I’ve generally stopped countering the misinformation by the Age of Autism blog. They are pretty much irrelevant now that they lost their star power, now that Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have dropped out of the picture. They still cause harm, but on a much smaller scale than in the past.
That said, I recently saw one of the Age of Autism contributors in an online discussion. And as is typical, the conversation devolved into throwing around the usual tired arguments. For example–
The notorious Offit 10,000 vaccine paper (we might add 10,000 vaccine doctrine) was written to be re-assuring to parents. The reality is that 1 vaccine might kill an infant. But what is the rhetorical effect of saying 10,000 vaccines (or 100,000 vaccines originally) are “theoretically safe”. It really says that if we give them 10 at time and hundreds over a childhood it is no big deal. What we are really on to here is the hit and run strategy. It doesn’t matter egregious the effects of the ever extended and mandated schedule are you can always insist that it wasn’t vaccines (which are theoretically safe). And you can flood the media with people like you deriding the experience of actual rather than theoretical families who have found that products are not necessarily that safe after all. And you can claim that everything you say is thoroughly scientific (hoho).
Now, this is a new way to misrepresent what Dr. Offit wrote. So far off that one wonders if the author of the comment (one John Stone) has actually read the original. He claims that the Offit paper’s claim is ” It really says that if we give them 10 at time and hundreds over a childhood it is no big deal.”
Really?
Nope. Not even close.
Here’s the section of the paper that that is being referred to:
Studies on the diversity of antigen receptors indicate that the immune system has the capacity to respond to extremely large numbers of antigens. Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 109 to 1011 different antibody specificities.38 But this prediction is limited by the number of circulating B cells and the likely redundancy of antibodies generated by an individual.
A more practical way to determine the diversity of the immune response would be to estimate the number of vaccines to which a child could respond at one time. If we assume that 1) approximately 10 ng/mL of antibody is likely to be an effective concentration of antibody per epitope (an immunologically distinct region of a protein or polysaccharide),39 2) generation of 10 ng/mL requires approximately 103 B-cells per mL,39 3) a single B-cell clone takes about 1 week to reach the 103 progeny B-cells required to secrete 10 ng/mL of antibody39 (therefore, vaccine-epitope-specific immune responses found about 1 week after immunization can be generated initially from a single B-cell clone per mL), 4) each vaccine contains approximately 100 antigens and 10 epitopes per antigen (ie, 103 epitopes), and 5) approximately 107 B cells are present per mL of circulating blood,39 then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 107 B cells per mL by 103 epitopes per vaccine).
The paper merely states that an infant’s immune system can respond to the antigens in 10,000 vaccines.
So here is the challenge to Mr. John Stone (who wrote the above comment), the Age of Autism blog (where he writes, but not the above comment.) and everyone else who claims that the 10,000 number is wrong.
Prove it.
Prove the claim is wrong.
What in the above calculation is wrong? Is it the biology? The assumptions? The math? State clearly what is inaccurate in that calculation.
The answer is that many who cry out about “10,000 vaccines” haven’t read the paper. Or they have and they don’t understand it. Or, in rare cases, they understand it and are willfully trying to use it to scare people.
I have posted this challenge before on various internet discussions. And it is always, and I mean always, met with silence.
Notice that Dr. Offit doesn’t say that an infant can take 10,000 injections. But that “each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 107 B cells per mL by 103 epitopes per vaccine).” I.e. that an infant can respond to the challenge posed by the antigens in 10,000 vaccines.
But that’s not scary. And fear and doubt is what people are trying to create when they claim that Paul Offit’s 10,000 vaccine paper is “notorious”.
So, go ahead anyone and everyone that uses the 10,000 vaccine statement to scare people about vaccines. Back up your complaint. I’ve been waiting for years and expect to continue waiting.
—
by Matt Carey
Left Brain Right Brain 
Well said. It’s about time that people stopped misrepresenting the paper, and if they have real substantial critiques, spell them out.
Offit is a lying liar that would say anything for money.
Arnold Lane is a shape shifting alien robot.
See how easy (and empty) unsupported attack comments are? What I said has as much support as what you said.
Some should be introduced to a book that they usually claim to hold great stock in, their bible.
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
-Proverbs 17:28
Alas, far too many fail to hold their peace.
The issue of multiple vaccines is about the amount of toxic and synergistic chemicals and injections obviously. A normal person wouldn’t give a new born baby Tylonol but you’d pump them full of this orher crap which contains mercury, aluminium etc and not worry how many shots you give them ? It’s basic maths and science. Now to herd immunity theory. On pro vaxx sites that look credible on the surface it says the flu shot decreases the the chances of getting the flu by 4.7% because it’s difficult to predict the right strand of influenza and evenless effective for infants and over 65s (Those who are most susceptable to flu) but then they say that although this is the case it still decreases the severity of the flu. Now here lies a serious problem. Instead of laying low at home and away from the mist vulnerable/those with a very weak immune system, where do you think people with a less severe reaction to flu will be ? That’s right, they’ll be out and about and at work spreading it!
Lets do some more basic maths. Many more die from the vaccine than the viruses and even more have serious permanent adverse reactions. So which which is safer ? For something that the industry has made difficult to prove, just like Big Tobacco did before, 3.6 billion dollars in compensation claims isn’t exactly a small amount given that the system is against you when you say your baby died or has brsin damage the next day or 2 after the vaccine. This is just history repeating itself like Big Tobacco. You all know that Paul Offit the main spokesman for the CDC is the co-inventor of the Rotavirus vaccine right ? He’s also a founding board member of Autism science. So when Autism Science says there is no link with vaccines this is our buddy Paul Offit talking. See a problem here ? Major conflict of interest!! Follow the big money trail…
The problem I see is you are just repeating the same old nonsense. Making assertions without evidence. Lying through the spread of misinformation.
Do I see a problem here? Yes. You.
Vaccines ingredients were addressed elsewhere. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/toxic-myths-about-vaccines/
Dr. Offit’s comment clearly did not refer to that. It clearly addressed immunological challenges and antigens.
He also addressed ingredients. Here: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/112/6/1394
“A normal [sic] person wouldn’t give a new born baby [Tylenol]…”
Well, of course not. That’s a very expensive medication from which a hospital can make little profit. However, doctors have prescribed junior acetaminophen to newborn babies if they need it (it’s very useful in bringing down fever).
“A normal person wouldn’t give a new born baby [Tylenol]…”
I absolutely would give my newborn child acetaminophen if the doctor prescribed it. Why do you believe that reasonable people would deny their children essential medication?
not true, he did in fact say this and repeated it here: 6:45. Listen yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRZu3q7cXk8
Wow. You just repeat what you heard and use a YouTube video to back yourself up.
Read the above. Understand it. That’s the hard part and the part you clearly are missing. Although I would bet money that you didn’t bother to read the article above.
You are spreading misinformation. And all you’ve done here is shown you so so out of willful ignorance. The facts are in front of you and you refuse to accept them.
Yes, its actually 7:45 that he says, “I didn’t mean that I think that is how many vaccines should they get, but how many could they get”
Are you lying on purpose or did you not really listen?
Here’s what he said starting at 7:45:
“I think unfortunately that that statement got interpreted by the media as saying that I think children should get 10,000 vaccines a day. Obviously that’s not what I meant. I was just answerinng how many they could get. And I stand by that statement. ”
And he says that based on the quote I gave above.
What is wrong with his statement? Are his assumptions incorrect? Did he make a math mistake? Please, analyze the argument and give us your response. I’d love to see you demonstrate your expertise in biology and immunology.
Step 1
1) approximately 10 ng/mL of antibody is likely to be an effective concentration of antibody per epitope (an immunologically distinct region of a protein or polysaccharide)
Do you have a problem with that? If so, what is it based upon?
Is that incorrect? If so, how many B-cells per ML are needed? Show your sources.
Does it take more or less than a week? Please, show your work/sources.
Is this incorrect? How many antigens, approximately, are in each vaccine? How many epitopes per antigen?
Do you even know without looking up what an epitope is?
Show your work.
Let’s see, 10^7/10^3 is 10^4, or 10,000. So the math is correct (you did see how the formatting missed the exponents and 10^3 comes out as 103 in the above text, did you not?) Are there not 10^7 B cells per ML (as reference 39 tells)? If so, why do you disagree with that reference? Did you read that reference? Do you have your own biology studies which show something different?
All this to say–the logic is spelled out clearly. What’s wrong with it?
NOTHING.
You just don’t like vaccines and, because of that, Paul Offit. So you seek to discredit him by making his statements sound SCARY!!!!!
It’s dishonest. Lying if you will. If you had facts you would use them. You don’t, so you smear and lie.
So, either address what he stated, or go away. Since you clearly can’t address what was actually stated, you will go away. I will see to that if you don’t get the idea.
In that video, Offit is simply repeating his original statement that the infant immune system has the theoretical capacity to respond to the pathogens in 10,000 vaccines administered all at the same time, not that babies should receive 10,000 vaccines all at the same time.
Paul Offit should be skinned and burned alive. The problem with his paper is that because most people believe the fallacy that vaccines are safe an effective, they are quick to assume that he means that a newborn could potentially survive 10,000 vaccines at one time, which is ridiculous because in theory that would be 250,000 mcg of mercury which no newborn can survive. Some newborns don’t even survive the 25mcg in the one shot. So his statement lowers people’s apprehension about one 1 shot at birth, while they should be worried about the mcg of thimerosal in that hep B shot.
Seriously–I laughed out loud reading your comment. You are an exact example of the ignorance that keeps this story going along.
here’s what he wrote. What’s wrong with it. (other than it doesn’t allow you to scare people about vaccines)?
There is difference between antigens and a preservative. Especially since all vaccines on the American pediatric schedule come in thimerosal free versions. Anyone who goes on about “mercury” is about fifteen years out of date.
Here is better and much more current science:
Click to access SPARK_gene_list.pdf
If you wish to be part of the solution, and may even get a chance to real treatments sign up for their research program. Good luck.
I have a comment in moderation, but I must ask this: What vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule is only available with thimerosal?
Do not mention influenza, since there are at least three that are thimerosal free versions. Also the HepB vaccine has not had thimerosal for almost fifteen years. Talk about old news.
Especially since states like California (where Matt lives) and Washington (where I live) actually require children and pregnant women to only get vaccines without thimerosal. Which became a problem when the H1N1 influenza was killing kids and pregnant women (because it caused a vaccine shortage).
So your response to conclusive proof that cranks are lying is to say that someone should be tortured to death based on your personal belief, contrary to the facts presented in the article in which you are commenting, that the cranks are right.
You do realise that the only person who looks bad here is you, right?
Exactly right Karina! Sadly, sicko shills like Sullivan (Matt Carey) don’t care about injured and dead kids. Thankfully, Parents are the final arbiters in making informed choices about our children’s health, not some ignorant dolt citing Lame Strawmen and Logical Fallacies that takes kickbacks from Big Pharma.
The moment you dipped into the “shill” gambit you tipped everyone off that facts do not matter to you.
Did you have any evidence that I am a shill other than I disagree with you? No.
People like you are why I don’t put any stock in the anti vaccine movement. You have no substance.
Now, can you answer the question posed above? What is wrong with what Dr. Offit said? Was it his science? His math? You can’t answer, which is why you resort to insults.
The irony inherent in your statement is not lost on me. The entire point of vaccines is that they prevent serious disease. The people who are oblivious to death and suffering are not those who support immunisation, but those who seek to undermine it. ANTIVA is the source of much preventable suffering and, yes, even death.
I’m always intrigued by the perverted imaginations of the pro-disease crowd. Thank you for the chance to look into the open sewer you use for a brain. You’ve inspired me to donate to a provaccine charity, so you’ve done some good. Keep up the good work!
Um, what mercury? Vaccines given in childhood haven’t contained any since the early 2000s in the US and 1992 in Europe. If you’re really that worried about a little bit of non-existent ethylmercury that is no longer in vaccines, then you should stop eating to avoid all the methylmercury in food, since methylmercury has a much longer half-life than ethylmercury, meaning it’s in the body for a lot longer.
Oooh, okay! So he didn’t say something more specific. Thanks for pointing that out. I’m so stupid! I’m sure no one out there who heard his statement misinterpreted it either to mean 10,000 vaccines because no one ever does that. Or that Paul Offit himself didn’t mean to suggest that…..
