Look over here, NOT over there
Filed under: Parents' Pages, Reviews of web-sites, Vaccine Science
(and we strongly recommend that you just take us on faith).
Shot of Prevention recently put up a blog article: Choosing Vaccination for Your Child is an Informed Decision explaining where to go for information on vaccination.
I believe that parents must begin by understanding the importance of research, science and statistics in order to make an informed decision. In other words, it’s not that parents should look for a “neutral page”, as this mother suggests, but more importantly, an accurate one that uses scientific evidence to support their recommendations.
Insidevaccines agrees on the importance of using research, science and statistics to make an informed decision. The challenge is determining which pages are accurate and which use scientific evidence to support their recommendations. The writer on Shot of Prevention recommends various resources and provides links.
One thing the author does not recommend, and we find it an interesting omission, is to simply look at each resource she links to, choose a statement at random, and follow up on the references to see if the citations chosen actually support the statement or not, as the case may be. This simple step would demonstrate that she is actually pointing to science-based rather than faith-based information. We’ve written up evaluations of two vaccine supportive sites and found significant holes in the references. (see: Overinformed Refusal has to be Stopped and Written by Parents? Based on Science? ) This is not a terribly difficult step, and it will lay a real foundation of confidence in the data (or not). Any parent who has ever done a research paper has the basic skills required and the Internet makes it surprisingly easy to find article abstracts and sometimes even full-text articles. Read more
An injection of realism
Are Vaccines Magical?
It is magical thinking that there are virtually no injuries caused by vaccines and the vaccination process. The safety factors promoted are completely unrealistic and could not be achieved by the use of a real placebo. Why? Because virtually all vaccines are injected, and the injection process itself, separate and distinct from the vaccine, is by definition an invasive medical procedure with multiple known risk factor rates greater than current vaccine safety claims.
Ask any responsible medical professional if it is possible to perform 1,000,000 insulin, Vitamin B12, or even saline injections without an injury. Serious adverse reactions from injections happen all the time. And medical error in general is a much larger problem than most people realise.
From the National Academy of Science: Medication Errors Injure 1.5 Million People and Cost Billions of Dollars Annually
This PowerPoint illustrates multiple common errors, see slide 2
Here a technician was using improper injection techniques for flu shots
“But they must be the only ones…” Nope, sorry. It turns out that this is a continuing problem across the entire health care industry.
“3 Myths About Safe Injection Practices”-
….Premier survey conducted in May and June last year, indicating that of 5,446 provider respondents (better hope your HCP is not one of these), the following engage in unsafe injection practices:
- 6% sometimes or always use single-dose/single-use vials for more than one patient
- 9% sometimes or always reuse a syringe but change the needle for a second patient
- 15.1% reuse a syringe to enter a multidose vial
- 6.5% save that vial for use on another patient.
So, are vaccines and vaccination magical? Read more
Written by Parents? Based on Science?
Filed under: News, Parents' Pages, Reviews of web-sites, Vaccine Myths, Vaccine Science
This is our second post reviewing the new pro-vaccine site brought to you by Sanofi Pasteur. In our first post we followed up on the claim that the site is science-based. In this one we’ll have a look at claimed authorship and continue our search for scientific references to back-up their declarations.
On the “About ImmYounity” page it is claimed that the information on the site is written by fellow parents:
“There’s a lot of confusing information today about immunizations and parents need the facts. This is why you can look to ImmYounity and Vaccines.com. This Web site is written by moms for moms (and dads, too!) and is grounded in science — the best tool there is to help you make your own decisions about immunization.”
This is an interesting claim, considering that the answers provided are eerily similar to the soothing answers provided by the CDC and AAP on their websites. Read more
Overinformed Refusal Has to be Stopped
And Sanofi Pasteur is taking action with their new web-site.
The ImmYounity(SM) campaign provides consumer-friendly, accurate and science-based information about immunization that can be easily accessed at www.vaccines.com. The site contains useful facts and resources, including visuals that can be easily shared via social media and email, and is supplemented by educational brochures offered for use by health-care providers.
Sounds absolutely wonderful. Especially as they set the bar high in these statements on their Educate Others page.
- Make sure the author cites the sources where he or she got the information, along with links to these sources. Is information presented objectively, or is it biased?
