Wrong.
You need to go read Kathleen’s post titled A Not-So-Hidden History. For the best investigative blogging in autism, Kathleen Seidel is the go to person. Once again, it was not the “journalists” of autism (Kirby and Olmstead) who uncovered this information.
What does it mean?
Well, for one, I think that claims to the effect that the Poling case is unprecedented, an event of major significance, with pigs flying and the sky falling, have been rendered completely bogus.
Furthermore, let’s consider whether allowing such an impression to be promoted was an honest thing to do. As Kathleen notes:
In all but one of the above-listed cases with published decisions, the petitioners were represented by individuals who are now or have been members of the OAPPetitioners Steering Committee — including its chairman, Mr. Clifford Shoemaker, counsel to the Poling family.
Now, let’s think about the numbers. It appears that each year in the US about 50 vaccine injury claims are found to be “compensable” (source). What are the odds that at no point in time any of the compensated persons was autistic? We’re talking about very rare occurrences, but statistically they must occur unless autistic persons are specially immune to vaccine injury.
It’s not possible, from available data, to make an accurate determination as to whether autistic persons are more or less likely to suffer vaccine injury than non-autistic persons, and no scientific reasons to lean one way or the other.
Left Brain Right Brain 
“Once again, it was not the “journalists” of autism (Kirby and Olmstead) who uncovered this information.”
Actually I thought it CBS that first made reference to the fact that there might be other cases back on March 6th?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/06/eveningnews/main3915703.shtml
“It appears that each year in the US about 50 vaccine injury claims are found to be “compensable””
What you are saying is misleading. Every year X number of claims are filed and added to the queue of cases. Each year Y of the cases in the queue are heard and either declared compensable or dismissed.
You are suggesting that Y is the number of cases in the given year which it is not, it is the number of cases heard.
Last year 239 new cases were added to the queue and 148 were removed. Of the 148 that were removed 80 were compensated (or 82 depending on which table you look at). There is no information available that I can find that indicated the year that the claim was filed.
Or if you look at the same page, since 1988 the court has awarded compensated in 2,162 cases – which means about 100 cases a year on average.
The other stat on the page is 977 deaths in 20 years – it does not break down to whether these cases were compensated or not, but if they were that would be 50 deaths ever year from vaccines.
Or to but it bluntly, based on the page you reference, approximately 1 child a week is (potentially) killed by complications from vaccinations.
Which, if true, is a tragedy. But besides the point Joseph is making.
The subject is vaccines causing autism. That figure is running at exactly zero.
I was clearly giving a ballpark. That’s why I said “about 50 cases”
So if it’s a 100 cases a year that are not dismissed, or awarded, that’s fine. The point was that it would be very strange for no autistic persons to be found among those with awards or concessions. Is the point made invalid by a factor of 2 error in a ballpark estimate?
CBS did do their homework. Kirby and Olmstead did not. They must be competent over at CBS.
Or to but it bluntly, based on the page you reference, approximately 1 child a week is (potentially) killed by complications from vaccinations.
More precisely, 1 child a week is claimed to have been killed by complications from vaccinations. Who knows what the actual rate is. Death from vaccination is actually not scientifically demonstrated, I believe.
Either way, the number of shark attacks in the US average just below 1 per week. About 2 people a week are killed by a lightning strike. So you are more likely to be killed by lightning than by a vaccine. Those are the kinds of odds we’re talking about.
Joseph,
You’re dealing with different populations in your analogy so the odds are quite a bit different.
“Or if you look at the same page, since 1988 the court has awarded compensated in 2,162 cases – which means about 100 cases a year on average.”
Not exactly.
The 2162 represents the inclusion of the pre-1988 adjudications. I don’t see any data about how many years “pre-1988” covers. It doesn’t look possible to draw a conlclusion about a yearly average without data about the number of years. Perhaps the total number of years represented by “pre-1988” is there and I missed it.
“Is the point made invalid by a factor of 2 error in a ballpark estimate?”
How long ago was it that Kev was tearing into Kirby for getting the decimal point wrong in a figure? The average figure being 100% higher than your estimates is a noteworthy difference.
“Death from vaccination is actually not scientifically demonstrated, I believe.”
Go look at the table of “injuries/conditions that are presumed to be caused by vaccines” that is published by the vaccine court. Death is on the list. If it was not “scientifically proven” I don’t think it would be on the list.
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/table.htm
“the number of shark attacks in the US average just below 1 per week. About 2 people a week are killed by a lightning strike. So you are more likely to be killed by lightning than by a vaccine. Those are the kinds of odds we’re talking about.”
I am assuming that you have a source for the figures you are quoting. However, there is one key difference here. It would be expected that lightning would kill you and a shark attack could kill you, people expect that.
But lets take your shark attack example.
Assume for a minute shark attacks at public areas like beaches were a large number of people go to vacation every year. It is expected by the people going to beaches that there is a possibility of getting attacked by a shark, it happens.
People are aware of the risks and take steps to try and prevent that from happening. There are media outlets every summer doing stories about what you should do to avoid the situation and what to do if you find yourself in that situation.
If you asked people on a beach if they were aware of the danger I would imagine that most of them would say yes.
Now, consider the vaccine situation. Parents are not informed of the risks involved – and I am talking about the accepted risks here, not the unproven ones like autism. The medical community tells parents that there are at best minimal risks. For example, on March 11th of this year, Dr. David Tayloe, who is the President Elect of the AAP said on the Today show:
“credible studies don’t show any relationship between vaccines and permanent injury”
So there is no expectation of risks such as death. Parents are not given the ability to make an informed choice.
Schwartz you said:
“You’re dealing with different populations in your analogy so the odds are quite a bit different.”
Actually that would be an interesting comparison. I wonder what the annual size of the at-risk population for shark attack vs the size of the at-risk population for vaccine injuries.
I would think that more people go to the beach every year than infants getting shots, but I don’t really know for certain.
You’re dealing with different populations in your analogy so the odds are quite a bit different.
