Vaccine Skeptics vs. Your Kids
Immune to reason, are vaccine deniers putting children at risk?
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Yahooin the last trimester of her pregnancy, Helena Moran caught a cough that she couldn't get rid of. She figured she'd picked up the germ—whatever it was—from one of her patients at a Boulder dentist's office. But the real nightmare began after her daughter, Evelina, was born: The baby began to cough and cough, and then she'd curl up in a little ball and turn blue. At the emergency room, she was diagnosed with whooping cough. She spent the next five weeks in intensive care and suffered permanent lung damage.
It turned out that by working in Boulder—one of the wealthiest, most well-educated towns in the country—Moran had put herself at risk of contracting a disease that largely disappeared after widespread vaccination against it began in the 1950s. Since the early 1990s, whooping cough has periodically whipped through Boulder, where a large percentage of parents do not immunize their children, public health officials say.
There's a Boulder in almost every state. Childhood vaccination rates nationwide are near record levels, in part thanks to a Clinton-era program that guarantees free vaccines for the poor. But as I learned while researching my book, Vaccine, a history of immunization, resistance is also growing, especially among affluent and well-educated people—to the point where living in a place with a high percentage of PhDs is a risk factor for whooping cough. "These are people who know better," ucla whooping cough expert James Cherry told me, "but they don't know enough."
Vaccine resisters are motivated by a range of convictions—immunization isn't "natural" (the wellness set), it's suspect because it's government mandated (Christian home-schoolers), and so on—but the movement got a huge boost from the controversy over the mercury-laden preservative thimerosal, which some theorized might be linked to autism. That link has been disproven—by, if nothing else, the fact that autism rates remained steady after pediatricians and public health authorities told manufacturers to stop making thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines in 1999. But the anti-vaccine movement has kept going, finding ever new reasons to distrust immunization. Some, including celebrity pediatrician Dr. Robert W. Sears, have raised fears about aluminum in the shots, while others—like the 2,000 or so protesters at a Washington rally this June—simply charge that kids get "too many vaccines" full of "dangerous toxins" that overwhelm their immune systems.
The skeptics have many things going for them: our justifiable distrust of medical authority; our admiration for do-it-yourselfers, mavericks, and the self-taught; even a dose of celebrity appeal from the likes of Charlie Sheen, Jenny McCarthy, and Jim Carrey. What most of them don't have is an understanding of the science. Thanks to vaccines, polio and diphtheria are now pretty well confined to the world's medical backwaters. But tetanus lives everywhere in soil and rusty nails, and as many as 6 million Americans are exposed to whooping cough each year, according to surveys of blood antibodies. This year, measles has returned, with the worst US outbreak since 2001. Most of the patients have been unvaccinated children and adults, and nearly a quarter have been hospitalized. In Third World countries with no measles vaccination, the disease killed nearly a quarter-million children in 2006.
Current medical practice is to vaccinate babies against whooping cough beginning at two months of age. Widespread vaccination creates "herd immunity"—the disease has fewer hosts, which means there are fewer people to spread it to those at serious risk, from immunocompromised adults (think chemotherapy patients) to newborns such as Evelina Moran and Teddy Hickenlooper, the infant son of Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, who caught whooping cough from an unvaccinated older child in 2002.
Here's where we get to the deeper, fundamentally progressive reason for vaccination: The point is to protect not merely ourselves, but the community. To not vaccinate is to threaten the immunological commons, the array of trillions of antibodies and T cells that decades of vaccination have built up in our bodies, draping a web of germ-fighting agents around our most vulnerable neighbors. To not vaccinate is to affirm an overweening individuality. It's a form of selfishness.
Right now, in many states, all it takes to get an exemption from vaccine requirements is signing a form. Some, including a group of doctors at Johns Hopkins University, have proposed making it harder—allowing a philosophical exemption only after parents demonstrate a good-faith effort to educate themselves.
True, medical experts have failed us before; to make sure they are doing their job, we need to strongly support the public health programs whose job it is to watch out for serious adverse reactions to vaccines. But while questioning authority is healthy, facts are facts. If vaccines really were responsible for autism, it would be too much to ask parents to do the altruistic thing. But more than a dozen studies have failed to discover such a link—and not a single legitimate study has shown that one exists. I have spent many, many hours reading these studies and talking to vaccine scientists. I find no reason to believe Jim Carrey more than I believe them. Call me a dupe of the establishment, but I'd rather trust the doctors.
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Your doctors are paid and taught by Big business pharmaceutical companies, and while your at it be sure to trust your government!
Reply to "Doctors are paid and trained by big pharma"
I do not know ANY doctors who are paid by big pharma. In addition we will not see pharmaceutical reps in our office.