These are two different things. We know anti-vaccine activists misinterpreted, by error or intentionally.
It’s also clear he meant it as he said it – focusing on the theoretical capacity of an infant’s immune system. If you want to actually read about it, he discusses this and the misuse of the statement in his new book, Bad Advice.
I suspect that you said you were stupid, hoping that people would take it as sarcasm. Sadly, it’s obviously not.
Thanks for prompting me to read that paper again. (Side note: when copying from a pdf the superscripts get lost, and 1000, or 10^3, is rendered as “103”). I was always puzzled by the “1 ml” calculation. Since a typical newborn will have about 340 ml of blood, shouldn’t that number be 3.4 million? But the light just went on. Here’s the key passage (with the superscripts fixed):
“If we assume that 1) approximately 10 ng/mL of antibody is likely to be an effective concentration of antibody per epitope, … 2) generation
of 10 ng/mL requires approximately 1000 B-cells per mL, 3) a single B-cell clone takes about 1 week to reach the 1000 progeny B-cells required to secrete 10 ng/mL of antibody …, 4) each vaccine contains approximately 100 antigens and 10 epitopes per antigen (ie, 1000 epitopes), and 5) approximately 10,000,000 B cells are present per mL of circulating blood, then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10,000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10,000,000 B cells per mL by 1000 epitopes per vaccine).”
Now, at last, I get it. The number “10 ng/ml” is a CONCENTRATION, not an amount. One B-cell clone can generate 1000 descendants in one week, and those 1000 B-cells can secrete 10 ng of antibody. And each ml of blood contains 10,000,000 B-cells, only 1000 of which are needed to deal with a given epitope. 10,000,000 / 1000 = 10,000.
So Paul Offit’s numbers are correct; no surprise there. What is intriguing to me is the way people’s minds work. Because, so far as I can tell, not a single person who objects to the Offit paper has a specific idea of why it is wrong. It is just blindingly obvious to them that some number of vaccines must be too many, because … just because.
Oops. “deal with a given epitope” -> “respond to a given vaccine with 1000 epitopes”
Might want to put the the <sup> tags.
^ “put in the”
Ummm, yeah. But why say such a thing unless you are trying to intimate that 10,000 vaccines are safe?
That is the point. The context was the safety of the injections and so therefore his statement can only be interpreted as intended to convey the message that that many vaccines would be safe. Otherwise the statement makes no sense – even if it were true.
At any rate, there is also this where the interviewer (from his own hospital) represents his views as actually meaning that babies can get 100,000 vaccines at once http://www.whale.to/vaccines/offit23.html. Now, given that it was an interview by his own hospital and given that due to its importance you would think that Offit would have had it corrected if it misrepresented him then the fact that he didn’t correct it shows that that is a fair representation of his beliefs ie that Offit genuinely believes that 100,000 vaccines for a baby would be perfectly safe.
Not that it matters. You are a vaccine fascist and you won’t be posting this anytime soon.
It’s a shame that you never looked up fascism, for you prove your idiocy by using the term fascist.
Baby is inundated with bacteria, fungi, protozoans and viruses from the moment of entering the birth canal until death from old age. Hundreds of thousands of all of those microorganisms are bombarding baby with each breath, each thumb suck, each meal and each person coming near baby.
I guess humanity is extinct, as 100000 microorganisms ate every baby humanity has produced.
It’s a shame that the global population does not support your misguided notions.
Now, I don’t put words in Doctor Offit’s mouth, why do you not only distort what he has said and written, but invent out of whole cloth what he thinks?
Unless, of course, you are telepathic. If so, tell us all what I am thinking right now.
Wrong.
You only spout what which you most fear, inventing threats where none exist, but ignore real threats to the population of this nation.
Now, here is some homework. Read about what fascism is.
Oh, one addendum, no force in this universe could force me to go to whale.to and the stupidity hosted there.
Sorry, all I got from all that nonsense was that the human body is perfectly capable of dealing with millions of supposedly dastardly germs all the time – which I most assuredly don’t doubt. I do wonder though, if it’s true, then how much of an abject lunatic would you have to be to deem vaccines are useful – let alone necessary? All you have done is demonstrate that, whilst Offit’s claim of the safety of vaccines is nonsensical (because it says nothing about the way the antigens or other stuff come into our bodies) the entire paradigm on which the efficacy of vaccinations is based (germ theory) is sheer unadulterated lunacy.
Great–
You don’t even think that vaccines are useful. Which is it–do you deny (because it is frank denialism) that vaccines prevent disease or do you believe that diseases are somehow good for us? Or both?
Please, demonstrate how far you have traveled from a reasoned belief.
This truly is hilarious. I never claimed he said anything. His hospital attributed his belief that way not me. The quote was that his studies showed 100,000 vaccines are safe. You can have a sook about whale.to or whatever you like it doesn’t alter the belief his own hospital attributed to him.
At any rate, we don’t really care if he takes 100,000 vaccines. He (and every single one of you vaccine fascists) should take the entire infant immunisation schedule at the very least, adjusted for your body weights. And be sure to remember that if you see your comrades taking it and falling violently ill that that is just a coincidence and shouldn’t deter you from taking this dose.
The simple fact is if you are prepared to subject babies to something you would be too petrified to subject yourself to the equivalent of then you are, by definition, a child abuser.
Actually, I have taken a lot more antigens and immunological challenge than the infant vaccine schedule. It’s called being sick.
Just getting the mumps, measles or any of the other now vaccine preventable diseases exposes one to far more immunological challenge than from the vaccine schedule. Any one of the diseases.
Stop throwing around the term “fascist”. It only serves to demonstrate that you don’t even believe your arguments stand on their own.
“Great–
You don’t even think that vaccines are useful”
Well your own argument proves that they are not – so if you were consistent then you wouldn’t think so either – but I dare say that you are well used to extreme levels of cognitive dissonance so such a thing wouldn’t bother you.
Me on the other hand – I prefer to stick to beliefs that are actually remotely plausible. As it is mathematically impossible for a self-replicating pathogen to exist it follows that no vaccine could possibly work.
“Which is it–do you deny (because it is frank denialism)”
Hahahahahahaha!!!!
Frank denialism is the worst kind!
FMD. No pro-vaxer has ever come up with a single argument that wasn’t completely stupid.
“that vaccines prevent disease or do you believe that diseases are somehow good for us? Or both?”
My understanding of disease is well beyond someone of your feeble mind but just in case you are capable of something remotely resembling a coherent thought I will help you out. Go and find out what the term “playing possum” means and how it might relate.
“Please, demonstrate how far you have traveled from a reasoned belief.”
According to you “believing whatever the government tells you” = “reasoned belief”. I don’t subscribe to such a notion. So obviously from your perspective I am a complete lunatic and from my perspective you are a brainwashed imbecile.
Frankly, I reckon I have a lot of historical support for my contention but you can suit yourself.
You do realize that you have about zero content to your reply, do you not?
For example
But you fail to do more that assert or claim. You do not actually make a case that “if you were consistent then you wouldn’t think so either” or that there is any cognitive dissonance going on.
In other words, you are just name calling.
Not a very interesting troll. You can either actually participate in the discussion or move on.
“Actually, I have taken a lot more antigens and immunological challenge than the infant vaccine schedule. It’s called being sick.”
But you just said that all those antigens were perfectly harmless!
Why can’t you stick to your story?
Oh that’s right. It is because it is completely incoherent. Let me help you out here Matt. You have never had an independent thought and you never will.
“Just getting the mumps, measles or any of the other now vaccine preventable diseases exposes one to far more immunological challenge than from the vaccine schedule. Any one of the diseases.”
You have no idea how many measles virus antigens are on the typical person with measles symptoms. It could be none – or hundreds of billions. It is all just a guess.
“Stop throwing around the term “fascist”. It only serves to demonstrate that you don’t even believe your arguments stand on their own.”
The truth hurts doesn’t it? You want to force people to be medicated and you use lie after lie to promulgate that notion. The term fascist is just fine.
So, suffice it to say, tristan is off his rocker, completely.
Tristan: “The simple fact is if you are prepared to subject babies to something you would be too petrified to subject yourself to the equivalent of then you are, by definition, a child abuser.”
When my oldest was a toddler he had a seizure from a disease before its vaccine was available. It was no fun to call 911 and have him taken to the hospital by ambulance.
A few years later, again before its vaccine was available, all three kids got chicken pox. This includes a six month old baby, who suffered horribly when covered dozens of itchy open wounds (pox).
I also remember the misery of mumps when I was ten years old.
Any person who thinks a child should suffer from a disease where they can suffer high fevers, seizures and pure misery is a sadistic child hater.
Scopie’s Law: In any discussion about science or medicine, citing whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the forum.
You lose.
Tristan’s law: In any discussion whereby somebody says something that disagrees with me, they lose the argument automatically because I like making up arbitrary criteria.
You lose.
FMD. It is a wonder any of you clowns can remember your own names considering your stratospheric lack of self-awareness.
As I said, participate in a meaningful way or be gone.
You are just name calling.
Goodbye.
Anyone notice where “tristan” “put up”?
After many comments (some now deleted) all I see is abuse and noise. A lot of trolling.
Which proves the point–that’s all they got.
Here’s the thing about ironic “self awareness” comments.
Citing “Skopies Law” is a nice way of pointing out that you are using a credulous source of information. Beyond that, it is an ugly, racist website and perhaps you should consider whether you want to be associated with it.
You quoted whale.to
Home of the levitating dolphin story http://whale.to/b/dolphins_h.html
And Satanic Ley Lines.http://www.whale.to/b/satanism11.html#Ley_Lines_
But, aside from the fact that the man who runs that site believes just about anything (like Ley Lines burned his bum), we have the racist farce “protocols of Zion”
http://www.whale.to/b/protocols.html
So, one could say, “why do you read such a junk website” or one can cite Skopie’s Law. Take your pick.
One would think that https://scholar.google.com/ would be a far better reference site than whale.to, it’s a shame that so few of these people bother to use that as a source of information.
I mean, reptilians?! Really?! http://whale.to/b/reptilian_h.html
This is far, far better. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=reptilians&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C47&as_sdtp=
What a great example of exactly the sort of misinformation and misrepresentation I was talking about.
Put up or shut up.
What is wrong with the statement above?
And you have a reading problem–he doesn’t say vaccines at once, but that an infant can respond to the immunological challenge posed by the antigens in the vaccines. Do you know the difference? If not, why are you commenting out of ignorance? If so, why are you lying?
Read the entire post, if you have to ask that question then, I strongly recommend a remedial reading course at your local institution of learning.
Because that’s all that tristan’s got? All that the anti-vax side has are lies and poor insults. No science, no actual facts, no basis in reality. It’s also ugly how they and others try to exploit their children and the autism community for their own ends.
Let’s see now, for one deployment, I received a total of 21 vaccines in one go. For most others, if the deployments were far enough apart, 11, with the smallpox being administered at entry to training, although I believe that is been relatively recently changed to those who would respond to a smallpox outbreak in the event of intentional release.
We even received rabies vaccination before we deployed.
So, if babies could be theoretically harmed by single vaccines, shouldn’t adults being given 11 – 21 vaccines at once just drop dead?
Oddly, not a one did. I’d be a bit feverish on day one, recovered on day two to help my buddies who were then feverish.
But, let’s look at the real world, rather than the surreal world of things military.
Babies grow up in a sterile environment, having passed through a sterile canal to a sterile world, right?
Of course not, there is a poorly documented microflora and microfauna environment in a healthy vagina, there are also pathogens that can be present, such as chlamydia. That’s why baby gets those eyedrops at birth.
The neighborhood isn’t exactly the nicest when egressing from the birth canal, frequently mom will pass a stool in the process and we all know that isn’t sterile!
But, we use sterilizers for baby’s bottles and nipples, they’re sterile, right?
Nope, bacterial spores can trivially withstand that gentle steaming.
From the moment of birth onward, baby is exposed to hundreds of thousands of microorganisms per minute, with each breath, each finger suck, each adult handling, siblings touching, eating, drinking and overall getting to meet each and every bacterium, protozoan, fungus and virus in the environment.