Didn’t follow that. You mean that lightning strikes kill older people and vaccines kill children?
If anything, a better break in the analogy is that lightning is an “act of god” and vaccines are an “act of government”. That’s why you don’t see that many protestations against lightning.
Kev,
None of those cases are that comparable to Poling for one key reason:
The HHS didn’t concede any of those cases. The Poling’s case is singificantly different from that perspective alone.
Other differences: The Poling case was conceeded because the vaccine damage resulted in “regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder”. This is very different from the cases listed by KS which were almost all awarded because the vaccines caused Seizures.
Let’s go back:
Over half of these cases are related to the DTP shot, which most people know had a relatively high rate of reactions. Additionally, they were from another era, and autism wan’t the primary damage done. The resulting damage was seizures in most of the cases, making it quite different from the Poling case. Zimmerman even notes this in his case study.
Now, when we get to the more recent ones with links, it gets more interesting:
Suel vs HHS:
Notes: Dr. Zimmerman and Dr Kinsbourne (in this case Kinsbourne was considered more credible than the respondents’ witness) all testified for the petitioner. Again, this case was won because the vaccines were deemed to have caused severe infantile spasms and seizures. These resulted in subsequent brain damage, mental retardation and Autism.
Freeman vs HHS:
“I note, however, that even assuming that Kienan’s disorder is correctly classified within the “atypical autism” category, that is essentially irrelevant to my ruling concerning the entitlement issue in this case. As Dr. Kinsbourne explained, Kienan’s autistic-type features seem to be a result of the brain damage that caused his severe mental retardation. (Tr. 9, 21-22.) As Dr. Kinsbourne further explained, brain damage is one of the many possible causes of autism. (Tr. 108.) Thus, I cannot see why the fact that Kienan’s disorder may fall within the autism spectrum has any substantial relevance to the question of what caused Kienan’s seizure disorder and mental retardation.”
I don’t see a relationship to the Poling case at all.
Noel vs HHS
Again, recurrent seizures starting after vaccination. As many experts testified, seizures in children result in brain damage.
Not the same as Poling.
Banks vs HHS
“Petitioner argues that the MMR vaccination Bailey received 14 March 2000 initiated a bout of ADEM, which led acutely to Bailey’s seizure and eventually caused pervasive developmental delay that affects Bailey to this day.”
Again, this case involved vaccines causing a seizure which resulted in the damage.
The Poling case is quite different in that the concession not only directly noted damage of “features of ASD”, but it did not involve seizures (which are known to cause Autism) and the HHS conceeded.
I see a lot more difference than similarities.
Joseph,
You’re right on that difference. I did mean that the total pupulation being affected by vaccines is different than the population affected by lighting (presumably the whole population is vulerable vs only infants). That will skew your risks by the ratio of children getting vaccines in one year vs the total population.
Do’C you said :
“The 2162 represents the inclusion of the pre-1988 adjudications”
I don’t see that, look at the table labeled “Claims Filed and Compensated or Dismissed by Vaccin”. There a footnote that says:
“The number of claims filed by vaccine as reported by petitioners in claims since the VICP began on October 1, 1988, which have been compensated or dismissed by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (Court).”
That sounds like the claims since 1988, not the ones before. Now there are other tables in the source document that makes reference to pre-1988 items but I do not believe that this one does.
How long ago was it that Kev was tearing into Kirby for getting the decimal point wrong in a figure?
I don’t know what that refers to, but I’m guessing in that case the figure itself was not meant to be rounded up and its exact value did matter to the point that was being made.
And MJ, I’ve been to the ocean. I have not once thought about taking precautions against shark attacks, even though I’m known to be apprehensive. Frankly, at something like 30 attacks a year in the US, it’s not rational to expect that you’d be attacked by a shark. It would make more sense to expect you’ll win the lotto or something like that.
And that’s the problem with the media communicating risks. Sure, the CDC can communicate these remote vaccination risks to the public, but clearly caution needs to be exercised in doing that. And they do BTW.
Here’s another data point. There are about 1000 deaths a year (give or take a factor of 2 🙂 from aviation accidents (world-wide). Should the FAA proactively warn people that if they fly there’s some chance the plane could crash?
Joseph,
There’s more than enough movies to remind me that airplanes crash. :p
They also almost always make front page news, but then, they usually kill a lot of people in one accident.
Or if you look at the same page, since 1988 the court has awarded compensated in 2,162 cases – which means about 100 cases a year on average.
This figure is heavily weighted by whole-cell purtusses claims settled in the early days of the court. I.e. there were more awards in the early days of the court, and that will skew the average/year.
Recent years are more in the 60-80/year range. My recollection is that last year was high at 80–60 was more common in recent years.
Also, the idea that a case had been conceded was known since late 2007. There is a document in the docket that was made public last year stating this. It was being discussed online then.
“The HHS didn’t concede any of those cases. The Poling’s case is singificantly different from that perspective alone.”
And, I checked as well. Did you notices that all the names of the petitioners are different as well? (as in, so what?)
If one were to consider the DOJ laywers as playing games (which I don’t), one could argue that in one case they took the view, “why concede? The petitioner’s lawyer is going to lose this case on his own”
Note the comment by the special master in the Noel Case:
“It most certainly occurred to the undersigned during the extraordinary delay of petitioner’s two counsel in this case that the undersigned should dismiss for failure to prosecute. However, the undersigned, having read the medical records, viewed the case as one in which petitioner might prevail since Rachel seemed to have reacted adversely to her acellular DPT and the interpretation of that reaction and its effect were matters requiring a hearing. In light of the unfairness of punishing petitioner for the dysfunctional behavior of his counsel, the undersigned did not order this case dismissed for failure to prosecute.”
Who could it be that would mess up a case so badly that they needed the good will of the Court to get this child her due?
I don’t know, wouldn’t that be the team mentioned on the first page of the decision?
“Clifford J. Shoemaker, J. Bradley Horn, Vienna, VA, for petitioner.”