In FURTHER addition, unlike chiropractors, naturopaths, optometrists, physios etc, MD's are NOT permitted (at least in Canada) to benefit or profit from anything they prescribe.
The argument that doctors have a vested interest in promoting vaccine is the last resort of the losing argument..... although, as a rural/remote family doctor in a community with a high rate of 'vaccine sceptics' I guess I DO have some interest. As I cover the hospital and emergency room I HATE having to see children die, suffer permanent disablitity, or undergo invasive life-saving treatment when this can be easily and safely prevented by vaccines.
Since when does Mother Jones publish corporate propoganda? As a chemist with 27 years of experience evaluating material for mercury, I have never tested anything that even approaches the amount of mercury I found in multi-dose childhood vaccine vials. Nothing has even come close! What's worse is that ethylmercury, the type found in vaccines and seed fungicides, has been shown to be more toxic than methylmercury due to its rapid conversion to Hg++ in the brain. We also had a whooping cough outbreak in my state, over 95% of the 4000 were vaccinated. I will never buy/read Mother Jones again.
Arty Farty, all we're asking for are safe shots. Stop yipping about the anti-vaxers. Clean up the shots, start after 2 years, spread out the schedule, stop mandating more and more vaxes for non-deadly diseases, and most of us will be fine with the damn vax program.
What happened?
Did Mother Jones get cyberjacked!
What's next Alex Jones to expound on the virtues of the globalization?
Sad day for journalism.
Being a father of a child diagnosed with autism last year and doing some 8 months of research on autism,immunity systems and doctors I can tell you at least one thing.
By you saying "Call me a dupe of the establishment, but I'd rather trust the doctors." is blindly and ignorantly throwing your "trust" away.
Most all doctors are decent people, the problem stems from their "practice", most all doctors do what the medical association tells them to and just who do you think controls the medical association? That's right BIG BUSINESS.
Doctors,FDA,MA,politicians and just about every other entity you have to protect YOU, the common person of your land has been bought and paid for for the last 20 years.
Enlighten yourselves and do a google search on something called "Codex Alimentarius"
You can go to there nice rosey site here
http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp
and try to decipher what it is they are doing.
Or you can use this
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5266884912495233634
as a guide and see where it is we are really heading.
Follow the guide and you be the judge.
"Money is the root of all evil"
"Corporations are the evil that grows from those roots"
Wake up before it is truly too late.
Good luck..we will need it.
My dad had polio as a baby in the early 1900's and had one leg shorter than the other. Walked with a limp his whole life and his back hurt him all the time. He's lucky he was a functioning adult. My parents were very careful about making sure I was vaccinated and I have made sure my children are up-to date. None of us are autistic.
Arthur Allen is a complete idiot.
Some hack journalists understands the science but a bunch of PhDs in Boulder don't? Get a clue!
WHO'S an idiot??
Mr. Allen may be simply a journalist, but his research apparently involved many
who make their living studying just this subject.
That "bunch of PhD's in Boulder" are PhDs in what? Divinity? Geography? Finance?
The theory that MMR Vaccine was somehow causal to autism has since been PROVEN over and over (by a "bunch of PhD's" worldwide who's interest is in THIS field) to be incorrect. The connection between the vaccines and the development of signs of autism has been proven to be simply a temporal coincidence based on the timing of the vaccines and when the signs of Autism first appear.
It's people's natural reaction to a diagnosis like this to look for a blame, a reason for it. Hey! He was fine. Maybe it was that innoculation that he had last year. I have friends with children with this diagnosis. None of them are gullible enough to blame their kids' vaccines.
That's great, Claire, but 1 in 100 children are not as lucky as your kids so shut up!
Mike Wagnitz likes to inflate his job duties and credentials. He is incorrect when he says there is a lot of mercury in multi-dose vials of childhood vaccines. None of them contain a biologically significant amount, except certain varieties of influenza vaccine. And do you know what? That's been true since 2002 and autism has continued to climb just as fast! Use some critical thinking and leave the urban legend of vaccines causing autism to the dank corners of the internet.
There is no proven link between mercury and autism, thimerosal and autism, or aluminum and autism. Nonetheless, mercury and thimerosal levels in current vaccines are virtually nil, and autism rates remain constant or are on the increase. Either something not yet posited about vaccines causes autism, or autism is completely unrelated to vaccines. Rather than shouting reactionary cries of "shill!" perhaps the present anti-vaccine brigade could supply some scientific evidence to support their position, not just conspiracy theories and unsourced beliefs? I've no doubt there is corruption in the pharmaceutical industry, but that doesn't invalidate good research.
