–I don’t think you understood what I was saying, or maybe I was unclear. I said that I’m willing to accept that a small number of children are hurt by the vaccine, for the sake of the argument. If we didn’t vaccinate, though, a small number of children would have permanent sequelae due to whooping cough. Either way, we end up with some permanently sick kids. The question is, which way results in less permanent damage? I say vaccination.
If it weren’t 4:15 AM, I’d go into the idea of utility of treatment, which is what I’m talking around here. I’m saying that vaccination has a better utility than not vaccinating.
I agree that an indisputably safe vaccine would be the best middle ground. However, we don’t have one yet, so we either have to go with what we have or not.
–You keep throwing around that 1/1750 number. Keep in mind that that was the number of non-febrile seizures (if I remember right–long thread), which don’t necessarily lead to permanent damage. The incidence of permanent sequelae must be considerably smaller than that, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Given the available sample size, that much permanent morbidity would be hard to dispute.
I guess it all depends on which side of the fence you sit Doc. Being a med student, unwed, and with no children, I’d expect you to be sitting right where you are.
The only reason you’re willing to accept “a small number of children” being injured is because they’re not you, or your children. Remember, my children are NOT here for “the greater good” of the health of this nation. Maybe a bit selfish, but that’s just the way it is.
we can go round and round on this one.
And I will use the ONLY safe vaccine there is…none(well, besides tetanus and a few other rather inert innoculations).
Doc, I’m using the CDC, and NVIC’s definition of sequela:
Looking at http://www.hrsa.dhhs.gov/bhpr/vicp/table.htm , you will see the very many examples of “sequela” under the government’s guidelines. Permanent sequela is not something that is tracked, but for all intents and purposes, let’s assume that any traumatic encephalitic event at 2 years or under is most likely permanent, or residual to a degree.
So, no I didn’t misunderstand you at all. Also, I must tell you I take a touch of exception to this:"**A member of the International Medical Conspiracy checks in **".
I hope you haven’t misunderstood this thread to be one of a conspiratorial nature. I’ve simply laid the facts out for you. The drug companies and the government have avoided making changes to this vaccine for almost 50 years now. They came up with DTaP, and that’s still far from acceptable danger-wise. We’ve not followed the lead of several other nations in the adoption of safer vaccines(to thich I believe Sweden and Britain and Japan have, IIRC).
-Sam
[I sentence you to re-read the UBB code FAQ for causing sidescroll. Every “quote” needs a “/quote”! --Gaudere]
No, you’re still not getting what I’m saying. What you’re not understanding is that whooping cough can have permanent sequelae as well, and can be fatal. The question we disagree on is, “Which is more likely to cause permanent damage–whooping cough or the vaccine?” I’m not talking about “the greater good”, or “sacrificing” a certain number of kids to spare others from a two-month illness. I’m saying that if it were my kid, I think he would be more likely to have permanent damage from the disease itself than the vaccine.
I don’t think I mentioned that I’m unwed and have no children. Unless you got that impression from another thread, you guessed correctly.
No, we really can’t assume that at all. Besides, remember–some kids with whooping cough get seizures, as well as all the other complications I mentioned. By not getting vaccinated, you’re trading one set of chances at long-term effects for another.
The subject of my post was largely tongue in cheek.
Dr. J
(PS: I’m leaving town today for the Phish show, so I won’t be around for any replies.)
No disagreement here Doc. Although, in this day and age there is only a handful of people succumbing to the sequelae of pertussis.
THis will come down to a battle of emotions and semantics as far as I see. Vaccination is a patriotic act for the greater good of everyone involved, and in my eyes, it is a sacrifice every time a child is injured or killed because of the practice of bad medicine.
I also might add, the known side effects and contraindications are still not revealed to the parents, even though it has been legislated as such(a friend of mine 2 weeks ago was never told that there could be any reactions, or contraindications to the shot).
Doc…I’ve been around the board a time or two, so I just got that vibe
**
I think we certainly can assume that the developing brain is permanently adversely affected by a blunt trauma like a pertussis reaction. Neurotoxins destroy the brain, even moreso in a very young brain.
**
THose are chances I’d feel much better taking. It would be MY doing, my chance, my informed decision. I would definitely feel better about. If my child gets WC, it’s because of MY doing, not pure ignorance.
I’m not talking about medicine now, I’m talking about the act of a government taking your child’s health out of your hands and putting it into the hands of a practitioner who doesn’t even know there are serious effects to a vaccine, let alone care.
It’s not their fault, they weren’t taught any better. In out society, we see medicine as a good entity. Most people take their pills and pop them just like the doc told them to. We’re terribly over-medicated in this country, and it will certainly affect us in many ways down the line.
