Zed?

a propos:

McCain Rated As America’s Worst Senator For Children

Sad story here. Thanks PW.

That information should raise his cred with the hard right considerably…

isn’t one of the Kennedys on the anti-vax bandwagon?

I happen to believe some vaccines do cause autism, those that contain mercury are high on the list

of course there is a cost evalution, the possibility of autism against the possibility of getting the disease that vaccine might prevent

I don’t believe the “debunkings” of the speculation that mercury based vaccines might be responsible for autism

My kid is vaccinated. Not doing it was never even a consideration.

I’ll join back in after this.

Hekebolos has a diary up on DailyKos on the huge success of the Associated Press “Show Your Patriotism” action. If you’re a Kossak please stop by and hit the “recommend” button.

Done.

PW, although not related to the anti-vax people directly, NPR reported this week on outbreaks of cholera (sp?), of all things. It is disheartening to see a needless and potentially devestating comeback of things we all believed to be defeated years ago.

Hey Betsy!!

moi aussi. hey, egregious!

Bon soir

Aussie? I thought you were French, mate.

There is a fantastic weekly podcast from the New England Skeptical Society called “The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe”. They regularly debunk numerous fanciful claims and have covered the anti-vaccine nonsense from time to time. It is hosted by an academic neurologist from the Yale University School of Medicine.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/

hi doodle!

Hes my all time hero. I get goosebumps…thanks Pete

Hey TexBetsy, when is the next gathering?

Aussie? I thought you were French, mate.

more French than qui? oui!, actually

We cannot trust the Pharmaceutical corporations, or their lobbyists. They corrupt Health Care by making it “for profit”. They promote artificial drugs, instead of proven natural remedies. They charge excessive prices for medicines, and promote unnecessary vaccinations, such as the HPV vaccine.

The fact is that thimerosal, a mercury based neuro-toxin, was widely used in vaccines. This has yet to be explained.

we are not sure. LS may or may not have access to the farm and a bunch of dates in April are lousy for a bunch of us.

explanations: it’s a cheap preservative

Neuro and I left ya a note downstairs, Mr. CBL!

There was a legitimate concern about the pertussis vaccine decades ago, which has been addressed by the development of acellular vaccine. The fear lingers many years beyond the solution to this problem, and children are dying from a completely preventable disease in this country.

As for the autism argument:

I have seen no *legitimate* public health studies showing this link to autism. In fact the Danes used their extensive civil and medical records to show there was no change in autism when mercury was taken out of the mix.

Seems this is just one more opportunity for those who wish to prey on people’s fears. There will always be such predators, but doesn’t it seem like there are so many more of them under Bush-Cheney?

I didn’t know they had Kiwis in Austria.

I can understand why people don’t believe the government or big pharma about the possible side effects of meds. How many times have we been lied to? How many times have we been poisoned? It will continue to be problematic as long as people don’t trust their corporate government.

dugg

Has a study been done of the incidence of autism among children who have not been vaccinated?

Another Pox on Charter Schools..

Across the full spectrum of this Maladministration… EPA, FDA, OSHA, DoJ, DoE(both), DoD, ad nauseum…

The anti-vaccination folks rely on the fact that other people vaccinate their kids to keep their own kids safe.

Pox Americana

I think a great part of the problem is that today’s parents have never known or experienced themselves what can happen to children who are not vaccinated for diseases such as measles, Rubella, and polio, or what can happen without the availability of antibiotics to combat strep infections. Many of today’s parents view mumps, measles and rubella as somehow benign - for many children, they are not. Ever read the “Little House” books? Remember Laura’s sister, Mary? She had measles and she went blind. This was not an uncommon side effect of having measles - other side effects were deafness, damage to hearts and death. I had rubella as a child so bad that the joints in my arms, hands, feet and knees were effected - and I continue to have problems because of it. I had mumps for three weeks when I was ten. We won’t even discuss what life was like before polio immunizations.

I of course stand corrected and thank you.

As an ” anti-vax ” parent I find it disheartening to hear a tone of scorn in this post. I had measles,chicken pox and mumps as a child. Back then no one referred to me as a victim. It was a normal childhood ordeal and you dealt with it. Which benefitted the immune system.
The choice to pump your kids with vaccines is not something to take lightly.
My kids are young adults now and healthy. I don’t have to be concerned that they’ll contact mumps as adults when the vaccine has worn off, putting them at risk for a much more serious form of the illness. And, yes, they had measles,mumps and chicken pox.