- Does the Web site cite scientific evidence for the statements that are made? Can facts and opinions be easily distinguished?
This is certainly what insidevaccines strives to do. How does Vaccines.com hold up when you start looking at their references?
On their Vaccine Q & A page we found this question and answers:
Why are additives put in vaccines?
Additives in vaccines serve some of the same functions as food additives—they can act as preservatives and help extend shelf life, and are only used in very tiny amounts. Small amounts of additives are also used to kill or inactivate vaccines.67
Here are some additives you may have questions about:
Aluminum is used in some vaccines to allow for a better immune response. Infants are constantly exposed to aluminum in a number of ways: it’s present in air, water, food, even in breast milk. The amount used in vaccines, though, is a tiny fraction of the amount a baby would receive through breast milk or formula in the first 6 months of life. That small amount is eliminated quickly from a baby’s body.68
Antibiotics are used to prevent growth of bacteria during production and storage and rarely cause allergic reactions.67,68
Thimerosal is a preservative that is no longer in most children’s vaccines. It has been used in very small amounts to multidose vials of vaccine (which hold more than one dose) to prevent bacteria from contaminating the vaccine.8
If you have any concerns about what additives are in a specific vaccine, be sure to talk to your child’s health-care professional.
So, for supporting references we have 67, 68 and 8.
8 is US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Thimerosol in vaccines. http://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/safetyavailability/vaccinesafety/ucm096228.htm. Accessed August 15, 2011.
67 is CDC. Vaccines and Immunizations. Ingredients of Vaccines – Fact Sheet. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm. Updated February 22, 2011. Accessed August 15, 2011.
68 is Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Vaccine ingredients: what you should know. http://www.chop.edu/export/download/pdfs/articles/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-ingredients.pdf. Accessed August 15, 2011.
Secondary sources. Okay. So we’ll go and see if the secondary sources are supported by primary sources. Read more
Vaccine Exemption Shenanigans?
Recently we’ve come across multiple examples of local authorities messing with vaccine exemptions. Nothing new, of course, about the media publishing stories which leave out the availability of exemptions when they remind parents of the vaccine “requirements” for school. But there does seem to be something new about counties and school districts coming up with their own paperwork, sometimes in contradiction to state exemption requirements.
For the first time, insidevaccines is asking you to tell us your stories. Has someone given you a hard time when you applied for a vaccine exemption for your kids? Insisted that you need a signature from your pastor? Asked you to sign a form admitting that you are risking the lives of your children and other people’s children? Or?
Comment here, or, if you prefer, send them via e-mail to healthykids@insidevaccines. com
Please share this query on forums and anywhere else you can think of. The more the merrier.
We will not publish anyone’s stories, but we may provide a list of states where problems have arisen and a general description of the types of harassment parents have encountered.
Thanks in advance.
Do the Right Thing!
Filed under: CDC Watch, News, Opinion, Parents' Pages, Vaccine Myths
Every August we are hit by a wave of publicity for National Immunization Awareness Month, reminding everyone in the United States to get their children vaccinated, themselves vaccinated, their parents vaccinated, probably even their dogs and cats and goldfish vaccinated.
Vaccinations shouldn’t be that difficult to sell. Who wants their child to die of a communicable disease like mumps? And we all know that influenza kills 36,000 Americans each and every year, because this number is mentioned in just about every news story pushing the influenza vaccine, so it shouldn’t be difficult to convince millions to get their annual flu shot. Except that the Wall Street Journal points out that there are some valid questions about this widely publicized number from the CDC. Even mainstream publications sometimes have questions about diseases and vaccines. Once in a while. Read more
The Economic Burden of NOT Breastfeeding
Vaccination with the full CDC-endorsed schedule of vaccines is presented as our absolute best choice to protect and nurture the health of our precious children. Vaccines are believed to be so important that they are mandated [1], subsidized [2], and protected by a special court [3].
Recently, we published an article [4] that discussed the widely promoted claim that vaccines save society billions of dollar every year. Are there other measures that could save society a few billion bucks, and significantly reduce infant and child mortality, morbidity, and related health costs?