[/quote]
**
**
THen let’s get down to brass tacks, facts and figures. Not just you(although you’ve really been a sport :)). I want to hear from others as well.
Ahh, a Phish man…I hear they put on a killer show Doc. Enjoy your weekend away from the board
I live in Australia and as far as I know, when I was born and when my parents were born, children were vaccinated because that is just what was done. <hijack> I was immunised against tetanus, rubella and measles at school along with everyone else. <end hijack>
While some children do have reactions to vaccinations (my sister was one) and some still got the illnesses they were vaccinated against, this was a very small percentage. I don’t know the figures at the moment but I can look them up again.
Polio and whooping cough were nearly eradicated because of this. Whooping cough is making a comeback because parents no longer think its safe to get their children vaccinated. Polio is still very rare, and I don’t think I have heard of anyone with diptheria here who hasn’t recently been in another country.
Our government has decided to give rebates to parents who get their children vaccinated because of the rising rate of preventable diseases and the only way to get the rebate without vaccination is to be applicable under certain criteria, one of which is a percieved greater risk of a bad reation due to one of the parents having one. This is encouraging vaccination, and while many articles are in the newspaper about how this is discriminatory and taking away parents right of choice, there have been no reports of children being adversely affected by this.
So it seems to me that vaccination works. My sister decided to have her son immunised (after consulting her doctor and finding out what he thought the chances of him having the same reaction she did were)with the type that doesn’t have any active constituents and he didn’t have any problems at all.
Bio, thanks for replying. I’m not asking for a bibliography, I’m asking for data, numbers, facts. Your statements are just that, statements.
DTaP(the acellular DPT), has only been through one reactance study, and it was still way more reactive than it should be(look through my posts in this thread for the numbers).
Acellular or not, it’s still too much risk for my family.
Here are some numbers for you.
They are a bit unrelated to my original topic, but quite frankly I saw no argument in the original statements. They are simply statement of fact.
“Vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough may cause fever, tenderness, redness and swelling in the area where the child was injected. These symptoms can last one to two days. There has been a recent pertussis or whooping cough vaccine scare that has made some parents postpone their child’s immunizations. However, the risk of suffering and death caused by whooping cough is far greater than the possible side effects of the vaccine. A child who has not been immunized against whooping cough has a 1 in 3,000 chance of getting whooping cough; in contrast, a child who has received the vaccine has a 1 in 2 million chance of having neurological side effects from the vaccine. The whooping cough vaccine should be withheld initially only if a child has seizures or a serious neurological disease”
Here are the first few paragraphs (the original has a lot of links):
"Despite rising parental fears and rumors of dangers, vaccines are safer than ever.
"Although the reports have attracted little notice in this country, health officials overseas are battling an outbreak of one of the most contagious diseases on earth. But before you cancel your travel plans to the jungles of Africa or South America, take note: this hot zone is actually in Holland, and the disease, measles. Over the past year Dutch doctors have identified at least 2,300 cases of measles. According to the latest figures, three children have died from the disease, and 53 were hospitalized with complications such as pneumonia or encephalitis. Most of the cases occurred in children between the ages of six and 10-the vast majority of whom had not received the readily available vaccine against measles.
“Antivaccine sentiments are popping up everywhere. Religious reasons sometimes play a role, as in the Netherlands measles deaths. Increasingly, though, it is not religious conviction that prevents children from receiving vaccines but rather parents’ fears that the shots might either cause the diseases they are intended to prevent or even contribute to other ailments, ranging from cancer to multiple sclerosis. An array of advocacy groups with authoritative-sounding names, such as the Virginia-based National Vaccine Information Center, encourage parents to reconsider giving their children vaccines. In response, officials at health organizations such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are scrambling to reassure parents that vaccines are not only safe but are crucial for their children’s health and for public safety.”
I deleted your quote because of the obvious errors. I’ve posted numerous statistics and cites from numerous sources ranging from the CDC to the drug companies, to the UCLA/Dr. Cherry study. These are, IMO, unbiased opinions.
Point of fact, Dr. Cherry was very pro-vaccination when he conducted his study. His numbers were so bad, that the study was never officially released to public sources.
Where did your numbers come from? Mine come from well-known sources of fact.
The only time I’ve ever heard numbers such as you posted are when a doctor decides to get his cronies together to write an editorial to the Lancet or any other such medical journal which is in support of their “numbers”.
WHere in god’s name did this come from? If, in the united states there are 5140 cases of pertussis(the highest number ever recorded, 1994), and that number is supposedly 80% under reported, that’s still under 10,000 cases.