No Prob! There are a few exceptions…

Hello, everyone!

My heart stops each time I look at the picture of that little toddler. The poor dear!

Damn, Imus’s wife really rages on about this all the time. I don’t know what to think.

The real quandary to me is whether the government has the authority to force vaccinations on parents who don’t believe in them. It’s a thorny constitutional question.

http://newsprism.wordpress.com

Robert Kennedy Jr. has discussed it on Ring of Fire. IIRC he was talking about the serum that the vaccination was in, not the vaccination itself. Maybe this is the mercury issue that PW is describing.

I live in San Diego County, and work in a public elementary school, and have not seen a rise in measles and mumps first hand. But, this is great info to be on the alert for. Thanks, PW.

Me too.

Are vaccinations provided free in the US?

Read the links, openhope. And look at the picture.

There is no nice way to phrase it: The anti-vax movement is based on falsity (namely, the repeatedly-debunked “vaccines cause autism” claim) and children, such as the one in the photo above, are suffering anything from disfigurement, brain damage and even death as a result. Legitimate autism researchers are infuriated at the actions of Wakefield and his followers.

I don’t know what to think.

My answer is the same as for topics like global warming. People should find out what the peer-reviewed scientific community is saying.

In Austin TX, students can be vaccinated for free, but I think that is pretty unusual.

Is there a Darwin award for people who get their kids killed?

(quickly putting in my 2¢ while working) i think food additives, pollution, and pesticide contamination should be bigger worries than obsessing over mercury in vaccines.

Here, in Hawaii, every child is mandated to show proof of their vaccination shots throughout their schooling… No exceptions, one parent tried last year to circumvent it as an adamant anti-vaxer and failed miserably…!

Lucky you.

The thing is, this is a public health issue, not just a personal issue.

And when enough kids go unvaccinated, there will be epidemics.

It’s provided free of charge here in Hawaii…

thanks for the follow-up

CT, we had a deferral on texteen’s immunizations because of an allergy early on. All resolved by 2nd grade, but we still get letters from school if he needs a new shot for the next semester.

openhope,
No scorn here. I to have children that are now young adults. It was agonizing every single time whether or not to get the shots. However, because all of our kids went to public school a shot record was always required for admission. I have assumed it is the same for everyone.

A fine potpourri of discrediting links, but how about one simple question:

Why are trace amounts of mercury found in fish such a risk that pregnant women are advised to avoid tuna, but mercury is suddenly ok, and ruled out as a factor in the epidemic of Autism Spectrum Disorder?

not just ruled out, but stridently denounced?

Methinks the lady doth protesteth too much.

There are clinics for vaccinations throughout California.

The question is…why is the autism rate increasing so rapidly? It’s now really high. 1 out of 166? Something’s up.

I remember as a kid lining up at school for polio vaccine. Course that was a long time ago! It was a big deal. People still remembered the epidemics.

shhhh….mumps the word

Republicans say that scientists scream about global warming to pursue an agenda. You seem to be saying scientists here are pursuing a pro-corporate agenda.

It is sad to see anti-science attitudes coming from both the right and the left in this country.

I happen to believe some vaccines do cause autism, those that contain mercury are high on the list

of course there is a cost evalution, the possibility of autism against the possibility of getting the disease that vaccine might prevent

The relationship between autism and vaccines was not even very good on the correlation front, much less ever finding a causal relationship. The increases in reports of autism occurred well after the use of vaccines, even those using mercury. Those who argue there is a link have to rely on the “well nobody began tabulating data on autism until…” argument.

But that’s precisely the issue. Autism reports have gone up simply because there is higher reportage. In addition, in areas of the world where there is low vaccine use, autism reports are up there as well. And since the decline of people opting out of vaccine use autism reports continue high.
The recent studies actually have looked at epidemiological relationships between those who have children that use vaccines and those that don’t…no difference.

But as Phoenix Woman has pointed out there have been major increases in the outbreaks of transmissable diseases that vaccines would largely prevent from occuring.