No one here has suggested a reputable alternate authority on the safety of modern vaccines. Jim Carrey and girlfriend Jenny McCarthy don't count. Just as having a child with leukemia does not automatically make one an expert on its causes, having a child with autism does not automatically grant one an in-depth understanding of its causes. It makes you care. It makes you want answers. It makes you much more likely to be interested in seeking out answers. Without critical thinking and education based in understanding reputable research, there's no guarantee that the answers you find will be anything close to right. McCarthy's anti-vaccine, Indigos and Crystals line on autism, so far as I can tell, is nowhere close to right.
If you say you want a safe vaccine, implying you don't believe you have one already, please be so kind as to describe what constitutes a safe vaccine in your opinion, and how safety could be proven.
It would also be lovely if we could have a civil discussion here. With namecalling ("arty farty?") and yelling at people to shut up for holding differing opinions, so far no one has done anything to improve my opinion of the anti-vaccine case. If anything, several of you have further undermined whatever legitimacy your group could hope to claim in my mind.
And before someone yells at *me* to shut up, mu cousin is autistic, as is my friend's teenaged son. I am friends with people with varying degrees of autism and Asperger syndrome. I have Asperger syndrome myself. Their views are not unified, but many would disagree with the idea that autism is "too much" to "pay," or that autism is "suffered" by autistics. One reference for that contingent's position is autismcrisis.blogspot.com
The chances of a child developing the autism that causes parents to recoil in horror is smaller than that same child contracting a disease preventable by vaccine. Evidence to date does not show that vaccines cause autism to begin with. Choosing not to vaccinate is still unlikely to cause harm, but it is more likely to cause harm than vaccinating.
'corporate propoganda', 'arty farty', 'complete idiot', 'clairesux' and a commenter who thinks vaccines are the tool of the Illuminati.
Truly, these are the people who represent the cream of the autism/antivaccine movement.
Thank you Mr Allen for shining a light on these people. The rest of us parents of autistic people don't think vaccines cause autism.
Please vaccinate your child.
On the Seventh Anniversary of 9/11, I am not reassured by the anti-vax merchants of disease, disability and death. They want dead and disabled children.
Thank you for another great article.
I've got autistic triplets, and while I can understand the fear and desperation of newly-diagnosed parents who need something to "blame", hopefully SOON we can put the time and energy that's being wasted on such a clearly-proven issue into actually helping autistic people to build better lives for themselves. To me that's at least as good a reason to listen to the science as the horrendous issues in public health that we're going to be facing in our future thanks to non-immunization.
"Some hack journalists understands the science but a bunch of PhDs in Boulder don't? Get a clue!"
If the Ph. D. earned is not in an appropriate field (e. g., medical sciences, applied biology, toxicology, pharmacology, etc)... it's likely that they won't understand the science so well.
That would be the 'clue'.
If I had to be a shill, I'll choose Galileo over Jenny McCarthy.
"Arty Farty, all we're asking for are safe shots. Stop yipping about the anti-vaxers. Clean up the shots, start after 2 years, spread out the schedule, stop mandating more and more vaxes for non-deadly diseases, and most of us will be fine with the damn vax program."
You already have "safe" shots, with constant efforts to make them even safer. Moreover, waiting until age 2 leaves babies vulnerable to serious diesease like pertussis.
The problem is, antivaccinationists like yourself will not accept the scientific evidence, no matter how copious. Every time a new study comes out failing to find a link between vaccines and autism or other problems, they find reasons to reject it even if they have to torture logic and science to do it. Antivaccinationism is not a scientific belief; it is ideological and/or religious more than anything else, which is why it is so stubbornly resistant to reason and science.
"Vaccines safes lives". Identify yourself you coward. My credentials are easy to verify. There are 11 licensed vaccines in the U.S. that contain mercury at a concentration of 50,000 parts per billion (ppb). This can be easily verified. The EPA classifies liquids as hazardous waste, based on toxicity characteristics, at the 200 ppb mercury level. Spin it anyway you want.
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/mercury/regs.htm#hazwaste
Vaccines are wrong, not because of some bogus autism link by conspiracy nuts, but because kids need to catch childhood diseases. How else are we going to let nature weed out the weak ones?
Professor Gordon Stewart wrote in 1980: "In a matter of such importance where concern on all sides is genuine and pressing, I do not wish to end this article inconclusively. My own view, based upon some years of observation and experience, is quite firm. I supported the use of the vaccine in 1951 and subsequently with very little hesitation until about 1972, and gave pertussis vaccine between 1951 and 1956 to each of my four children. I would not dream of doing so again because it has become clear to me not only that the vaccine is incompletely protective, but also that the side-effects which I thought to be temporary are in fact dangerous, unpredictably so."
First, given the tremendous potential liability were vaccines to be "officially" shown to cause autism or other serious health problems (including death), there is tremendous incentive to prove otherwise.
