Posted on 02/09/2015 11:01:01 AM PST by jazusamo
The 'T' in 'DPT' vaccines isn't Typhus, it's Tetanus, aka lockjaw. Not contagious but the bacteria is widespread in soil hence need for earlier booster shots after trauma. Typhus is serious and has a vaccine, but hopefully few of us will need it.
On a more important point for this thread it should be mentioned that Dr. Sowell has a very personal, long standing, interest in autism, and its correct… and incorrect, diagnosis. His son started talking quite late. The family had many 'experts' tell them he had autism or mental retardation. However there are some children who are slow to start talking and have unusual early behavior, but have normal or high intelligence. They are difficult to sort out until they talk. IIRC his son is now fine and is an engineer. Hence his references to "late talking children" in the article. He was looking up everything he could find on autism long before most of us ever heard of it. He's also old enough to remember the diseases prior to their vaccines. I'm glad to see him write this now.
So at what point do you control your body and what goes into it? At what point when the gov says “take this vaccination we know what’s best for you” do you say “no?”
You may be fine with the current 40 something shots kids have to get but what about when it’s 70? You’ve already given away your authority to say no...
I've never had the smallpox vaccine. Have you? Do we not worry about smallpox simply because it went away, or because we vaccinated it out of existence?
Ironically, the anti-vax folks clearly contributed to the latest outbreak of measles, which now means we'll probably have to vaccinate for decades longer to get back to the near-eradication we had 15 years ago.
Anti-vaxxers have existed since Dr. Jenner first determined that inoculating people with cowpox would prevent them from getting smallpox. Their rationale then was that God sent us diseases; therefore we are acting against the will of God to try to prevent those diseases.
The anti-vax movement got a big boost when Wakefield published that “study.”
I do not know why the Lancet accepted that “study” for publication. It was an extremely poorly done study, and did not show anything except a profoundly bad excuse for research. It is questionable how it got through the peer review process. I know; I have read the paper. When papers are retracted, it is standard practice to remove the paper from all electronic forms of the journal. However, that paper was left in place, with a big “RETRACTED” watermark placed across it. No doubt, Lancet wants people to be able to see it, and to know its status.
In addition to doing bad and unethical “research” on kids, Wakefield invented data for publication and had a conflict of interest a mile wide. He was trying to sell a single-disease vaccine for measles in which he had a financial interest. It is difficult to sell parents on getting single-disease vaccines for their children when they can just buy one vaccine for three diseases. Wakefield was also in cahoots with a lawyer, planning to file big lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers, exploiting the parents of autistic children and using the manufactured evidence in that article as “proof” that the MMR vaccine causes autism.
It is tragic that so much money was spent trying to verify an unethical “doctor’s” bogus claim, when that money could have been better spent actually studying autism and trying to determine which genes are involved. The variability of symptoms of those diagnosed on the autism spectrum suggests that several genes contribute to the disorder. It will take time to figure out which genes, and how each one contributes. The better autism can be understood, the better we will be able to treat it.
I've always found in education there was a tendency to look at symptoms and assume there was only one possible cause. Back in 1998 I read an article with a checklist "Are you an eccentric?" Some items on that list for what was then thought of as a quirky personality with often unique talents is now diagnosed as some form of autism.
What's my point? When the definition of a disorder is expanded, it means less personality types are thought of as normal. It's stifling to those with creative and unique personalities.
As far as the discussion about vaccines, I'm unimpressed by the data proving vaccines can't cause autism. A real thorough study would involve looking at clusters and the possibility of bad batches of vaccine.
And this "measles epidemic"? It's only about 120 cases nationwide! How many of them are infants under one year old in daycare centers (really dumb idea) or invader children? 120 across a nation, of a disease that is usually not fatal, is hardly an epidemic.
That’s the one! Thanks.
You have no idea. There are still even Freepers who claim that Wakefield has been vindicated, and they post from a myriad of anti-vaxer blogs like Age of Autism.
It is a scam that will live on for decades, and convincing them with facts is impossible since their minds function like 9/11 Truthers; anyone who says vaccines are safe hasn't "educated themselves" or is part of the conspiracy.
Autism is showing up in families that are wealthier and more educated than average. It could be they are more determined in getting the tests done, won’t take no for an answer, or happen to have children later in life and maybe that is a cause. Think about some of the strange kids you went to school with, and wonder if maybe they were undiagnosed. I Know I would be diagnosed as having ADHD if I were in school now, but back then I was just a prone to daydreaming.