Fortunately, the innate immune system handles most of what baby is being exposed to and the adaptive immune system is ready to learn about all of the nasties and friendly microorganisms in the environment.
Still, sickness can come and we try to avoid the potential harm from known pathogens that have historically and currently cause harm, such as hepatitis A (I have an enlarged liver from an infection with hep A as a child), measles (a couple of children in Europe have died thus far), pertussis, diphtheria (another close call in Europe, lost track if the child survived) and more.
Trust me, polio isn’t cool and seeing polio and measles strike a small village was a horror, with far too many tiny graves being filled.
I will say that one other antivaxxer meme is that the old diseases are still around, to which I say that anyone who thinks that smallpox is still around has hard won the posting for the local position of village idiot, report to the town square immediately.
shouldn’t adults being given 11 – 21 vaccines at once just drop dead? I’ve seen several keel over, especially at induction physicals. But no deaths.
“diphtheria (another close call in Europe, lost track if the child survived)”
If you’re referring to the case in Spain, the (unvaccinated) child did not survive.
Damn. I was hoping that the kid pulled through.
Induction physicals and deployment innoculations are pretty much the same, line up and get the lot in one go.
I’m one of the early reacting folks, spike a low fever, feel like crap, end up getting sent to quarters to rest.
The next day, those who them feel malaise and feverish had me fully recovered and caring for them, sending a fair number to quarters.
Thankfully, I’m retired from the Army now. It started to hurt too much to put all of that crap on each day.
Thanks (if that’s the word) are due Tristan for making the point I was getting at so clumsily above.
Although everyone opposed to vaccines seems to be sure that some number is too many, no one ever says what that number is, or more importantly, why. Tristan asks “But why say such a thing unless you are trying to intimate that 10,000 vaccines are safe?” without indicating why any number might be unsafe. The short answer is “Yes; Paul Offit was saying (not just intimating) that 10,000 vaccines are safe in the sense that they do not use up the immune system’s ability to respond to new challenges.”
But the longer answer is more important to the discussion: Offit was doing this analysis in an attempt to address what he thought was the source of parents’ concerns about multiple vaccinations: that some threshold would be crossed where vaccines would, in a phrase often used, “overwhelm the immune system.” I have heard this argument given, but never an explanation of what “overwhelm” means. Offit tried to figure out what it means, and respond to that.
Tactically, this may have been a mistake, because “overwhelm” as it is used by vaccine opponents, does not have a specific meaning. It is shorthand for the intuitive conviction that at some point the infant’s body will just give up under the onslaught of foreign substances. Offit’s mistake was not in the science — he understands that extremely well — it was in thinking that he was responding to a question that has an answer in science.
This is what “overwhelm the immune system” means to me:
http://www.kctv5.com/story/28183081/feds-give-family-74-million-over-disabling-vaccines
Yep.
I think what happened to this ADULT is a pretty damn good example of the fear many parents have for their INFANTS.
Why, you’re absolutely right! An immunization, nearly 30 years before can make me allergic to my home nation.
Or some other bovine defecation.
Here in the real world, I already had autoimmune disease, deployed to defend your willfully idiotic buttocks and returned to ozone.
Which is the cause of my primary respiratory dysfunction.
Goldenrod and ragweed being another dysfunction.
Gotta be the vaccines, because of magic.
I had enough of magic during the Iraq war, when Bush the magic worshiper “saw through” the intelligence that said that the yellowcake was cattle chips on rye calling itself a Reuben.
Lost a handful of buddies and a spare finger in that cloistersmurf.
Stood in a village that had most of the children dying of either polio or rubella. Most often with both.
So, my emotional response, well, figure out your worst insult, my response in a non-family friendly forum will be far worse, involving your entire genetic lineage in suffering harm.
My protection of nation response is still scathing, suggesting eugenics be reconsidered for you genetic constitution, but never accepting the weapon that eugenics was or its disproved nonsense.
I’m only expressing my disgust for you.
For, at this juncture, you are fully seven levels below the average village idiot, willfully.
And hence, I have no empathy for you, you are *that* foreign to me and the overwhelming majority of humanity from all of us.
The only real empathy I have for you is for your family, may it never suffer issue to suffer from your willful idiocy and experience harm and spread that harm to the community.
But then, I’m not the nicest guy you’d meet in the world.
I’m also former special forces.
May your issue never survive and may your entire genetic heritage become extinct.
All, courtesy of the disease you desire to promulgate against those I swore to protect, over three generations ago.
Yeah, I am a nice guy, but there is the biggest SOB around, who formerly terrorized terrorists. You got a gentle dose.
I’m thankfully prohibited from administering a non-gentle dose within CONUS.
Wow.
I really think you’re trying to make a point here, but I have no idea what it is.
The article I cited (since I think you didn’t read it) was the story of a grown woman whose system “did NOT react well” to the combination of vaccines she was given and permanently damaged her.
You, however, might want to return to your meds.
The anti-vaccine crowd uses the disability community but has zero respect for us.
“You, however, might want to return to your meds.”
Yep. Stigmatize and belittle those who rely upon medication for support. Because that is classy. Not.
LOL. Seriously?
His reply to me was rather less than top notch etiquette (as he himself noted). But we make snotty remarks about MY retort?
I understand. You don’t like the news article. Ugly facts.
Provax fanatics can handle everything except nasty bare reality.
So, no apology?
Just more abuse?
Typical.
As I wrote–you people just see the disability community as a tool, a hammer, to bash vaccines. What happens to us doesn’t matter. Because, you just don’t give us respect.
No. No apology to those who would insult me for delivering a dose of the Real World Fact to your little insular echo chamber.
Take from it what you will.
Really? Using “take your meds” as a slur is a “real world fact”?
It takes courage to apologize. You lack that. Which is typical of the anti-vaccine movement.
When it comes to the disability community, don’t lecture me on “delivering a dose of Real World Fact” ” It appears you have no standing to do so.
Funny, I read stuff from the anti-vaccine community all the time. It’s what keeps convincing me that they have no substance to their arguments. So your “insular echo chamber” comment is basically nonsense.
And just a diversion from the fact that you come here and stigmatize my community. And don’t have the backbone to apologize.
Good bye.
So, the disability community insulted you? Really? You can’t bring yourself to apologize for stigmatizing the disability community? People who need meds for support?
How small of you.
As to your news story, no one commented because it isn’t on topic. It’s basically a “here’s an article that challenges one of the B.S. arguments we use to scare people about vaccines. Rather than address it, I’ll just post a link to a scary story about vaccines”.
Did you ever discuss the article above? No.
So, you don’t like the ugly fact that your anti-vaccine community uses blatant scare tactics?
“What happened to Carolyn is a rarity,” Schutte said. “It’s a freak of nature. It happens occasionally. But the chances of it happening to you are minimal compared to the risks of actually contracting the diseases you are being vaccinated against.”
That’s a quote from the husband.
Someone posted this to Mothering.com. The responses are pretty entertaining!
http://www.mothering.com/forum/47-vaccinations/1534322-those-who-use-paul-offit-s-10-000-vaccine-paper-scare-others-prove-wrong.html
Not surprisingly, no one has actually proven him wrong yet there. These are the kind of comments that are being presented there by the pro-disease advocates.
“But I’m moving the frame and saying that the math doesn’t matter because the immune system doesn’t respond to antigens in the way Offit is describing.
Babies don’t bother to produce billions of antibodies every day, despite being exposed to billions of bacteria and viruses and pro-biotic bacteria in mama milk.
Babies especially don’t bother to produce antibodies to dead bacteria. Why should they?
So what is it that Offit is saying the immune system IS RESPONDING TO? And what is making the immune system bother to respond?”
Thanks for that link.
Gotta love the fact that people who are so clearly ignorant believe so strongly in themselves. Babies don’t mount immune responses to dead bacteria? Since when? Seems like someone there doesn’t understand adjuvants nor the history of adjuvants. Or even rudimentary molecular biology.
Here’s a quote from that discussion:
No irony in that last sentence. No. None at all.
The answer seems obvious to me. Ten thousand antigens would not harm us…but that’s not what he said. I used the find function on my computer to look for the dirty little secret of vaccines, adjuvants. Now, this paper was written before the mercury adjuvant had been totally removed from most all vaccines, it was in the process, I believe. Ten thousand times 25 micrograms of mercury, I’m just guessing, would be a deadly load.But the meme, 10,000 vaccines would be safe is what was caught.
There is another meme attempted to be presented to those who don’t pay much attention, again, on a PBS special— that 1 in one million children have serious reactions to vaccines. Now, if you are one of those whose children had innocuous reactions or none at all, seems like gospel, a memorable number, easily repeated. It’s highly likely none of your friends or families children had reactions either. Actually, the number coincides with the number of parents who successfully sue the government in regards to their child’s vaccine reaction and subsequent regression in health or death. So, only 1 in one million have “legally” been compensated, not actual admittance of being harmed because in most cases those who win the vaccine injury lottery are lucky enough to have their case settled outside of court.
These are all just my opinions. I’m sure you can find evidence to refute all I have said. But, the magic of Science is, that could all change tomorrow. We know hundreds of conditions that can cause autistic behavior. Instead of creating another epidemiological study to refute vaccine causation of autism, I believe things are working towards the vulnerability that children have that makes them more likely to have a vaccine reaction. [For example, 5% of febrile seizure reactions are among children with Dravet’s.]Thus, parents whose children have had serious reactions have misguidedly put the blame on vaccines, when the vulnerability to reaction is innate, and probably the same thing that causes the child’s developmental disability is the cause of the reaction. Maybe if we studied that, we would have come much, much farther than we have, considering the billions we have spent looking for answers that end up going nowhere. There is a reason why parent’s blame the vaccines. They aren’t “looking for something to blame”…they know what they have seen. Few sued or attempted to sue anyone about it. You just deal with what life hands you. (I was ready to sue so I could send my son to Glenforest School, for kids with Learning Disabilities, which cost half of what we made per year.)
It’s like the thing parents used to say, that their children regressed. The common thought (group-think) among scientific circles was that there was no proof of regression, it was all in their heads. But didn’t Lord give credence to regression? If anyone would know, I would think it would be her. (Lordie, what a life, a student of Lovaas who went on to deny his “indistinguishably” meme.)
Life is much more complicated than a simple “prove it” would engender. I can’t say Offit purposely gave life to either convenient number correlation purposefully. He did win the vaccine lottery, though…which would lead to tipping the balance on their side.
I know I said I wasn’t coming back. Sorry…
I didn’t mean to put purposely purposefully in a sentence.
The spall smacker, oh, I mean spell checker bites us all at one time or another, heaven help the one trusting blindly (to which I can attest to blindness on portable screens) predictive spelling on a cellular telephone.
That said, let’s have a bit of mathematics fun, shall we?
OK, let’s go with the 1 in 1 million children who suffer harm from a vaccine, a very similar number is true for those only injected with sterile water. Weird things happen with complex, interactive systems.
1 in 3000 die of measles. 1 in five at best, usually worse, died from smallpox (although, *that* vaccine had a *much* higher rate of bad things happening, which is why it was pulled from the public when the disease went extinct in the wild).
Between 2 and 5 die from paralytic polio. The lower number being in the west, with medical technologies to breathe for them.
Pertussis, good old whooping cough kills 4 our of 10 untreated.
Diphtheria gets gets a bit more complicated 2 out of 10 die under age 5, between 5 and 10 out one hundred die between the age of 5 and 40.
Which number is lower, for those few examples? 1 in 1 million or 2 out of 10?
As for “science has changed and it can again any time”, why are you screwing around with the computer science created, it might change any time!
Why, just look at Windows 8 and Windows 10! Better not use it!
Or ever go to a hospital when ill or wounded, don’t bother calling EMS, science may change!
Don’t drive either, science created your car and it might change or something.
Don’t eat either, science has helped create and make your food safe, science may change and that food isn’t any good.
What if something changes in a complex field is no reason to abandon the field.
Unless you like shivering in a thatched hut, while trying to make fire out of wood and rocks.
Even better, follow your moniker, use the brain that you’ve got, you’ve entirely failed to do so here.
Or use your method, play the lottery, but don’t go to any job, eventually you might win and never need to work.