Second, while Public Health and most other vaccine advocates say vaccines must be mandatory or these diseases will spread, if the vaccines work, anyone choosing them will be protected. If they don’t prevent the spread of the disease to the vaccinated, what is the point? It hardly seems right that those who don’t want to be vaccinated should be required to be vaccinated, because vaccines don’t always work.
And to whatever extent vaccines are being required because the “immune suppressed” cannot be vaccinated, and are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of disease, while my heart goes out to such people, they are not more important than children who are harmed by vaccines. Nor should the notion that vaccination may in itself be creating immune suppression be left out of this equation.
Besides there is documented proof of outbreaks in 100% vaccinated populations.
I also consider any notion of "public health" to be suspect, which sacrifices the individual to some alleged higher goal. Many of us find it way scarier that the state would sacrifice children to someone's idea of the common good, than to take our chances with Mother Nature. Who decides? What's the right number? Who's counting? Even in wartime, the draft of adults is only used very judiciously and sparingly. We also go to considerable effort to avoid enemy civilian casualties. Yet we seem to think nothing of sacrificing our own innocent children.
Like it or not, there is plenty of evidence that vaccines are doing harm. We just doing know how much.
The bottom line? We need good information, we need a choice, and we need it now. If we had such a choice, the vaccine manufacturers just might improve their products. Why, on earth, do they need to improve them now, when we are required to have their vaccines, and they are not accountable for the outcome?
Sandy Gottstein, President, Vaccination News, A Non-Profit Corporation (http://www.vaccinationnews.org) and author of Scandals (http://www.vaccinationnews.com/Scandals/past_scandals.htm)
"...has been shown to be more toxic than methylmercury due to its rapid conversion to Hg++ in the brain. "Really?! Wow, can you back that up with the actual research? Conversion in the brain! Wow, that's s new one. It's metabolized in the brain, not the liver, huh? Geee, you wouldn't be making false conclusions from the Burbacher paper now, would you Mike? Maybe you should go and re-read it...they never performed the experiments to determine that the mercury from the thimerosal found in the brain was the inorganic mercury they measured. The authors' didn't make that conclusion, why did you?
The Burbacher study, the cornerstone of your rants on this board and many others, NEVER tested (by isotopic means) the origins of Hg in the brain. That's one reason, other than poor experimental design and execution, that body of work is easily dismissed (except by those looking for any justification of their pre-established beliefs, regardless of the experimental results and real conclusions).
While we are STILL (after decades of research) on the topic of mercury, can anyone...please!...explain how mercury causes autism when the clinical diagnosis of symptoms (used by all doctors around the world, for centuries now) for mercury toxicity look nothing like autism? Has anyone met any doctors who had a difficult time trying to differentiate whether their patients have autism or mercury poisoning? No? Yeah, it doesn't happen. Maybe some of you can ponder over that little detail.
A fake chemist wrote
"What's worse is that ethylmercury, the type found in vaccines and seed fungicides, has been shown to be more toxic than methylmercury due to its rapid conversion to Hg++ in the brain."
Ethylmercury is much less toxic than ethylmercury because of a very much shorter half life in the body. It's also excreted by the kidneys unlike methylmercury. So, our fake chemist is not telling you that there's precious little mercury left to be converted to inorganic mercury, again, unlike methyl mercury (pollution style mercury). He also misrepresents the limitations of the Burbacher study he's using in one important way. There was no way of telling where the brain inorganic mercury was coming from. It was assumed that the monkeys had no prior exposure to mercury, and that would be in the form of methylmercury. This has to be false. Mercury on planet Earth is everywhere.
Hey Mike...the chemist...
In your studies did you ever learn the difference between a compound and an element? How about chemical properties, are they the same? And, as in the case of "aluminum in vaccines", are elements the same as salts? Because if that's the case, I'm going to start putting elemental chlorine and sodium on my food.
Hey chemist Mike, how exactly is thimerosal 50% mercury again? Your math seems to be fuzzy since mercury is one of 23 atoms in its composition. Maybe you can re figure your ppb math in light of that fact (yes, yes, we all know what 'by-weight' means, but you seem to miss the fact that we're talking about a molecule here).
Hey Mike, how would elemental mercury be liberated metabolically from the compound? Can you explain the mechanism, because according to what's published about organic decomposure processes, elemental mercury couldn't possibly be a metabolite, and certainly, the others from the molecule from your "magic mechanism" would be detected (and, sadly for you, they are not).
Hey Mike...do yourself a favor. Go get a organic chemistry refresher because you seem to be lacking some fundamental (I mean really basic) concepts.