In my substituting adventure, I spent a day at a school where the principal had a cure for all those children with ADHD and other behavioral issues. It was extra recesses where the lads could play a little rough!
ADHD became an issue when shop, fine arts with activity, phys ed and recess were cut back.
The other situation is Asperger's. I mentioned in an earlier post that old checklist for determined who's an eccentric. A lot of those characteristics are today being diagnosed as Asperger's.
The correlation between older parents and autism has been under consideration for awhile. When you think about it, it might be a factor why some older parents avoid vaccines....there's a possibility it would be another factor and compound the potential for Autism to occur.
Thanks...Sounds like Wakefield not only deserved to have his medical license revoked but should have been prosecuted for fraud due to the scam he promoted for his own gain.
I agree with everything you said.
In this case, the child was from Kyrgyzstan
I believe we should all have the right to say no, but I would hope folks would use that no sparingly and with some common sense.
The general run of the mill vaccines have been out there for a long time. Some of them are dead virus vaccines.
There are some vaccines I wouldn’t approve for my family now, but by and large the children’s ones have not been proven to cause problems.
There are many professionals out there who have their licenses on the line, their reputations on the line, advocating for vaccination.
I don’t think they do this because they are careless or not informed. Pediatricians see children every day. If those kids have problems, they become aware of it right away.
They aren’t going to continue to inoculate despite having a bunch of their kids coming back injured.
Except they do just that.
You can’t have it both ways, parents have the right (and the responsibilities that come with the right) to say no to vaccination without the nonsense that is spouted on these threads.
If my kid comes down with measles, I probably will too - that is time off from work for me, it’s a hassle, but it’s part of being a parent. It’s not deadly, we’ll up our vitamin A and then we’ll both have lifelong immunity to it.
I fail to see the irresponsibility in handling it if it happens.
No doubt...
Why on Earth would you say measles is not deadly?
It is a scam that will live on for decades, and convincing them with facts is impossible since their minds function like 9/11 Truthers; anyone who says vaccines are safe hasn't "educated themselves" or is part of the conspiracy.
Oh, I do have some idea about those "Freepers"--I encounter them all the time. Every time I do, I endeavor to post a rebuttal to their nonsense. I have found that they are incredibly resistant to any logic, and reject anything resembling factual material.
I remember one exchange with an anti-vax kook, in which I tried to explain to her how to fact-check--how to take the references she finds on anti-vax sites and look them up in PubMed so that she could read what they really say instead of what anti-vaxxers claim they say. She almost became hysterical. Somehow, by attempting to educate her on how to do simple fact-checking, I was proving that I'm part of the conspiracy.
I do not understand the thought processes that go on in the heads of people (anti-vaxxers and others) who latch onto "woo" while vehemently rejecting evidence-based medicine. I believe that their brains are actually short-circuited. I highly suspect they have an innate incapability to understand mathematics.
I have a particular interest in this topic, since I was also a late talker--I did not talk until the age of four. Apparently, before then, I would learn 3 or 4 words--and if I learned a new word, I forgot one I already knew. I have a very high IQ--above 150, but I don't know what it is. I surmise that I did not speak until I had figured out all the grammatical rules and was confident that I could speak correctly. I think this because even now, I do not do anything until I have it completely figured out so that I do not make a mistake.
My mother tells me that she took me to be evaluated at one point. The doctor told her that I was normal, she just needed to spend more time talking to me. Thank God the doctor had that insight, so I wasn't shoved into some special ed program.
You’re welcome.
Sadly, Wakefield is still profiting from his scam.
The problem with the decision not to vaccinate is that you don't just risk your kid's life, you endanger other people's lives as well. If your kid comes down with measles, you will probably get it, as will anyone within several yards who is susceptible. Your kid will become contagious about 2 days before symptoms start, so (s)he'll be spreading that virus all over the place without anyone suspecting a thing. Measles virus remains in the air about 2 hours, so people don't even have to be in the same place as your contagious kid, they can enter a room long after your kid left and get measles. Infants younger than 1 year cannot be vaccinated for measles, and the younger a child is, the more serious and potentially deadly the disease will be.
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known. In the current outbreak, about 1/5 of the people who have caught it have ended up in the hospital. Measles is also deadly, killing 1-3 out of every thousand kids who gets it. Around 400 kids die every day from measles.
Children's author Roald Dahl told this story about his daughter Olivia:
"Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn't do anything.
"'Are you feeling all right?' I asked her.
"'I feel all sleepy,' she said.
"In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead."
This happened in 1962, before there was a vaccine. I was born in 1960 and was lucky to never catch measles; I was vaccinated in my mid 20s.
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