Ignoring the numbers that say you’ll run out of lottery money, then starve wishing that you could play the lottery and never considering getting a job.
Now, excuse me. I work midnight to 8 in the morning shift in a security operations center. Midnight waits for no person.
Good “night”, may Silent Bob bless!
Well, given that you think that Thimerosal is an “adjuvant,” (here’s a hint, it’s not) – I don’t think you are in any condition to offer an opinion that should merit consideration here.
“There is a reason why parent’s blame the vaccines. They aren’t “looking for something to blame”…they know what they have seen.”
Often they don’t. It’s been shown time and time again that parents don’t recall correctly. Example–the Cedillo case where the parents “knew” that they had seen a sudden regression in a previously “normal” child. But the regression wasn’t sudden and the child had previously shown autistic signs.
Second, “I know what I have seen” doesn’t mean “I understand what I have seen”.
Millions if not billions of people saw the sun before someone was able to explain that it is powered by fusion. Even today most people don’t know that is why the sun is bright and hot.
Do you deny the Holocaust? After all, many of the eyewitnesses who claimed so many people were gassed didn’t have chemistry degrees. Why would people blame their own conscious decision in order to “scapegoat”? That makes no sense, indeed it is no doubt the opposite for so many who prefer to blame things beyond their control to ameliorate their guilt. Understandable really but it is pure evil that they feel the need to ensure that others make the same sacrifices just to make themselves feel better.
Tristan, let me introduce myself to you.
Primary, I had a dear and personal friend who lost her entire extended family to the Holocaust.
Her pain was well recognized to me.
So, when you proclaim that to me, welcome the wrath.
The wrath expended upon extremists in our wars and avoided.
You worship a one in one million harm in favor of a one in ten thousand harm or far worse.
As one who learned both old math and new math, may you anally experience a howitzer cleaning system I personally observed in a unit I welcomed artillery support, who also follow our guidance.
Once the system has cycled, do discuss it with us.
Or explain to me why 1/3 of the kids being dead is so fardling cool.
I have far worse language to say more, in person.
Each motherfardling time, I say my own grandkid, each of the teams saw their own children.
Wanna play that again?
Try bad debate tricks like “do you deny the holocaust” again and be banned.
I will not be trolled on my own site.
How many hundreds of thousands of years has that (fusion) not even entered into the mind of man? (And how have we all survived without knowing that?) I don’t know what fusion is. My ignorance is wide and deep.
I see two sides. One side says, “We know all we need to know about vaccines, and they cause autism.” The other side says, “We know all we need to know about vaccines, and they don’t cause autism.” Most of us are in the middle, because it doesn’t concern us. Ninety nine point seven percent of parents give their children vaccines because they love them.It is the right thing to do. We don’t really know why some kids have severe reactions to vaccines, while 99.8% do not. But we are learning….not because we blindly accept the safety of vaccines, but because we don’t.
Precisely my point.
People looked. They saw. They “knew what they saw”. But that doesn’t mean that they knew what was actually going on.
“We don’t really know why some kids have severe reactions to vaccines, while 99.8% do not.”
Where did you ever get the idea that the rate of severe reactions is 0.2%? Because you are off by many orders of magnitude. You even quoted 1 in a million recently.
Which is to say, 99.9999+%
” Now, this paper was written before the mercury adjuvant had been totally removed from most all vaccines, it was in the process, I believe.”
Please read up on the difference between an adjuvant and a preservative.
If you are going to play the “I’m smarter than you” game, you’ve already won.I guess I meant additive.
Or, maybe I pulled an Offit…saying one thing when I meant another.
Wrong again – you should try harder.
Also, Thimerosal is also used to protect the blood supply. I bet you didn’t know that either.
I didn’t know that Thimerosal is used in blood banks. Thanks for the tidbit of information!
It’s always a successful day in my book when I learn something new.
For someone who’s name portends that you’ll “use your brain” you really aren’t.
wzrd1, the problem with all of what you said is that every single aspect of it was completely made up.
The one in a million adverse events from vaccines – that is completely made up.
The 4 out of 10 pertussis deaths. Completely made up.
The diphtheria death rates – completely made up.
The measles death rate – completely made up.
The smallpox death rate – completely made up.
The only figure that you might have a leg to stand on with is the death from paralytic polio but as paralysis rates have *risen* since the polio vaccine that hardly seems like something the vaccine fascists should be too proud of.
Uh huh, the NIH and CDC invent statistics?
Go away and seek professional mental health care guidance.
All of those numbers came from CDC and NIH sources, searched while I was writing that paragraph. I use facts and statistics to support my claims, I don’t do what so may others do and either remove a ready “fact” from the rectum nor do I quote false information from non-reputable sites.
I have personal friends who are epidemiologists and not a one has had to correct the numbers I post.
Oh, when you do find that professional mental health care professional, if they’re any good, send them my way. I’m suffering too many fools of late, I really should ascertain why I’m doing that.
Please don’t make mental health care comments like thast
My apologies, it was said in the heat of the moment and that should never have been said.
I see that my old practice of waiting five minutes before hitting post needs to be reinstated.
“mercury adjuvant” — well, there’s your first problem. Thimerosal isn’t an adjuvant, it’s a preservative.
“Now, this paper was written before the mercury adjuvant had been totally removed from most all vaccines…”
*Reads* Hahahahahahahahaaaa! Mercury adjuvants? What planet are you on? Mercury was used to prevent bacterial infection of multi-dose vials of vaccine, not to boost a vaccine’s effects.
Use the brains God give you was what my father used to always tell me. It made me feel kinda bad, but, as a bartender, it was the only time he used God’s name not in vain, as we were taught not to do as nice little catholic kids.I’m a scattered one. It’s not a great feat to outwit me.
I see a typical scenario that someone thinks they are going to come in and upset the balance of braininess, and must be defeated. It’s a matter of honor. But I will tell you, I know very little, from the beginning. Still, I see science is starting to look at children who are vulnerable. At first it was just Dravet’s,,,i read somewhere it accounted for 5% of unexplained febrile seizures. What about the other 95%? Doesn’t Dravet’s give us a clue? Now I’ve seen some talk about other epilepsies, that familial epilepsy increases odds. And….Hannah Polling….good example. I don’t think you hear what I am saying…I don’t think you are able to wrap your minds around it, because it doesn’t agree with your views.
Actually, what you are saying is crystal clear – “since we don’t understand something that happens to a child, it must obviously be vaccines.”
That’s where you lose the average person – because you are starting with a conclusion and trying to find the evidence that fits, instead of the other way around.
That more money continues to be wasted trying to prove this “hypothesis” and time and time again, nothing is ever found, is not a reason to continue down the same road, it is to start looking elsewhere.
That would be “using the brain god gave you.”
I am NOT saying that…
Whatever makes children vulnerable to neurological disease also makes them succeptable to vaccine reactions. I did NOT say vaccine injury. Did you notice that?
What I didn’t see is any evidence for your assertion.
There is a very good reason to oppose the “I know what I saw” argument, and it’s this:
We come to appreciate reality when we approach it with humility, patience and a desire above all other considerations to find out what is true about the world.
It is a painful and tiring process, but it is the best way known to discover reality.
When we say “I know what I saw” we are saying “My observation, and my interpretation of it, are above being challenged.” It is only natural for a person to want that immunity to challenge, but it was only when our brains learned the very unnatural methods of scientific inquiry that we made reliable progress in understanding the world around us.
All of that is perfectly fine. But why on Earth would anybody give a rat’s arse about the opinions of people with a massive vested interest in vaccinations when they say “I saw nothing!”
I am not saying, “I KNOW what I saw” as much as I am saying, why are some kids so susceptible, when 99.8% are not? Sullivan, that is the number of compensated kids, one in one million.
I KNOW I did see an HHE. That’s what I KNOW I saw. Now, Dravet’s makes kids succeptable (the way it should be spelled) to febrile seizures. What makes kids succeptable to HHE’s? Do YOU know? Or is that not a good question?
an 99.8% is a made up number.
Either you are redefining a serious reaction or you are using fake values. Whether you originated the number or not I can not say, but your number is nonsense.
Sullivan, serious reactions are as fluid as the compensable tables. At the time, HHE was a table reaction, within highly defined parameters, and my son would have qualified for cessation of vaccines, one of those saved by herd immunity. It happened in 1 in 1000 shots up to one in 6000.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1112808/ (Notice, 1998—my son was vaccinated in 1994) Typically in a year, I read somewhere 145,000,000 DTP vaccines were given out. This would be ~25,000- 145,000 shock reactions per year in the early years before DTP was changed to DTaP, and the HHE’s decreased 7 fold. Over the time period of 1998-2006, something like 2.5 billion shots were given out. (I may have my years mixed up, but I’m almost certain 2006 was the ending date.) Strangely….I just divided the number of HHE’s low number, by the total 2.5 billion, and come up with one in a million. One year of HHE’s over the 2.5 billion is one in a million. There. All the rest of the reactions don’t count.
“Sullivan, serious reactions are as fluid as the compensable tables”
And the table is not very fluid.
Still no word on where you got 99.8%?
still no answer to what causes an HHE, either.
I didn’t purport to know that. Whereas you have repeatedly put out a made up number.
So what has happened to all these so-called vaccine preventable diseases if their complications are still just as, if not more, common but we no longer hear about them?
They have all been renamed – differentially diagnosed.
Measles has been renamed roseola, fifth disease, etc;
Polio has been renamed Guillain Barre, transverse myelitis, coxsackie, MS, cerebral palsy, viral meningitis (we actually use more respirators today than we ever did iron lungs by the way it is just that iron lungs were too expensive and dangerous to keep using);
Diphtheria/pertussis were renamed respiratory syncytial virus, croup, strep, tonsillitis etc;
Hepatitis was renamed Hep C, Hep D etc;
Meningitis/pneumonia/sepsis blamed on Hib was renamed meningitis/pneumonia/sepsis blamed on some other bacteria;
Smallpox was renamed monkey pox/severe chicken pox.
So is this all some sort of conspiracy? Did the doctors in 1950 plan on renaming polio as these other things? Well with some doctors – to some extent – yes they did and in fact there were official redefinitions of polio (such as requiring the paralysis to last longer) but even disregarding that most of the renaming has happened organically. In other words it isn’t a function of deliberate dishonesty amongst doctors it has instead come about because doctors *genuinely* believed in the vaccinations. After all, most doctors vaccinate their own kids so it goes without saying that most of them do actually believe in this lunacy (no great surprise given that they receive even more brainwashing than the average person on this issue). But it is precisely *because* they believe in vaccines that the data cannot be trusted.
You are off your rocker….
No. Just a liar.
He seems fixated on misrepresenting the article in Parenting magazine. The author of that story–not Paul Offit–made the mistake of saying that a child could get 100,000 vaccines (not respond to). Someone at CHOP quoted that article and that’s a huge smoking gun! Because Paul Offit obviously makes the website or some such nonsense.
Is the statement still on the Chop.edu website?
Nope.
When the mistake was found, the page was taken down.
Pretty thin gruel for Tristan. But enough to make noise and troll and try to scare people.
For the record–he has yet, even in deleted comments, to address the statement above. Not even close. And, yep, as a troll he’s no longer welcome. Which is probably his goal–troll hard enough to get banned and then claim “they had to shut me down because I was telling the truth!”
Nope. Just overhyped and misrepresented events.
Sullivan…I know we have doctors who spend their entire careers and never see a reaction. According to some, they’d have to have 1,000,000 kids in their practice. I’m guessing 500 would be a BIG practice, but I don’t know.
Not one doctor will deny they exist, though.
Doctors have always believed it was the pertussis component that caused an HHE, even if they didn’t witness it, they know it happens. It happens with other vaccines, too, but not nearly so often. Has that changed?
Do they think it is something other than the vaccine that causes the HHE, because last I knew….they had determined the vaccine was causal as they didn’t see the same reaction in any other circumstances, maybe? IDK.
Although many suspected adverse drug reactions
are simply coincident in time with administration
of the vaccine, passive reporting systems cannot
discriminate events that are only temporally as-
sociated with vaccine exposure from those that
are caused by exposure.
This came from the Brighton Collaboration and has been in my cut and past all day. Just an aside.
