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]
Vaccine Myths Round Four
Filed under: Parents' Pages, Vaccine Myths, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
Vaccines saved us: just visit an old graveyard and look at all the markers for dead babies and children.
Graph provided by Health Sentinel
Click on the graph to enlarge it. For more graphs go here.
When the vaccine arguments are hot and furious, a frequent insult is: “You don’t understand the science!” The confusion in this case doesn’t arise from ignorance of science, but from ignorance of history. The people who think that vaccines saved millions of children from death see the story like this:
Childhood illnesses run uncontrolled through the population leaving dead bodies in every house. Parents are in despair. Brave doctor cooks up a vaccine, the disease stops dead, and all children come through to a healthy adulthood. 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
“Just because you need a third dose doesn’t mean the two dose schedule is having issues or anything”
Filed under: CDC Watch, News, Opinion, Parents' Pages, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
Because of continued spread, health authorities working with communities in Orange County are giving schoolchildren a third dose of the MMR vaccine. Gallagher says it will be two or three months before it’s known whether the effort succeeded.
Why do they need a third dose?
The infections happened despite high coverage with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Among patients ages 7 to 18 — the age group that had the most cases — 85% of patients had received the two recommended MMR vaccine doses.
This doesn’t mean the MMR vaccine isn’t working, says epidemiologist Kathleen Gallagher, DSc, MPH, the CDC’s team leader for measles, mumps, and rubella.
“Two doses of mumps vaccine is believed to be 90% to 95% effective,” Gallagher tells WebMD. “But that means people can still get mumps. If the vaccine is 90% effective and 100 people are exposed to mumps, 10 will get the disease.”
If we imagine that mumps is being sprinkled from the sky and spread evenly throughout the population, then yes, one out of ten vaccinated people would catch mumps if the vaccine was, indeed, 90% effective, or one out of twenty if it were 95% effective. But if the vaccine creates “herd immunity” then the disease shouldn’t be able to jump from vaccinated person to vaccinated person to vaccinated person. Read more
Vaccine Myths, Round Two
Filed under: Parents' Pages, Vaccine Myths, Vaccine Science, Vaccine/Disease Analysis
Introduction: A while back, we explored some common anti-vax myths. Because in the great vaccine debates, the myths tend to outnumber the facts, we’ve decided to begin a multipart series dispelling some of the mythologies people argue over which preclude productive discussions over real issues. Below, you will find the facts behind two more common vaccine myths: herd immunity, and whether or not vaccines are profitable to pharmaceutical companies.
Myth: herd immunity isn’t real, and all the vaccine preventable diseases were declining in incidence prevaccine
Reality: vaccine induced herd immunity is a real phenomenon, and the incidences of the “diseases of childhood” (measles and mumps, for example) averaged out to be constant in the prevaccine era.
Here’s a chart showing the incidence of measles from 1912 till 1960.
Although the “death rate per cases” dropped an amazing amount, the same number of cases were happening per year on average. Read more
Pandemic – When did the definition change?
The old version:
WHO_Pandemic_preparedness_May_1_2009
An influenza pandemic
An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness. With the increase in global transport, as well as urbanization and overcrowded conditions, epidemics due the new influenza virus are likely to quickly take hold around the world. Outbreaks of influenza in animals, especially when happening simultaneously with annual outbreaks of seasonal influenza in humans, increase the chances of a pandemic, through the merging of animal and human influenza viruses. During the last few years, the world has faced several threats with pandemic potential, making the occurrence of the next pandemic a matter of time.
and the new version:
WHO_Pandemic_preparedness_webpage_Sept_2_2009
What is an influenza pandemic?
A disease epidemic occurs when there are more cases of that disease than normal. A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic of a disease. An influenza pandemic may occur when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity. With the increase in global transport, as well as urbanization and overcrowded conditions in some areas, epidemics due to a new influenza virus are likely to take hold around the world, and become a pandemic faster than before. WHO has defined the phases of a pandemic to provide a global framework to aid countries in pandemic preparedness and response planning. Pandemics can be either mild or severe in the illness and death they cause, and the severity of a pandemic can change over the course of that pandemic.
The two documents above can also be found at: http://attentiallebufale.it/informazione-scientifica/speciale-bufale-pandemiche-come-difendersi/lanalisi-di-doshi-al-voltafaccia-delloms/
These two documents were sourced and provided by Dr Tom Jefferson, and Peter Doshi.
And here is Fukuda, at WHO, claiming that they didn’t change it!
Now let me move on to the second issue. Did WHO change its definition of a pandemic? The answer is no, WHO did not change its definition.
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
Measles: The Grim Reality
(Part I of this series: Parents: Does the CDC Think We are Stupid?)
What does the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have to say to parents about measles?
Before measles immunization was available, nearly everyone in the U.S. got measles. An average of 450 measles-associated deaths were reported each year between 1953 and 1963.
Was measles a major health problem between 1953 and 1963? Were parents begging for a vaccine? Terrified that their child would die or be permanently damaged by a dangerous disease? Well, no. Some here could give their answer to that question, but better still, ask your parents, and grand-parents what they thought about measles. Find out who in your family was “at risk” of serious complications or death.
The big question, when you see a death rate, is how many deaths occur in relation to the total number of cases? The reported cases, with something like measles, are always going to be much lower than the total cases, and reported cases will generally be more severe, more likely to be hospitalized, and more likely to have a bad outcome. I had measles when I was eight, but my parents didn’t report my case of measles, I never saw a doctor and no one in my family (including two younger siblings) caught it from me. Here, from the CDC Pink Book, is the complete story:
Read more