In April 2010, Pediatrics published an article, The Burden of Suboptimal Breastfeeding in the United States: A Pediatric Cost Analysis [5]. This analysis was a review of some of the findings contained in an exceptionally comprehensive report [6] that was published in 2007 by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The Pediatrics paper determined that if:
“90% of US families could comply with medical recommendations to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months, the United States would save $13 billion per year and prevent an excess of 911 deaths, nearly all of which would be infants…”
Almost 1,000 excess infant deaths every year, and a cumulative total of $130 billion in costs in 10 years. Low breastfeeding rates in the US should obviously be cause for serious concern. Note that the authors only considered three diseases, none of which are communicable or have vaccines available; necrotizing enterocolitis, otitis media, and gastroenteritis. Pediatrics did not publish new evidence, but simply analyzed data contained in the AHRQ report, which cited numerous studies favoring breastfeeding. Read more
Pertussis Recap
With all the noise about whooping cough (sorry…) I thought it would be helpful to provide quick links to our main articles on the topic.
Feel free to share our information in discussions!
Vaccine sleight of hand
Every Child by Two proclaims that vaccines save money! Lots and lots of money!
Childhood Vaccines Save Lives and Money
- Routine childhood immunization
- 33,000 deaths prevented
- $43 billion saved
But then, on the side of their web-page, is a link to a graphic illustration of the rising costs of childhood vaccination.
Looks like they want it both ways: “vaccines save billions” by reducing health care costs, preventing hospitalizations and doctor visits; BUT “the newer vaccines are more expensive and we need to put a lot more tax dollars into vaccination programs.”
If the numbers with respect to “dollars saved” were solid and existed across the entire vaccine program, the argument would be a good one. Upon further scrutiny, it looks like they are pulling a bait and switch. They put forward some old numbers based on the less expensive vaccines combined with some inflated statistics for predicted epidemics (see the “33,000 deaths prevented” link above for our detailed analysis of these numbers), then slide right past the huge increase in the number and cost of vaccines in the current U.S. schedule.
On top of this, some of the newer vaccines are aimed at illnesses which are of low incidence or fairly mild in most children. For example, Hepatitis B is very severe, but it isn’t common among infants born in the U.S. On the other side, chickenpox is usually a minor illness, although common. The chickenpox vaccine cost benefit justification actually depended on a monetary estimate of the cost of parental time lost from work. Some convoluted bookkeeping methods would be needed to demonstrate that universal vaccination with ALL of the vaccines on the current schedule results in overall health care savings. There is certainly no sign of these savings in the escalating cost of health insurance in the U.S. Read more
Polio and Sanitation
Filed under: CDC Watch, Parents' Pages, Vaccine Science, Vaccine/Disease Analysis, WHO Watch
KHAGARIA: On the sandy banks of Kosi river in north Bihar, a quiet crowd of several hundred people is waiting in the sizzling morning sun. A speck appears in the pale blue summer sky, rapidly growing in size — its a gleaming white helicopter. Within seconds it is hovering above the opposite bank, amidst the cornfields.
The crowd is awestruck at the monstrous machine as it settles down in billowing clouds of sand. Out comes the man everybody has been waiting to see — Bill Gates.
Bill Gates has come to find out why polio eradication is failing in Bihar. He asks questions about immunization strategies and tries to figure out what sort of technical problems are blocking universal vaccine delivery.
People complain of lack of basic health facilities…There are only 49 auxilliary nurse and midwives under the PHC, against a sanctioned strength of 76…So, the delivery of basic health services is itself a distant dream…The villagers hope against hope. Isn’t the spread of polio linked to lack of sanitation and basic health facilities? Gates acknowledges this fact but says that it is for the government to do the needful. “We are concentrating on the eradication of polio, which is achievable through vaccines,” he says. [1]
Polio epidemics first appeared in the mid-nineteenth century. Many doctors and scientists struggled with the mystery: why, as living conditions improved, did incidents of paralysis increase? Out of all the changes that came with modernity, improved sanitation was chosen as the change which caused polio to turn from a mild illness to one that left death and permanent damage in its wake. Here is an excellent example from a 2007 medical article which summarizes the concept:
Prior to the 20th century, virtually all children were infected with PV while still protected by maternal antibodies. In the 1900s, following the industrial revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, improved sanitation practices led to an increase in the age at which children first encountered the virus, such that at exposure children were no longer protected by maternal antibodies. Consequently, epidemics of poliomyelitis surfaced . [2] Read more