Given that the more vulnerable group is children, and they only account for roughly 50% of the cases, that’s 5000, give or take a few hundred. Now, do a little math and average that against the number of children 10 and younger in the US, and what do you get???
probably a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of whooping cough.
I’m sorry you’ve drawn that conclusion. In fact, it means I care even less, because your ignorance is astounding.
I could care less if you were a janitor. WHat makes a difference to me is simply whether or not one looks at the facts, the dangers, and makes an informed decision. After all, we’re all here to simply eliminate ignorance, right?
I’ve “attacked” your data, because there are no cites(besides an obscure quote from god knows where), and the numbers you’ve given me don’t jive with the current data from studies.
I’m sorry you feel it was an attack, but I feel that as someone who has a PhD, you should be able to look at the data, and evaluate it properly-I don’t think you have.
You provided a quote from a website, and feel no need to back the numbers up with where they come from. You can’t provide numbers as outrageous as that nad then NOT tell us from whence they came.
What can I say Kat?(Dr. T, brat, whatever)
Besides, I brought up a great points regarding the numbers posted. They don’t work, period. Look passed the supposed name-calling and help me to understand those numbers.
And I say that the risks outweigh the benefits in this case. The immunity does not last long, and the complications are grave.
First, if the 5000 cases per year is 80% underreported (i.e. 80% of cases are unreported), wouldn’t that make 25000 cases per year? Since I don’t fully grasp the meaning of underreported, let’s forget this one for now - it’s only a factor of 5 in a travesty of math that involves factors of thousands.
Let’s take the first two paragraphs of your quote as truth, and estimate 5000 cases of pertussis per year in children 10 and under.
According to US Census estimates, there are estimated to be 38,771,000 children under 10 years of age as of April 1, 2000.
Taking your estimate of 5000 pertussis cases per year, that means on average a child has a 1/7754 chance of getting pertussis. Each year. So, for the first ten years of life then your estimates would be that there is a 1/1000 chance or worse of getting pertussis.
Plus, evidence indicates that occurence rates are much higher among infants than among older children, and infants are more likely to have severe problems from developing pertussis.
Pulling numbers out of a hat such as “1/10,000,000 chance of getting pertussis” is not likely to eliminate ignorance.
Some more things with which to inform yourself:
[ul][li]Pertussis - Hospitalization for pertussis is still common in Canada…. [/li][quote]
Pertussis data from 1997 indicate a total of 4,439 reported cases in Canada for a rate of 14.7 per 100,000. Of these cases, 3,930 or 88.5% occurred among children and youth less than 20 years of age. The highest age-specific incidence was 121.7 per 100,000, among infants less than one year of age.
[/quote]
This means 1/821 chance of your infant getting pertussis in his first year if you live in Canada.
That’s for all age groups, every year. When you say that “Although, in this day and age there is only a handful of people succumbing to the sequelae of pertussis,” remember that the number was likely to be at least 10 times higher in the past without vaccination.
So your 1/1750 number was not purely non-febrile seizures. Again, we need to determine what the chances of permanent damage are, and simply saying that “all of the children who suffer seizures will have a problem” cannot be defended.
The way it looks to me, it is about 1/1000 chance of getting pertussis, and a 1/1750 chance of getting seizures from the vaccine. If your child gets seizures, there may be a small chance of permanent effects. If your child gets pertussis, there is a small chance of permanent effects or death.
Even though pertussis is one of the less effective vaccines, it still reduces the severity of the disease, which can reduce further the chance of death or permanent damage.
Oh, and I can’t resist this one: Dzdemona:
Bull. Even if innovative thinkers do appall neighbors and scientists, a far larger number of non-innovative non-thinkers appall neighbors and scientists.
Dudley:You’re a bloomin nut case! Peter:They said the same of Galileo and Jesus Christ! Dudley:They also said it of a lot of nut cases!
OK, another med/grad student to weigh in on this hot wet fracas. Yay!
First of all:
5-10% of the population will have a seizure sometime in their lifetime. Two or more seizures without known repeated insults define epilepsy. The incidence of epilepsy is reported at 5-10 per 1000. Most of the epileptic syndromes present before maturity.
This was all learned during a month of Neuro at Methodist Hospital here in Houston. Also, I rechecked my data with Harrison’s Textbook of Internal Medicine Chapter 365 “Seizures and Epilepsy” by Daniel Lowenstein.
Now, time to get my butt flamed off.
