1 in 68 with autism & 1 in 8 with other injuries from minor to severe illness & even death is not rare. They have hired many writers like at this bogus article. We will follow the money as we have before & out the parrots working for the criminals. Some may even buy the bull but there’s no excuse after one has seen the fact, proof & real science.
“The Vaccine Pushers for Profit & their parrots are working all over the net in over drive as they scurry to do damage control.”
If you are going to make claims about vaccine profits, then you are going to have to explain how they are much more than the cost of providing medical care for some very serious diseases. You will have to come up with something more substantial than insults.
Your refusal to provide that economic data would lead us to believe that you somehow profit from children getting sick. Ms. McClelland, is this your actual job?
Yes it is my job. My pay is knowing some children are spared harm we are told is rare. Research exposes injury & death from vaccines are not rare.
A Concerned Mom did well standing against deception, here. I commend her.
Marsha,
Can you please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that show JUST ONE vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease it is supposed to prevent?
Oh, wait! I know the answer to this one…
“They’re all lying to us! The researchers and doctors are so interested in Pharma investors’ profit (and not their own money, for some strange reason) that nearly all of them get their own children injected with every single recommneded “dangerous, toxic, ineffective” vaccine in order to kill off all their own kids so that they can make more money off of…..
but wait a minute.
Researchers and doctors are not getting rich off of vaccines.
And public health doctors make zero extra money off giving vaccines (usu on salary).
And health workers in some of the world risk murder to give out vaccines.
And if Pharma exec’s kill off the kids, then they have no future customers for the really BIG profit medicines for chronic diseases like hypertension, cholesterol, mental illness, diabetes.
Something is wrong with my conspiracy theory, something like numbers, but I don’t care.
I’m still sure these evil-doers are murdering our kids, but for some stange reason they continue to permit me to speak publicly against them without killing me, hurting me, threatening to sue me, or even knocking on my door to give me a brochure.”
Marsha, if your answer sounds like that, please feel free to just copy and paste it in.
No reason to waste the effort to type it over.
I wrote a new post based on this thread: https://violentmetaphors.com/2014/11/30/yes-doctors-know-what-theyre-talking-about-refuting-a-common-anti-vaccine-argument/
The sad thing is not so much that the antivaxers will be more susceptible to preventable diseases. It is that they drag the rest of us who have compromised immune systems down with them. This is a dangerous make-believe game they play. I am embarrassed that my credit union (Alterna Savings) has a poster for homeopathic alternatives to flu shots on their community billboard on the grounds that they need “to respect other people’s opinions”. The blurring of a public health issue with freedom of speech is a dangerous one; the parallels between this meme and climate change denialism is eerily similar.
Dear “Scientist” slash Ineffective Letter Writer, You got anything to back up the sentences in the top half of this letter? How about most of the claims you’ve made throughout it? If you want to be persuasive then dazzle me with facts or try using “facts” if you haven’t any facts. I don’t need you to use phrases like “overwhelming evidence” …that’s my call! …I need you to present it. Sincerely, Disappointed Enough to Leave a Reply
Hello Anonymous. Have you noticed that each sentence contains some words in blue? Those are called hyperlinks. They will take you to citations for each statement, but you have to do the work to actually read them. Looking forward to continuing the discussion after you’ve read them.
Anonymous,
After reviewing all the links to the facts Dr Raff used to arrive at her conclusions, if you have links to scientific research (research: published works in the fields of immunology/epidemiology/infectious disease done by those who’ve bothered to attain PhD’s in the related fields) that is contractictory to those listed by Dr Raff, I think we’d be interested.
I feel sure you won’t stoop to posting quotes or links from people who have no training in how those biological systems opereate. I mean, you wouldn’t post links to Whale or NaturalNews or quotes from people making a killling (pun intended) off of convincing people that 200 years of immunology science is all wrong, like Mercola.
Would you?
Viruses VS Vaccines side effects
Measles:
Kids can catch Measles or have severe problems usually have a vitamin A deficiency
Fully Curable by antibiotics and Vitamin A, and can be killed by Immune System and Breast milk Antigens in normal immune condition.
Mumps:
Most children and adults recover from an uncomplicated case of mumps within about two weeks.
As a general rule, you’re no longer considered contagious and may safely return to work or school one week after a diagnosis of mumps.
Can be killed by Immune System and Breast milk Antigens in normal immune condition.
Rubella:
Most children and adults recover from an uncomplicated case of mumps within about two weeks.
No treatment will shorten the course of rubella infection, and symptoms are so mild that treatment usually isn’t necessary. However, doctors often recommend isolation from others — especially pregnant women — during the infectious period.
Can be killed by Immune System and Breast milk Antigens in normal immune condition.
Side Effects of Vaccine MMR
Long-term seizures,
Coma,
Lowered consciousness
Permanent brain damage
Deafness
source: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#mmr
diphtheria
Medications are available to treat diphtheria. Only up to 3 percent of people who get diphtheria die of it. Very rare in the United States and the developed world
Tetanus
Painful body spasms lasting for several minutes, typically triggered by minor occurrences, such as a draft, loud noise, physical touch or light
Fatality is highest in older adults. Very Low death level ( less then 1%). Very rare in the United States and the developed world
Pertussis, or whooping cough
Very easy to cure in early stages .Antibiotics such as erythromycin can make the symptoms go away more quickly.
Very Low death level ( less then 1%). Very rare in the United States and the developed world
Side Effects of Vaccine DTaT
Long-term seizures,
Coma,
Lowered consciousness
Permanent brain damage.
Seizure (jerking or staring) (about 1 child out of 14,000)
Non-stop crying, for 3 hours or more (up to about 1 child out of 1,000)
High fever, 105 degrees Fahrenheit or higher (about 1 child out of 16,000)
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#dtap
“Measles:
Kids can catch Measles or have severe problems usually have a vitamin A deficiency
Fully Curable by antibiotics and Vitamin A, and can be killed by Immune System and Breast milk Antigens in normal immune condition”
Funny, that is not what really happens. It is a virus, which is not affected by antibiotics. It causes encephalitis in one out of a thousand and has been known to kill kids at about one in five hundred to a thousand in countries like France, UK and USA (not exactly places with nutrition issues).