The Poling case is quite different in that the concession not only directly noted damage of “features of ASD”, but it did not involve seizures (which are known to cause Autism) and the HHS conceeded.i>
You are being doubly imprecise here.
Damage of “features of ASD”–what do you mean? Did the vaccines damage the “features of ASD”?
I assume you mean that the “damage” (a term not in the concession document) resulted in “features of asd”
The concession is that what the vaccines caused was “significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder”. That is something you continually try to dispute, stating that there is no evidence that an underlying mitochondrial disorder existed.
They go on to state that this aggravation “which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism”
OK. So they didn’t concede that it caused the deficits in cellular energy metabolism. They stated that it “predisoposed” her to it.
That deficit “…manifested as a regressive encephalopathy ”
And that encephalopath exhibited “features of autism spectrum disorder.”
So, what I took the intent of your statement: that the concession directly noted that the injury linked to “features of autism” is an overstatement. First, if you take away the “pre-existing” status of the mitochondrial disorder as you keep trying to do, there is nothing in the consession at all. Next, leaving it in, the concept of “features of autism” is far from direct in the wording.
Joseph, you said:
“Either way, the number of shark attacks in the US average just below 1 per week”
and then
“Frankly, at something like 30 attacks a year in the US,”
If there are 30 per year which comes out to 0.5769 per week which is not “just below 1 per week”. That would be just above 1 every other week.
“it’s not rational to expect that you’d be attacked by a shark. It would make more sense to expect you’ll win the lotto or something like that.”
and
“There are about 1000 deaths a year (give or take a factor of 2 🙂 from aviation accidents (world-wide). Should the FAA proactively warn people that if they fly there’s some chance the plane could crash?”
It all comes down to the population size that you are dealing with. I am certain that the number of people who travel in planes every year is significantly greater than the infant population that receives vaccines.
And again, you picked something where the risks are well know and understood vs the risks that are not well known or understood.
“Sure, the CDC can communicate these remote vaccination risks to the public, but clearly caution needs to be exercised in doing that. And they do BTW.”
Which brings up a few points. The first is that I have never personally heard or talked to another parent whose doctor took the time to explain the potential side affects of vaccines. The most that gets mentioned is a fever or some possible swelling. Have you ever heard of a doctor warning that possible side affects can be, in rare cases, as severe as death?
The second is that while there might be some warnings in the fine print, the general message that is broadcast is that there is nothing to worry about and they are all safe. See the person I quoted in an earlier comment for an example.
Sullivan you said:
“Recent years are more in the 60-80/year range. My recollection is that last year was high at 80—60 was more common in recent years.”
You are correct that the current years have been in the 60-80 range. However there is not any information about whether this is because of the number of cases that can be heard every year or that this is the rough number of cases out of each year that are compensated.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the number of cases compensated based on the year that they were filed.
This makes no sense to me:
“Parents are not informed of the risks involved,…” When I took my kid to the doc for the flu vax this winter there was a piece of paper up on the wall giving the vaccine lot number and whether or not a particular lot was preserved with thimerosal or not (so the nurses could just point patients to it, apparently). Ever since my kids were tiny, getting close to 30 years ago, every time I’ve been vaccinated or they have been (and I’ve been with the ASD kid for every vaccine that kid has had as an adult) there is always a release form.
I think this is the one we got for the flu this year. I always ask for the flu shots with the extra thimerosal, they have the little picture of the green alien reptilian shape shifter (or Bill Gates) on the bottle.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/default.htm#flu
“5. Some people should talk with a doctor before getting influenza vaccine.
Some people should not get inactivated influenza vaccine or should wait before getting it.
• Tell your doctor if you have any severe (life-threatening) allergies. Allergic reactions to influenza vaccine are rare.
– Influenza vaccine virus is grown in eggs. People with a severe egg allergy should not get the vaccine.
– A severe allergy to any vaccine component is also a reason to not get the vaccine.
– If you have had a severe reaction after a previous dose of influenza vaccine, tell your doctor.
• Tell your doctor if you ever had Guillain-Barré Syndrome (a severe paralytic illness, also called G.B.S.). You may be able to get the vaccine, but your doctor should help you make the decision.
• People who are moderately or severely ill should usually wait until they recover before getting flu vaccine. If you are ill, talk to your doctor or nurse about whether to reschedule the vaccination. People with a mild illness can usually get the vaccine.
6. What are the risks from inactivated influenza vaccine?
A vaccine, like any medicine, could possibly cause serious problems, such as severe allergic reactions. The risk of a vaccine causing serious harm, or death, is extremely small.
Serious problems from influenza vaccine are very rare. The viruses in inactivated influenza vaccine have been killed, so you cannot get influenza from the vaccine.
Mild problems:
• soreness, redness, or swelling where the shot was given
• fever
• aches
If these problems occur, they usually begin soon after the shot and last 1-2 days.
Severe problems:
• Life-threatening allergic reactions from vaccines are very rare. If they do occur, it is usually within a few minutes to a few hours after the shot.
• In 1976, a certain type of influenza (swine flu) vaccine was associated with Guillain-Barré Syndrome (G.B.S.). Since then, flu vaccines have not been clearly linked to GBS. However, if there is a risk of G.B.S. from current flu vaccines, it would be no more than 1 or 2 cases per million people vaccinated. This is much lower than the risk of severe influenza, which can be prevented by vaccination.
7. What if there is a severe reaction?
What should I look for?
• Any unusual condition, such as a high fever or behavior changes. Signs of a serious allergic reaction can include difficulty breathing, hoarseness or wheezing, hives,
paleness, weakness, a fast heart beat or dizziness.
What should I do?
• Call a doctor, or get the person to a doctor right away.
• Tell your doctor what happened, the date and time it happened, and when the vaccination was given.
• Ask your doctor, nurse, or health department to report the reaction by filing a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) form.
Or you can file this report through the VAERS web site at w.w.w. dot v.a.e.r.s. dot h.h.s. dot g.o.v., or by calling 1-800-822-7967.