I saw Paul Offiit give that interview and the words came out of his mouth. He said a babies immune system could handle 100K vaccines.
And your proof is what, exactly?
And yes, a baby could handle the antigen challenge from a large number of vaccines……
True, although lasting immunity would likely not exist.
Hence, the vaccination table. Something phenomenally well researched and planned. 🙂
Rather than a doctor wanting to make more money introducing an unresearched alternative vaccination plan that leaves children at risk, just for money.
tricky answer….there is more than antigens in vaccines. I remember reading without adjuvants, there would be no immune response, in fact Offit says something to that effect in the article if I remember..Dirty vaccines work better than clean antigens.
I think it was a very poor choice of wording on Offit’s part.
No, without adjuvants, you would just need to use a lot of antigens (like the old DTP vaccine) to get the same response.
Adjuvants allow you to get the same response, with fewer antigens – which means less of a chance of a bad reaction.
Hence, adjuvants make for safer vaccines.
Why do you define more antigens/less adjuvants as “dirty”?
Poor choice of words on your part.
I don’t think so, Matt. What got that started was this line from Polly Matzinger’s “Danger Model”
“Why do we fail to make immune responses to vaccines composed of inert foreign proteins unless we add noxious substances, collectively known as “adjuvants”? http://www.direct-ms.org/pdf/ImmunologyGeneral/DangerModel.pdf
She’s my hero….probably explains a lot….
Here, on Wikipedia
(In immunology, an adjuvant is a component that potentiates the immune responses to an antigen and/or modulates it towards the desired immune responses.[1] The word “adjuvant” comes from the Latin word adiuvare, meaning to help or aid.[2] “An immunologic adjuvant is defined as any substance that acts to accelerate, prolong, or enhance antigen-specific immune responses when used in combination with specific vaccine antigens.”[3]
Adjuvants have been whimsically called the dirty little secret of vaccines[4] in the scientific community. This dates from the early days of commercial vaccine manufacture, when significant variations in the effectiveness of different batches of the same vaccine were observed, correctly assumed to be due to contamination of the reaction vessels. However, it was soon found that more scrupulous attention to cleanliness actually seemed to reduce the effectiveness of the vaccines, and that the contaminants – “dirt” – actually enhanced the immune response. There are many known adjuvants in widespread use, including oils, aluminium salts, and virosomes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunologic_adjuvant
Written from my “ghost desk”.
Matt…I listened to a talk the other day
So, you have a link? Or are we just going on your memory?
So, the calculation above stands, right? Because you have no complaint? So an infant can respond to the antigen load of 10,000 vaccines.
Every single one of those assertions is, simply, false. Diseases such as diphtheria, which killed 14,000 children in a typical year, have in fact gone away, and they have gone away because of vaccines. Communicable diseases are extremely well studied, their symptoms and typical progression carefully recorded, and their genomes mapped. No; they haven’t just been renamed. But I don’t expect it to make any difference to point this out, because a truly paranoid belief system is immune to challenge.
Here’s a true story that may be apropos:
My father worked for NASA during the 1960s and 1970s. At one point he was seated on an airplane next to a fellow who ventured that the moon landings had been faked. “Well,” said Pop, “I work for NASA and go to Cape Canaveral frequently, where I’ve seen the launches. I’ve followed the data stream, the communication and the visual contact as the spacecraft went to the moon and landed. I know several of the astronauts, and I’ve talked with them about the landings after they’ve returned. I am reasonably sure that we actually landed on the moon.” A pause. “Yeah, if you work for NASA, I bet that’s what you’d say.”
jre, I once told Buzz Aldrin that he never walked on the moon. Fell a lot, stumbled, hopped, fell some more (enough to worry people at mission control) and tracked dust into the LEM cabin to choke on.
I’m pretty sure he’s still laughing, because that is true.
Walking isn’t part of the equation when one is trying to move around in 1/6 the gravity one is accustomed to walking under.
To be fair, I’d probably have fallen a lot more than those brave men.
This has already been refuted below. Suffice to say, you are deranged if you genuinely believe that.
It is a fact that the diagnostic criteria for polio changed 3 times. One in 1955 after the saulk vaccine came out. Also, 1968/70. Acute flaccid paralysis/ GBS/meningitis would have previously been diagnosed as polio
And we can easily identify what is Polio & what isn’t – so what is your point?
No, it isn’t.
One can test for polio. That whole “infected with a detectable virus” thing.
And, yet they have been able to tell the difference between the three main polio viruses, and even if it is a wild or vaccine virus for many many years. See this short entry from someone who studied polio:
http://www.virology.ws/2015/08/12/a-collection-of-polioviruses/
So your comment is very very outdated.
@ Tristan
Measles and roseola are caused by two different viruses, the latter from the herpes family. In addition, roseola is, in most cases, much more benign than measles. Measles is still killing kids, up to 145,000 in the Third World. Labs can fairly easily distinguish between the two. While most deaths are caused by secondary opportunistic bacteria causing pneumonia, treatable with antibiotics, even with antibiotics in 1950s there were ca. 50,000 hospitalizations in US, 400-500 deaths and ca 1000 children with permanent disabilities, seizure disorders, mental retardation, blindness. Since measles just as contagious today, with double the population, and without the vaccine, we would experience approximately double the above.
Polio and Guillaine Barre are quite distinct and there are easy-to-use tools for differential diagnoses. It would be a waste of time to go through all the other diseases you would like to believe that have replaced polio; but, just one more, MS, has quite different symptomatology, and is an autoimmune disease whereas polio is a direct result of a virus attacking specific targets, motor neurons, in the nervous system.Yes, we use more respirators today than we ever did iron lungs; but most are for short-term support. And our population has doubled, so . . .
Hepatitis was not renamed Hep C, Hep D. They are distinct microbes. In fact, Hep A, Hep B, and Hep C belong to different viral families and can be seen with an electronic microscope, and have different effects. Hep A is usually a short-lived disorder not leading to liver cirrhosis or cancer. Hep B can lead to them; but different pattern than Hep C.
As for Monkey Pox being renamed smallpox, are you nuts?. You do realize that microbes, even within one type, have variants that often are species specific. Smallpox was highly contagious and until the WHO eliminated it caused around 200,000 deaths per year. Monkey Pox rarely infects humans and probably rare, if ever, spread from human to human. Only close contact with an animal can lead to infection.
I don’t know where you get your information; but I suggest starting with the latest edition of the two-volume Field’s Virology (in most university libraries and probably some public libraries), not the rubbish posted on antivaccinationist websites. Also, read a good book in Microbiology (an excellent one is Tortora et al. Microbiology 12th edition; but you can probably find an earlier edition, 11th, for cheaper on Amazon marketplace) and a good book in Immunology. There are several really good texts; but they are dense reading. An excellent introduction, only 150 pages, is Lauren Sompayrac’s “How the Immune System Works”. A new edition just came out this month. Not expensive.
Brilliant comment Tristan. There also seems to be a bias in the medical community to ascribe pathologies to microbes over environmental contaminants.
Even if you live downwind from a nuclear detonation site, your lung cancer would likely be attributed to second-hand cigarettes smoke over radioactive air-born particles.
The aluminum and mercury poisoning caused by vaccines is marginalized in favor of genetic and idiopathic etiologies. Deaths from chemotherapy and radiation are invariably blamed on cancer.
Even George Orwell would be astonished at the semantic fraud in the medical industry. All of these diseases should properly be simply called mercury poisoning: Autism, Kawasaki’s Disease, Minamata’s Disease, Acrodynia, and Pink’s Disease.
The medical establishment protects industry by obfuscating the truth. They are the lapdogs of industry along with the mainstream media.
“The aluminum and mercury poisoning caused by vaccines is marginalized in favor of genetic and idiopathic etiologies.”
Many millions of dollars and thousands of researcher hours were spent chasing the mercury hypothesis. The answer comes back time and again–autism isn’t caused by mercury in vaccines. That’s not “marginalized”. That’s showing the hypothesis was wrong.
But faced with a mountain of evidence, you resort to ignoring it and phrases like “lapdogs”. I appreciate people like you. Your clear lack of depth and resort to empty rhetoric reminds me of the sorts of arguments that led me to question and research the vaccine hypothesis. Why, I would ask myself, if there are facts on your side do you (a) not use them and (b) need to resort to inflammatory language? The answer was, time and again, you (collective you) don’t have facts.
interesting Orwell quote. As I am publishing what you do not what printed.
You do realise that pathogens are environmental contaminants by definition, right?
“Hepatitis was renamed Hep C, Hep D, etc.”
Hepatitis was named when all doctors saw was a disease that inevitably led to liver failure. The various types got their names when electron microscopes allowed scientists to see the differences in the related viruses that cause hepatitis. Free clue: ‘hepatitis’ = ‘liver inflammation’.
One in one million is 10×3 smaller than 1 in 1000. So take the 2500 compensated reactions (one in one million) and multiply by 1000, to get 2,500,000. That would be 2500000/2500000000, or 99.9%. That’s way too high, and besides, HHE’s decreased by a 7 fold number. So let’s say, total reactions of HHE AND, Encephalopathies combined, instead of 1 in 500 are one in 5000—,decrease the number 10 fold, accounting for the change in DTaP, surely overcompensating. That would be 99.98%
That’s not how I came up with it. I really seriously tried to consider the numbers, But to say one in one million, when what I was coming across were numbers of HHE’s and Encephalopathies being one in 500, combined…not including the one in 1,125,000 that led to anaphalactic shock….just….too…creative.
What I meant by fluid, is changing….the HHE counts, then it doesn’t even though we know little to nothing about it. And we haven’t looked long term….except for a singular study of 16 kids. We’ve looked up to 18 months, long before most kids are diagnosed with anything.
I know what I say doesn’t matter to any of you, on either side. I’m not THAT stupid.
If what you say didn’t matter, no one would respond.
What is the risk of HHE now. Today. With the acellular vaccine? You use a value for the old vaccine and then just assert a 7 fold reduction.
Sorry, but your calculation just isn’t convincing.
We have doctors who spend their entire careers never seeing a serious reaction. 99.8% is just too high.
I read one in 7000 somewhere…with the DTaP. I’ll look for it.
Here is a reiteration of the DTwp, 1 in 1500-2000 (WHO position paper, 2010) ” Since the manufacturing cycle of whole-cell vaccine does not allow the elimination of the bacterial components responsible for adverse reactions (e.g., endotoxin), the use of whole-cell vaccine can be associated with relatively frequent adverse reactions (26–40% of the doses) including fever, irritability, reactions at the injection site, or rare reactions including hypotonia-hyporesponsiveness (HHE; 1 case every 1500–2000 doses).4,45″ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796522/
I am telling you as I come across things, and this may be important. I can only read so much at a time, my eyes fatigue easily, and the luxury of going back and checking it isn’t always there. It may be the amblyopia (spelled fonetically) I’ve always had is wearing out my 60 year old eyes.
Here, in figure 1, the decrease in HHE when acellular was introduced was the factor of ~8, from 25 to 3.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796522/
Here, acellular DTP “pertussis vaccine, Pentacel (DTaP–IPV–Hib), also manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, was shown to reduce HHE‐related hospitalisations by 67% and febrile seizures by 79% after introduction in Canada in the late 1990s.2” so it was reduced by 2/3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2083155/
Here, in India, “It also concluded that “the reporting rate of HHE following the pentavalent vaccine (14.9 cases per 100 000 doses) was found to be well within the reported estimates of HHE following whole-cell pertussis-containing vaccines (21–250 cases per 100 000 doses).” Following this, the Sri Lankan government decided to re-introduce the vaccine from September 2009. However, due to shortage of fresh stocks this was only possible in February 2010 (15).”http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484747/
My search parameters were “dtap vaccine HHE ” (literally….I cut and pasted.
Now none of this makes any difference, if it has been proven that HHE is innocuous, and evidenced by long term studies. But the only long term study done showed 50% of 8 kids followed up 7 years later had genetic neurological disease. The only genetic disease I know my son does not have is Fragile X. We can’t afford testing. I’m not one of those who spends $50,000 a year on my kid…I don’t have the luxury of that. He is adopted, so there is no looking at BAP, except environmentally…in which case he’s screwed.
Some insurance companies will pay for medically necessary genetic testing, did you check with your insurance company?