It looks like what we have here is a similar thing to silicone breast implants. Two words : ascertainment bias. I’m willing to bet that with the incidence of epilepsy being so high combined with a high vaccination rate, you get quite a few unhappy coincidences. Quickly you get some publicity, and quickly everyone who develops epilepsy within a year after a DPT is on a class-action lawsuit vs. Smith-Cline-DrugCompanyOfTheHour. Next, add on all the people who develop asthma, connective tissue disease, or other immune-based diseases with unclear etiology and we’ve got a helluva story, cause we don’t know the numbers of the people with absolutely no side effects : ascertainment bias.
Same thing with breast implants.
Now back to topic. This does not diminish from the ills of those who get sick. This does not even rule out that there is indeed a correlation. Statistics show that there is an increased risk factor for vaccines, but especially since these things induce fever (the leading cause of infantile seizures), if you rule out bad lots of medication, contraindicated cases which received the medicine anyway, and other anomalies, it quickly fades near to noise. The debate then becomes if it is separable from noise or not. That’s where you need the huge studies. All of these citations mean nothing when taken apart from the size, duration, and method of the study. With a poorly constructed study and tweaking of the statistics, you can show all types of neat stuff. So vaccinate your kids and trust the FDA to be on top of the best outcome trials.
A professor here at Baylor (Dr. Bonnie Dunbar) had a brother who went blind a week after getting the Hepatitis B vaccine. That same week, someone in her lab had some encephalopathy or something after getting the HBV vaccine. Spooky, but unfortunately with n=2 you can tell nothing.
While I’m obviously not in a situation to challenge your math, the mere reality is that pertussis is a disease that enjoys infecting hot-spots, not wide-spread illness, not that it means much to you.
This means 1/821 chance of your infant getting pertussis in his first year if you live in Canada.
That’s for all age groups, every year. When you say that “Although, in this day and age there is only a handful of people succumbing to the sequelae of pertussis,” remember that the number was likely to be at least 10 times higher in the past without vaccination.**
[/quote]
Please adjust your above number to reflect children who aretreatableby vaccination boosters, i.e.- children 10 and under. When a child reaches 20, he is no longer vaccinatable, and if they’ve had their booster at age 8, studies show that their immunity has, indeed worn off.
So your 1/1750 number was not purely non-febrile seizures. Again, we need to determine what the chances of permanent damage are, and simply saying that “all of the children who suffer seizures will have a problem” cannot be defended.**
[/quote]
Please read the cites again Doug, the number was the same for febrile and afebrile seizures.
so you’re trying to say that it’s a double-edged sword DOug? damned if you do, damned if you don’t?
Okay young med-student, please go back and read my most recent hyperlink. the Nat’l Vaccine injury network has strict guidelines as to what is considered a vaccine reaction.
FYI, an encephalitic reaction, or any of the indicated sequelae must be within a set timeframe, not years, or months, or weeks. It’s 72 hours for seizures with an afebrile cause.
You can’t tell me that a normal baby goes in for his shots and comes out 24 hours later with status epilepticus(afebrile), and dies in the emergency room isn’t correlation.
From the start I’ve stayed away from the febrile reactions, why don’t you try to? My reaction, and the reactions of others aren’t febrile.
It’s not noise, and it’s not a debate in my mind. I have the huge studies, I’ve quoted the huge studies, you’ve all ignored them. Other than the studies I’ve quoted, there are no other sources for data.
Sure it does. If you have a 1/1000 chance of getting pertussis, and pertussis is a ‘hotspot’ disease, then you have a 1/1000 chance of getting pertussis because the nearest hotspot happens to overlap your physical location. I don’t understand what this has to do with making up ridiculous numbers like 1/10,000,000, or how this would change your chance of getting pertussis.
As has been pointed out for the first period of the disease it is not likely to be diagnosed, so your entire town can be infected and you’ll just think it is the flu until little Johnny’s mom calls you to tell you that Johnny has pertussis. By then, your child has been coughed on for a week.
I don’t understand what you are saying. If your child has not been vaccinated, then they will not be among those treatable by ‘boosters’, will they? If you think they have the flu and don’t treat them right away, they will get Whooping Cough. What am I not understanding about this? Saying that ‘some of those will be vaccinated’ doesn’t make sense, because your child is not vaccinated and lives in the same community and has a higher risk of contracting the disease and a higher risk of it being serious because of no immunity response.
OK. Here is your exact cite:
I don’t understand how you are interpreting this to mean
[ul]
[li]Collapse at 1/1,750[/li][li]Convusions due to fever at 1/1,750[/li][li]Convulsions not due to fever at 1/1,750[/li][/ul]
I read your cite as
[ul]
[li]Collapse at 1/1,750[/li][li]Convulsions for any reason at 1/1,750[/li][/ul]
I then provided a cite quoted at saying that the 1/1,750 was mostly febrile (fever caused) seizures.
