The Venom in Feds' Vaccinations

Townhall.com ^ | November 8, 2011 | Chuck Norris

[TomB]

Not to get too personal Tom, I have grandkids that have graduated university, more than I and personally am not interested in a discussion on vaccines.

Yet you happily post on a thread that has the word vaccines in the title?

And then you spout nonsense about kids getting too many vaccinations, without any facts to support your case, only feelings.

I seems like I spend my entire life allaying parent's fears concerning vaccines because they "read something on the internet". It is ridiculous that people feel the need to weigh in on vital matters of health with no background, reasearch or facts....

.....only feelings.

If you don't want your beliefs questioned vigorously, don't post them.

.She is in her 40's and still has not had a vaccination for small pox. It would only be necessary if she were to leave the country....

?

They stopped giving out the Smallpox vaccine in 1972. And smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980. There is no vaccine necessary.

[goat granny]

Thank you for your fine reply and if someone doesn't want to converse with you, buy a clue....

PS it was before 1972 try a little math

PSPS Free Republic is open to all kinds of idea's and beg your sweet pardon, I'll post them as long as I want. It's not your house its Jim's and he decides what it or is not posted.. You want to censor opinions, start your own forum...my post was not about "feeling" it was about observation...but you do seem to have a comprehention problem so I'll just let it go at that...

I misspelled a word, can you find it...its like Where's Waldo. I am sure you have read that book..LOL

[TomB]

PS it was before 1972 try a little math

You said:

She is in her 40's and still has not had a vaccination for small pox.

How can you "still not have a vaccination" that doesn't exist?

Then you say:

It would only be necessary if she were to leave the country...

How can you NOT know smallpox has been eradicated???

Talk about "buying a clue"!

Free Republic is open to all kinds of idea's and beg your sweet pardon, I'll post them as long as I want. It's not your house its Jim's and he decides what it or is not posted...

Yes, you can post whatever you want, but don't complain when someone strenuously disagrees with you.

You want to censor opinions, start your own forum...my post was not about "feeling" it was about observation...but you do seem to have a comprehention problem so I'll just let it go at that...

No, you "observed" a child getting a number of vaccines and "felt" it was too many. Without A SINGLE SHRED of evidence, I might add.

[goat granny]

If you feel you must keep interrupting my reading on free republic, continue to do so, but don’t expect me to answer any more....post away.......

[TomB]

If you feel you must keep interrupting my reading on free republic, continue to do so, but don’t expect me to answer any more....post away.......

How, in the name of all that is good and holy, am I "interrupting" you???

If you don't want to click on a link, DON'T DO IT! Nobody is forcing you to come back to this thread.

Climb down off your cross.

[aruanan]

Read what I wrote, its the NUMBER of vaccines given to an infant that can overwhelm the immature infants system..I did NOT speak of the “stuff” as you put it, that is in the vaccine. What I said is obiviously [sic] not what you read. Try again to read my first sentence.

That said, it is worth looking at the total number of those antigens in the vaccine schedule. You see, vaccines are always being improved. It is now the case that the total number of antigens in the vaccine schedule (around 130) is less than the old Smallpox vaccine alone (200) and much lower than the total in 1980 (over 3000!). So it is clear that we are not overwhelming the immune system with the number of vaccines given.
--TomB

Exactly. And something else that you, goat granny, are overlooking is that the immune system is made to be challenged and challenged robustly. By the time a child is old enough to be vaccinated, his immune system is already quite mature. You seem to be thinking that a challenge to the immune system comes principally through vaccinations. The load of antigens presented to the immune system by vaccinations is (to the immune system) a barely visible fraction of the total antigen load the immune system has been training itself with since the child's birth. A baby could easily handle tens of thousands of vaccine antigens at a time.

These are things I knew from my immunology class. But I wanted a more exact number so I found the following HERE: The human body can make up to 10,000,000,000 different antibodies--ten billion. It's estimated that by the time a child reaches adulthood at 18, he has between 1,000,000 and 100,000,000 antibodies. To get to 1,000,000 antibodies, the kid would have to make, on average, 152 a day to reach that number by age 18. By comparison, the antigen load experienced by a kid at age 6 through vaccinations comes to about 0.004% of the total antigen types he would come in contact with by that age, a minuscule fraction. To get to 100,000,000, he'd have to generate 15,520 per day. By comparison, the antigen load experienced by a kid at age 6 through vaccinations comes to about 0.00045% of the antigen load experienced by the child up to that age, a ridiculously small percentage.

If you're saying, "Well, this could be just the amount that would push him over the edge" you're employing an argument as specious as that of global warmists claiming that the relatively tiny contribution of CO2 from human activity is the amount that'll "push us over the edge." With an upper limit of possible antibodies of ten billion, and a typical antibody number that ranges a hundred-fold between 1 and 100 million, that's just a completely farcical claim to make.

[exDemMom]

Those explanations are not at all opposite. They are different factors contributing to the same observation.

There are fewer developmentally disabled children these days. Because many of the children having easily diagnosable ones (trisomy 13, 18, and 21) are aborted, there is a higher proportion of children having non-trisomy developmental disabilities.

Fewer children being institutionalized means there is a higher likelihood of seeing any child with a developmental disability. Since the proportion of autistic children is higher in that group, there is a higher chance that when you do see a developmentally disabled child, he/she is autistic.

Another factor that I forgot to mention before is the role of random distribution. Clusters can form purely by chance, so you may happen to live in a place where several families with autistic children randomly moved in. Also, is there a school for the developmentally disabled nearby?