Here try this reference: The Clinical Significance of Measles: A Review
Then there is this: “Only up to 3 percent of people who get diphtheria die of it.” That is like one out of 33, or a school with an average of thirty three kids per classroom loosing a kid per class each year. So for an elementary K-5 school with two classes per grade (about 400 kids) it would be about dead twelve kids per year. So why is a 3% fatality rate not that big a deal?
Oh, and this sentence used more than once: “Very rare in the United States and the developed world”… is because of vaccines. Here is what happens when vaccine programs break down:
Diphtheria in the former Soviet Union: reemergence of a pandemic disease.
Then there is this:
“Side Effects of Vaccine DTaT
Long-term seizures,
Coma,”
And the link you provided says for DTaP:
So you are worried about a one in a million chance that may not actually be from the vaccine, but are okay dokay with one death out of 33? Do you want us to have a repeat of what happened in the former soviet countries? It caused about 2700 deaths in the Russian Federation, a country with less than half the population of the USA.
Typo: “dead twelve kids per year” should be “dead twelve kids per year”
But while I have a chance to give you another link: Tetanus Surveillance — United States, 2001–2008.
Which says: “This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which found that 233 tetanus cases were reported during 2001–2008; among the 197 cases with known outcomes, the case-fatality rate was 13.2%.”
I believe 13.2% is a wee bit more than 1%. Also one reason that the older are more prone to tetanus is that they may forget to get their ten year booster shots. When was the last time you had a tetanus booster?
Measles is caused by a virus. I don’t see how antibiotics, which attack bacteria, could help.
And I mucked it up a second time!
Typo: “dead twelve kids per year” should be “twelve dead kids per year”
So this also gives me an opportunity to check out the numbers for:
“Side Effects of Vaccine MMR
Long-term seizures,
Coma,
Lowered consciousness
Permanent brain damage
Deafness”
And the link you provided also includes:
So, is one out of a million more or less often than one in a thousand? Next time Thomas, try to not selectively quote a link. We’ll find out you cherry picked. Also don’t make up statistics like you did for disease mortality. Also don’t tell us that viral infections can be treated with antibiotics. It kind of makes you seem unfamiliar with the topic on hand, and that you did not bother reading the above article and clicking on the embedded links.
Curious about why you listed the best outcomes of catching measles etc naturally in comparison to the worst possible outcomes of vaccines?
BTW Antigen stands for Antibody generating… which means it’s a bad thing. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antigen so your statement ” Fully Curable by antibiotics and Vitamin A, and can be killed by Immune System and Breast milk Antigens in normal immune condition.” is completely false, and demonstrates a lack of even a basic working knowledge of what you’re talking about.
Measles are a virus – therefore antibiotics (meant to kill bacteria) is completely useless and contributes to the plethora of superbugs (antibiotic resistant bacteria) we face.
Vitamin A helps with the specific immune system (or Adaptive) increasing cytotoxicity, and T-helper cell And B cell proliferation. This means since a vaccinated person inherently has more B and T cells that Vitamin A helps them out more than it helps out a non-vaccinated person.
Yes, obviously the Measles Virus can be killed by a healthy immune system. It’s killed by those B and T cells I spoke about above. Specifically it’s killed by T cells, and B cells limit it’s ability to move, or infected a host cell. So again since a person who has been given a vaccine has inherently more B and T cells their immune system works better than a non vaccinated person.
breast milk Antigens…. don’t exist. Breast milk antibodies do, in some very limited amounts, and they do help for about the first 6 months of a childs life. After than not so much. Which is why the first set of vaccinations is recommended at about the 6 month mark..
Do you really want a deconstruction of every point you listed?
Since you’ve taken the time to list out what happens in an uncomplicated case of these various diseases, would you mind also telling us what the possible complications of the diseases you listed are?
Reblogged this on anthonypetrolo and commented:
When you factor in all of the data about the safety of vaccinations that have been gathered over decades of research. The signs are becoming clearer that the benefits far outweigh risks. The proof is in the pudding.
The link for “for evaluating medical information on the internet” is not working….
Thank you. The links are pretty old at this point and several may be broken. I’ll try to go through and update them this evening when I have time.
Just so you know before this modern medicine the human body isn’t meant to live to see 90 why do you think it begins to break down so early in life we’re supposed to evolve slowly along with all of our brothers and sisters Mother has given us but you pigs want money so you find ways to pump chemicals into our system to get us dependent on you. I haven’t seen a doctor in 6 years I’m 21 and I’m perfectly fine so you can take this bullshit and shove it
When you spike a fever of 104, get a red rash, your lymph nodes swell like golf balls, and you start having seizures who you gonna turn to? Not fricking Ghostbusters. The same doctors you are deriding. Enjoy being 21 and immortal. It wont last forever. And you’ll come crawlin in to the hospital begging for help when your time comes.
Please continue to stay away from doctors, no one cares.
I would like to begin by typing one word. ‘Smallpox’. Now, if any of the anti-vaccine group reads this, I would like to invite them to do some research on Smallpox. Smallpox was one of the the most ravaging diseases in human history which now, thankfully, has been eradicated (apart from a couple of research samples). ‘How is that?’ you may ask. ‘Natural immunity?, a miracle?’. No, in fact it was through vaccinating people that we conquered such a dreadful disease. I liken the anti-vaccine preachers to those idiots that believe that the Earth is only seven thousand years old. Whilst a vast majority are internet trolls or people trying to make some easy money, the rest are, more than likely, too stupid to tell their arse from their elbow. Even though I’m British, it is plain for me to see that these people are the reason that the stereotype that Americans are idiots exists. It is almost as if by creating their own brand of natural selection, that they are trying to wipe themselves from the face of the Earth.