For starters, Hg++ is not elemental mercury. How did I determine that thimerosal is 50% mercury. Look at the vaccine label. Thimerosal concentration is listed at 1:10000 which is the same as 100,000 ppb(a number relative to a billion). Analyze the vial for mercury and you will get 50,000 ppb mercury. Really quite simple. Burbacher used a group of primates that were dosed with thimerosal only and he found twice as much Hg++ in the brain as opposed to methylmercury. It came from one source, injected thimerosal. Now "Calling out Mike's BS", go get a job! Please stay away from the science or math field.
50% by weight Mike, by atomic mass...by weight. Breaking up a molecule with 23 atoms means one of those is mercury. Get it? Thimerosal is not 50% mercury by COMPOSITION, it is by weight. Your ppb calcs are all wrong. And please describe the mechanism too, with the other metabolites that are never detected. Don't just rehash you old, tired, erroneous-from-the-start talking points, deal with the questions you constantly ignore.
" It came from one source, injected thimerosal. "
How do you know this? No one knows this. The researchers never made that claim. It was never tested or determined to be true. You are assuming, guessing, wishing, whatever...this was never determined by their experiments. Is that too difficult of a concept for you to grasp?
And you always seem to ignore the questions posed as to why the diagnosis for autism is nothing like that of mercury toxicity, you know, acrodynia. Know any kids that have acrodynia? Ever meet a doctor that's confused the two?
Go back and run your samples lab-tech Mike. Some research might be depending on your core facility function for something worthwhile.
Just heard on NPR last week that where I live (Chicago) has the highest rate of measel outbreak seen in a very long thanks to the nay-sayers of vaccinations.
Thank god I got my vaccinations when I was younger. I think that those people are nuts for not getting vaccinated. Now they can deal with their miserable kids and the possible chance that they could kill some babies while they are at it. Idiots.
"And you always seem to ignore the questions posed as to why the diagnosis for autism is nothing like that of mercury toxicity". Here you are Einstein.
Toxic levels of mercury in Chinese infants eating fish congee
Stephen J Corbett and Christopher C S Poon
Medical Journal Australia 2008; 188 (1): 59-60
To the Editor: We report elevated mercury levels in three infants, each the only child of Chinese parents living in Sydney. All three children had eaten fish congee (a rice and fish porridge) as a weaning food and ate fish regularly as toddlers. Their parents had sought medical advice for either developmental delay or neurological symptoms in the children.
A boy aged 2 years and 10 months presented with delayed speech and some autistic features. Since weaning, he had eaten fish (barramundi, sea perch, salmon and rock cod) up to eight times a week. He had no history of herbal medicine use, and his thyroid function, blood lead level, and a DNA screen for fragile X syndrome were normal. The childs blood mercury level was 350 nmol/L and urine Hg/Cr ratio was 14 nmol/mmol (NR, less than 10 nmol/mmol*). The boys father did not eat fish, and his blood mercury level was 19 nmol/L. The childs mother did eat fish, and had a blood mercury level of 27 nmol/L. Two weeks after removing fish from the diet, the childs blood mercury level had fallen to 99 nmol/L and his urine Hg/Cr ratio to 7 nmol/mmol. However, his behaviour did not improve, and he was subsequently diagnosed with classical autism.
My entire family of 5 kids got the measles at once in 1961. We had to stay in the house for 4 whole days! Thank God for "Leave it to Beaver". We sure as hell didn't go to any hospital or Doctor. Unlike the vaccinated, we all have lifetime immunity.
Just because you CAN make and mandate a vaccine, should you?
How many do we really need?
The immunization schedule is out of control, forcing parents to "dissent" and think for ourselves...
ENTIRELY DISSAPPOINTED IN MOTHER JONES FOR PRINTING THIS!
As a mother of a severely autistic boy, I agree with Jen. Please stop wasting time and money on the vaccine issue, and start helping individuals with autism, and those with other disabilities, lead better lives. For the past 6 years I have read everything that has anything to do with vaccines and autism, absolutely nothing has made me think that there is a connection.
"Toxic levels of mercury in Chinese infants eating fish congee
Stephen J Corbett and Christopher C S Poon"
NICE! Just read through the paper. Again, the authors make no mention, anywhere in the paper, that their research demonstrates or implies that mercury was the causal factor in the child's autism. Additionally, you neglected to include the subsequent subjects where they describe pronounced neurological impairment, specifically, limitations in mobility and kidney failure (all part of the world-widely accepted medical diagnosis for mercury toxicity) that is not seen within the scope of those diagnosed within autism spectrum disorders.
