You’re probably right but I’m already in the muck.
I just want to pull some criticism of Sears that has gone unanswered.
This is by Dr. Steven Novella and it is directly taken from Dr. Offit’s article criticizing the Sears vaccine schedule. I hope this constitutes fair use.
Here’s another one that also takes a look at Dr. Sears’s schedule.
I strongly urge people to read entire second blog I have pulled up if they have further questions about this issue because the author deconstructs the entire chapter in great and useful detail. Dr. Bob is lying to parents. That should be unacceptable. It should get his license to practice medicine pulled. It’s really that simple.
With regard to your first link:
Supposedly Dr. Sears fails to put the aluminum exposure in context, failing to provide the aluminum quantities the infant ingests in breast milk or formula, as per the quote you included. Why then does the article go on to say:
“Regarding aluminum, Sears simply says that this is a complex issue and at present we simply do not have the data to say that it is safe. I agree that there is room for more data on aluminum, but I disagree with his bottom line. He implies that the fact that aluminum in vaccines in injected means it cannot be compared to the dose of aluminum consumed orally. He has a small point – but only very small. There is no reason to think that aluminum is handled significantly differently by the body if injected rather than consumed by mouth. And the dose from vaccines is so small compared to overall environmental exposure, it is hard to believe that is has any significant biological effect. Still, a wider buffer of evidence would be welcome.”
?
Sears actually does state in his book the ingested quantities from breast milk and formula and quotes a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia handout which he says explains that only 1% of this ingested aluminum is actually absorbed. He also says that the conclusion that ingesting and ingecting the aluminum is the same thing is not scientifically valid. That seems like something there must be an actual answer to, but I’m not going to pretend to know what that answer is. Suffice it to say, he certainly DOES put the aluminum quantities in context.
The author immediately reveals his sloppiness by calling “Dr. Bob” the youngest son of his family. If he can’t get that trivial and banal fact straight, how well can we expect him to handle anything more complicated?
This author now cherry-picks his way through polio, creating the impression that Dr. Sears says not to bother with this vaccination. This is completely false. Dr. Sears makes it quite clear that the polio vaccination has almost no risk and that he thinks it is very important to get this vaccination.
The rest of the supposed “deconstruction” is quite similar.
It’s kind of weird that you want to read the “deconstructions” and will take Dr. Offit’s say-so, but refuse to take a peek at the actual book itself. Obviously you wouldn’t approach it with an open mind, but still, it may not really say what you think it says.
Even these two links you’ve provided allow for the possibility that Sears is attempting to do exactly as he says and get parents to vaccinate, though they don’t believe his attempts are good.
Yet you keep harping on him as a “liar,” never saying why you believe this.
You’re a pretty good example of someone that thinks their opinion is worth something and possibly evenly weighted in the face of factual evidence.
There’s absolutely nothing in this thread that can provided without you coming back with some opinionated on the other hand answer. Textbook false equivalency bullshit.
And it’s patently obvious you’re not a parent (so we thank the good lord for small favors at least on that score both for the potential child, and the other children your own precious little typhoid mary would infect if you actually had a child).
I do indeed think my opinion is worth something. Who doesn’t? The rest of that sentence has me stumped though, as does the next one. I can tell they are meant to be some sort of accusation, but not sure exactly what I’m being accused of. No matter, I suppose… Thanks for calling me a “good example,” I guess!
My child is quite thoroughly vaccinated, boostered, etc., as I’ve already said, and as am I. Beyond the CDC recommendations, so don’t worry those that encounter us are as safe as can be.
FWIW, bringing this thread back to Disneyland, I was at the park again two days ago, & let me just say that all this talk about the outbreak has done absolutely jack shit to dissuade people from going there. Now, it wasn’t ignored per se - I heard a few people talking about it here & there - but there were still mounds & mounds & MOUNDS of people at DL as usual.
Is there anyone who isn’t AnaMen who doesn’t understand (or would like to pretend they don’t understand) why Dr. Sears is a liar? Or why his vaccine schedule is a bad idea?
Yes, anyone else interested in some ridicule? Step right up, you too can be called a moron, an idiot, and a liar!
Any takers?
Hmm, if not, I guess everyone must agree with you. Why ever wouldn’t they speak up now when you’ve made it such a warm and welcoming environment for open discussion?
I guess I must just be the dumbest person on the whole internet not to join in calling this Dr. Sears a liar, or else surely another moron will post up their support soon. Well, someone has to be the dumbest I suppose. It’s a wonder I can read and write, so at least I can take comfort in exceeding my potential to such an amazing degree.
At least I know what it takes to lose one’s medical license in California. Hint: it’s not “lying” or being wrong!