Dear Doc .
What a great article. Unfortunately you cannot be correct . Everyone knows that vaccinations cause leprosy and space aliens. God knows that no parent wants their children to grow into a rednecks and as adults could be drunk driving in the desert and get probed. As loving parents that want only the best for their children, then of course the risk of scaring and death and the possibility of scaring and death of other children is far better than having a child that might stutter. It is true that vaccinations can also cause brain damage or neurotransmitter interference. This is proven by the fact that nearly all parents that do not vaccinate their children were themselves vaccinated . It is also proven that dogs that have had rabies and distemper shots have fleas, and fleas are much too great a risk to have around unvaccinated children..
strzelec,
Thank you.
You caught me off guard. I appreciate the laugh.
I am someone who was injured by a vaccine (anti-tetanus) and apparently I no longer sero-convert. I also have several children on the autism spectrum. I am also a BSc, with majors in Zoology and Physiology.
I chose to have my children immunised, despite my own problems with vaccines. I felt the benefits outweighed the risks. I still believe this.
My youngest child, fully on the autism spectrum, showed signs of autism at a week old, although we did not recognise it to be autism at the time. This was well before he had any immunisations.
I got into a discussion once about vaccines, with the mother of another child who had problems. We were actually thrown together because of our kids and their autism. This mother was also a writer and campaigner, but campaigning against immunisation. She seemed to be a scientist (from my conversations with her and I thought she had a BSc) but I realised I was wrong, when she went to get a book from the organisation’s library, to ‘prove’ to me that vaccines caused autism, and that our vaccines contained thiomersal (as we called it in Australia). She showed me the article in the book. it was an opinion piece. She was the author. So, to back up her argument, she used an unverified publication written by – herself. Yep. THAT’S plausible! By this time, I was hearing the “Twilight Zone” theme playing in my head…
To her credit, she was a loving, caring mum who worried about her daughter and, I think, blamed herself for letting bad things happen. She told me that her daughter had problems with seizures when she was born but at immunisation time, the doctors routinely gave the baby the shots. And immunisation is contraindicated in such cases. The child developed a fever and the seizures greatly worsened. A few years later came a diagnosis of autism. The mother was convinced that the immunisation caused the autism, but when we talked, her child had serious problems before the first shot. Maybe she could have insisted on refusing the immunisation, but who knew? The doctors should have, but as mothers we try to do the right thing by our kids. And in this case, a rare case, the child probably should not have been immunised. Would the child still have had problems? From what I saw, almost certainly. But this is not the typical case of healthy child gets routine shot.
All of this is anecdotal, and science has learned to not consider anecdotal evidence as compelling argument in this sort of situation. All such information can do is help the individual case and perhaps indicate areas for further, proper, research.
I had most of the childhood diseases when I was a kid. It really knocked me around. Immunisations for them did not exist back then. I’m glad to have missed out on polio (I went to school with kids who’d had polio – however, most such kids went to a ‘special school’ or lived in an iron lung). I missed out on tetanus and diphtheria too. I hated measles, I was sick for weeks. Chickenpox left scars. I remember my sister having her throat painted with gentian violet because she had blisters in her airway. I caught rubella. It was no big deal, but then – I wasn’t pregnant. I did have to stay away from family who were, and hope like hell I hadn’t given it to them.
Given my personal problems with immunisations (after the tetanus shot that pretty much crippled me for 30 years) I would still have wanted immunisations for MMR on top of the others I was given, had they been available.
Anti-vaxxers just don’t get how research works. Or if they do, they censor out the stuff that doesn’t mesh with their own ideology. Thankfully, as has been said – science works whether you believe in it or not.
This article is completely inaccurate! Based on my personal experience with vaccines, they are not safe and never will be. I took vaccine damaged polio from the vaccine that was supposed to keep me ‘safe’ and before any of you ask, no it wasn’t during the epidemic and yes I am a PROVEN case!! I have also known of a person who took autism from the MMR vaccine, again proven!! So don’t be mislead by this article and take it for granted that vaccines are completely safe because they are not. I am walking evidence that they are not! I was a healthy baby until I was given this vaccine so yes I am anti vaccine and always will be! Do your own research before vaccinating your child, don’t be blinded by these kinds of articles! Know the side effects of all these vaccines.
That’s it folks. Guest444 has just proven with an N=1 study of the polio vaccine and an N=1 with the MMR that vaccines are bad.
Obviously his/her very scientific publication will now overturn everything written in the above article.
It’s not clear to me whether “Chris” is kidding or serious, but I think it’s safe to say, you can’t fix stupid.
I have followed this blog for ~4 months and for the most part every argument has basically been reasoned person (formerly trained or not) vs stupid person. The anti-vacc crowd are like Fox News: just want to perpetuate an argument for argument’s sake. To keep up the chatter. They don’t care that they’re factually inaccurate/scientifically wrong, and they generally hold the fields of science, graduate study, and medicine itself in contempt. They have no clue of the discipline and dedication required to “get” science (nor of the satisfaction of finally “getting” it).
Admittedly there is probably a nicer way to refer to them than “stupid”, but this term maybe saves us time. This blog is not interesting to me anymore because after 500 threads I am convinced that there’s nothing of substance–nothing–behind the anti-vacc movement.
To keep up the dialogue with a group that can’t-be-fixed is like pissing in the wind. I did learn a lot from the thoughtful/knowledgable contributors: I am very thankful for the learning, and very thankful that these people live, work, learn, and teach in my society.
Thank you for reading, and for commenting. I really appreciate it.
Sorry I didn’t mean “Chris” (not stupid), but “Guest444” (stupid).
Thanks, it’s all good.
And yes, I as being sarcastic. 😉 I just did not want to use the tired, but true, “the plural of anecdote is not data” (warning, a link to a very sarcastic YouTube video).