The paper is about methylmercury and how excessive consumption of certain fish species during pregnancy may cause birth defects. So, along your lines of reasoning and what you've provided as evidence that autism is mercury poisoning, we should expect a lot of autism in families that eat a lot of fish, right? Maybe feeding children fish gives them autism, right? Because 1 tuna fish sandwich supplies more mercury (in the form of methylmercury) than an old-style, 8 year old, thimerosal-containing vaccine. Maybe it isn't big pharma that's out to get your kids...maybe it's big fish.
acrodynia (a·krō·dīˑ·nē·),n pediatric disease caused by mercury poisoning. Symptoms include generalized skin rash, pruritus, edema, painful extremities that appear pink, profuse sweating, clammy skin, scarlet-colored cheeks and nose, photophobia, polyneuritis, digestive problems, irritable episodes that alternate with apathetic attitudes, and general failure to thrive. Also called
erythredema polyneuropathy, Feer's disease, pink disease, or
Swift's disease.
Autism: A spectrum of neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication, and unusual and repetitive behavior. Some, but not all, people with autism are non-verbal.
Do those look the same to you? No, me neither.
"My entire family of 5 kids got the measles at once in 1961. We had to stay in the house for 4 whole days! Thank God for "Leave it to Beaver". We sure as hell didn't go to any hospital or Doctor. Unlike the vaccinated, we all have lifetime immunity."
Vaccine refusals fuel measles outbreak
Posted 2008/08/21 at 1:07 pm EDT
WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2008 (Reuters) — Parents refusing to have their children vaccinated against measles have helped drive cases of the illness to their worst levels in a dozen years in the United States, health officials reported on Thursday.
In 2008 alone, 131 cases of measles have been reported, with 15 serious enough to be hospitalized, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Most of those infected were not vaccinated and there is no reason for any cases to occur when vaccines can prevent them, the CDC said in a weekly report on death and diseases.
"Measles can be a severe, life-threatening illness" the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat said in a statement. "These cases resulted primarily from failure to vaccinate, many because of philosophical or religious belief."
Only 13 percent of the cases were imported, the CDC said, naming Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, India, Israel, China, Germany, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Russia. "This is the lowest percentage of imported measles cases since 1996," the CDC report reads.
At least 15 patients, including four children younger than 15, were hospitalized, although no one has died, the CDC said.
"In the decade before the measles vaccination program began, an estimated 3 to 4 million persons in the United States were infected each year. Of these, 400 to 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and another 1,000 developed chronic disability from measles encephalitis."
Encephalitis is a life-threatening inflammation of the brain that can be caused by viral infections such as measles.
More than 90 percent of the patients were not vaccinated, the CDC said, had no evidence of having been vaccinated, or were babies too young to have been vaccinated.
"Of the 95 patients eligible for vaccination, 63 were unvaccinated because of their or their parents' philosophical or religious beliefs," the CDC said.
Some religious groups refuse vaccination but many parents have fears that vaccines are unsafe or may cause conditions such as autism -- fears the CDC says are unfounded.
"Increases in the proportion of the population declining vaccination for themselves or their children might lead to large-scale outbreaks in the United States," the CDC said.
Outbreaks of measles are being reported now in Israel, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Britain among people who are declining the vaccine.
British health officials said in June that measles had again become endemic for the first time since the mid-1990s due to parents declining to get their children vaccinated.
The last serious U.S. outbreak was in 1989-1991, when 55,000 people got measles and 123 died. The CDC said 55 cases of measles were reported in 2006.
Measles kills about 250,000 people a year globally, mostly children in poor nations. The disease causes fever, coughing, irritation of the eyes and a rash. Serious complications include encephalitis and pneumonia that can be fatal.
"Measles knows no borders, but can be prevented for less than one dollar per child in a developing country. We must be steadfast in our efforts to reduce measles cases globally," the Measles Initiative, which includes the American Red Cross, CDC and United Nations agencies, said in a statement.
Well thank goodness you had Leave it to Beaver! Perhaps that's what we can do for the millions that get it annually (except the quarter million that will die from it...and the tens of thousands with brain damage from encephalitis, I doubt they will get the jokes anyway).
Thank you very much Mr. Allen. As the paretent of a young child with autism, I see the need to separate the autism community from the vaccine debate. People have looked hard for the links, and they haven't found them. We've spent enough researcher time and money looking, now we need to look for something that can actually help.
Autism is simply a term from the psychiatric DSM-IV manual. It's nothing but a smokescreen. It provides an alibi for the drug companies who added mercury to vaccines at levels 250 times higher than hazardous waste levels (based on toxicity characteristics). It provides an alibi for the CDC, FDA, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the other drug company cronies who are responsible for the safety of our children. It provides an alibi for the people who administered this poison. It provides an alibi for health insurance companies so they don't have to pay for treatment for these sick kids. It provides an alibi for psychiatrists so they can force powerfull anti-psychotic drugs on these kids who are already terribly confused.