It’s been one sad side-effect of the Bush Administration that respect for multiple scientific studies have been tainted by non-scientists like Ann Coulter, Michael Medved, Global-Warming naysayers, HIV-skeptics, and a host of Creationists that reputable science become “Junk Science”, while their heavily politicized agendas is “true”.

I have to fall in with the consensus of the Scientific community here, and history and cross-societal comparisons of health. Vaccines have a substantial benefit to a societies health and children that get them habve a vastly greater survivorship than those that don’t. In societies where childhood diseases are largely eradicated a few “freeloaders” who refuse to get vaccinated can be tolerated and they will largely escape risk of infection, but when their numbers increase situations like that raised by Phoenix Woman are inevitable.

Because it is not longer used in vaccines. And when they stopped using it, autism diagnoses did not decline.

As PWs post explains.

Robert Kennedy Jr. is a strong advocate that the mercury in the serum causes autism.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0616-31.htm

You have a real way with words.

The autism rate is not necessarily increasing. The rate of diagnosis is increasing. Alot of the kids start showing signs of autism about he time the first set of shots are complete.

It depends on the kind of mercury compounds and their concentration. This is the same kind of logic that leads people to think that radiation from cell phones and power lines causes cancer.

That’s understandable, there are exceptions, such as allergies to chicken eggs, of which some vaxs utilize, etc… The state DoE sends us periodic updates too…

You’re right. Here in WV, they advise against eating fish from our streams due to high levels of mercury. Most of the mercury contamination is from coal-burning power plants.

Loo Hoo: Most of the cases, thankfully, are confined to a small area. But for vaccination to be effective at controlling disease, a minimum of 95% of the population needs to be vaccinated at any one time; less than that, and the virus has a chance to get a strong foothold and to develop strains not covered by the vaccine. In England, that percentage dropped to around 75% after the Wakefield Lancet article appeared — the one that the Lancet has long since repudiated — but immunization levels started going back up once the debunkings started coming out; I believe they’re up to around 85% by now.

Thanks!

Wait a minute– what are you trying to say?

Apples and oranges.

seems PW forgot to include this link from the AMERICAN ACADEMY OF
PEDIATRICS (AAP) AND THE UNITED STATES PUBLIC
HEALTH SERVICE (USPHS

A press release about Mercury in Thimerosal from the National Vaccine Information Center in July of 1999 press points out that, “The cumulative effects of ingesting mercury can cause brain damage.” During this same month, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) alerted the public about the possible health effects associated with thimerosal-containing vaccines. These health-related organizations strongly recommended that thimerosal be removed from vaccines as soon as possible. Under the directive of the FDA Modernization Act of 1997, the Food and Drug Administration also determined that infants who received several thimerosal-containing vaccines may be receiving mercury exposure over and above the recommended federal guidelines.

http://pediatrics.aappublicati...../3/568.pdf

not entirely off-topic, this email from our health insurance broker:

…As you may know, your Blue Cross plan is coming up for renewal on 4/1/08. With your renewal, your medical rates are increasing 17%, your dental rates are increasing 13.6% and there is no increase this year on the vision plan. (See attached breakdown). While no increase is good news, Blue Cross – along with all other insurance carriers – are feeling the effects of rapid inflation within the healthcare industry. Some of the causes of these ever increasing costs are: increased reimbursements to providers, aging population which translates into increased medical care, extremely high cost of brand name drugs and brand name drug utilization and medical technology. Blue Cross is doing a good job in trying to keep rates as low as possible. Nevertheless, I will shop your plan in the marketplace and report back to you shortly.

heckuvajob, Bluey

When I was a child there were no vaccines for anything. I had all the diseases and believe me, if you care about your child, do not let them get whooping cough. I had it and it was truly awful. There have been multiple studies re autism and vaccines and not one shred of proof has been found that they are connected. I think this is pure hysteria and it’s putting children at risk and all the people the child is around.

I agree completely. I’ve seen parents, many parents, who actually want their children diagnosed with a problem like autism so that their child qualifies for special education services. Strange, but true.

i have three kids, all under five. Each child has received vaccines on a schedule that we believe suits our kids, not what some federal health bureaucrat tells us to do. For example, the Hepatitis B vaccine is one we do not give our children. Why should we?