Once more with feeling just for anyone who is really curious and not a jerk.
Sears suggests delaying vaccines. He fails to tell parents this may actually HURT their child and increase the risk of vaccine reaction. He’s lying to them. Delaying also hurts kids by failing to protect them when they are most vulnerable to certain diseases. An older child is far less vulnerable to certain diseases than a younger child.
I have found a FREE copy of Dr. Offit’s article in Pediatrics on the problems with the Sears schedule.
I will try to summarize it as best I can.
Sears tells parents that doctors don’t know much about vaccines. He tells them parents can easily learn more this issue than doctors.
He ignores the fact that there is a specific committee of experts that look at the evidence and makes conclusions to advise doctors.
Dr. Sears lies to parent about the reasons behind the use of the use of the hep b vaccine and misleads them about why the vaccine is used the way it is used here. In other words, he lies.
Dr. Sears thinks vaccines should be optional. He fails to mention that the mandates were initiated because of measles outbreaks. He also claims that unvaccinated children have been removed from their parent’s care just because they were unvaccinated. This is a lie.
He implies that vaccine preventable disease aren’t that bad and gives the horrifying story of two educated professionals who had a six month old baby who required surgery because of their decision to avoid a vaccine. He implies that the parents were comfortable with that decision and vaccine-preventable diseases aren’t so bad. This is also a lie.
He tells parents who are afraid of vaccines to avoid telling others of their fears as this may endanger their own child.
He says that getting chickenpox naturally is better than getting the shot against it. His concern is that the live virus will shift to adults where the disease is more serious. This is misleading at best and ignores the fact that other live virus vaccines such as the MMR have not borne this fear out. In other words, it is a lie.
He implies that vaccines have been linked with chronic diseases when the evidence shows this is not the case. So he’s lying here.
He also makes false accusations against vaccine safety testing, falsely fails to warm parents about problems such as the potential for polio to come back to the US, and provides misleading information about the risks of vaccines.
He gives inaccurate information about how many vaccines are made, implying there is a risk of contamination that does not exist. Again lying.
He tells parents misleading info what is actually in many vaccines. For example, he states that the MMR contains human albumin that is purified from human blood. This is not true. The vaccine contains genetically engineered human serum albumin that is NOT derived from human blood. So this is a lie.
He suggests that spacing out the MMR into three separate shots because some doctors feel this may make autism less likely but fails to tell parents that the evidence does not bear this out. So he tells parents to needlessly possibly subject their kids to two more shots than necessary.
There’s a lot more there for all those who care to read it. It is pretty clear that Dr. Sears is just as I have accused him of being – a lying liar who lies.
Well, one can still blame incompetence instead of malice, but I do agree that medical organizations should be more active in censoring people like Dr. Sears, because regardless if he does know that he is lying his books and articles do cause harm.
And AnaMen I do agree with what LavenderBlue said : “The last thing to do is give solace to anti-vaxers in any way, shape or form by implying they have a valid point of view. Doing so implies to others that they deserve a place to be heard. We don’t do that with Holocaust deniers or 9-11 idiots or Birthers. Why do we need to do with anti-vaxers?” And this is because in places like SDMB we do not, the same goes for Moon hoaxers and deniers of human caused global warming, and I have the experience in past discussions in all those conspiracy theories to tell you that on virtually all fortean beliefs there are people that claim to understand the science but then they end up tossing huge bones to the very insane anti-science brigade.
In all cases I have seen of doctors, professors or experts breaking bad as a result of being part of a group whose fans are off the deep end. Keeping the respect and money of those anti-science fans are big reasons why some doctors/scientists/professors do passable work in their field and at the same time continue to toss those fans trash to keep them happy.
Andrew Wakefield, the asshole who claimed that kids got autism from the MMR and caused the modern anti-vax movement to gain ground, is a British doctor, not an American. No, wait. Was. Was a British doctor. Several years too late his license was yanked.
Dr. Paul Offit saw fit to actually read Dr. Sears’ book and write a review of its contents, so does that mean he’s paying him too much respect? Has he now granted Dr. Sears an undeserved “place to be heard”?
Or is reading something before trashing its author for writing it just maaaaaaybe the right thing to do and we should respect that Dr. Offit has read the book?
In his piece (thanks for the working link, very pleased to finally be able to read it for myself, LavenderBlue), Dr. Offit sticks to criticizing what he thinks Dr. Sears is saying, not calling him names, unsurprisingly.
Dr. Offit accuses Dr. Sears of “implying” an awful lot of stuff that Dr. Sears really does not say. He doesn’t SAY Dr. Sears says this stuff, but I don’t think he actually implies it either. I’m going to make a second post that compares a couple of these things as an example, as my typing keeps getting eaten when I leave this window.
