The anti-vaccination know-nothings lose another round:

The M.M.R. vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and the evidence is overwhelming that it doesn’t,” Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, the chairwoman of the panel, assembled by the Institute of Medicine, said in an interview, referring to a combination vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella that has long been a focus of concern from some parents’ groups.

The panel did conclude, however, that there are risks to getting the chickenpox vaccine that can arise years after vaccination. People who have had the vaccine can develop pneumonia, meningitis or hepatitis years later if the virus used in the vaccine reawakens because an unrelated health problem, like cancer, has compromised their immune systems.

These same problems are far more likely in patients who are infected naturally at some point in their lives with chickenpox, since varicella zoster, the virus that causes chickenpox, can live dormant in nerve cells for decades. Shingles, a painful eruption of skin blisters that usually affects the aged, is generally caused by this Lazarus-like ability of varicella zoster.

Again, if you oppose vaccination, you are killing children.

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below:

David Ropeik makes a powerful argument in favor of more incentives to get vaccinated:

In many places, particularly in affluent, liberal, educated communities (Boulder, San Diego), unvaccinated people are catching diseases that vaccines can prevent, like measles, whooping cough, and meningitis. In 2010 as California suffered its worst whooping cough outbreak in more than 60 years (more than 9,000 cases, 10 infant deaths), Marin County, one of the richest and most educated areas in California, had one of the lowest rates of vaccination statewide and the second highest rate of whopping cough. A 2008 study in Michigan found that areas with “exemption clusters” of parents who didn’t vaccinate their kids were three times more likely to have outbreaks of whooping cough than where vaccination rates matched the state average.

I have friends who refuse to have their children vaccinated usually due to beliefs stemming from their faith in 'alternative medicine'. While I respect everyone's right to make their own choices, I strongly disagree with their decision and think it unfounded and even slightly selfish.

If you travel to many third world countries, you are required to get a variety of vaccinations for diseases no longer present in the West. Why do we not have them in the West? Not because we are better at acupuncture and eating vegan food – it's because we have vaccines that have eradicated them.

I'm not a fan of needles, and I've sometimes felt a little sick after being vaccinated, but I'd rather go through a little discomfort than end up fighting for my life with yellow fever or whooping cough.

We are exposed to viruses and bacteria on a daily basis – we get infected and our immune system for the most part learns how to cope with the infection. As we get older, our immune system gets smarter about those specific infections and we are less likely to die or get serious ill from them. Vaccinations simply operate on that basis – we get exposed to a weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins and our immune system learns to fight it so that if exposed to larger amounts of it.

The notion that this is somehow 'unnatural' is ridiculous. We are simply tricking the immune system into doing something it has evolved specifically to do.

Subscribe

Ben Cohen's feed

Enter email below:

Thanks again to Jenny McCarthy and the anti-science anti-vaccination crowd for the children that will soon die from this.

Vaccination rates among California’s kindergartners are below U.S. goals for 2020, according to a new federal report released Thursday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 95% of kindergartners should be vaccinated for nine diseases. But in California, only about 93% of kindergartners are inoculated for the ailments: polio; diphtheria; tetanus; pertussis, also known as whooping cough; measles; mumps; and rubella.

But more California kindergartners were inoculated for Hepatitis B and varicella, also known as chickenpox. For those diseases, more than 96% were inoculated.

Thanks to TVs Matt who gave me the heads up on this

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below:

The handiwork of Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield rears its head again:

State health officials have confirmed six cases of juvenile measles this month in Hennepin County and caution more could be on the way in areas where parents have been reluctant to vaccinate their kids.

The Minnesota Department of Health confirmed the fifth and sixth cases on Friday. Three of the kids are from the Somali community, where some parents have been afraid to immunize their children over fears of the vaccine’s safety.

Health officials are racing to ease those fears and persuade parents to get their kids vaccinated.

These are diseases we beat with science, and now thanks to ignorance they’re back.