There is not a single “proven” case of autism resulting from the MMR (or any other) vaccine. Anonymous comments on the internet are worth what you pay for them.
Guest444,
Please provide the medical documentation of these cases that you are so sure “prove” your interpretation.
You will certainly win a Nobel prize for doing your own research.
We are waiting.
Waiting……still waiting…..
Not to be offensive but anyone who chooses not to vaccinate their children are ignorant. Every vaccine a child should be getting has most likely already been to both the parents. So if you aren’t vaccinating your child I urge you to ask yourself, Have I received any vaccinations, if so what adverse effects have they caused? Now when you ask yourself this you have to have concrete evidence that supports the claim if you said yes to the adverse effects. Now if you are talking about an allergic reaction or seizures you must have the knowledge that these effects are rare and most likely will not affect your children. Yes you may have a chance of causing your child harm by getting them vaccinated, but if you don’t vaccinate your children you as the parent guarantee them harm at some point in their lives. The issue you with this is you have the power to prevent this from happening.
Isnt there a difference between consume alluminium over breast milk going through the alimentary tract and getting it injected into the mussle and so much closer to the bloodstream?
Saria,
What makes you think that the muscle is closer to the bloodstream that the GI (alimentary) tract?
I am a mother of three boys and one has autism…I have never bought into the hype about vaccines causes this because all my boys got the same vaccines at the same times and only one has autism…And I truly believe that all of those illnesses are deadly if they were not do many ppl would not have died all those years ago
What about the people who say that a child’s body can’t process immunizations until they are at least 8 months old?
Those people should take courses in immunology, microbiology, and virology and learn what the immune system is actually doing. Alternatively, they could look at the lives of “bubble babies” and see what happens when the immune system isn’t up and running
The idea that there isn’t an anti-vaccination movement is virtually self-refuting. There are metric tons of blog sites and quack articles proclaiming that vaccines cause autism, no vaccine is safe, no vaccine works, etc. The article you link to is long on rhetoric but short on sense.
When the URL has quack in it, it must be true. Please do not click this link, it is utter rubbish. It is however a new one for me. Claiming there is no anti-vaxx movement but rather a funded pro-vaxx movement. I didn’t get past the first few paragraphs but it isn’t really worth going to. You make these quacks money with every visit.
Hi, I see you already have 4,700 comments so I doubt mine will be read but I wanted to say something anyway. I was one of “those” parents who did not vaccinate my children when they were born, however they are all now getting their shots (their ages are 10, 9, 7, and 5).
I was never really all that concerned about Autism, or death, or any of the other scare-tactic type hyperbole that permeates this discussion; but I was unsure – there was enough unanswered questions to make me assume not vaccinating was better than vaccinating. At the time I had a friend who was a doctor and spent months at a time in Africa vaccinating children. Her and I had a few discussions about the benefits of herd immunity that we enjoy in the US and the luxury I had of relying on it while deciding if I wanted to vaccinate my kids. She was not judgmental about my decision and she did not try and convert me, she simply tried to educate me – which I respected. She had real world experience about the value of vaccines, something many of the people in the US who opt-out of vaccines do not have.
I am no scientist but I can analyze both sides of an argument to assess not only the information but the delivery to try and ascertain whether or not facts or other tactics are being used to try and win over others. In your post above I see some of the red flags that would have made me question your entire argument. I am not here to pick your post apart, and hope you will read my comments as one who has joined your team after being on the other side and can offer their perspective. Here is one example, you say: “But children consume more aluminum in natural breast milk than they do in vaccines,” There are a couple points about this one comment that had I been reading it 8 years ago would have cast doubt on everything else you said. 1) It seems like an attack on breast milk, it was probably not meant that way but I can see many people reading it and thinking you would convince them to use formula instead if you could, this is a discussion about vaccines, there is no need to bring another charged subject into the mix, and 2) as a scientist I expect you know that consuming something through eating is very different from consuming through direct injection into the blood stream. This is not an apples to apples comparison and appears to be a comment said for shock value rather than actual scientific persuasion.
Here is a quote from the late Nobel-prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman, from 1974 that I hope you will take to heart. He told a group of graduating students to cultivate “a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty.”
“For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it […] In summary, the idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.”
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.”
“I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the laymen when you’re talking as a scientist…I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is [more than] not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.”
When my children were young I would not have considered myself anti-vaccine, what concerned me was not the fact that vaccines had been ‘proven’ safe but that the issues with them were being minimized and swept under the rug. When I asked my pediatricians about the side effects they all had the same response – becoming noticeably agitated and treating me as if I had insulted them – but this is a valid question and without a caring response from a pediatrician I was left to the ‘University of Google’ to find my answers – as you know that is not usually the best place to look. With sweeping statements you disregard concerns about the safety record of vaccines, then you wave studies as if the case has been closed and anyone who doesn’t believe as you obviously has missed the boat. Sure, as you point out vaccines are “subjected to a higher level of scrutiny than any other medicine” but honestly, as I listen to the TV commercials that show happy people living happy lives while the voice over lists off multiple (very bad) side effects that could occur from taking that medicine – telling me vaccines are tested more than that does not make me feel better. This is something I am going to inject in my child, a child that has no decision making capabilities of their own and is forced to trust me to make the right decision for them.
This debate needs the to take Dr. Feynman’s advice and inject some utter honesty. Stop fooling yourself into thinking the case is closed and everyone is being lied to. Admittedly, some people are making money off this and do not care about the truth, it is sad but there are people like that in every debate. I can’t help but think many of the parents who you are speaking to with this post are like I was. To them, simply present the science in clear terms the laymen can understand – do not tell them that Chicken Pox can be a “big deal” but vaccine side effects are usually “quite mild” – these parents probably had Chicken Pox as a child and don’t know anyone who died from it but they have heard lots of horror stories about vaccine side effects. Look at the science from their point of view, make sure they do not feel like you are trying to fool them (or bully them) into agreeing. Let them feel the honesty behind the science because ultimately, honestly presenting all the facts is the best way to win any scientific argument and will bring more people to your (our) side than trying to bludgeon them into agreement ever will.