(Via Wikipedia) Hepatitis B is transmitted from exposure to infectious blood or body fluids containing blood. Possible forms of transmission include (but are not limited to) unprotected sexual contact, blood transfusions, re-use of contaminated needles & syringes, and vertical transmission from mother to child during childbirth.

So my wife is not a carrier (tested prior to childbirth in all three cases. That rules out transmission from mother to child during childbirth. My children are not sexually active, which rules out sexual contact. They do not get blood transfusions. They are not drug users. So my children are not at risk for contracting Hepatitis B.

So why vaccinate for this disease? Why, Phoenix Woman, have you so scornfully attacked parents who do not vaccinate our kids without asking why? Do you have children? Do you educate yourself about the risks posed by vaccines and weigh them against the risks posed by the illness?

Just that your comment was fairly pointed. I don’t have kids and my doggies have all their shots! I will say that, after my tour in Korea, I faked my shot record before I went to the Nam because I didn’t want another one of those damn gamma globulin shots!

I believe that this country will do very little about the health care crisis.

SINGLE PAYER IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO.

and yours is the same kind of logic that leads the gullible to beleive industry and government assurances that toxic chemical pollution does not harm anyone.

their favorite line about cancer clusters is “better detection and diagnosis” - its from the very same Public Relations playbook as the denial of an increase of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

I thought Firepups adored the Kennedy clan?

http://www.rollingstone.com/po....._immunity/

Frick, every time I turned around they kept giving me shots… B*stards! The anthrax ones during the buildup to the first Gulf War totally pissed me off…!

I teach in a school that is about 70% Latino, most of whom were born here. There is no issue with this population having their children vaccinated. It is the home-schoolers whose parents object.

BTW, what is the difference between a vaccination and an innoculation? Kirk?

The malaria pills that gave you the shits and the salt tabs turned out to be real good for you too!

Keep clicking through to the Politics tab and read the article about McCain by Matt Taibbi (sp).

Time for Obama to discuss health care for Americans. This is absolute and total crapola.

Will you have them immunized against HepB at some point?

My answer is the same as for topics like global warming. People should find out what the peer-reviewed scientific community is saying.

Click on the links in my post. The peer-reviewed scientific community is firmly on the side of vaccination.

There is no evidence of any link between immunizations and autism that has survived actual peer view by actual medical science professionals. The sole scientific foundation, the Wakefield Lancet paper, was blasted to bits so thoroughly that ten of Wakefield’s fellow twelve authors made a point of disassociating themselves with Wakefield’s conclusions, as they said that he had misrepresented himself and his aims to them.

As for the claimed autism epidemic that vaccinations have allegedly triggered, there hasn’t been a rise in autism cases so much as there’s been a rise in correct identification of autism, instead of confusing it with mental retardation. Notice that in the graphs at this link, the rise in autism is matched by a corresponding drop in mental retardation.. This is consistent with doctors making fewer MR diagnoses and more autism diagnoses, which is what one would expect as autism becomes better understood and less likely to be confused with mental retardation.

I am late to this thread and I haven’t read the comments. But I do think that Pharma and doctors are far from perfect and cause death and suffering.

I suspect all vaccines may not be all that they are cracked up to be.

Not being a scientist I would do a lot of research and contact reliable sources for their opinions on vaccinations.

OMG, me too. I had measles, mumps and whooping cough. I remember that my class after lunch was upstairs, and coughing so much after lunch recess (I admit to playing four square competitively!!) that it took about 15 minutes before I could quit coughing and go into class.

we are all one car accident away from possibly needing a blood transfusion.

I guess you folks may have forgetten that some who took the polio vaccine did get polio probably as a result of it.

That’s not funny. /s

yes, when the time is right that their risk of catching Hep B increases. I highlighted this vaccine as an example of one that doesn’t need to be given to every child as CDC states, but should be given based on testing of the mother.

My “plan” went up 12% this yr. (1-1-08) It appears to me that the plan is nothing more than seperating me from my money. I have decided that I do not want insurance. Period. I want healthcare when I need it.

I had a lengthy discussion with my employer the other day on the suject. He is a very hard right repub and asked me why I thought he should vote for a Dem this time. I very gently explained to him that between the 2 of us we paid $1100.00 + a month to insure me, my wife and 1 child. Would he prefer to continue that or pay perhaps $500.00 a month between us in additional taxes? He went away to research. And he will. I believe this is a valid argument to use when confronted with people that continue to vote against their best interests.

