Indian Physicians slapped with anti-vaccine label!
Why? Because they questioned a WHO (World Health Organization) diktat in favor of universal Hib vaccination in India.
Sorry, but this is getting ridiculous. Anyone, at any time who raises any concern about the safety, efficacy, or appropriateness of any vaccine is now called anti-vaccine.
Here is a potted history of the recent outbreak of name-calling.
In the July 2010 issue of the Indian Journal of Medical Research this editorial appeared: Introducing pentavalent vaccine in the EPI in India: A counsel for caution.
The latest WHO position paper on Hib says ‘Hib vaccine should be included in all routine immunization programmes. This suggests that Hib vaccine should be included in the immunization programme universally, irrespective of an individual country’s disease burden, not withstanding of natural immunity attained within the country against the disease, and not taking into account the rights of sovereign States to decide how they use their limited resources. The mandate and wisdom of issuing such a directive, for a disease that has little potential of becoming a pandemic, needs to be questioned.
The editorial reviews the available data and on the basis of the science, questions the need for the Hib vaccine in India.
In response to this thoughtful challenge to the WHO policy on Hib, a news commentary was published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) which called the concerned doctors an “anti-vaccine lobby.” This article, which is unreferenced, claims:
The Hib organism, which can cause severe bacterial meningitis and pneumonia, is estimated to kill more than 370 000 children worldwide each year, GAVI said. Nearly 20% of these deaths occur in India.
In response to the BMJ article, a rapid response was published in the online version of the BMJ by eight members of the supposed “lobby”
The doctors wrote:
The thrust for including Hib vaccine in India is based on 2 arguments. The first is that there is anecdotal evidence of the existence of Hib disease and Hib meningitis in India and that Hib meningitis may lead to long term morbidity. The second argument is that the well-to-do parents sometimes buy Hib vaccine in the open market to vaccinate their children. The Government of India must therefore provide it free for the poor, on the grounds of equity and fair play (2).
The problem with the anecdotal reports is that they do not specify the size of the universe from which the samples are drawn and public health policies cannot be based on these figures without a denominator. The many systematic surveys done to look at the magnitude of the problem of Hib disease in India have nearly always shown that the incidence of Hib disease is much lower than what was projected for India. Most of these studies have been funded by the WHO and these have been reviewed recently in an open access journal (3).
So, we have the BMJ calling names and publishing an unreferenced attack claiming high numbers of deaths from Hib, while the supposed anti-vaccine lobby provides carefully referenced information debunking the claims.
The pro-vaccine lobby has plumbed to new depths.
Polio and Acute Flaccid Paralysis
Filed under: Parents' Pages, Vaccine Myths, Vaccine/Disease Analysis, WHO Watch
In post one of this series on polio, a term was introduced: “Acute Flaccid Paralysis”. [1]
Acute Flaccid Paralysis is a term which applies to the exact clinical symptoms you would expect to see from poliovirus infection, but which are not necessarily caused by polioviruses. Paralytic polio is actually considered a sub-category in the broad umbrella of acute flaccid paralysis. See pages 300-312 [1] for a chart and summary of many other causes of AFP, a few of which are: Guillaine-Barre syndrome, Cytomegalovirus polyradiculomyelopathy, Acute transverse myelitis, Lyme borreliosis, nonpolio enterovirus and Toxic myopathies.
For many years the medical profession assumed that when they saw paralysis with a particular cluster of symptoms, it was poliomyelitis. The 1954 Francis Trials of the Salk vaccine [2] triggered a reconsideration of this assumption, and a major change in the diagnostic criteria.
How were polio cases counted in 1954?
In 1954 most health departments worked with the WHO definition:
“…Signs and symptoms of nonparalytic poliomyelitis with the addition of partial or complete paralysis of one or more muscle groups, detected on two examinations at least 24 hours apart.” [3, p. 88]
How were polio cases counted in 1955?
In 1955 the criteria were changed to conform more closely to the definition used in the 1954 field trials: residual paralysis was determined 10 to 20 days after onset of illness and again 50 to 70 days after onset. [3, p. 88]
Thus, simply by changes in diagnostic criteria, the number of paralytic cases was predetermined to decrease in 1955-1957, whether or not any vaccine was used. At the same time, the number of nonparalytic cases was bound to increase because any case of poliomyelitis-like disease which could not be classified as paralytic poliomyelitis according to the new criteria was classified as nonparalytic poliomyelitis. Many of these cases, although reported as such, were not non-paralytic poliomyelitis. [3, p. 88] (emphasis added)
It was after the SALK vaccine was introduced, when fully vaccinated people continued to get “polio”, that doctors started looking a lot more carefully at the viruses in individuals. Many viruses were found to cause paralysis, for example coxsackie B, enterovirus 71, etc. Read more
Medical Double Standards in the Third World
When it comes to third world medicine we almost invariably hear from the WHO about the successes of massive vaccination programs. If you look into the recent agenda for the World Health Assembly [1] you will find pandemic influenza vaccines at the top of the technical matters, and in the status section, the eradication of Poliomyelitis is at the top of that section. What is glaringly absent is a discussion of the pervasive double standards in research ethics, health-care safety and professional rigor that exist in the developing world. The WHO and its medical partners won’t talk about it publicly because when you look at the numbers, it is directly implicated in the suffering and ultimate death of millions of people in the developing world. That is what we’ll cover in this piece.