Great comment!
“To them, simply present the science in clear terms the laymen can understand – do not tell them that Chicken Pox can be a “big deal” but vaccine side effects are usually “quite mild” – these parents probably had Chicken Pox as a child and don’t know anyone who died from it but they have heard lots of horror stories about vaccine side effects.”
My kids all got chicken pox a year before the vaccine was available. One of them was just six months old who was reluctant to eat solid food so she was only breast fed. (so much for the “breast feeding will protect them from disease” myth).
I try to explain that it was a horrible month between a baby who could not sleep and cried in pain, and her six year old brother who was so sick he wet his bed at night. I was shocked when I reviewed the almost twenty year pictures and saw show how close some of the pox got very close to their eyes.
My personal opinion that only a very very cruel parent would allow a child to suffer up to two weeks with dozens of open itchy sores (the pox). And I am really feeling for those parents whose babies too young to get vaccinated now have measles and the six others folks are in the hospital by just visiting Disneyland.
Vaccines are not injected into the bloodstream as you state. I have never had to spike a vein to get a vaccine, thats just another anti-vaxx argument. I think Dr Raff used breast milk becuase it shouldn’t be a debate, breast milk is good so she was illustrating that Aluminum is common in other good things.
As for saying everyone is being lied to. You need to look at the core anti-vaxx arguments, all of which are completely false and have no credible evidence to support them. All of them have been debunked so yes, you are being lied to. They cling to a new theory almost yearly, first mercury, then aluminum, then formaldehyde, then pig fetus and the list goes on and on. Are vaccines 100% safe, no. Are seatbelts? Seatbelts have caused death as well. But would you not wear a seatbelt because you have a 1 in a million chance that the accident you get into would have been better off? I think I would choose the 999,999 in a million chance that I would be better off with a seatbelt and I am glad you have made that choice as well.
@moladood
Boy, you completely missed my point, but in missing it you also helped prove it.
I suppose I should have specified I am not a scientist or a doctor. I know you don’t “spike a vein” to inject a vaccine. I was simply trying to point out the delivery methods were different and therefore the the comparison is invalid.
I am well aware of the multiple and changing tactics used by the “anti-vaxx” crowd, and your response is a perfect example of why those “anti-vaxx” arguments gain ground. Making sweeping statements like “all of them have been debunked” is bad science, did you read the quote by Dr. Feynman? You have fooled yourself, and, in fooling yourself you inadvertently feed the “anti-vaxx” arguments while trying to counter them.
Scientists and doctors need to recognize that people have concerns, whether or not they view those concerns as valid they should address them in a civil and caring way – similar to how a doctor would address any other concern a patient has with their health.
Shawn I’m sorry your a Tone troll…
I used to belive in some pretty crazy shit about fluoride (i was against it). I’m glad I was told – straight up by some skeptics/scientists – that what I was saying was bull shit, it was civil just like above blog. My arguments were not based in sacience but in moralaity and rhetoric much like the vaccine debate that is outside of science (such as vaccines being “un-natural” etc). Raff has written other blog posts to try and increase scientific literacy as do many other people on the net.
“there was enough unanswered questions to make me assume not vaccinating was better than vaccinating.”
What convinced you? Did you re-elevaualte how you could have reached a faulty conclusion before?
those people with a concern also have the responsibility of listening to the experts. People who have spent multiple years, not reading google articles, but actually learning about germ theory, the immune system, Virology etc. And those people with concerns should give the experts advise, significantly more weight than those views espoused by Playboy models and has been actors.
I did not miss the point. I am simply commenting on one of the things you said that aims to invalidate one of the points in the post.
“as a scientist I expect you know that consuming something through eating is very different from consuming through direct injection into the blood stream”
I have never heard of a vaccine administered in this way. Do you have any evidence to support this claim? Does the fact vaccines are injected far and few between vs feeding every few hours not play into this even if absorption is a bit lower? What I think is that YOU missed the point of that statement which is that it isn’t the ingredient, it is the dosage and the dosage in vaccines fits into the naturally occurring amounts the body gets regularly. Scientists understand this principle of dosage, heck even too much water will kill you.
And yes, from my experience and research on all the anti-vaxx arguments, there are scientific responses that I feel make a lot more sense in terms of evidence. Maybe I should have put a disclaimer that I don’t know every thing anti-vaxxers claim or will claim or will make up in the future, this is true. If there is evidence, I am happy to look at it, like any scientist should be since unlike the anti-vaxx crowd, this isn’t a belief, it is the best data available vs no data.
I think scientists and doctors have recognized they need to deal with this concern. Did they not pull out mercury based on this autism concern even when there wasn’t ANY evidence to support it? Do people put the same level of scrutiny into other professionals? You are much more likely to die in a car accident than any of this but where is the anti-seatbelt movement? How often does one question Big Auto? Do you get your mechanic to explain the physics and repairs and show you the inside of the engine?
This is relevent here too, false-equivalency:
“In other words, Couric, in the ultimate example of false balance–Couric believed that both sides of a scientific “debate” are equivalent in quality of opinion and evidence. But rarely is this true, especially in scientific principles that have been well-studied and supported by a massive amount of evidence. The safety and efficacy of vaccines is supported by the vast consensus of real science. The antivaccination side has no evidence, so it must rely upon logical fallacies and cherry picked data, and lack any real, world-class contingent of scientists who have stepped up to change the consensus with real evidence.