There’s a really good old saying among medical professionals. The dose makes the poison.
Any endotoxins that might manage to find their way into a vaccine will be so diluted as to have no effect.
That said, endotoxins are avoided in acellular vaccines via the manufacturing process.
Yes, I did. We, in fact, went to an Atlanta Dr. who is leaving his genetic practice to become a researcher, if I remember, in mitochondrial disease. I guess B. didn’t have enough phenotypical indicators to assure him he would be paid, and he refused any testing. We have outstanding insurance, my husband works for the Federal Gov.t. He never really said why…maybe he sees a lot of profound cases, or richer clients. So we just let it go. Story of my life. I did mention Gerschwin’s [?] Syndrome. He probably thought I was nuts, but it just happened to fit B’s learning disability. He got cool after that. (finger agnosia, dyscalculia, inabilty to differentiate Left/Right…and one other thing, can’t remember. It was located to a particular brain area in stroke victims, if I remember.)
The dose makes the poison is true in most cases. Going back to thimerosal, however you spell it, Acrodynia (fudge) ——-PInk’s Disease shows that is not always the case. The same uneventful dose for 1999 kids was poison to the 2000th. So like Wilson’s disease, PKU, hell, even diabetes. Because we have spent 2 billion and are still basically clueless, why not add another parameter to Autism etiology? We know hundreds of things that cause Autism already that have nothing to do with vaccines…genetics, viruses, brain damage, old sperm, familial autoimmune disorders (thyroid problems…look at cretinism, if that is the current terminology and what a simple lack of iodine in the soil can do, epigenetically….or FAS) and CMV Syndrome is so close in it’s expression to rubella…and so common. The reaction may tilt it more towards an immunological bias. Or not, but it’s the first thing I thought.
I feel like we are slapping down a clue because it doesn’t fit with what we want to believe. Science, let’s be real, has always told parents all kinds of bullshit about the etiology. As a parent, you become immune to it’s answers because like history, it seems less a line than a circle.
I’ve never been able to find the work again, but I remember a table where kids with autism were like 26% likely to have a reaction to vaccination, whereas case kids were at 6%. I do get things confused and I am not a scientist. Like I said, I’ve never found it again, and I probably misunderstood something. Sullivan had it on one of his lists of vaccination/autism thingys.
I’m old and tired. Sorry.
I’ve fired my share of physicians, when they failed to follow best practices or had competency problems. I’ve never been shy about insisting that I and my wife receive the best medical care that we can.
Case in point, one former physician was confused by my wife’s bilateral trigger finger, stating one appointment, “I don’t know why this is happening, I know that you’re not diabetic”. I stopped him right then and asked *how* he knew, as no glucose readings were ever taken, nor was blood work done. One glucometer reading later, she was on metformin. Her A1C was measured and quite high as well.
Now, she receives her medication and due to the physician documenting a treatment plan that involved narcotics that he didn’t prescribe, we left his practice. While unlikely, for all we knew, he was writing the RX and diverting the drugs.
Yeah, I have trust issues, I’m an information security professional. 😉
Her diabetes is type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance in her case. My paternal side of the family is lousy with type 2 diabetes, no male making it to age 50 without becoming diabetic.
I’m 53 and beat the odds by defeating another familial tendency, excess weight. I’ve kept my weight down and am only pre-diabetic. Fat does indeed play a role in insulin resistance. Some of my aunts and uncles ended up taking insulin for their type 2 diabetes, the ones most, erm, generously proportioned.
But, type I diabetes is autoimmune. The immune system attacks the beta cells in the islet of Langerhans, those cells produce insulin. End result, the body can’t use the glucose produced and absorbed, as there is no insulin to permit the body’s cells to use glucose for fuel (it’s a lot more complicated, this is the Cliff Notes version).
I happen to know a little bit about things medical due to my previous career, of which I retired from a handful of years ago, I was a special forces medic. That MOS has a lot more training than simply plugging holes or splinting bones that should be in one piece, but are not. We even performed surgeries what were of moderate complexity. We ran clinics in rural villages that never had medical personnel around. We immunized villages to get ahead of epidemics.
Once, we set up shop, desperately trying to get in front of a polio epidemic that was raging in the region. We discovered to our horror, a measles epidemic coming from a different direction up country also converging upon that village.
Two dozen tiny graves were dug when the children fell ill, they were all filled.
Our team split in half, vaccinating the villages that had measles, to get in front of the polio epidemic.
Every grave being filled, I saw my brand new grandchild being buried in.
Yeah, that’s what drives me. We halted both epidemics, the measles halted because we vaccinated against every vaccine preventable disease endemic in the region.
The native panacea? Opium gum, chewed for anything that illed someone.
Yes, I’m serious about that.
I’m not sure which tastes worse, opium gum or penicillin.
You’ve got a much larger medical background than I ever had. I understand why you are fighting ignorance. What a horrific day it must have been when you lost your grandchild. I’m sorry. I can’t imagine losing a child, let alone my child’s child…that must be a special kind of pain because it is the greatest pain in the world for your child…and we as parents want to carry and protect our children all their lives. That’s a boo-boo you can’t kiss away. I hope I never feel that pain. If I had grandchildren, I would want them to be vaccinated as I vaccinated my son. I am listening to your story and it is like a movie, something a first world dumbass must try to visualize to even begin to imagine the urgency and defeat of filling the graves. I’m sorry, that….I’d best shut up before I say something painful. I can’t say I understand at all
Here is something I saw just today, kind of on that order…http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21672213-viral-and-parasitic-diseases-are-not-only-worth-killing-they-are-also-increasingly There’s a whole big world out there we never even think about, but some people do. Funny, it was in the Economist…In the comment, somebody says, @#$% vaccines, let’s work on diabetes, a lot more lives will be saved, being facetious, but truthful. It’s all relative.
.
Heres a simpleton’s story.
I made a mistake of becoming a teacher instead of a scientist. It was a choice I made 30 years ago. I suck as a teacher, but it was helpful in raising my son. Now, see, I can accept him as he is…he is wonderful, and climbed many mountains, considering he was echolalic up to grade 4. He began to get his own voice then, rather than memorized scripts. He’s quite good in Science and History (98th %tile), a natural, but he loves working with his hands, or at least using his visual spatial skills. His Dyscalculia puts him below the 1st percentile for his age in math calculations, but he works as a machinist with tolerances to the ten thousandth degrees. Life…is kind of amusing that way. He’s very careful to try to get it right.
But I’ve seen kids suffer—suffer isn’t the right word, when it’s all you know. Anyhow, being in Special Ed, I’ve seen all kinds of medical conditions that cruelly place some kids on the edges of society for things so beyond their control just because some people are elitist bastards and train their kids that way, too. When I was in special ed classes, talking to my advisor, I talked about my best friends sister, Judy. She had autism. They, as a family, used to say that the only thing wrong with Judy was she was missing a chemical so she could talk, and science would come up with a cure one day.. That always stuck with me. THEN, I learned about PKU. If you don’t know, it is the slow poisoning of absolutely normal child who end up dying severely handicapped sometimes at a very early age. That gobsmacked me. I couldn’t believe diet could lead to severe, severe mental handicaps. Ben’s first speech teacher lost 2 sisters to it who died in institutions at age 9 and 11 of PKU. But, a mother told a chemist her kids smelled after they ate. She was quite insistent, and he determined they were not processing phenalinine, and so it was determined to remove it from the diets of kids who had PKU. They do that heel prick to determine if kids have it, and about 30 other genetically acquired diseases that can be environmentally altered by diet, or supplementation, you know, quite simple things. There are a lot of them….there’s a form of epilepsy that only needs biotin. Relatively simple things….One mother, one scientist…https://twitter.com/mnhealth/status/648856011776757761 a tweet about a gal with PKU who survived and thrived because of diet. Wilson’s disease, Hematochromatosis, Diabetes, (ALL my father’s brothers (7) had diabetes because they drank so heavily). Science is very very complex, but sometimes it can be so simple and elegant…and …imagine if we are missing a simple clue. I would be very good at that because I am very good
at being simple minded. Or obsessive…maybe they are the same thing.
I know, I know, tl:dr…..
Hi: Good article. Several antivaccination websites not only misrepresented the 10,000; but upped the number to 100,000. I guess is one is going to misrepresent something, might as well go whole hog.
I write articles for Every Child By Two, a non-profit founded in 1991 by Rosalyn Carter (Jimmy Carter’s wife) and Betty Bumpers (wife of former Governor of Arkansas) to promote childhood vaccinations. A section of one of my articles, I believe, does a good job of refuting the claim made by antivaccinationist that vaccines overload the immune system.
You can find my article, “Wrong About Measles, Cancer & Autism: A Review of Dan Olmsted’s Article “Weekly Wrap: Measles, Cancer, Autoimmunity, Autism” (Age of Autism, May 17, 2014)” at:
Click to access Wrong_About_Measles_Cancer_Autism.pdf
Scroll down to page 25, section: “Do Vaccines Overload Our Immune Systems?”
Well, there is egg albumin and there’s serum albumin, as I recall, there are differences.
Courtesy of a heat stroke, I have kidney damage that causes me to urinate significant amounts of albumin. I noticed it first after the heat stroke, then used my urinalysis sticks and noted the increased albumin, which I mentioned to doctor during a visit over an odd ECG strip I had for pre-operative testing to remove trauma induced cataracts.
The end result of the ECG strip was a next day appointment with a cardiologist. After nearly destroying his treadmill during a stress test (I forgot my sneakers and had on my desert boots), he gave me a chemical stress test, then a procedure involving twilight sleep and a garden hose sent into my femoral artery (yes, I know what a cardiac catheterization is. Work with me on the humor, I was conscious for the silicone plug going into the femoral artery and it wasn’t pleasant.).
Afterward, doctor took me aside and proclaimed the opposite of “You had a heart attack” and said, “You did not have a heart attack”.
I explained, “I know, I had a heat stroke, but you wouldn’t listen. But, thanks for letting me know that I only have 5% narrowing of any coronary artery of interest.”
I still issue albumin, courtesy of that heat induced damage. I’m fortunate that I still have an operational brain and a functional liver.
Both are also infamous for being cooked by such heat stress.
That’s what I get for forgetting to bring water with me wherever I go. I lived off post, in the Persian Gulf and it was August. Got stuck in traffic for a half hour and forgot my liter of water.
Oh well, that phenomenal burst of intracranial flatulence at least didn’t end my life or leave me an idiot.
Or more simply, oops that I survived. I’ve had a handful of those over my life, each one with its own lasting injury.
I really need to stop oopsing.
Serum albumin is essential for blood chemistry. It is very close in structure to the albumin in eggs. They are both forms of protein.The point I was making when exchanging posts with an antivaccinationists was that albumin is not a “dangerous” chemical; but a normal protein. Trying to explain blood chemistry to an idiot is a waste of time, egg protein was a lot easier to use. What point are you trying to make? Or do you just suffer from verbal diarrhea as well as loss of serum albumin?
So, you are the resident immunologist? Not today, but if I find you again, do you answer questions without being mean to stupid people who try to be nice?
Dr. Harrison — that’s a brilliant article, with the care and thought you put into it evident on every page. Let me add as a side note something I ran across while researching something (I thought to be) unrelated. If we look at the incidence of otosclerosis by age cohort, it turns out that it drops abruptly for people born in the mid- to late- 1960s. In fact, the drop matches up extremely well with the introduction of measles vaccination in early childhood. We saw the reduction in acute consequences of measles (which would have been enough in itself), but had to wait decades to find out that measles vaccination also eliminated a major cause of hearing loss later in life. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17245018
@usethebrainsgodgiveyou
The antigens for llu vaccine, for instance, are extracted from flu viruses grown in 10s of millions of eggs. It is an extremely time consuming and resource consuming process. The amount of antigen in a vaccine influences how strongly our immune systems respond. Since it would be almost prohibitive to grow enough antigen to produce enough vaccine, we use lower levels of antigen together with adjuvants. Adjuvants do one or more of the following: 1. They keep the antigen in the blood stream for a longer time so that the immune system has a better chance of responding to the lower dose and/or 2. They illicit a greater general immune response, e.g. higher levels of cytokines, chemokines, and other innate immune system agents that, in turn, elicit a greater response from the adapted/acquired immune system, that is B and T cells. As of last year, as a senior citizen, I have been getting the High Dose Flu Zone shot. It has four times the antigen of a regular flu shot, designed for seniors because our immune system no longer respond as well as when younger. This shot costs a lot more and has a higher level of minor adverse events, e.g. soreness at shot site, low grade fever, etc.