There will never be an identifiable cause for autism. There are though 11 published papers which identify the underlying medical condition of autism as neuroinflammatory disease. My favorite is ' Neuroglial activation and Neuroinflammation in the Brain of Patients with Autism'. This was published by John Hopkins University. Now, do you want to debate whether mercury, a known neurotoxin, added to childhood vaccines at levels 250 times higher than what the EPA identifies as hazardous waste, causes neuroinflammatory disease? Do you want to debate whether brain damaged kids behave in a way so that some psychiatrist can label them as somewhere on the 'spectrum'?
Yes Joe. It's all part of a conspiracy! Big pharma purposely added "toxins" to "poison" children, while the FDA, the CDC, the AMA, NIH, AAP, and WHO all collaborated.
Again, you re-hash the same old, tired talking points. None of which holds any credence. None.
But go ahead. It's Sept. 11th. Maybe you can spin that conspiracy in there with this one too.
Just out of curiosity Joe, since all these organizations, consisting of literally tens of millions of people around the world are in on the conspiracy, do they vaccinated their kids too, or do they have some special "secret placebo" vaccines just for show? Do these doctors and scientists you are accusing of being in on this conspiracy, do they not vaccinate their children (because, being in on the conspiracy, they would know the debilitating effects, right?) Just curious Joe, because apparently...in your mind...you've got this all worked out.
Start after two? Children are most likely to die of infectious diseases at younger ages. That's why we vaccinate so young -- to protect young infants from diseases like whooping cough, or blood infection.
As a resident, I used to see blood infection from pneumococcus at least once a week. Since the pneumococcal vaccine became widespread, I haven't seen a single case. That's a lot of hospitalizations, spinal taps, antibiotic treatments that didn't have to be done. A lot of young children (all but one of the cases I've seen were under three) who didn't have to suffer. My mentors used to see Haemophilus influenzae infection -- meningitis, more spinal taps, mostly very young children. I've never seen a case, thanks to vaccines. My parents had childhood friends who died of polio. I've never seen a case, thanks to vaccines.
wow.
I suppose EVERY GIRL IN THE WORLD should take Gardasil!
every single one!
immediately!!
go! go NOW... inoculate an entire generation of young women!!!!
either its a MORAL MANDATE or its FEMINISM.
or so says BigPharma.
but we all know, its easier to jab & bill than educate & investigate alternative therapies that don't involve the WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE (x3) vaccine.
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Evil Slutopia: 10 Things You Might Not Know About Gardasil
http://evilslutopia.com/2007/01/gardasil.html
Gardasil? for health or profit?? / Gardasil & HPV?
http://www.breadnroses.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=21321
The Politics & PR of Cervical Cancer
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6216
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Spread Love...
BlueBerry Pick'n
ThisCanadian com
" ... tolerance of intolerance is cowardice... " ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
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"True Pacifism is not unrealistic submission to an Evil power...it is rather a courageous confrontation with Evil by the Power of Love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence & bitterness in the Universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, & thereby bring about a transformation & change of Heart." - MLK
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
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9,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 girls either die or are mamed each year by HPV according to the CDC, FDA, IOM, WHO, AAP, AMA, AAFP, PHARMA, Reuters, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, Mother Jones, CNN......
I read that over 25 girls have died from Gardasil. What is this called, Sudden Adulescent Death Syndrome (SADS)?
I had to laugh at that. Although I think its the big fish that run big pharma. That would only make sense.
So, people are living longer and healthier mainly because of vaccines, but it has nothing to do with advances sanitation, the development of antibiotics, pasteurization, and the understanding of the role that bacteria plays in disease causation. All of these things are sorely lacking in the developing countries whose statistics the proponents of vaccines site so exuberantly. So we should continue to over look these areas including improving water quality, and just give them vaccines. Yep, that'll solve it. Sounds like the industry line to me.
Excuse the errors; more properly:
So, people are living longer and healthier mainly because of vaccines, but it has nothing to do with advances in sanitation, the development of antibiotics, pasteurization, and the understanding of the role that bacteria plays in disease causation. All of these things are sorely lacking in the developing countries whose statistics the proponents of vaccines cite so exuberantly. So we should continue to overlook these areas including improving water quality, and just give them vaccines. Yep, that'll solve it. This sounds like the industry line to me.
There are other concerns besides a disputed link to autism as elucidated by Dr. Philip Incao's Hepatitis B Vaccination Testimony in Ohio:
http://www.garynull.com/Documents/niin/incao_hepatitis_b_vaccination_te....
He states:
"In 1994 a special committee of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences published a comprehensive review of vaccine safety which had been commissioned by federal law. Of five possible and plausible adverse effects of the hepatitis B vaccination which the committee investigated, they were unable to come to any conclusion for four of them because they found to their dismay that the relevant research had not been done!"