Let’s be clear about some key science. Evolution is a fact. Yes, it is called a theory, but I’m going to assume the typical reader knows what constitutes a scientific theory. Anthropogenic climate change or global warming is a fact. Vaccines are safe and effective (see my articles, here, here, here, or here, if you need evidence with lots of peer-reviewed articles). The earth is 4.5 billion years old, and the universe is 13.75 billion years old. And HIV causes AIDS.”
http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/science-deniers-false-equivalency-pretend-debate/
i don’t get it. U are contradicting URSELF in this article, over & over. Ur for vaccines but u keep waffling by stating the negative affects of vaccines, or u point out the negative results but then u talk about how important they are to get. To me u aren’t really making a good argument. Anyone can make facts mold into their beliefs. The research done on vaccines isn’t something u can count on b/c just as the big pharma companies REALLY don’t know long term effects of vaccines/drugs – even though the FDA approved the drug – b/c it literally would take a LIFETIME study of a woman AND her offspring to make a COMPLETE study of ANY drug or vaccine to gain TRUE results.
Not to mention every person is different as is their bodies reactions to medicines.
One statement says ur for vaccines but up points waffle between pointing out the NEGATIVES & positive ‘facts’ about them.
Also about the whole Mercury & breast milk (& other elements within the mothers milk), just like vitamins our bodies aren’t used to getting concentrated amounts of nutrients & vitamins. Our bodies (especially as babies) will retain more of those nutrients when ingested by eating/drinking foods that have those nutrients IN THEM.
“Our bodies (especially as babies) will retain more of those nutrients when ingested by eating/drinking foods that have those nutrients IN THEM.”
Can you point to a source of this information? Is there a reason why babies retain more than adults? Does this apply to all nutrients or only certain kinds?
Anyone can make facts mold into their beliefs. The research done on vaccines isn’t something u can count on b/c just as the big pharma companies REALLY don’t know long term effects of vaccines/drugs – even though the FDA approved the drug – b/c it literally would take a LIFETIME study of a woman AND her offspring to make a COMPLETE study of ANY drug or vaccine to gain TRUE results.
I suspect you don’t apply this standard to antibiotics, blood-pressure medications, or painkillers. Why stop at the lifetime of a woman and her offspring? Why not put all proposed drugs under a 500-year study period before authorizing them?
Read the book the sanctity of the human blood by Tim O’shea where he shows evidence they aren’t safe and provides the back up that you say no ones ever has.
I looked up Tim O’shea, who apparently goes by “doctor” but is a salesman of alternative remedies rather than an actual medical doctor. Here are some interesting snippets from Amazon reviews of his book:
“The book is one long rant. O’Shea’s writing style is that of a tenth grade student trying their luck at debate. He makes abundant claims and then moves on, never backing up anything, but leaving plenty of sources in his wake. I followed some and found that some were valid and some claimed that the US government manufactured AIDS to ravage the black population.”
“The ridiculous inflammatory style aside (I had to work very hard to try and read this as a legitimate work on vaccines instead of propaganda), he either has good defenses for some of his claims, but never bothers to enlighten us, or else he is just spouting some potentially theoretical problems, and not letting the reader know that he is just sort of musing and that the horrors he imagines may not be true at all. For example, on pages 29-30 he discusses how attenuated pathogens in some vaccines seem to elude the immune system and just sit in a body waiting to be reactivated at some unknown future point and then cause disease or death. Okaaaay. Hard to believe. But why should I believe it? He offers no evidence of this at all. Perhaps he thinks that most people are acquainted with this scientific truism. Frankly, I have an extensive background in medicine and the life sciences generally, and this sounds like horrific and alarmist speculation and like nothing we know about human health at all.”
“I thought I was reading a fiction novel and got a good laugh. Then I realized the author was serious.”
“On the whole, this book seems more like a college student’s paper turned into a book.”
“This book is so poorly written that at first I had to force myself to read it. It is full of sentence fragments, typos, and the writing style is very sarcastic.”
When the actual scientific research refutes your preferred beliefs, it can be tempting to turn to any source that agrees with you and put it on a pedestal. But some sources are simply more reliable than others. Peer-reviewed research from actual scientists and experts is far more valuable than the marketing materials of snake-oil salesmen.
If I can add a caution: Always be careful when getting scientific information from books. Although some books are peer-reviewed, many aren’t and often people who are unable to get their results past peer-review in journals turn to books as a means of promoting their pet ideas. It’s common in pseudo-archaeology (anyone remember “Chariots of the Gods”?) it’s common in the diet industry, and it’s unfortunately also common in the health fields, as is illustrated by this book.
Someone elsewhere recommended I read Autism: The Diagnosis, Treatment, & Etiology Of The Undeniable Epidemic by John W. Oller Jr. and Stephen D. Oller. The first listed author is a linguist who researches language acquisition, and the second one is a speech language pathologist. You’d think this one would be good. Right?
Not quite. The elder Oller is a creationist with limited science education. Also the forward of the book was written by Andrew Wakefield. So I won’t read it, especially since they are selling it as a fifty plus dollar textbook (the Kindle version is over seventy dollars!).
Dear Jennifer,
Thank you so much for writing this. It is so good to see all that anti-vaccine rubbish blown out of the water so comprehensively and eloquently.
Unfortunately, the anti-vaccine camp seem utterly determined to ignore the balance of the available evidence (or rather its complete unbalance!) due to some weird form of deliberate perverse self-imposed ignorance, so I fear that even your analysis will fall on deaf ears.
Vaccination has been one of the most wonderful inventions of mankind, and I am so glad that my children have grown up at a time when they did not need to be killed or maimed by these diseases. I hope that some others will soon allow their children this protection.
Thanks once again,
David Bainbridge PhD, University of Cambridge (no funding from any pharmaceutical company)
“deliberate perverse self-imposed ignorance”
That is fantastic verbiage. I used to say something like “contempt for education or intelligence”, but this is so much better. I hope you don’t mind me stealing it!