VAERS does not provide medical advice.
8. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
In the event that you or your child has a serious reaction to a vaccine, a federal program has been created to help pay for the care of those who have been harmed.
For details about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, call 1-800-338-2382 or visit their website at w.w.w. dot h.r.s.a. dot g.o.v. slash vaccinecompensation..
9. How can I learn more?
• Ask your immunization provider. They can give you the vaccine package insert or suggest other sources of information.
• Call your local or state health department.
• Contact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.):
– Call 1-800-232-4636 (1-800-C.D.C.-I.N.F.O.)
– Visit C.D.C.’s website at w.w.w. dot c.d.c. dot g.o.v. slash f.l.u.”
When my kids were little the form for the DTP said something like, “Guess what? Your baby could DIE from this vaccine! But then your baby could also DIE from the diseases it will protect against! So make your choice momma!” More or less. Of course, it was more subtle than that, but I remember it saying… 1 out of so many babies have an adverse reaction and can die of that.
The info was out there for every parent to make their risk vs. benefit calculations. I made them, each time. Each time I read the release even though it was long. And each time I hoped it wouldn’t be my kid who had the bad reaction… and we did FINE and thankfully, I never lost a baby to polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps or rubella, which would have happened if everyone had freaked out at the warnings and not vaccinated their children.
Seems like a good deal to me.
The antivaxers present the risk benefit ratio like this:
Risk of dying from vaccine 1 in X times.
Risk of dying from the disease in question – Zero, zip nada, never happens, impossible, can’t happen to us.
So in that scenario vaccines lose to the imaginary world where unvaxed children are safe from everything that could kill them.
In the real world people who vaccinate their kids are given the information in detail on what they are doing… evil Illuminati conspiracies to destroy us all with vaccines notwithstanding.
Sullivan,
OK, let’s agree then that the chain of events initiated by the vaccine damage resulted in encephalopathy with features of ASD. Can you point out any of the other cases that worded a direct path to any mention of Autism? I didn’t see one.
Do you actually support the notion that these other cases are similar?
How about all the other differences I noted?
Ms. Clark,
To bad they don’t include an insert describing the fact that it doesn’t work against the vast majority of illnesses (>90%) people assume they’re protected from.
Too bad they don’t include an insert that describes an accurate assessment of risk of influenza death. I guess they can’t because they don’t really know.
Too bad they don’t include efficacy statistics that show it isn’t clinically effective for healthy adults or children.
So if there is no benefit, why take any risk?
MJ wrote:
I don’t see that, look at the table labeled “Claims Filed and Compensated or Dismissed by Vaccin”. There a footnote that says:
“The number of claims filed by vaccine as reported by petitioners in claims since the VICP began on October 1, 1988, which have been compensated or dismissed by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (Court).”
—–
The table claims, by vaccine, represents both Pre-1988 and post 1988 claims. It is sorted and totaled by vaccine, not vaccine adminstration date. When the VICP began, it handled claims for injury prior to its inception.
“Pre-1988 claims allege injuries from vaccines administered prior to October 1, 1988, the day the VICP began.”
and post 1988 claims:
“Fiscal year statistics for petitions/claims alleging injuries or deaths resulting from vaccines administered on or after 10/1/1988”
Many of the claims (about 1200) are pre-1988 vaccine administered, and about 950 are post 10/1/1988.
Schwartz,
Are you just citing stuff from vaclib.org, or what? I am certainly not going to take an antivaxer’s word for how effective vaccines are, any more than I’m going to take a fluoride phobes word on how the commies used fluoride to control the minds of their people… I still think you are pushing death onto unsuspecting people. And I still say if some poor person dies because you are bashing vaccines because they take your word for it, their death will be on your head.
Thank you, Ms. Clark. In my work at a hospital, I witnessed patients die every year from the flu and its complications. Even if a vaccine against flu for the year is only forty percent effective, it will save people. As a person who was one of the last generation who experience an outbreak of measles, which in my town disabled several children and killed kids elsewhere, I would hate for us to go back to that out of ignorance. But people don’t know what it was like. Can’t imagine it. Heck, we didn’t even wear seatbelts on a regular basis, and there weren’t any in the backseats of most cars. Or infant seats. I wouldn’t want to do without those things either, nor would I wish anyone else to do so.
Shwartz is a mis-informed anti-vaxer. His arrogance and ignorance know no bounds.
So if there is no benefit, why take any risk?
How you got to “no benefit” even with your flawed line of logic, I don’t know.
It comes across like, “I’m not anti vaccine. I just don’t think they work and they are dangerous.”
You’re right on that difference. I did mean that the total pupulation being affected by vaccines is different than the population affected by lighting (presumably the whole population is vulerable vs only infants). That will skew your risks by the ratio of children getting vaccines in one year vs the total population.
Well, I don’t think the entire population is affected by lightning, and certainly some are more so than others.
I’d put it this way: If a person is born today in the US, that person is more likely to die from being struck by lightning than from getting vaccinated. (Of course, if the person dies from vaccination, they’d die young; from lightning, they’d die when they are older most likely).
They also almost always make front page news, but then, they usually kill a lot of people in one accident.
That is precisely the reason. They kill in mass. Vehicular accidents kill about 40,000 every year in the US, but single accidents don’t make headlines usually. BTW, 40,000 a year is 769 a week, which is a number worth getting to the bottom of, don’t you think?
Now, if Boeing could simply make airplanes guaranteed to never crash, I think we’d all be happy, right?
It all comes down to the population size that you are dealing with. I am certain that the number of people who travel in planes every year is significantly greater than the infant population that receives vaccines.
A comparison of interest would be how safe it is to get vaccinated vs. getting on a plane. There were 18 million flights in 2000 worldwide, with 20 fatal accidents. Basically, odds that you die after getting on a plane in 2000 were 0.000001.