The adjuvants used, have been tested for many years. Aluminum, for instance, is one of the most ubiquitous elements on Earth and various compounds enter our bodies daily from the air we breath, food and water, and through small scratches in our skin. We get far more from breast feeding than from that contained in vaccines and, NO, the aluminum from breast milk is NOT from vaccinating the mother; but from the environment. One flu shot would add a minuscule amount for a short time period.
The Wikipedia article’s use of “dirt” is simply stating that ingredients in a vaccine other than the antigens did what I explained above. With modern production methods, we simply eliminate “contaminants” and precisely add the intended ingredients. Obviously, 70 – 80 years ago our production methodology wasn’t even near as advanced and precise as today.
I suggest “usethebrainsgodgiveyou” read more carefully articles such as that in Wikipedia, as the “dirt” was obviously referring to vaccines from yesteryear and also read the following:
1. Nathalie Garçon et al. “Chapter 5: Evolution of adjuvants across the centuries” in Stanley A. Plotkin et al. Vaccines 6th Edition; Elsevier: 58 – 70. [Available at many university libraries and some public libraries.
2. Lauren Sompayrac. “How the Immune System Works” An excellent introduction, just 150 pages. A new edition came out this month.
Many articles on Wikipedia are lacking in quality, but frequently have good citations within the articles.
When I was taking courses, the use of Wikipedia articles were prohibited and for good reason, however finding citations within the articles and researching further on Google Scholar certainly saved a great deal of time and helped me complete my assignments.
Would you concur, Doctor? That Wikipedia isn’t highly authoritative or always accurate, but citations within the articles may be worthy of usage on initial states in trying to understand a subject?
@wzrd1
Yes and No. An article several years ago compared science articles in Wikipedia and Brittanica and found Wikipedia about as good as Brittanica. However, as you, when I read a Wikipedia article, I look at the references and, if on a subject I don’t already have knowledge of, obtain the referenced articles. In the vast majority of cases, the Wikipedia article is quite good; but even when not, as you, I find a number of good references. The advantage of Wikipedia is that the references are often hyperlinked and easy to obtain; but not always. I like Wikipedia as I can find lots of good information quite quickly; but, I NEVER rely on one source.
One thing. Antivaccinationist articles sometimes efer to Wikipedia; but when someone pro-vaccine article refers to Wikipedia, they criticize. Typical hypocrites.
I hope your teacher taught you that, no matter the source, one should NEVER rely on one or two articles or even one book, so checking any references is the scholarly way to do things.
When time allows, I do edit Wikipedia articles that are lacking in quality, correct errors and revert vandalism.
Reading research papers tends to be a relaxing afternoon or evening for me, as I look up terms I’m unfamiliar with, methods of tabulating data (although statistical analysis is still beyond my skill set, I’ll be addressing that in the near future, with great zeal, as my employer pays for educational expenses). Google scholar is an excellent resource to increase the number of varied source studies.
Finally, I do know an epidemiologist, who is more than happy to answer a question, as time allows as he prepares his PhD thesis.
I didn’t see this reply…thank you. I am studying it now. I appreciate your taking the time.
Some years ago I watched a congressional subcommittee on tv discussing autism and a vaccine connection. At the time I considered it. For the last 16 years I wondered about the cause. I also at one time thought about when autism was called an epidemic. Neither of these turned out to be true. We have baby videos of when we called his name and he would look up and smile at us. Later videos show no reaction when we called his name or when a loud noise was made. But, when he heard Disney on tv he would come running. I still think about the cause of his autism but as his pediatrician told me, ” What is the point?” He is always going to have challenges. But many of these challenges can be alleviated by societal equality and acceptance. It seems that LBRB articles are informative and many of the comments are subject to intellectual debate and not personal experiences. Children need their vaccines. It is unconscionable to deprive them of this.
An infant can respond to the challenge posed by the antigens in 10,000 vaccines….but can’t respond to isolated exposure of a single, generally benign viruses such as chicken pox and measles????
Especially in light of the fact that most would receive antibodies from mothers milk had she had the opportunity to be naturally infected and acquire life-long antibodies.
Hm.
The correction of this misquote/misinterpretation (by a journalist) is all well and good- except to say that the clarifcation of his theory is not the reality of vaccine administration – which in REALITY, contain heavy metals, allergens, animal proteins and neurotoxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals. Children can be safely exposed to 10,000 bombs, too… if they’re not being dropped from the sky. The threat remains even if the misinformation has been corrected.
Ah, the old toxin gambit. Extremely well debunked, heavy metal nonsense also debunked.
That breast milk also can have heavy metals, in much larger amounts, if the mother ate seafood.
Children, at birth onward, are exposed to millions of bacteria, protozoa, viruses and they manage to handle that exposure, but fragments of a pathogen used to immunize the child against deadly diseases are insurmountable?! Wrong.
Christ, maybe I should buy into an iron lung company, as some won’t be happy until polio is back.
“Notice that Dr. Offit doesn’t say that an infant can take 10,000 injections. But that “each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 107 B cells per mL by 103 epitopes per vaccine).” I.e. that an infant can respond to the challenge posed by the antigens in 10,000 vaccines.”
Because I’m tired of theories: Matt and Offit, specially, stop using children as guinea pigs, inject yourselves with 10,0000 pathogens at once for the sake of empirical evidence. Hey, you’ll be doing a great favour to humanity.
“Baby is inundated with bacteria, fungi, protozoans and viruses from the moment of entering the birth canal until death from old age. Hundreds of thousands of all of those microorganisms are bombarding baby with each breath, each thumb suck, each meal and each person coming near baby.
I guess humanity is extinct, as 100000 microorganisms ate every baby humanity has produced.
It’s a shame that the global population does not support your misguided notions.”
If your mind is a reflection of the populace’s guided notions. The human race is doomed, indeed. Are there any vaccines to prevent dimwit? Or perhaps, too many vaccines causing it.
I recommend actually reading the post, and the paper it addressed, before commenting, and making an effort to understand both.
Can you please enlighten me on what it means?
“each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 107 B cells per mL by 103 epitopes per vaccine)…The paper merely states that an infant’s immune system can respond to the antigens in 10,000 vaccines.”
It addresses the theoretical ability of an infant immune system to respond to antigens.
It says nothing about actually exposing an infant to that amount of antigens. It’s asking what, in theory, could an infant handle.
How many antigens was I exposed to the lay time I got sick?
Experiment done. Far more than your request.
Your statement just shows how profoundly ignorant you are.
Than you can for sure take a vaccine with 10,000 antigens, no problem. Go on youtube with it. Just to “shut” the people up.
So you just don’t care about facts and logic? Just raising the noise level?
People like you convinced me that the vaccine antagonistic groups were wrong.
The fact that you cling to such ignorant arguments shows that you don’t know what you are talking about.
Please keep active in online discussions. Sure you will get praise from like minded people, but people who actually think critically will read your comments and say, “wow, if she says that how much else of what she says is equally bad?”
You skipped over the antigens and epitopes part of the statement.
Why would I want to “shut” people up?
I am not Andrew Wakefield. Based on his actions, he seems like the guy you are looking for with that statement.
Do you know why I mentioned epitopes? Because answering that is your next approved response here
For the sake of the causal reader, here’s the key part of the statement I refer to in mentioning epitopes
Your statement “Than you can for sure take a vaccine with 10,000 antigens”
The calculation is B cells divided by epitopes, which means about 1000 antigens (given the approximation of 10 epitopes per antigen).
Now, the causal reader can not be asked to catch that. But you, as a self-styled expert in this discussion must be held to the standard of at least reading and understanding what you claim to be using.
I don’t do this to ridicule or mock, but to point out that you, a person who has decided to troll the internet scaring people about vaccines, don’t bother to do basic math or reading of the very subject you are talking about.
Wow! I guess am expecting too much from you. I’ no scientist nor am claiming to be an expert on the field. It doesn’t mean am not going to raise questions. Any extremist belongs to the moronic category, in my mind. That is those claiming that every vaccine is evil is a moron too. So far the only extremists I’ve encountered have been the “pro-vaccine” people.
The name of your post, to go back to basics is – “To all who use Paul Offit’s 10,000 vaccine paper to scare others–put up or SHUT UP. And that means you, Age of Autism and all your team.” In case you forgot that you did at some point want to, shut people up.
First off, I clearly can not make people shut up. I can request it. I can also give people an option–put up or shut up. There is the third option–go on being dishonest. It’s implied. And, frankly, expected.
Your comment is quite timely on that point as I was just about to point out that you jumped in here and ignored the clear statements above and just tried to keep using the same dishonest argument, but in a new way.
It’s clear you aren’t a scientist.
By the way, if you want to come to a disability focused site and use “moronic”, you are very, very, very typical of people who oppose vaccines.
You people are quite willing to use my kid’s disability to strike fear into others–but you have zero respect for him and his disability. He and his community are merely a tool for you. You don’t have to be a scientist or even understand math to treat people with dignity and respect. Which is to say–you have no excuse.
Will you apologize? Did it even cross your mind that you should? Or are you preparing defensive comments?
Was watching Vexed and wanted to know more about who Dr.Offit ( is he really off it?) was. I googled his name, what he had said, and found this page. Have not been to the homepage. No idea what it is about, no idea who you are… Do you care to know about every one’s personal story who posts here? Did not think so.
But since you are going there…using the kind of psychology to convey your frustration.
Your post is clearly trying to discredit a group of people that does not agree with Dr. Offit. Who says, that it is ok and perfectly safe to take all, any and every, vaccine in the market. Worse, if you are a child, you have to take them all.
Did you every think you might be offending those parents (within the “anti-vaccine” group) whose children suffered consequences from taking vaccines they did not have to?
Why are you so self-righteous?
If you were to actually listen to those labelled anti-vaccine group, maybe you could learn something too – at a humane level.
I’d like to challenge you to stop using the medical lingo from Dr. Offit’s paper, and explain what he means in common language. That all can understand, not just THE SCIENTISTS.
You are presented with a very simple question–will you apologize for using stigmatizing language towards people with disabilities.
And you deflect and try to attack.
Goodbye. I do not have to host bigots like you on my site.
“Have not been to the homepage. No idea what it is about, no idea who you are…”
Aside from the top of the page (autism science, news and opinion since 2003), you were just told I have a disabled kid.
Strike one.
It doesn’t matter that I have a disabled kid. Stigmatizing language is stigmatizing language. I don’t give a fig about your disrespect for me, it’s my kid and his community I am discussing.
Strike two.
Apologies are so easy, yet your community can never muster the backbone to offer one up.
Not strike three. But, seriously, you people need to grow a backbone. In 10 years of doing this, I’ve rarely seen the sort of simple courage it takes to admit a mistake and apologize from you folks.
I wish you well. I wish you something more than ignorance. And, seriously, learn respect.
Mia has now moved (very predictably, I will add) into the “throwing insults and taunts” phase. Such comments were automatically sent to the moderation queue.
As such, Mia’s comments are now automatically deleted before I see them.
Mia was presented with a simple statement–her comments were offensive. All she had to do was acknowledge that, hey, using a term like “moron” is insulting to those with intellectual disability. It takes guts, I admit. It takes guts to face the fact that it’s offensive. That the fact that it is so pervasive in our culture doesn’t excuse it, it makes it worse. It takes guts. And, as I’ve said, the Mia’s of the world do not have that sort of courage.
Instead she uses that as a springboard to hurl insults at me. Fine, I’ve had worse, I’ll see worse here.
The Mia’s of the world tend to celebrate being banned from sites. They poke, prod, insult and ignore simple explanations until they reach their goal.
It’s best to give it to them quickly. I’ve already forgotten many Mia’s. They all blend together. A very predictable, very repetitious lot.
you really are obsessing on this–creating a different account to get around the ban.
goodbye.