As a mother of a 3 month old that DIED from having her vaccines. I do not believe this blog. Not even 24 hours after my daughter got her set of vaccines she died. Drs said it was a rare case but its not. 4 of my other friends had to bury their babies because of the vaccines. You chose what is right for YOUR family. NO ONE has the right to beg other parents to get their children vaccinated. No one should be charged with anything when it comes to things like this. Everyone has their own reasons. Ill say this if i ever have another child he/she will not be vaccinated until they are a bit older and even then will i do it in moderation. No one has the right to tell me im wrong
I have lost one baby to these vaccines. I will not lose another.
To: Really?
I’m so sorry for your loss. My comments here are not meant to dismiss or ignore your pain. I certainly wish you never had to go through that. I also wish that no parent ever had to watch their child die or be maimed by vaccine-preventable diseases.
But your loss does not mean that your perception of how/why it occurred is correct.
As you have seen on this thread so far, people on both sides request objective evidence and not simply declarations of, “It’s true.” It is certainly theoretically possible that yours and your friends’ experiences were all among the incredibly, amazingly, stupendously rare examples of the worst outcome of vaccinations – vaccinations that kill far fewer children than the diseases they prevent.
All you have to do in order to convince us all that the vaccines caused all those deaths childrens’ deaths around is to provide us with the medical records of each of those cases. That way, there can be no doubt and nobody here will be able to suspect that your attribution is mistaken.
In the meantime, I will ask you to consider the pain of a parent burying his/her baby because someone in line at the grocery store or at the playground didn’t get vaccinated and passed a deadly disease on to the baby too young to be vaccinated.
In order to avoid seeming any more insensitive to your loss, I’ll forego further comment on your case and your friends’ cases until we have the opportunity to review the medical records.
Wow, that is crazy. Is there anything in the media about this? I would really like to know which shots they were all given. You know 4 other people and I have never even met 1, even friends of friends so I would really like to know more, can you help me?
I’m very sorry to hear you lost your child. That is truly a tragedy.
What is also a tragedy is those who lose their children to vaccine preventable diseases. Which is a happens to be a much higher number, though I know that doesn’t provide any solace for your unexplained loss.
However, your claim of having 4 friends whose babies died of a direct adverse reaction to vaccines denies plausibility. Just for benefit of the doubt, I took the worst statistics I could find (for a vaccine that isn’t even on the market anymore), a rotavirus vaccine, that had a 1 in 10,000 of causing intussusception (when the intestines telescope over themselves) that is sometimes fatal. I assumed it was fatal each time (it wasn’t, but this is to illustrate a point). That means the probability of your child dying from it plus your 4 friends would be 1/10000 * 1/10000 * 1/10000 *1/10000 * 1/10000. Or a chance of 1/100000000000000000000 that you and your 4 friends had your child die due to vaccines. There are more grains of sand on the entire earth than in that denominator. In other words, you are not telling the truth. Which destroys your credibility about the reason for the loss of your child.
“However, your claim of having 4 friends whose babies died of a direct adverse reaction to vaccines denies plausibility”
Indeed, the claim that five infants dying directly from vaccines in one geographic area makes the story suspicious. Something like that happening would come to the attention of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. I see on that page there is one on “Investigation of necrotizing enterocolitis in infants receiving feeding thickening agents, Washington state”, but searching the MMWR, etc, I am not finding anything about an outbreak of vaccine related infant deaths.
I even did a Google search using the terms: “infant death vaccine site:http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/” … and read through some of the legal documents. Needless to say it is complicated, and even with the low standard for evidence the NVICP still needs something more than a parent’s claim of causation.
I think we are going to need more verifiable information about these very tragic events.
For those interested in reading what the top of the evidence pyramid had to say about the MMR vaccine (which historically has been the most debated) I have posted a link to the Cochrane Collaboration’s systematic review of the topic. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004407.pub3/full In summary it says that getting the MMR vaccine outweighs the risks for most people.
I came across an interesting anti-vaxx blog post, likely one of the only ones I can get on board with. Enjoy
http://nightofthelivingdad.net/2014/08/13/why-we-didnt-vaccinate-our-child/
When someone claims that all pro-vaccine information is corrupted by the money collected by Pharma, doctors, government officials who are in Pharma’s pockets, etc. I ask them to do exactly what they think they are doing, “Follow the money.”
Medical insurance is Big business, and they don’t fool around when it comes to their money. They employ huge numbers of statisticians to assure that, like casinos, they are going to come out on top when it comes to betting their money. And that’s what insurance companies do; they bet that all of the customers will pay them more in premiums than the company will pay out in healthcare claims.
Insurance companies have been happy to pay for vaccines for decades because doing so makes them more profit by reducing later illness/injury claims.
If it didn’t, they wouldn’t do it.
Preventing people from getting sick saves them money, and, therefore, makes them more profit.
So if you think greed runs corporations (it does), then you have to admit that it runs healthcare insurance coroporations. If greed runs insurance companies, why would they bet on vaccines to make them profit if the vaccines cause more healthcare claims than the illnesses they are purported to prevent.
Any insurance company that was wrong about that bet would soon be losing money on vaccines, and would stop.
So, please, go ahead and name a major, profitable healthcare insurance company that wouldn’t pay for vaccines when it didn’t have to by law.
Now there’s a new study performed and paid for by a healthcare insurance company, Kaiser Permanente, demonstrating the extraordinarily low risk of complications from two different MMR vaccines.
They reviewed over 700,000 doses given over 12 years, to 1-year old children, and found
“This study did not identify any new safety concerns comparing MMRV with MMR + V or after either the MMRV or the MMR + V vaccine,” said lead author Nicola P. Klein, MD, PhD, co-director of the Vaccine Study Center. “In fact, there were few or zero events for several outcomes following vaccination. These findings indicate that even if an increased risk for these outcomes exists, the risk is low and rare. This should reassure parents that these outcomes are unlikely after either vaccine.”
