The Vaccine Witch Hunt
October 12, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
“A childhood free of serious illness is now taken for granted.”
So writes Paul Howard in an op-ed in today’ Washington Post that is entitled On Vaccines, Immune to Reason. Howard is Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute Center for Medical Progress, is Editor of the daily blog Medical Progress Today. It is this assumption—belief—-that Howards suggests is one reason that, despite more and more scientific evidence to the contrary, many still think that there is a link between vaccines and autism. Howard concludes:
….critics are effectively demanding that scientists prove that thimerosal does not cause illness — an impossible standard.
The very success of vaccines has become their downfall. As Dr. [Paul] Offit writes in Vaccinated, “When [vaccines] work, absolutely nothing happens. Parents go on with their lives, not once thinking that their child was saved.”
It is time to rescue vaccines from the witch hunts that go on when science fails to provide easy answers for complex diseases like autism. First, policymakers should end the opt-out option for VICP. If society is going to mandate vaccines for school children and encourage companies to invest in their development, companies must be shielded from the volatile passions of the jury box.
Second, and perhaps most importantly, policymakers must invest more in vaccine education, so that parents understand the benefits of vaccinations (along with their real, but very rare risks).
The benefits and the “real, but very rare risks”: Howard does not deny that vaccines can harm as well as help. But the question is, has too much harm been done to the public understanding and trust in vaccines, so that the word “vaccine” has only negative associations?
This reminds me of a story. It seems that there was this extreme grumpy-loner libertarian guy who went off to live in Alaska, all by himself, and be totally self-sufficient. After a while, he got a toothache, and decided he needed to pull the tooth. He got his pliers and grasped the tooth with them. That really hurt. He kept trying, and each time he touched the tooth with the pliers, it was more difficult for him to make himself do that. It got to the point where he was using both hands on the pliers and his mind was struggling against himself so much that he could not make himself bring the pliers anywhere near his mouth.
At that point, he got on the radio and called a helicopter to take him into town to see a dentist.
Of, course, as an Aspie, I am aware of an engineering solution to this problem, which I found in a piece of online survivalist fiction:
What he shoulda done was bend over a springy sapling and tie it that way, then tie a string from the tooth to the sapling, lie down and cut the rope holding the sapling bent.
NTs ain’t smart enough to be real grumpy loners
Sorry Joseph,
Without publishing the risk of contracting the disease in the area you live, the statistics you provided are pretty useless.
Additionally, no references are provided for the information, and I’ll bet they’re based on worldwide numbers which would be skewed toward deaths in 3rd world countries — hardly a useful statistic for someone living with modern healthcare.
You really should provide scientifically useful and relevant data next time instead of some quack’s website.
Kristina,
“But then, what isn’t propaganda and misinformation—-DAN! and other providers of biomedical treatments could be critiqued on the same grounds.”
If only your web blog associates would actually do that. I see nary a scientific criticism of the CDC from anyone despite it’s numerous flaws (including it’s mandate).
I certainly apply the same critical eye to both organizations, and I find them both severely lacking.
When I was investigating (and I mean really following up the references quoted by the government sources), it became extremely clear to me that there is piss poor information available to parents looking for reliable information on Vaccines.
The reality is that there is little credible information on both the efficacy or the safety of most of vaccines. Add to that, unreliable published information about the diseases themselves (i.e. what is the risk of contracting and suffering permanent damage from measles in Canada?). Additionally, the last couple of decades have ushered in a significant increase in recommended vaccines when the whole premise behind the logic of some of these is not anywhere near proven. (i.e. eliminate the 7 of 90 most common types of illness X and hope that the replacements don’t cause more problems later)
Add to that the lack of real safety testing, and this information leaves an investigative parent in a real quandry — Did you know that the safety trials of many vaccines don’t compare against placebo?
Combine that with acknowledged conflicts of interest in the CDC, FDA, and peer-reviewed journals — let alone clear examples of spectacular failure to protect the public — and the case supporting vaccines is not nearly as strong as most people would espouse.
And if you think your doctor is informed, that’s laughable. (my child’s doctor actually was remarkably well informed and does not object to not having vaccinations when I asked) Interestingly, several studies have shown that larger percentages of doctor’s (non-paediatricians) don’t follow the recommended vaccination schedules (10% in Sweden in a published study). That’s a pretty big percentage of medical health workers. I’ve seen a statistic here in Canada that 23% (can’t remember the source of this one) of Doctor’s don’t vaccinate their children for the flu.
You can tell who’s actually doing their homework. The reality is that there is very little credible scientific information available at all and so choosing not to medicate is not at all unreasonable.
(sigh)
Schwartz. Medical research is mostly cobwebs. We do not know how most drugs work, really. On the whole, docs say goodbye to mol bio after boards; they don’t know the pharmacology. Unless you’re taking only medications and treatments that have been around for decades, you are a guinea pig.
That said, the vaccine-related information available to parents with an internet connection, the ability to use Pubmed, and journal access is pretty freaking spectacular. You should thank Al Gore.
amy,
I assume that Al made it all available online? That is a good thing. Good luck to the average Joe on parsing it though, and it doesn’t help that all one can read is the abstract most of the time.
I personally purchased a number of studies when arguing with some science student online about some MMR issues. When I actually got the study I was shocked how disparate the conclusions were based on the content of the study. And this was from “peer-review”. So unless you have access to study details, and then take the time to read the study and references, you probably won’t really know the truth from junk science.
Add to that, the fact that the statistics are manipulated more often than not, so unless you have source data, access to a critical review, or thoroughly understand statistics yourself, it is near impossible to discern the quality of the analysis.
So yes, I can now read the abstracts and conclusions, but they often contain the same junk that the garbage science press likes to repeat like parrots.
The only redeeming part is being able to find and read critical reviews. But quality ones are few and far between.
But it was the access to information that totally destroyed any remaining trust in the medical esblishment. They no longer get the benefit of the doubt from me, everything must be referenced and checked. Especially enlightening was reading transcripts from the CDC meetings.
Believe me, Schwartz, it doesn’t take that much effort to find someone critical of the CDC. Now, in regards to the mainstream scientific community, there’s another issue in regards to why that position isn’t mainstream. Why would the average grad student who has no connection to the government who writes in a peer-reviewed journal not write in the journal? I’ll leave that answer to you.
Also interesting is how you find all of our doctors laughable, and yet yours in specific is knowledgeable because, and tell me if I’m wrong, he shares a viewpoint with you. Can you explain that access to all of our doctors?
On a similar note, you state “you can tell who is doing their homework”. In fact, I can’t tell who is doing their homework, at least in regards to the post. Can you explain that?
I’d also like an elaboration on the article you supposedly read very closely. After all, you took all that time to read it, so you must know the general procedures, the conclusions, and the general data. Could you generalize that?
And what transcript at CDC meetings? Where did you find those, and can I be directed to that too?
Cliff