It is well known that needle re-use can be a major cause of virus transmission. In 2000, a WHO press release states:
Unsafe Injection practices have serious large-scale consequences…”unsafe injection practices throughout the world result in millions of infections which may lead to serious disease and death. Each year over-use of injections and re-use of dirty syringes and needles combine to cause an estimated 8 – 18 million hepatitis B virus infections, 2.3-4.7 million hepatitis C virus infections and 80,000 – 160,000 infections with HIV/AIDS worldwide. [2]
That same press release uses an epidemic of Hepatitis C that occurred from Schistosomiasis treatment in Egypt. Notably absent is any discussion of the massive immunization campaigns waged throughout the third world coincident with the massive epidemics of HIV and other infectious diseases. However, someone there must be aware of the potential problem because the press release states the following at the end:
In addition, to ensure the safety of immunization injections, WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) have recently called for the exclusive use of auto-disable (AD) syringes for immunization by the end of 2003.[2]
We know quite reliably that the WHO knew years prior to this press release (2003) that medical practices in the developing world were problematic. As Gisselquist outlines in his 2009 article [3] the WHO was quietly giving UN employees the following advice in 1991.
take special precautions to avoid HIV transmission via blood . . . If you are not carrying your own needles and syringes, avoid having injections unless they are absolutely necessary . . . Avoid tattooing and ear-piercing. Avoid any procedures that pierce the skin, such as acupuncture and dental work, unless they are genuinely necessary. Before submitting to any treatment that may give an entry point to HIV, ask whether the instruments to be used have been properly sterilized.[3]
Myths 3.2 Chickenpox “the disease can be severe”
Filed under: CDC Watch, Parents' Pages, Vaccine Myths, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
Parents who take their children to chicken pox parties have forgotten how devastating this childhood disease can be according to vaccination experts:
“What happens if you bring your child to a chicken pox party and they’re the one in 10 who has a complication and is hospitalized?” said Dr. Jane Zucker, head of the city Health Department’s immunizations bureau.
We went back to 1951, when chickenpox afflicted millions of children every year in the U.S. to see if complications and hospitalization from chickenpox were common:
In general, chickenpox is a disease of young children and in them it usually runs an uneventful, if uncomfortable, course without leaving behind it any permanent bad effects. In very rare instances, a case of encephalitis or inflammation of the brain may occur after chickenpox, causing such symptoms as sleepiness, stiff neck, convulsions, coma, and even death.
Ordinarily, however, chickenpox is a mild though highly contagious disease…
This view of chickenpox as mild continued to exist in the U.S. for many years as this two part video snippet illustrates. Read more
Vaccine Myths 3.1: The Scourge of Childhood
Filed under: CDC Watch, Parents' Pages, Vaccine Myths, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
“…young parents of today do not remember…”
In 1974 the St. Petersburg Times wrote:
So many people are neglecting to get immunity shots that doctors fear the seven one-time scourges of childhood–polio, mumps, measles, rubella, diphtheria, lockjaw and whooping cough–may strike American communities again.
However, just six years earlier, in 1968, newspaper stories said things like this:
Although mumps is a relatively mild childhood disease, it can cause sterility when it strikes adult males.
At that time the recommendation was to give the recently developed shots to boys if they hadn’t had the mumps by the time they hit adolescence. Read more
Vaccines? Safe. Parents? Dangerous.
Lately I’ve been noticing an increasing number of journal articles, blog articles and opinion pieces on a terrible problem: Parents have questions about vaccines.
You would have to look far and wide to find anyone who thinks that these questions are valid and should be taken seriously. Common explanations are:
1) It is all about the parents who think they are really smart.
2) It is all about the parents who are very stupid and read stuff on the Internet.
3) It is all about the bad stuff on the Internet which is deceiving the parents who aren’t very smart and who think they are smarter than doctors. And infinite variations on this theme, which is really one argument…and the real argument is (drum roll)…vaccines are perfect and parents are the problem.
Being called stupid dupes hasn’t worked to shut up the parents with questions. Perhaps this is not a good strategy?
I’m sure you’ve noticed that many articles and blogs offer comment options to the public. If you are following the vaccine related discussions you’ll have noticed that there is a coterie of passionate vaccine defenders who pop up in every such public discussion. These vaccine defenders are fighting for the good of the vaccine program with everything they’ve got.
Oddly, however, the number of parents with questions seems to be increasing. Perhaps the vaccine defenders need to reconsider their approach. Read more
Where Do They Find These Scary Statistics III – Let’s Make a Few Assumptions – Hepatitis B
Filed under: CDC Watch, Vaccine Science, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
Parents have questions about the risk-benefit equation of the Hepatitis B vaccine. It is possible for a parent to be quite certain that their infant is not at risk of prenatal or birth exposure to this disease. The risk factors for exposure during infancy, early childhood, and the elementary school years can be reasonably well assessed on an individual basis. Read more
Eradicate Chickenpox? Sure! Why Not?
Chickenpox
Look back to the time of the earliest humans and you’ll find chickenpox. Anywhere you go on the planet, you find human beings who carry and share the virus. No remote village or tribe on Earth has ever been discovered to be free of this virus. Quite an achievement! For the virus…
Scientists have studied small, isolated populations, trying to understand how the virus survives; it has a unique survival strategy we call “shingles”.
Read more