Now, every year about 4 million children are born in the US, where coverage is quite good. By age 2, children generally receive 24 vaccines. Let’s say it’s 12 the first year. I’m not even going to consider children not born in a given year who also get vaccines. So I’m saying at least 48 million vaccinations happen every year (and I’m giving a very rough estimate here as I’ve made perfectly clear). Of those, let’s say there are 50 deaths. Odds: 0.000001.
Essentially, getting on a plane is about as safe as going to get vaccinated. And both are very safe. In other words, you’re much more likely to die in the car ride to the doctor’s office or the airport.
Vaccination is a surprisingly safe medical procedure.
Mind you, I’m someone who is afraid of flying, perhaps not as much as in the past, but at least I recognize the irrationality of that fear.
Do’C –
I went back and looked at the numbers again, you are correct in that the 2,162 cases does include ones that are for injuries that are before 1988.
My mistake.
“Essentially, getting on a plane is about as safe as going to get vaccinated”
You aren’t comparing risks to an equal population. There may be 18 million flights a year but that is not the number of people that fly per year. If you want to compare apples to apples you have to compare the risk per person. If you do that I would think that the flying is going to come out to be safer, but I am just guessing.
But, where did you get the 18 million flight number? Does it include commercial as well as private flights? Does the 20 fatal accidents include both as well?
I’m lost. There is no real life saving advantage to plane flying, unless the person is escaping a hit-man by flying to another place… or escaping a war zone or an epidemic zone… or if the person is flying to a different city to get a surgery or medicine that he can’t get in the location where he was…
There’s no big life saving advantage in swimming in the ocean…that I know of. There could be some health advantages from exercise but then maybe the person could get that exercise while standing on the beach or wading ankle deep, thus avoiding the attention of sharks…
But there are life saving advantages to being vaccinated.
Again, it’s the whack-job antivaxers who see only the risks of vaccination and see **no** risks to the wild-type germs. Amazingly convoluted thinking and outright stupidity to me….
Yes, there are times when it’s more risky to get a vaccine than to not, like right now with smallpox eradicated, there’s little worry of smallpox, so why add it to the required vax list to get into school?
That would be silly, so they don’t do it.
Most cases of chicken pox are annoying but it can be fatal. So there’s another risk benefit calculation to make.
Diphtheria? Hmmm. Pretty nasty stuff. Pertussis in babies? Pretty deadly. Rubella exposure to embryos? Nasty/deadly.
Risk from thimerosal in any vaccine. Nothing shown that is as bad as the diseases that the vaccines prevent. Seriously. This is not a big deal as shown by the fact that every day babies are getting vaccines containing thimerosal and not being harmed by it. This is not a KNOWN NEUROTOXIN! at vaccine preservative doses. **Get real**. We eat, drink and breathe-in mercury every day. No matter what you eat, there’s mercury in it. Srsly.
Ms.Clark,
I’m glad you asked. Clearly you are uninformed on the topic of Flu vaccine efficacy. I would first advise you go to the Cochrane group where they have produced extensive reviews of the efficacy of the flu vaccine across numerous populations.
But I’ll summarize the findings by a leading vaccine doctor (and vaccine proponent) for you in case you decide not to bother to do your homework. By Dr. Jefferson in the BMJ:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7574/912
Pretty damning after an extensive review of the evidence. I’ll post his closing comments:
Joseph,
“Now, if Boeing could simply make airplanes guaranteed to never crash, I think we’d all be happy, right?”
I fly enough to second that motion.
However, I fear it’s usually not the planes that cause the crashes. Much like medicine, I suspect human error causes more deaths.
Puddintain,
I see you had to come to a board that allows insults. Too bad you still don’t have a logical argument.
You aren’t comparing risks to an equal population. There may be 18 million flights a year but that is not the number of people that fly per year. If you want to compare apples to apples you have to compare the risk per person. If you do that I would think that the flying is going to come out to be safer, but I am just guessing.
I’m calculating the odds that a person would die if they get on board a plane. What matters then is the number of flights, not the number of persons who fly. If there are 18 million flights a year, and 20 crash (let’s say all passengers die in each crash) the odds of a passenger dying in a particular flight are 20 / 18 million whether each flight carries 1 person or 1000 persons.
But, where did you get the 18 million flight number? Does it include commercial as well as private flights? Does the 20 fatal accidents include both as well?
It’s from Boeing and it’s commercial flights for both.
Clearly, vaccines not only have these remote risks but they also have huge medical benefits. Airplanes have benefits, albeit not necessarily life-saving ones. Yet, there’s no anti-airplane lobby that I know of; makes me wonder why that is.
The message just keeps getting stronger, Schwartz–
you don’t think vaccines work and you think they are dangerous.
How can one think that and not be anti-vaccine?
What is the point of being “pro safe vaccine” if you don’t think they work?
I was doing some research in Journal of Autism asnd Developmental Disorders and found that many scales used to measure and determine autism differ in their conclusions. The ADI-R (Autism Diagnostic Interview -Revised) Most closely follows the DSM-IV and is based primarily on lack of social development. The ADI-R is the strictest test. People who have ASD as opposed to autism itself do not meet the qualifications of the ADI-R.
There is also Childhood Autism rating Scale which concentrates more on stereotypical behaviors it is a looser standard and finds people who are ASD as well as having autism.
I found it very intersting the ratio of boys:girls is 3.5:1 when CARS and the ADI-R were in agreement and 17:1 for CARS only
IQ distribution for the ADI-R/Cars group was 50% 70. For CARS only 17%, 39% and 44% respectively.
The full source for the above is “Autsim Diagnostic Interview-Revised and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale Convergence and Discrepancy in Diagnosing Autism”
(Saemundsen, Magnusson, Smari, and Sigurdardottir)
JOurnal of Autism and Develpmental Disorders Volume 33 #3
Clearly these two systems indentify different populations.
I submit that besides the number of people who are self-daignosed (autism wannabees), whose claims are dubious without professional confirmation, there are quite a few with an autism diagnosis based on CARS, that do not qualify under the ADI-R.