708,187 doses, over 12-years: so don’t tell me it wasn’t “adequately studied”
in 1-year old children: so don’t tell me “not until they’re older”
Remember, Kaiser loses money if they are paying for an intervention that does not reduce the costs of later illness/injury. So, if you think Kaiser is wrong or lying about this, and you “feel” the MMR vaccines do more harm than good, you would need to explain why Kaiser somehow wants to lose money.
You can read about it here
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150106095242.htm
or you can go to your library and ask them to get you the full journal article using this info:
N. P. Klein, et al
Safety of Measles-Containing Vaccines in 1-Year-Old Children.
PEDIATRICS, 2015; DOI: 10.1542/peds.2014-1822
Twenty two years ago our fairly good health insurance would not pay for the four year old well child check up and vaccines for my oldest. But they did two years later for his younger brother.
What happened? A measles epidemic and California, where Kaiser Permanente is located, was particularly hard hit: Pediatric hospital admissions for measles. Lessons from the 1990 epidemic..
It was a wake up call for insurance companies realizing that well child check ups are a good thing. And it was probably helped along by campaigners like Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and Former First Lady of Arkansas Betty Bumper.
Is it evil of me to enjoy that there is a Former First Lady of Arkansas, Betty Bumper?
I sort of think it is evil of me. Sorry, Arkansas. I can’t help it.
Let’s just suppose the powers that be discovered that vaccines were dangerous. With all the pharmaceutical companies have invested in all their vaccines do you think they would stop selling them? And do you think the government would stop the sellers who sell them and who finance all the candidates running for office?
Sure, when was the last time smallpox and OPV were on the American pediatric schedule? How long was RotaShield on the market?
DAvid,
If money is the only thing running US vaccine policy, why did insurance companies pay for vaccines long before that was required of them? If they didn’t prevent something that costs the insurance companies even more, why pay? Insurance companies lose money every time they pay for any sort of care, preventive or reactive, so why would they do so?
Of course a lot of people die in car accidents on their way to school. I guess we’d better close the schools. Actually, seeing what some of these people write makes me feel better about the climate-change driven near future collapse of human civilization. If we are this stupid, perhaps we should give the planet to the whales and dolphins while there still are some left.
And here you can read an “article” about the position of a mother who considers it is her choice to propagate diseases as she sees fit: http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-dont-vaccinate-my-child-because-its-my-right-to,37839/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Pic%3A1%3ADefault
Please remember it is firmly tongue-in-cheek.
our child died from the vaccine against hepatitis B. We, our relatives and friends who have seen it. Healthy child died… Vaccines, horrible, healthy living, ecology, the products that should be developed, not medical experiments.
Healthy living won’t save your children from hepathitis, measles, mumps, rubella, tiphus, diphteria, or tuberculosis, just to name a few.
Neither will “ecology”, whichever diffuse way you mean to “develop” it.
I’m really sorry you had a child die due to a vaccine (even if I suspect the vaccine wasn’t the actual cause of death), but that doesn’t give you any authority to say vaccines are bad. They are not perfect, but they are mostly (“very mostly” if that could be said) beneficial.
Vladamir,
Since the pro-vaxx side has always provided the data to back up their claims (you can claim it’s all lies, but the data is there), so I will assume you will present us with the full medical chart documenting your claim right away.
Please let us know when the chart is uploaded to a computer so we can arrange for you to transfer the file to Dr Raff so we can review it.
If you’re not going to provide the data to back up your claim, well….
This has got to be the stupidest comment of all. You are talking about scientific “data” (which I clearly don’t believe is accurate), vs his real-life experience, and expecting him to give you some sort of proof??? You are the one claiming these things work. The burden of proof is on you. If someone doesn’t want to inject something into themself or their loved one, they absolutely have a right to not do it. Without any proof. For you to belittle his loss (by glossing right over it and asking for medical records) so easily is ignorant at best, and downright cruel. He saw his child go from perfectly healthy to dead. That is proof enough for him, and he owes you nothing by saying so.
“scientific “data” (which I clearly don’t believe is accurate)”
So how is one anecdote more accurate? Especially since it comes from an unknown person writing a comment on the internet without anyway to verify the details. By the way I have a dragon in my garage, it is now up to your prove me wrong.
“You are the one claiming these things work. The burden of proof is on you.”
Here you go: Vaccine Safety: Examine the Evidence
If you disagree with the above list of peered reviewed articles, please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers to support your claims. Excuse me, I now need to take my dragon for a walk on its invisible leash. At least I don’t have to worry about a poop bag, because it only expels magical thoughts.
Does someone have the right to drink and drive? Why should you tell me I cannot. It is my right to put whatever in my body I want. The proof from my ‘experience’ is drinking and driving has not killed anyone and ‘experience’ counts more than evidence. The burden is on others to provide the proof – oh wait, they have. And they have with vaccines too.
You may say that this is not a great analogy but we created a law based on evidence that makes it punishable if you do a certain action because of the risks to others. The same thing applies here, by not vaccinating, you put people in danger. If you want to return to the dark ages of living to you are 30, you should really do it somewhere else.
It is easy to say that since most are vaccinated and the diseases are rare, you make sense and this one child may have not had complications. But if vaccines were not present, maybe a lot of us having kids would not even be here to have kids. But since you are here and these instances are rare, lets just base everything on gut and experience and ignore all evidence – sound logic.
Helga
The data showing they work is there for anyone to see. He has made an extraordinary claim, which requires extraordinary evidence in order for logical people to believe it.
If he doesn’t want to be subjected to requests for the evidence, he is not required to post on the internet. Of course he has the right to do so, he just shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously.
For anything that did happen to his family, he has all my compassion. Whether you believe I have that compassion is of no consequence to truth of the matters at hand.
Reblogged this on Faisons Avancer Le Schmilblick and commented:
In english but really interesting
Just the number of links in the text should give people some idea of how much scientific evidence is out there supporting your argument. A single study that has later been withdrawn and soundly disproved, and a handful of anecdotes can hardly stand up to it. One would think…