I’m too tired right now to respond to the other smokin’ parts of your rebuttal. In due time, in due time.
I just have one question:
If the DPT vaccine is the greatest threat to humanity since fluoridated water, then why hasn’t the FDA pulled it? They’ve been pretty good about getting other harmful drugs off the market quickly (and even drugs that may not be that harmful, but there are good studies to show very rare side effects - take Trovan (trovofloxacin) for an example), so I don’t think it is the Great Worldwide Conspiracy of Masons, Illuminati, and Physicians acting again. Notice how many letters in DPT? 3! The number of the Masons!
Anyway, sarcasm aside, if this vaccine was harmful, the FDA would have acted. They (unlike other parts of government) are doing a pretty good job of keeping us safe from the drug companies. Any comments?
What I’m saying Doug, since you don’t seem to get it, is that 96% of Pertussis in america was found in immunized people. Of the whole number, only 50% of those are children 10 and under. They are the ones who are able to be given a booster shot, not 10 and over.
I’m sure you’re not following me here anyways.
And, I have a small not to pick with your 1/7754 number, the number, according to your stats, spread over 3 shots per child are correctly 1/2584. Another little nit…the rate of incidence in children 10 and under in america would have properly been 2,500, the 100% reported rate of infection would then be 12,500.
Per capita incidence of Pertussis in children 10 and under(based on 50% of actual reported pertussis infection in U.S.)- 1/15,508. I believe the adjusted rate of incidence for pertussis would be 3102 for the 12,500 number.
Also, I’ll reiterate that removing the un-immunizable will also bring the disease incidence per-capita number up considerably.
Wino-
First off, let’s not get down to direct sarcasm and stupid name-games.
Secondly, I won’t even touch on your closed-minded, acidic, BS response. This is officially the second time I will state that this is in no way some stupid “Conspiracy theory”. I haven’t mentioned it once, not at all. The only two times it’s been mentioned was when the two med-students jumped into the conversation.
The rest of your lame post isn’t worth it’s weight in bytes.
It is becoming really not fun to post back to you. You are obviously set in your ways, which is understandable after all that you have been through. All Student-Doc J and I are trying to do is have a little debate here. I am trying to make this as non-personal as possible, and I would appreciate the same. Humor and sarcasm, on the other hand, are fair game.
No, they do not teach us in medical school to ridicule vaccine-deniers. They do teach us the severity of the disease caused by Bordetella pertussis. They also teach us Evidence-Based Medicine – we must look at the studies if we have doubt. This is the only way science can show us if there is a risk.
Your blistering comments motivated me to do several PubMed searches, especially for this Cherry study which you hold so highly. I have had a lot of difficulty in finding any studies in the past 15 years which do show a positive correlation. Can you point me in the right way? I am looking for an epidemiologic study with a large enough power to show a positive risk ratio that does not include 1 in the 95% confidence interval. I will take it that the DPT vaccine gives an increased risk for febrile seizures, and just like any seizures, those can cause long term sequelae. But you have made it abundantly clear that what you are talking about is non-febrile in nature. I’m also willing to accept that there is some doubt as to whether the DPT vaccine is actually protective vs. B. pertussis into adulthood.
Cherry JD. “Historical review of pertussis and the classical vaccine.” J Infect Dis 1996 Nov;174 Sup 3:S259-63.
Gale JL, et. al. “Risk of serious acute neurological illness after immunization with diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine. A population-based case-control study.” JAMA 1994 Jan 5;271(1):37-41.
Miller D, et. al. “Pertussis immunisation and serious acute neurological illnesses in children.” BMJ 1993 Nov 6;307(6913):1171-6.
Blumberg DA, et. al. “Severe reactions associated with diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine: detailed study of children with seizures, hypotonic-hyporesponsive episodes, high fevers, and persistent crying.” Pediatrics 1993 Jun;91(6):1158-65.
American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases. “The relationship between pertussis vaccine and brain damage: reassessment.” Pediatrics 1991 Aug;88(2):397-400.
[quote]
“The findings of this study demonstrate that infants and young children with serious acute neurologic disorders are at an increased risk of later neurologic impairment or death, irrespective of the initial precipitating event. The results, however, do not establish a casual relationship between pertussis vaccination and chronic neurologic abnormalities. The Academy reaffirms its earlier conclusion that whole-cell pertussis vaccine has not been proven to be a cause of brain damage and continues to recommend pertussis vaccination in accordance with the guidelines in the 1994 Red Book.”