I believe the young girl in question barely made the CARS criteria, but if we are to say don’t include her, what about all those who qualify under CARS, but not under the ADI-R?
Catherine Lord, the first listed author of the ADI-R thinks the CARS minumum needs to be raised from 30 to 32 to being the findings more into agreement.
Also some features associated with austism do impact autism severity. In another paper on “Autistic Features in Young Children with Significant Cognitive Development: Autism or Mental Retardation ” (Vig and Jedrysek) vol 29, 3 cite a study which showed autisitc children with normal intelligence were 3.5 times more like to play with the researchers than children with autism and cognitive delays.
I found most interesting it’s citation of a study puplished in 1995 with Lord as it’s primary author having to do with pointing. Children with autism tend to use another person as a tool such as taking a parent’s and directing toward what they want instead of pointing. This really hit home in trying to teach my daughter things such as the wheels on the bus, when she learned to enjoy the game by moving my hands, but I could not get her to move hers. Lord believes this behavior can be used to separate autism from simple retardation as early as two years of age.
Perhaps in the future, a feature associated with autism will become deterministic.
————————————–
On a personal note, my daughter who is progressing so wonderfully, brought her mother a ball and asked to play
catch. She did this by handing her mother the ball, stepping back a few paces and holding her arms out to receive the ball. This was the first time she ever asked to play a game.
Yo, Kev, thanks for the compliments. I was out of town this weekend, and didn’t see your post until just now.
Good point, Joseph.
I am NOT going to say all vaccines are 100% safe. No one says they are. Only the Antivaxxers want 100% certainties. I’ll take the current safety levels.
I am a “non-responder” to some vaccines, so am dependent on herd immunity to keep me safe (btw…also actually had a few of the diseases, they don’t guarantee immunity, either…)
I just recovered from pertussis, which I never want to go through again. My titers were good, but I still caught it. I had my children’s titers checked and my husband’s, and DPT boosters were given. Even though pertussis is rarely fatal in an adult, the possiblity of a rib fracture is valid, painful, and can kill if it punctures a lung just right. Even without that, the breathless coughing till you vomit is horrible. I can’t imagine risking exposing a baby, a child, even another adult, to this disease. I’d much rather take the lower risks of reactions to the immunizations.
As for the harmlessness of the diseases…my mother had a friend die from measles, back in the 1940’s. The child had good medical care, but even today measles encephalitis has a high fatality rate.
The polio illness and death rate, even with good hygiene and care, was high. I’ve never had to worry about it with my children.
While I was working as a nurse, I had a patient die from chickenpox…that harmless disease that everyone gets, right? She had no autoimmune problems, but died anyway.
No thanks. I’ll take the immunizations. I recognize the risks, which are lower than having the diseases themselves.
I’d happily pay you many, many compliments Kathleen but these ones are from Joseph 🙂
Kevin, I want to thank you for this topic. Yes, autistic children can be harmed by certain vaccines. Especially if the autistic child has an abnormal immune response. I personally feel that encephalitis would appear quite different in an autistic child than a NT, and could in fact worsen the severity of the autism.
My daughter showed mild signs of asd, no pointing, not reaching from crib, mild speech delay. But she smiled, made eye contact, was interacting with her caregivers and other children, had a few words even.
I realize that her ASD was inherited, as she comes from 2 families of odd and eccentric engineers, scientists and artists. Many of whom were reading and doing algebra long before kindergarten, and had little interest in others. What we learned were “signs of autism” we had thought was normal toddler behavior, and was NOT abnormal for our families.
Had the dx been available throughout history, many of us would have been placed on the spectrum.
After receiving the MMR and Varivax, my daughter had seizures, fever, rash, etc. No doctor who saw her that day even took my questioning the vaccines seriously, did no testing, saying whatever it was, was viral, and possibly hand foot and mouth, or an ear infection. (Our emergency health care system really has gone to crap) There were no illnesses at her daycare, which is the only place she went besides home that week.
From that day forward, something in her eyes changed. They would not dialate properly. She stared right through me. She ground her teeth all day, she stopped playing, and stopped smiling.
While awaiting for an eval with a developmental pediatrican (8 month waiting list), she received the DTaP, the next day, she screamed for 3 days straight (except to take a break for sleeping). She developed facial tics, and started patting herself in the chest repeatedly 3 days after the vaccine.
I looked up autism, and read about the vaccines. I called the doctor, and he told me to stay off the internet, but rushed us into an early intervention program, where she was dx’d as severely autistic at 22 months.
I got all the vaccine lot numbers and confirmed that none contained thimerosal. But why then, the vaccine reaction? Each time I questioned this, for over a yr, the doctor kept telling me mercury does not cause autism, and just be more positive.
Meanwhile, my daughter’s health was declining. She started losing weight, and fell of the growth chart. Upon meeting the genetic doctor (8 months post dx), she questioned the abrupt growth change and weight loss, and ordered a ton of tests, including a full skelatal xray, MRI, and referral to immunology, gastroenterology, neurology, endocrinology and infectious disease.
Turns out, she had signs of brain injury (pituitary mostly). She also had signs of immunodeficiency, and did not respond to Varicella. The doctors finally concluded that she had an adverse reaction to Varicella. This was 2 yrs after the reaction.
She also has no antibodies to pertussis, barely any to tetanus or diptheria. She only responded to 2 of the 13 components of Prevnar (despite the clinic making a “clerical” mistake and giving her one too many Prevnars. Yet, she had a full response to all components of the MMR.
It took 2 yrs, but her pediatrician has apologized, and said, yes, she had a reaction, and has given her an exemption.
I feel that this whole debate for us, is a double edged sword. As I want parents to understand that an adverse reaction to vaccination could occur in an immunodeficient individual, I also do not want to discourage vaccination, as my daughter may never produce enough antibodies to be protected from VPDs.
I am glad that you do admit that autistic children can be harmed by vaccines.
I am angry at the mercury group, as they have spouted so much garbage, that my daughter’s doctors kept saying that mercury in vaccines does not cause autism, and never took her health seriously.