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below:

The problem of non-vaccination is reaching a crisis point, and doctors are reacting to this by turning away patients who aren’t vaccinated:

“If an adult caregiver or parent decides not to vaccinate their children, we feel that they’re taking an unnecessary risk, so we wanted to take a strong stand and say this is so important to us that it’s a deal breaker for us,” Dr. Dyer says matter-of-factly.

Dyer published his vaccine manifesto in the journal ‘Pediatrics’.  He says, “I think more physicians need to be more aggressive about vaccinating kids.  If you’re not willing to vaccinate your kids, if you’re not willing to trust us and trust our judgment and education then we have a philosophical difference here.”

I don’t think public schools should admit any child who hasn’t been vaccinated (with exceptions for kids who may have some sort of provable allergy or related sickness that prevents vaccination), but this is another area of defense.

Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are endangering our society via their actions.

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below:

Thankfully, science keeps marching on.

A universal flu vaccine has been successfully tested on humans with the disease for the first time, it was reported Monday.

The U.K.’s Guardian newspaper said that unlike existing vaccines, this one, which was tested by scientists at Britain’s Oxford University, does not need to be changed every year to match the latest strain of the virus.

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below:

One of the upsides of being the richest man in the world and one of history’s biggest philanthropists is that you get to say exactly what you think about issues. In this case, Gates is discussing Andrew Wakefield and the entire anti-vaccine scam:

Gupta: There has been a lot of scrutiny of vaccines recently — specifically childhood vaccines. There has been a lot of news about is there a connection with autism, for example. What do you make of all that? Dr. [Andrew] Wakefield wrote a paper about this [in The Lancet in 1998] saying he thought there was a connection. And there were lower vaccination rates over a period of time as a result in Britain, then the United States. What are your thoughts?

Gates: Well, Dr. Wakefield has been shown to have used absolutely fraudulent data. He had a financial interest in some lawsuits, he created a fake paper, the journal allowed it to run. All the other studies were done, showed no connection whatsoever again and again and again. So it’s an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids. Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn’t have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today. And so the people who go and engage in those anti-vaccine efforts — you know, they, they kill children. It’s a very sad thing, because these vaccines are important.

(via)

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below:

Liz Ditz writes to let me know that my blog has been targeted by an anti-vaccine listserv as one of the blogs “trashing Wakefield” where they should go and comment.

If only these people showed some interest in how Andrew Wakefield sought to enrich himself via dead children, and how he’s been aided by people like Jenny McCarthy in this mission.

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below:

WebMD has details:

The BMJ report says that Wakefield met medical school managers to discuss a joint business even while the first child to be fully investigated in his research was still in the hospital; and how just days after publication of his Lancet article, he brought business associates to his place of work at the Royal Free Medical School in London to continue negotiations.

Drawing on investigations and information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Deer says Wakefield and his associates used financial forecasts that predicted they could make up to £28 million (about $43.7 million) a year from the diagnostic kits alone.

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below:

No, you shouldn’t take medical advice from Playboy models, or at the very least Playboy models who don’t have a medical degree. Here is Jenny McCarthy writing on Huffington Post, pushing back on the findings that Andrew Wakefield’s study connecting vaccines and autism are a total fraud.

There is no connection between vaccines and autism. No connection at all. There have been tons of studies on this, in multiple countries. There is no link. All avoiding vaccination does is help to spread disease and death among the most vulnerable – children.

This is what Jenny McCarthy is advocating, and what Huffington Post enables by giving her a platform to spread this dangerous non-science. McCarthy uses the same crap language of the global warming denial movement and the phony intelligent design scam – acting as if there’s some “debate” to be had. It’s Glenn Beck style “just asking questions,” with the added effect of killing children.

All the parties in this – Jenny McCarthy, the anti-vaccination movement, and The Huffington Post – should be ashamed of what they’re doing (the same goes for Oprah Winfrey who is set to give McCarthy a larger platform).

> The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield

Subscribe

Oliver Willis's feed

Enter email below: