Say NO to Vaccines!

[Marcus Allen]

Matt-

That sounds like a standard progression of behaviors based on birth order to me. I can tell you pretty much the exact same story and ALL of my kids have ALL of their vaccines.

[Robert Pierce]

Originally Posted by Katherine Derbyshire

Isn't there also a spectrum of autism-like behaviors? I mention this because some have suggested that Bill Gates (as well as many less-prominent techie types) could very well have a mild form of Asperger's. Take two parents with that genetic profile -- as is more likely to occur somewhere like Silicon Valley -- add in the genetic risks of delaying parenthood, as highly educated couples are more likely to do, and you very well might end up with a higher risk of full-blown autism.

Katherine

Yes, absolutely. I should amend my statement to say those pts of mine with severe autism (the kind you see vaccine opponents attribute to immunizations) have been found to have a chromosomal abnormality. Many of the milder ones, such as those with Asperger's, don't get tested.

[Matt DeMinico]

Originally Posted by Robert Pierce

I have seen people point to a healthy child who received no vaccines and say, "See? My child is healthy and she didn't have the vaccine." That makes me really very angry. The truth, in large part, is that your child is healthy because MY child GOT THE VACCINE. It in unjust for me and my child to accept the (minimal) risk of the vaccine to keep your child healthy when you and your child will not accept the (minimal) risk to keep my child healthy. That's why everyone needs to be vaccinated. It's no individual liberty issue, any more than a speed limit is. It's a public health issue.

Just a short: The speed limit is also an individual liberty issue. If you're driving like an idiot around other people, you're threatening them, that's illegal. If you're driving 120 mph by yourself on an empty highway, big freaking deal. Slow down if you're coming up on traffic and your closing speed is too high.

Second: We see all this claim about "herd immunity", yet like I said, when someone (even an immunized kid) goes to a foreign country, and somehow brings a disease back, the outbreak happens among immunized and non-immunized children, sometimes in the same percentages of chidlren (with regard to their ratios in the population). Are you therefore in favor of making it illegal for people to travel to other areas of the world, in the rare instance that they bring something back?

I'll ask it another way. If you were writing public policy, would you allow the use of a new technology that is mostly for our convenience, and its detractors say it will kill 700,000 people per year?

If so, congratulations, you just outlawed the automobile.

My point is, we take risks every day, and whether you like to admit it or not, the doctors who administer vaccines, and those who support them, are extremely biased against recognizing *anything* that *might* have been caused by a vaccine. Vaccines are immune to any criticism in their eyes, and the only things they will recognize are the "official" risks put forth that say "one per 100,000 children may have a reaction of _____".

Parents that choose not to get their children vaccinated are told by these doctors "it is child abuse not to get your children vaccinated". Give me a break people... You want a sure way to polarize the debate? Keep saying things like that.

And for the record, I'm making no claims either way about autism and vaccines. I haven't even really looked into that one. BUT, allergies is one area I can see a correlation with, and am inclined to believe they're linked somehow.

[Brian Strump]

A good read on the subject. Clinical studies noted.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-...i_b_88323.html (wfs)

[Robert Pierce]

Originally Posted by Brian Strump

A good read on the subject. Clinical studies noted.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-...i_b_88323.html (wfs)

Funny.

If you're driving 120 mph by yourself on an empty highway, big freaking deal.

Matt, you seem to think that not getting vaccines is akin to driving 120mph on an empty highway. No. Using your analogy, not getting vaccines is more driving 120mph on a busy, crowded highway. You put others in danger, including others who are vaccinated.

[Robert Pierce]

I had a very interesting converstion with a drug rep (who was in my office, very coincidentally, promoting a new vaccine*). She started the conversation about health care reform by asking me to name one thing the government had done right in the last 100 years.

Well that wasn't hard. So after a great deal of debate about her new vaccine*, she went on to talk about another older vaccine. She was trying to convince me that there were lots of people in my practice that needed to get this particular vaccine and who I was not identifying as "at risk" and in need of this particular immunization. As evidence of the large size of the "at risk" unvaccinated population in my practice, she proceeded to produce a document of vaccination guidelines produced by...you guessed it...the CDC.

The conversation ended there.

It seems to me that there are lots of folks here who do the same. When the scientific data support their beliefs, whether it is nutrition, exercise, vaccinations, or whatever, the studies are cited liberally. When the data do not support their beliefs, the authors, scientists, funding agencies, or corporate sponsors are dismissed out of hand. We cannot have it both ways. We can't used guidelines from the government, recommendations from indepedent panels, research from scientists only when in supports our preconceived notions of what is and what should be.

I am not immune, I guard against it constantly. My diet advice to patients has done a 180 degree turnaround in the last few years in response to scientific studies and personal experience. The words actually come out of my mouth, "Don't worry about the fat or calories." Exercise advice, same thing..I had a long conversation with a guy with hyperlipidemia who runs like 3-8 miles a day and whose C-reactive protein is outrageously high at around 8-10.

All I'm asking is for everyone to look at the big picture. Sure you can look at a kid with mitochondrial disease and think that vaccines might not be a good idea. But that is the small picture. The other vaccine thread has a dozen posts by me with peer-reviewed literature supporting the premise of vaccination and demonstrating recurrences of previously rare diseases when vaccination rates dropped. Yes, it is true that cases occured among both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, but rates are consistently higher in unvaccinated and more importantly, when you drop below that 10-15% vaccination range, the diseases start to show up again. Pretty clear. It should not take case reports of HIB meningitis (which killed the first kid I saw on my pediatrics rotation in 1985) to remind us of the value and importance of the vaccines.

With that, I bow out.

*Cervarix is a new bivalent vaccine for human papilloma virus (HPV) and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) which, in my view, offers little advantage over the currently available tetravalent HPV vaccine, Gardasil.

[Greg Light]

Originally Posted by Robert Pierce

Funny.


.

Can you elaborate? Not being a medical person, I'm curious what is suspect about the article.

Thanks

[Matt DeMinico]

Originally Posted by Robert Pierce

Matt, you seem to think that not getting vaccines is akin to driving 120mph on an empty highway. No. Using your analogy, not getting vaccines is more driving 120mph on a busy, crowded highway. You put others in danger, including others who are vaccinated.

According to your claims I'm threatening them.

I could just as easily say "If you don't drink a tablespoon of baby oil once a week, you're at risk for contracting xyz disease, which is highly contagious, and you're threatening me and my kids"

[Mark Markley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity WFS

[James Pearce]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Crawford

They did this to me as well in the marines.

Forgot to capitalize something Devildog . . . haha, anyways, we just got a load of new vaccines in the Corps. I thought it was very surprising how many people didn't want to take the H1N1 vaccine based on a lot of the stuff that's been brought up in this thread. Personally, I would rather take the chance then almost certainly get at least one of the aforementioned diseases. The odds are in my favor if I get the vaccines. Plus they made me.