In fact, I was escorted by security from one neurologist’s office, while he stated that very thing! He would not bother to look at her chart, and see that she had a condition that contraindicated her for live virus vaccination, that she had vaccine failure, and a documented reaction to the very vaccine that she failed to create antibodies to. He didn’t even give me the chance to tell him, she didn’t have mercury in her vaccines.
I have been observed as a “quack” and lumped together with the mercury militia one too many times, and this, I am angry about.
Vaccines don’t cause autism. Neither do wild live viruses. But both can significantly impact an already autistic brain, if the autistic individual cannot produce adequate antibodies to fight the infection.
Not saying this happens to all autistic children after vaccination. Not all autistic children have to visit the ER after live virus vaccines, but some do. Quite a few more than receive compensation, I imagine.
I am worried about those that do. Perhaps they too, had treatment and proper diagnosing of underlying conditions delayed, thanks to the likes of John Best spreading his mis-information. Thanks to the mercury militia, my daughter’s underlying conditions were blamed on my spending too much time online, and not being positive enough. No doctor took me, or my daughter’s condition seriously until she had to have every test under the sun when the genetic doctor finally saw her.
Perhaps the number of children like my daughter are higher, but sadly, once doctors see that Autism dx, they tend to look no further.
Perhaps some individuals with family history of ASD also have a family history of primary imunodeficiency. Through testing, we discovered I as well, have this genetic condition. Perhaps that is why some ASD children regress after viral infections, and live virus vaccine reactions? Perhaps someone will begin to research this, as both are very inheritable conditions.
So today, begins my fight. We have retained an attorney to file a claim with the NVICP, on the basis that the adverse reaction caused a severity in my autistic daughter’s inherited ASD, coupled with pituitary damage and growth delay.
They are filing today.
Ah, yes, that old morphing byline. Thanks, Joseph!
Matt,
“The message just keeps getting stronger, Schwartz—you don’t think vaccines work and you think they are dangerous.
How can one think that and not be anti-vaccine?”
You have a very hypocritical habit of projecting positions onto others.
Did I miss something. Did all vaccines suddently become the same? Just because I don’t think drug XXXX doesn’t work — in line with the best available evidence — does that mean that I’m anti-drug? I’m surprised I need to point out the ignorance of such a statement.
Last time I looked, discussing peer-reviewed evidence of lack of flu vaccine efficacy didn’t make one anti-vaccination. LOL, I guess that makes Dr Jefferson (of the Cochrane Vaccine Field) an anti-vaccinationist since he has been repeating these problems with the flu vaccine for several years now. Good work!
Why don’t you produce a logical argument backed by evidence?
By all means, feel free to join AD and value your faith in the system over a growing body of credible evidence of the lack of efficacy in the case of the flu vaccine. Congratulations, you’ve exemplified exactly what Dr. Jefferson was talking about. It’s called “Optimism Bias” in case you missed it.
“You have a very hypocritical habit of projecting positions onto others.”
No. It is a serious question. You seem to repeatedly take the position that vaccines don’t work and that they harm people. Given that, the logical step would be to be against vaccines.
Rather than answer the serious question, you shoot a round of weak sarcasm and anger. Pity, that.
You then move straight from the above quoted comment into projecting what you think I am doing…perhaps the word hypocritical was unwise given your own actions in the same post?
I have not seen Dr. Cochrane ghosting autism sites decrying vaccines. Should he do so, without a link to the community, I would not be pleased with him–especially if he presented a level of expertise similar to that you have demonstrated.
So, based on your comeback, we can assume then that you agree that vaccines are one of, if not the, greatest medical advances?
Given the vast number of lives saved–compare it to any other advance–how could one come to any other conclusion? Since, being a person who thinks that vaccines work, as you seem to be implying, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion.
Perhaps you could educate us as to which vaccines you think actually work and which you don’t? You seem to have a good seat on the fence on that one. Except for Gardasil and Influenza (which you think don’t work well or do what they are touted to do), what other vaccines do you dislike? Which do you recognize as effective?
Please, let us know.
Matt,
“No. It is a serious question. You seem to repeatedly take the position that vaccines don’t work and that they harm people.”
LOL, my position has been stated very clearly on specific vaccines, vaccine safety testing, and specific vaccine policy numerous times, so I’m skeptical about your conclusion. I’ve been pretty clear about the flu vaccine in the past, so there shouldn’t be anything new to you here.
Why don’t we review this thread as an example. Ms Clark posts the insert for the flu vaccine. I reply that the risk/reward for flu vaccine is actually quite an easy decision because there is credible evidence that it doesn’t work very well.
She asks for evidence. I provided it. Now instead of discussing the evidence, you accuse me of being anti-vaccination. Aside from changing the topic, it’s a classic ad-hominem argument. Now you feign honest curiousity? My daughter tells a better story.
A serious question? Please. Let’s review your opening lead-in to your question.
“The message just keeps getting stronger, Schwartz—you don’t think vaccines work and you think they are dangerous.”
Note the term “vaccines” and “think they are dangerous”. In order to maintain some credibility of an honest questioner, why don’t you first point out where I said that all vaccines are harmful for everyone? Or how about a single quote that states that no vaccines work? You won’t find any, because I’ve never said those things. Yet you still try to paint me into that corner:
“The message just keeps getting stronger, Schwartz—you don’t think vaccines work and you think they are dangerous.”
You are getting upset, because I correct
inaccuracies where evidence actually exists — like Gardasil has no evidence of efficacy against Cervical Cancer, like the flu vaccine has little to efficacy in most populations, like the safety aspects of Thimerosal have never been adequately tested — and I do this to balance the one sided arguments that blindly support those vaccines against the best available evidence.
If you have issues or questions about these points, by all means bring them up and produce evidence so we can have a reasonable discussion. I might actually change my mind.