(for readers who will wonder what I am writing about, I am responding to a deleted, and unread, comment by Mia)
Because I’m tired of theories: Matt and Dr. Offit, specially, stop using children as guinea pigs, inject yourselves with 10,0000 pathogens at once for the sake of empirical evidence. Hey, you’ll be doing a great favour to humanity.
In case my words got lost on my previous post. Here there are again 🙂
Implied threat (based on your ignorance but an implied threat nonetheless) noted.
So which disease have you overcome without being exposed to a large number of pathogens?
Stop trying to be clever and spend your time actually understanding the science you clearly do not understand.
We are constantly exposed to pathogens, we are surrounded by them. Some are even inside us, waiting for the immune system to weaken, so they can attack. Does it mean I have to run to get every vaccine shot available in the market?
If you care to educate people, why don’t you try to explain the point of your main post better, instead of playing with semantics. Because, what you have written so far sounds very contradictory.
It’s actually very clear.
Perhaps you could address your own biases and ignorance rather than blame the written words
Comments 412 and, especially, 431 here seem apropos.
Of course, my comments are awaiting moderation. And of course those who question “authority” are labeled trolls. And if you post this comment, good on you. Otherwise, it will be clear that you are a tyrant.
You are a troll because you come here to strike up an argument on an old post, and you are ignorant. And very, very, very typical of your community.
I put you in moderation because, as I stated, the criterion for you staying in this discussion was to address a specific point. Which you failed to do, by the way.
I wonder if Mia would have the courage to go over to Age of Autism and call them tyrants, too, since they have a pretty well-documented history of simply banning people for even a hint of questioning the AoA/anti-vaccine dogma. Not for being disrespectful or hurling insults. Not for foul language, but simply for asking questions or pointing out errors of fact.
That’s a very peculiar definition of tyranny. Indeed, it kind of reminds me of back when Patty Bolen flipped out over SPEWS.
I apologize on behalf of the whole world for the way you have been treated. Imagine having your comment appear after a slight delay (it makes me sick just to write that phrase – you are the bravest person in the world for the way you continued to lie about vaccines after the abuse you’ve received)!
P.S. Are antivaccine activists the most delicate flowers in the world, or are their even more fragile snowflakes that I just haven’t had the misfortune to encounter? Either way, I point and laugh.
Matt, Gayst is a disgusting troll who has polluted RI and my site with his homophobic and sexist comments. He’s been using others’ ‘nyms like Gayst and Narad. Could you please dispose of him accordingly? Thanks.
done.
Thank you so very much.
Hey Matt, Fendelsworth is back with another vile sockpuppet.
A self portrait of the sock puppet? He is very infantile.
A now deleted self portrait.
Yay!
I think we are being trolled by a ten year old who has been left alone at home with an internet connection.
Sock puppet has posted his self portrait again. Definitely a kid who was left at home alone with unfiltered internet.
Gotta love the nonsensical, now (thankfully) deleted report on “mercury” and the “horrors” it universally wreaks upon children everywhere, for all time, every time.
Why, who knew that I died from mercury poisoning as a child, playing with the mercury from broken thermometers, plus all of that mercury in fish, plus “mercury” in vaccines (ignoring what is biologically available vs what is not biologically available (although, elemental mercury is biologically available)).
Why, being dead feels just like being alive. Oddly, on the end of the ASD spectrum that is considered adult normal (whateverinhell normal is).
Of course, the AOA crowd don’t consider ASD to have a spectrum, they’re binary, either/or, 0/1, hence, their confusion as to what a poison is and even confusion as to what a medicine and poison is, as they’re incapable of comprehending “the dose makes the poison”.
Case in point, I take 50 mg of metoprolol, twice a day, a beta blocker, to keep my blood pressure within a survivable range. That keeps my blood pressure from turning an aortic dilation into an aortic aneurysm and from there, that dead thing.
Now, if I take the entire damned bottle, 9000 mg, it’d be one of the more lethal poisons around (just trying to figure out if it’s a calcium channel blocker overdose or beta blocker overdose is a challenge).
In their tiny, binary world, I’m obviously dead, as it’s a deadly poison and a ruptured aortic aneurysm is also lethal, so I’m very obviously dead.
Thank you for agreeing to meet with me during this seance.
Or something.
Still, it was a cute aardvark picture, shame that it had to go, but yeah, it had to go. Kind of reminds me of an old neighbor, sticking her nose into our business…
Actually, every proposed link of aluminum to neurological decline or disease has been utterly refuted.
You see, the initial link was from a town in England, where aluminum was mined and processed and a spike in Altzheimer’s disease in that town. Further study found the original study in error and subsequent studies on aluminum exposure proved zero link.
That’s actually a good thing, as aluminum is extremely common on this planet and were it a neurotoxic element, the majority of humanity would be at risk, due to it being present in ground water.
Indeed, mom used an aluminum stock pot extensively as well, so obviously, I should have major neurological problems!
Alas, that’s not the case. The only issues that I have are attributable to age and a couple of IED blasts at close range.
As for the glory hole, TMI dude, I doubt anyone’s interested in your sexual predilections.
I was thinking that it reminded me of a former neighbor, who was always trying to stick her nose into other people’s business.
Hey Travis (aka Fendelsworth and now Mr Figgles) grow up already and knock it off.
Oh Hi Travis, you seem to have some self-loathing going on.
Well, yes. But of course this is impossible for a human to respond to anything after being injected with 5 liters of solution as one giant bolus dose. The subject would explode.
The egregious statement was made by a reporter, who said:
Now this is absolutly wrong in the usual sense of the word “vaccine”. I doubt a human could safely take even a ten-dose vial of a thimerosal-preserved influenze vaccine.
To the “educated mind,” dissecting what Offit said may be easy. For the rest of us it is much simpler to just claim he said what he said. If he said 10,000 vaccines are OK for a baby, my first thought is 10K needles. Then I learn some needles contain a few vaccines.
This argument reminds me of the fallacy of the catholic creed: “In heaven the Father, the Son, and the Holly Ghost, and these three are one.”
I feel if you can’t explain to the simple minded, the explanation makes little sense.
I no longer believe in vaccines.
Simply because I see too much of it, for things not treatable by them.
Do they cause autism?
I don’t know.
What I know is this: every entity which sells any product will never admit such product is bad to the end user. It always takes long battles to have such entity admit, to the court, not to the public, that its product caused any problem at all. To the public they always claim that “settlement” is not admission of fault.
My wife and brothers were not vaccinated, 11. They are all fine. Autism is a new term.
Growing up I never even heard it. The first time I read about it was 1989/90. Since then, then it has gone up from reading about it, to understanding what it is, to having a nephew diagnosed with the problem.
His father , unlike me, is highly educated, if we’d call a “masters” degree such.
In our last discussion of the issue (a discussion he refuses to take up openly) he asked me “do you have proof vaccines are a problem”?
I can only reply with a redundant “NO!!!!!”
But at that moment I understood one thing.
He doesn’t either!!!!!
Because if he did, he’d showed me the facts, instead of arguing about it.
In the initial comment here, the challenge is thrown to the vaccine denier to “prove it,” if I understand it correctly.
Well I can never prove anything to people who refuse to accept the facts. All I can say is “here are the facts I believe. If I am wrong, I am willing to accept the new idea. So show me the new facts so I can change my mind.”
If vaccines are so good, how come I can never find any single vaccine proponent to show me the double-blind, placebo-controlled, evidence-based studies?
What I have found is people who said “get out of here. I believe in science.”
Since the day I came to understand what Atheism is, I’ve always thought science can never be something to believe in, but rather “a tool” to use in order to understand that some beliefs are just flat out wrong.
My belief is vaccines are useless at best, and dangerous at worst.
I’d love for you, or anybody else, to provide the scientific, not bought and paid-for studies. I’d love to take a look at them.
Perhaps put together a cogent argument and we can have a discussion.
Autism is a new term. So is neurology. That doesn’t mean that brains are new.
One of many logical fallacies above
When I was growing up, I never heard of the bubonic plague, that doesn’t mean that the black death never happened.
As for vaccines and deleterious effects, every medical procedure, treatment or drug can have adverse effects and those are quite well documented. That’s true for an Aspirin and it’s true for vaccines. That’s why there are package inserts, which list the more common deleterious events, as well as the rare deleterious events.
Vaccine have been extremely well studied for safety and efficacy, for generations, and in all of those studies, have been found safe and effective in preventing the diseases that they’re targeted for.
So, we don’t have 35% of our population dying of smallpox, which has been eradicated in the wild, due to the smallpox vaccine. We don’t have one in 2800 children dying of measles or SSPE. We don’t have children in iron lungs, because we have eliminated polio from this continent with the polio vaccine.
More importantly, we have a plethora of documentation available online, such as on the World Health Organization website and the CDC’s website.
What we don’t do, however, is conduct unethical human experiments, such as a double blind, placebo controlled study on vaccines against diseases that can kill. That’s not only not ethical, it would be murder. We have all manner of other studies, which proved beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and extremely effective in preventing the diseases that they’re created to prevent.
But, don’t bother looking for those studies, which are available online at PubMed. You’d then have to learn something and that isn’t what you’re here for.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
Since you won’t vaccinate, tell us, what would you do if you were bitten by a rapid animal? Other than die, that is.
The bodies ability to create an antigen to the vaccine is not what many are concerened about. It is the additional ingredients that are extremely toxic and poisonous to the body. Trying to pretend vaccines are safe using the 10,000 number is extremely deceiving to the public. As mentioned one can kill remember that! . You make it sounds like it’s an insignificant amount n. BUT what is in the rest off the .25 ml in a vaccine? Permanent biologically altering substances which do cause autism, death, paralysis, permanent disabilities, asthma, autoimmune disease seizures etc. More than 3 billion dollars has been awarded flee vaccine damage cases. Two cases of autism cost nearly 90 million dollars over their lifetime it is projected. That is why they refuse to admit autism is caused by vaccinations. They are liars! Instead of believing in those who work for Satan to damage God’s children wake up. Follow the money trail. It will lead you to the CDC and the pharmaceutical companies who they are covering for.
“The bodies ability to create an antigen to the vaccine is not what many are concerened about. ”
In other words, “yes, he lays out a detailed scientific argument, but since I don’t agree with the conclusion, I’ll ignore it”.
We don’t have to prove Offit is wrong. He has to proof that he is right…. It is only hypothesis not proven by experiment. Now that is a fact, You can’t calculate the complexity of an immune system. That is plain stupid. Simplifying the immune system in a number shows that Paul Offit does not know anything of it’s complexity. The danger of his thought experiment is hat it can become a claim which is presented to the audience as a proven fact.
All you are saying is “I’m ignorant of the science, but I like to scare people about vaccines”
I wrote the article specifically for people like you. To expose that many in the anti-vaccine movement are, like you, scientifically ignorant fear mongers. Thank you for proving my point, Gerard.
Now, stop using my community, autism, as a weapon to attack vaccines. It’s cowardice on your part. It’s abuse of disabled people to further your misguided cause.
Goodbye.
You do have to understand what he’s saying though. If that’s too difficult for you, then I advise you to remember the old advice “Better to remain silent and be suspected a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt”
You are spitting without understanding and you block people to respond because you are addicted to your own belief system. People like you are the real danger in society.
Don’t like getting blocked? Tough.
As you your insult, do you really think I care? If you are trying to make me angry, ask yourself, “how childish is that”. Seriously. The absolute definition of a troll.
So, make up a new identity. Troll some more. But don’t kid yourself that you (a) understand what you are talking about or (b) are doing anything more than using the vaccine debate as a method to troll the internet. I’m sure you try to tell yourself that you are some hero for health or some nonsense. It’s delusion.
For what it’s worth–I ban anti-vaccine activists who have no connection to the autism community who try to use the comments in my blog to spread misinformation. I don’t have to put up with you. You use and abuse my community, making it harder for my kid to live a good life. You show no respect for people like my kid. They are merely tools in your misinformation campaign.
Yes, I feel contempt for you.
Why should I allow you to be in my online home? Simple answer–I don’t.
You have an entire internet to spread lies. Get to it. Or, perhaps, actually learn the science. Which you clearly haven’t the faintest clue about. Or, admit that since you don’t understand what you are talking about, perhaps you should keep your beliefs to yourself.