There are many possibilities. There is no reason to assume that the incidence of genuine autism has increased, without accounting for all of the other factors.

[newnhdad]

I have similar discussions with people all the time. It’s either the weather, “global warming”, vaccines, and other issues science related.
You handle it well.

[exDemMom]

Thank you.

I enjoy the challenge, and these discussions help me to sharpen my writing and communication skills.

[exDemMom]

I seems like I spend my entire life allaying parent's fears concerning vaccines because they "read something on the internet". It is ridiculous that people feel the need to weigh in on vital matters of health with no background, reasearch or facts....

Are you a pediatrician?

With so much disinformation on the internet, it seems an uphill battle to counter it.

[goat granny]

thank you for your opinion...

[TomB]

thank you for your opinion...

And once again gg demonstrates her complete inablility to distinguish between facts and opinion.

Do you see all those numbery-looking things in aruanan's post? Those are NUMBERS. Do you see that word with the pretty color? That's called a "link". That sends you to a place where he got is "numbers". That means the "numbers" are indeed "facts".

Seesh.

[TomB]

Are you a pediatrician?

Nope. DMD.

With so much disinformation on the internet, it seems an uphill battle to counter it.

Unfortunately, this insanity is way too pervasive. And it is hurting kids. Not in an abstract, "well they might cause autism" way. But a concrete, dead child way. And the majority of the people who push this crap have absolutes no idea what they are talking about. And it pisses me off.

Keep fighting the good fight.

[aruanan]

thank you for your opinion...

;-}

[SamuraiScot]

There is no reason to assume that the incidence of genuine autism has increased, without accounting for all of the other factors.

I see no reason to assume it hasn't, especially since the perception that autism has increased is not mine alone, but is widespread. There is no need to protect either hypothesis.

[exDemMom]

I see no reason to assume it hasn't, especially since the perception that autism has increased is not mine alone, but is widespread. There is no need to protect either hypothesis.

The perception is there because it gets a lot of publicity. Whenever something gets a lot of publicity, there is always a perception that it is occurring more often than before it was publicized.

[SamuraiScot]

The perception is there because it gets a lot of publicity.

Sure. Sometimes. And sometimes (as in my own case on this subject), the perception came first. This is a complex phenomenon, maybe several phenomena under a single category, possibly with both genetic predispositions and environmental triggers at work. Plus, sample groups that keep moving geographically and are hard to define rigorously.

But dismissing personal observation is not scientific. It's illogical to say that because publicity can make a phenomenon appear more frequent, whenever a phenomenon appears frequent, it must be as a result of publicity. Gut impressions are actually the source of most hypotheses. The scientific method comes in when you test them. A lot hinges on who does the testing, and how well-designed and honest the tests are.

[exDemMom]

There are all kinds of reasons people might have a personal perception that something is happening at an increased rate.

Clusters of cases is one reason. The clustering may be random, or it may be related to an external factor. There could, for example, be a school catering to a specific population in that area.

Publicity plays a huge role in the perception of incidence. The (now withdrawn) report on a link between autism and vaccines was published and widely publicized. People who never had a reason to notice autistic people began to notice them, and automatically accepted the premise that autism has increased.

It is actually not scientific to elevate personal observation to the status of measured data. As a scientist, if I notice that there seems to be more or less of something than usual, my first question is, is there a real increase or decrease in what I have observed? In many cases, it turns out that it is *not* real. If it does turn out to be real, then I have to proceed to the next question: why? In the case of autism, we have had such a huge broadening of the definition of autism that the question of whether or not the increase in incidence is real has not been scientifically answered.

The true incidence of autism spectrum disorders is likely to be within the range of 30–60 cases per 10 000, a huge increase over the original estimate 40 years ago of 4 per 10 000. The increase is largely a consequence of improved ascertainment and a considerable broadening of the diagnostic concept. And, as this recent article discusses, there has been a lot of progress made towards understanding the genetic basis of autism.

[SamuraiScot]

The increase is largely a consequence of improved ascertainment and a considerable broadening of the diagnostic concept.

I'm sorry, this is in theory possible somewhere, on some subject, but in this case it's just gobbledigook. It's not a "broadening of the diagnostic concept" in my case, which is my starting point. It's an increase in odd kids who don't show signs of Mongolism. I pointed out myself that clustering is conceivable. But your faith that there has been no increase in autism is just faith—the evidence of things unseen and unproved. You just keep asserting that people's observations are not to be trusted, and surrounding the assertion with scientistic language—but you adduce no counter-observations. This is not a fruitful exchange because you're simply trying to match someone's observation with "it might not be, so it couldn't be." That's not logical, in the scientific method or otherwise.

I thank you for your replies in any case.

[exDemMom]

This is not a fruitful exchange because you're simply trying to match someone's observation with "it might not be, so it couldn't be."

No. What I'm trying to do is introduce you to the way scientists think. When you see something, you can't automatically accept the first explanation that pops into your head about it. A true scientist tries to think of alternate explanations, and asks themselves a series of "what-if" questions. A true scientist does not become emotionally attached to an idea. Your problem is that you have become emotionally attached to the idea that vaccines cause autism, and you really have seen more autistic kids, so it must be true.

But when you get away from the popular news media, and look instead at the scientific literature, there is no such link, and there is no real evidence that anything other than a broadening of the diagnostic category is responsible for the supposed increase in autism.

Did you even read the abstract and article I linked? They both say pretty much what I've tried to say.