If you’re so confused about my position, why don’t you take some time to actually read my posts carefully (because I know you read them) and maybe then we can have an honest discussion. You might even find the ones where I describe the vaccine I’ve used or when I’ve corrected people who make unsubstantiated claims dissing vaccines.
Until then, you’re clearly being disingenious by feigning honesty, ducking any logical argument whatsoever and projecting positions on me. Pity that.
If you’ve forgotten them, or you’re too lazy to go find them, feel free to PM me, and I’ll be happy to point them out to you.
Schwartz,
The Cochrane review found that flu shots helped keep the flu at bay for children and old people, even though in old people they work less well than in younger adults. They are still recommended. No one ever said that the flu shot is 100% effective. I found a study about the flu shot’s use in the Israeli army in preventing flu. The effectiveness (or efficacy, I can’t remember) was about 40%. The Israeli army thought that was good enough to recommend the flu vaccine. After all that’s a whole lot of people who wouldn’t get really sick for a week or two with the flu who would have been otherwise.
You think you are impressing people with your knowledge? I don’t think so. I think you come off like a know-it-all, but you don’t know it all. And you sound like an antivaxer. Sorry, that’s the truth. You **imply** that the risks of getting the flu are less than the risks of getting the flu vaccine, and the benefits of getting the flu vaccine are absolutely nil.
I get the flu shot. **Now after reading up on the Cochrane review site**, I will **continue** to get the flu shot and get my ASD kid vaxed every year and encourage everyone to get it if available to them. I also encourage everyone not to have an unreasoning fear (phobia) of thimerosal as is promoted by the antivax brigade. It’s psychotic to fear vaccine levels of thimerosal. There is zero evidence that we can’t cope with that much ethyl mercury (even if we are a tiny, tiny baby) if we can’t cope with that much ethyl mercury we are in a heap of trouble because there’s methyl mercury in all kinds of food, not just fish, and we breathe-in mercury every day and drink it every day…. and if we are a user of alt-med who knows what we might be taking in in the form of “traditional” herbal medicines from China or India.
Considering the possibility that the flu can cause autism, people who are freaked about autism might want to promote the flu vaccine, even if it only has a 40% efficacy in some groups, that’s better than leaving the flu alone to infect women who may later have babies who are autistic (according to those who are freaked about autism).
One would think that if vaccinating a whole nation for the flu would prevent one case of autism in an as yet unborn child, that many people would think that was worth it.
Who you gonna believe the anti-vax crank Shwartz or Neal Halsey?
“Flu Facts
If you’re thinking about skipping flu vaccination for your family this year, your child has probably never had influenza — which can leave her coughing, feverish, and completely wiped out for a whole week. “Unfortunately, many parents consider the flu to be nothing more than a slightly nastier version of a cold. It’s actually a very serious, potentially fatal illness,” says Parents advisor Neal Halsey, MD, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore. Complications of the flu include pneumonia, antibiotic-resistant staph infections, and ear and sinus infections. Amazingly, only 18 percent of children ages 6 months to 2 years are vaccinated — despite the fact that an estimated 20,000 babies and toddlers with influenza need to be hospitalized each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Kids who have a chronic medical condition like asthma or diabetes are also at particular risk; they are five times more likely to be hospitalized than healthier children.
After an especially bad flu season in 2003-2004 that claimed the lives of 153 children in 40 states, the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics began recommending that all kids ages 6 months to 5 years be vaccinated. But even grade-schoolers aren’t off the hook: Up to 30 percent of school-age kids get the flu each year and spread the virus to others. If there’s an infant in your family, it’s important that all family members and caregivers be immunized.”
If the flu vaccine is such a waste, why would the world’s authority on vaccines so strongly recommend vaccination? We all know that flu vaccine formulation is inexact. But given they are safe and the alternative is to do nothing, immunization is a no-brainer.
Further research will improve infleunza effectiveness. Why would one give-up when the alternative is morbidity and mortality?
I am frankly sick to death of anti-vaxers like Shwartz co-opting autism to further their anti-vax platform. My family’s autism has no room for your overbearing, misinformed, arrogant posturing on subjects you’re unqualified to comment.
Go find the anti-vax sites and preach to your choir. I’m sure the FDA hater, dgdavis64, Lisa782, and their ilk will adore you.
Schwartz, how can you possibly not see how you could be perceived as anti-vaccination?
This blog is a highly visible area of discussion for AUTISM. It is common for discussion of vaccines to occur among the autism community doe to the speculation about causation. I don’t know how often you have commented here, but it is certainly more than the average visitor/commenter. And your comments are not about autism, they are about vaccinations.
The Autism Speaks board is intended for discussion of AUTISM (though it has admittedly been co-opted by a group of anti-vaccination parents of autistic children). You have posted there 223 times. How many of those posts discussed something other than vaccines?
It seems to me that the autism community is fertile ground for acrimonious discussions about vaccine safety, and those who obsess over this issue are naturally drawn to it. Drawn like a moth to a flame.
I have to wonder what motivates someone who does not have a “dog in this fight”, so to speak, to invest such a huge amount of time debating this topic online. It indicates a passion for the topic, a passion not often found alongside a neutral stance.
I also have found that your typical casually polite demeanor gives way when someone plays the anti-vax card, and you adorn yourself with a much more aggressive persona that uses more ad hominem attacks, insults, and sarcasm.
So when Matt asks for you to make clear your stance, maybe he is subconsciously wondering about some of these same things and just asked too narrow of a question.
Schwartz,
You think that MOST vaccines are ineffective and that MOST are dangerous for children. Is that closer to your position?
You have said that one of your children received one vaccine, can I not make the logical leap that you consider the rest ineffective or dangerous? I believe (correct me if I am wrong here) that you have also stated that another child of yours has not had any shots. Did you change your mind about the efficacy/safety of that one vaccine?
Since neither child has asd or had a bad vaccine reaction (at least according to what you have stated), what led you to not vaccinate them and start debating this topic all over the internet?
I am just trying to understand you because your posts on here and your choices/actions as a parent certainly seem to be anti-vaccine.