The point stands: some doctors/scientists/professors do passable work in their field and at the same time continue to toss those fans trash to keep them happy.
excerpted from Offit’s paper:
“Sears does not recommend the meningococcal vaccine for teenagers because of the possible risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome. Indeed, the most recent estimates are that the conjugate meningococcal vaccine might cause Guillain-Barre syndrome for ~1 per 1 million recipients. However the risk of meningococcal disease for a child who is not vaccinated is ~10-fold greater than the possible risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome for a child who is vaccinated. Furthermore, the high rates of death and permanent sequelae caused by meningococci make the choice to be vaccinated an illogical one. By failing to weigh the relative risks of the disease and vaccine side effects accurately, Sears again misinforms his readers.”
Well that sucks, what a jerk, right? How dare Sears tell people that crap! And he has a medical degree from Georgetown, so he must know better.
Before I get the gallows set up though, maybe I should take a peek at what Sears wrote in his book. What luck, I have access to that right here…
First he tells us what it is on page 141. It gets its own chapter, so this must be where he’s going to say it. Let’s see, he says “There is no such thing as a mild case of this disease.” He talks about 15% of people who don’t die sustaining "permanent damage such as nerve damage, hearing loss, and limb amputation, and says that 20% of teen/college age cases are fatal. He talks about the need for prophylactic antibiotics for anyone that came into contact with the patient and the need for isolation precautions.
Wait a minute, I thought he didn’t tell us about the risks… Well, what else does he say? Something outrageous soon, no doubt.
He talks about the ingredients in the vaccination and whether any are controversial (he does this for each vaccination he discusses in the book). “Are any of these ingredients controversial? Not unless you are afraid of salt water. This is one of the simplest and purest vaccines available.” Does this sound like a man suggesting not to get the vaccination?
Now he moves on to side effects, again in keeping with the format for every chapter (each vaccination gets this treatment in its own chapter). Under “Known Severe Reactions” he says “This vaccine has a possible association with Guillain-Barre syndrome (a temporary muscle weakness or paralysis). In the first two years of use in the United States, about 15 million doses were distributed to health care providers, and within one month of vaccination, 26 cases of GBS were reported to the CDC… that would put the GBS risk at about 1 in 400,000 doses.” He goes on to quote a warning regarding this from the package insert.
That doesn’t sound like he’s keeping us in the dark.
He summarizes “GBS and other reported severe reactions are extremely rare.”
He finishes up the chapter with “The Way I See It.” Here he stresses the “horrible” nature of the disease, the importance of the vaccine in eliminating the disease, and acknowledges that parental GBS concern may be keeping rates down. He discusses a CDC debate regarding dosing at age 11-12 and adding a booster at 16 to the schedule versus vaccinating only once at 16 (the shot lasts only 5 years; CDC vote 6 for booster, 5 against) and says that in light of this close vote he thinks just doing one shot at 16 is the “logical” choice to ensure protection for the most risky college years.
Whaaaa? But Dr. Offit says he says not to get the vaccination at all!
LB, I’ve waded thorugh this morass (well, at least I think it is, isn’t the Barbeque supposed to be HOT?) because you always come through. Hope you don’t mind I’ve freely borrowed your quotes to help one of my pediatricians (I’m Chief of Staff at present) with parents on the fence. I’d never seen the Dr Novella article (peds isn’t my specialty) and that was worth the time. Hope you never lose it.
For your purposes in the Pit, I might send you some picks from Roget’s. Or maybe Gargantua and Pantagruel.
Funny thing that in the quote I made it is Dr. Sears the one who says that.
And what Dr. Offit said was that" By failing to weigh the relative risks of the disease and vaccine side effects accurately, Sears again misinforms his readers."
You are doing a strawman by claiming that Dr. Offit said less than that, he never claimed that Dr. Sears did not report on risks, the point was Dr. Sears is not weighting those risks properly.
Another Offit point has to do with “hiding in the herd.” Offit accuses Sears of advising parents not to tell others that they aren’t vaccinating and finds this objectionable. Sears does say something to that effect, but I’m not going to look it up to clarify the context, because it doesn’t matter.
Why is this harmful advice for the rest of us? People follow the example of their peers all the time. If you aren’t going to vaccinate, I agree, you should at least have the decency to shut up about it so as not to encourage others to do the same. Whether you are a selfish sociopath or a misguided nice person, it’s to your advantage AND everyone else’s. The objection “no, you should vaccinate” is a non-sequitur here.
Acknowledging that a group exists and expressing approval of that group are two different things.