He continues:
"Since July 1990, 17,497 cases of hospitalizations, injuries and deaths in America following hepatitis B vaccination have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) of the U.S. government. This figure includes 146 deaths in individuals after receiving only hepatitis B vaccine without any other vaccines, including 73 deaths in children under 14 years old. In 1996 alone there were 872 serious adverse events in children under 14 years old reported to VAERS. 658 of those injuries were following hepatitis B vaccination in combination with other vaccinations and 214 of these injuries were after hepatitis B vaccination alone. In these children under 14 years old, there were 35 deaths after hepatitis B vaccination in combination and 13 deaths after hepatitis B vaccination alone, for a total of 48 deaths. Compare these statistics with the total number of hepatitis B cases nationwide reported that same year (1996) in children under 14, just 279, and the conclusion is obvious that the risks of hepatitis B vaccination far outweigh its benefits. In those infants who died under one month of age, most of the deaths are classified as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). However, in the past this syndrome has never struck infants so young, and SIDS is officially defined as beginning only after one month of age."
With 6,000 children dying of SIDS every year, we have no idea how many of these deaths are actually caused by hepatitis B vaccination. Though the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting system was created by federal law to permit a more accurate assessment of the risks of vaccination, and although the raw data it generates is analyzed, the individual reports of injury or death are rarely, if ever, investigated. If one factors in that fewer than 10% of physicians report adverse reactions to vaccines because we are taught to regard them as merely "temporally related", as only a coincidence, it would be quite plausible to say that the risks of hepatitis B vaccination clearly outweigh its benefits for 99% of the children who receive it."
Finally, I will add from his testimony:
"A critical point which is never mentioned by those advocating mandatory vaccination of children is that children’s health has declined significantly since 1960 when vaccines began to be widely used. According to the National Health Interview Survey conducted annually by the National Center for Health Statistics since 1957, a shocking 31% of U.S. children today have a chronic health problem , 18% of children require special health care or related services and 6.7% of children have a significant disability due to a chronic physical or mental condition. Respiratory allergies, asthma and learning disabilities are the most common of these. Three controlled studies comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children in England and New Zealand have shown that the vaccinated children have significantly more asthma, ear infections, hospitalizations and inflammatory bowel disease than their unvaccinated cohorts. Since vaccinations have a lasting effect on the immune system, and since it is known that many vaccines shift the balance of the immune system away from its acutely-reacting "Th1" side and toward its chronically-reacting "Th2" side , it is a very plausible scenario that vaccines are contributing greatly to the large-scale and unprecedented increase in chronic conditions such as allergies, asthma, diabetes and a wide range of neurological dysfunctions including learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, seizures and autism in U.S. children today.
The shocking facts that 31% of U.S. children today suffer from a chronic condition and that the rate of disability from such chronic conditions in children has seen nearly a fourfold increase since 1960 ought to seriously challenge our medical research establishment. But, far from taking a proactive approach toward these disturbing facts, our medical establishment remains curiously uninterested in children’s chronic diseases and instead continues to pursue its narrow focus of using vaccines to eradicate every possible acute childhood illness, even those like hepatitis B and chicken pox which pose no threat to 99% of children."
Granted the link to autism has been disputed by current research. However, what other factor is there that has been introduced since 1960 to which the increased in chronic conditions can be attributed besides mass childhood vaccination?
Possible accounting for some of the increased health problems
It certainly would not account for 100% of the increase in significant health problems among young children since 1960, but I imagine some of this might be attributed to the advances made in medical care of "premies." It has been well documented that infants born prematurely are susceptible to a host of medical problems, respiratory and developmental issues not the least among them.
I noticed that the percentages from 1957 were not mentioned. I see Dr. Incao states that "the rate of disability from such chronic conditions in children has seen nearly a fourfold increase since 1960," but I would be curious to know what the actual numbers are and which conditions have increased so much.
Thank you Mr. Allen for a well-balanced piece regarding childhood immunizations. I particularly liked the implication of one of your last statements: why should families trust Jim Carrey or Jenny McCarthy more than their child's own physician? As a pediatrician and pediatric infectious diseases specialist for many years I've seen disappear or diminish in number several of the diseases our childhood vaccines were designed to prevent. While some of these diseases remain, mostly in low levels throughout the U.S., some, such as measles, still remain a "plane ride away". In my opinion and experience, over 28 years, the benefits of childhood immunization far outweigh the risks from the vaccines. Thank you again for your excellent Commentary.
Your brain-washed dude! You pediatricians are nothing but glorified pharma sales reps. What happens when you expose a kid to organic mercury while they are on anti-biotics Doc? Did they teach this subject in med (pharma) school? When people tell me their pediatrician will no longer see them if they don't give their kid all 68 injections I say good. Fire him! Pediatricians are worthless. Go find a honest family practicionare.