That was the earliest form of the polio vaccine — later forms were crafted differently, and that is no longer an issue.

And some folks may have forgotten that before there was a polio vaccine, a lot of folks died as a result of the lack of one.

“There was a legitimate concern about the pertussis vaccine decades ago, which has been addressed by the development of acellular vaccine. The fear lingers many years beyond the solution to this problem, and children are dying from a completely preventable disease in this country.

As for the autism argument:

I have seen no *legitimate* public health studies showing this link to autism. In fact the Danes used their extensive civil and medical records to show there was no change in autism when mercury was taken out of the mix.

Seems this is just one more opportunity for those who wish to prey on people’s fears.

And what government can you think of that has been preying on people’s fears with great regularity lately?

What government can you think of that supports businesses against the public interest by opposing safety regulations (”red tape”), and being reluctant to prosecute corporation abuse and neglect?

What government can you think of that sanctions the sale and barely regulated use of neurotoxins (such as alcohol), suggesting only that the public use the product “sensibly”?

Although I think that the autism scare has been laid to rest, I am frankly on the side of the citizens against this particular government, which shows noticably more sympathy towards the megacorporations than it does towards its marginal citizens.

Bob in HI

I have mixed feelings about the vax issue, though lean toward conservative in my views (e.g. I believe in the necessity of most vaccines from a public health standpoint). I agree that there is no science to support the autism claim, yet are sympathetic towards parents trying to find answers. I had my own child vaccinated. Yet, in retrospect I wonder whether I should have had some of the vaccines done.Chicken pox for one. I am very skeptical of the more recent vaccines on the market (chicken pox, HPV) because of the heavy pharmaceutical company influence. Frankly, i no longer trust much of anything from the pharma industry with the FDA stamp of approval. Even though mercury removed from some vaccines, aluminum is in many and can be dangerous esp. to premature infants.

So my friends what is the correct way to approach this, when I was a child I had both measles and Mumps, not fun. My kids are vaccinated, I have a son by choice, not blood who is very adhd, I would like to know wtf to believe in all of this, and I would tend to side with you sporkvat but I don’t know what is true and what is not. Logic would say if pregnant woman should not eat tuna then babies sure as hell should not use it either, along with all the other stuff in our food and food chain but that is another story in itself.

Thimerosal and Autism

Some parents are concerned that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative contained in the influenza vaccine, causes autism. However, during the past few years a series of biological and epidemiological studies have shown this concern to be unfounded. Here is a summary of the evidence showing that, while some things do cause autism, mercury in vaccines isn’t one of them.

Posted: March 2006
Updated: July 2006

from:

http://www.chop.edu/consumer/j.....p?id=75751

Your citation was from 1999

Here’s some useful sites that provide peer-reviewed articles both pro- and contra- the claim that vaccines are related to autism.

Autisms Relationship to Vaccination?

It should be noted that almost all of the co-authors of the paper that made the original claim have recanted their own paper, and it’s senior authors conclusions. Another of the three papers has been totally withdrawn by the authors.

Here is some information about the situation regarding various communicable diseases before vaccines were introduced in the United States, and the transformation in incidence subsequent to vaccination.
Vaccination and Occurence Statistics

We could likely live without a mumps vaccine but rubella was deadly, and could become pandemic killing tens of thousands, and measles had major health impacts on children in terms of blindness, deafness, and other neurological impacts. And you don’t even want to get me talking about polio.

What?? I have a friend who contracted polio months before the vaccination was available, and just had to have surgery to stablize her ankle.

Openhope,

Just like you all my immunity came the natural way. I probably even had polio since my closest friend developed the paralytic version one summer - and we played together every day. I didn’t develop paralysis, as most children didn’t. I also didn’t develop measles encephalitis, die from whooping cough, or tetanus, and thank god my mother was not exposed to rubella while she was pregnant.

Just because none of these things didn’t happen didn’t mean they couldn’t then and wouldn’t now. The fact that you have never seen these diseases doesn’t mean they aren’t still around and aren’t still deadly. You were lucky. You rolled the dice on your kids, but the universe didn’t pick up the bet.**

The link between autism and thiomersal has never been