Posted on 08/14/2002 1:42:48 PM PDT by krodriguesdc
Mumps and the MMR vaccine
Evening Standard editorial comment
Parents have good reason to be concerned about the possibility of a mumps outbreak in London. The epidemiological history of this infectious disease suggests that mumps is unpleasant but hardly ever fatal to children. In rare cases it causes meningitis or encephalitis; it can also cause infertility in boys. Before there was a vaccine for mumps, it tended to kill no more than five people a year.
Yet it is impossible to be certain that half a century of vaccination against the disease will not have weakened our natural immunity to the extent that a renewed outbreak would produce unusually severe symptoms.
This is why the near quadrupling of mumps cases in the capital to 112 in 2001, and the 30 per cent rise in the last quarter over the previous three months, is particularly worrying, given that clinics across the country have been without supplies of the mumps vaccine for up to six months and do not know when they can expect fresh supplies.
The Government will be blamed for creating this situation, and endangering childrens' lives, by insisting that the triple MMR vaccine be used to inoculate children against measles, mumps and rubella, but it is not directly the fault of the Department of Health. The reason why there is such a shortage of mumps vaccine is that not much of it is being manufactured (none to UK licence specifications) and the logical reason for this is that every country in the developed world except Britain has accepted the overwhelming scientific evidence that MMR does not trigger autism in young children. This is not to say that blame should rest with parents who refuse the triple vaccine.
Ever since Dr Andrew Wakefield produced his own variant findings, which suggested a possible link between MMR and autism and bowel disorders, enough anecdotal evidence has emerged that the MMR vaccination appears to coincide with the onset of autism in young children to convince many parents that they must be connected. Pressure is therefore growing to make it the responsibility of the Government to accelerate the production of mumps vaccine and then provide all three vaccinations separately on the NHS. This will be the first major challenge for the new public health minister David Lammy, and perhaps the toughest he will ever have to face.
From post 107 of the other thread:
"Before the mumps vaccine was introduced in 1967, the United States had about 200,000 cases of mumps every year, with 20 to 30 deaths. Mumps was also the most common cause of acquired deafness and of viral meningitis, an infection of the lining of the brain. Up to 40 percent of males infected with mumps after puberty develop a painful swelling of the testicles called orchitis, which in rare cases can lead to sterility and testicular cancer. Today the United States has about 350 cases of mumps each year."
That is MUCH MORE than "unpleasant".
You don't have a lot of luck with your information, do you?
Good day TomB - what do you think about this?...
Federal judge strikes down religious exemption to Arkansas vaccination law
By JAMES JEFFERSON
The Associated Press
8/14/02 11:23 AM
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A federal judge has struck down a religious exemption to a state statute requiring vaccinations before children can attend public school.
The exemption, granted only to members of "recognized churches," violates the establishment and free association clauses of the First Amendment, Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled Tuesday.
The decision left intact the state's vaccination requirement, meaning students still are subject to the requirement with no religious exemption to immunization.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Cynthia Boone, the mother of a student who refused to be vaccinated. The lawsuit said that although Ashley Boone is not a member of a recognized religious group with tenets against vaccinations, she personally believes that vaccinations "are against the will of her God."
Cabot High School officials had barred Ashley from classes during the 2001-2002 school year because she refused to be vaccinated against hepatitis B, a sexually transmitted disease.
Boone filed a federal lawsuit against the school district and the Arkansas Health Department, claiming the state selectively allows religious exemptions from vaccinations.
After the suit was filed, Wright temporarily ordered the district to allow Ashley to return to classes. The order was later extended to allow her to finish the school year.
As a result of the ruling, she will have to be vaccinated in order to return for her senior year.
The effect of Arkansas' religious exemption, Wright said in Tuesday's ruling, was to discriminate against individuals with sincerely held individual religious beliefs.
"It is difficult to imagine how the state would have a compelling interest in limiting the religious exemption to some religious sects and individuals over others," the judge wrote.
I don't.
We are discussing the bogus science behind MMR/autism, not the politics.
One what? Please try to be more concise.
I have not been convinced of either side, but tell me: do you have a child with autism?
unfortunately - IMHO politics sometimes controls science - I think they call it follow the money...
Great. I still have NO IDEA what you are talking about.
No, but I have a brother with Down's Syndrome, does that count?
Although I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.
as for your question on my study of the germ theory of disease - I am a microbiologist...but I do recognize that a person must have a healthy functioning immune system function that is able to handle the pathogens we are exposed to each an everyday...
for instance - why is it that some people get a cold while others, though exposed to the same pathogen, stay healthy and without a cold or flu?
Anti-Science Activists Label Pro-Vaccine Safety Advocates "Anti-vaccine"
in June 26 JAMA Article
A Response
Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-founder and President
National Vaccine Information Center
In the latest efforts by anti-science activists to label pro-vaccine safety advocates "anti-vaccine," a trio from Northwestern University have published an article in the June 26, 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) entitled "Content and Design Attributes of Antivaccination Web Sites." In what must surely be a lull in the careers of Robert M. Wolfe, M.D., Lisa K. Sharp, Ph.D., and Martin S. Lipsky, M.D., these three have spent a lot of time and effort pouring over the content of what they have dubbed "antivaccination" websites in order to come up with an analysis purporting to get to the heart of the thinking and motives behind organizations and individuals who operate websites questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) which operates the oldest and largest vaccine safety advocacy website, offers the following observations about the content of the article and the thinking and motives of its authors:
1. This is not science, it is an op ed piece.
2. The information on the internet, thank goodness, is not peer reviewed by doctors like these authors or we wouldn't be able to believe what is on the internet anymore than we are able to believe what is published in JAMA.
3. They need to include a dictionary in their article. What exactly is their definition of "antivaccination?" Is it the label they apply in the second sentence of the first paragraph to those challenging "the safety and effectiveness of recommended vaccines?" If that is the definition of anti-vaccine, we can label these authors anti-science for suggesting that challenging and testing existing knowledge in science be abolished in favor of protecting the status quo.
4. The hallmark of good science is replication. We call for a public release of the names of all the websites these authors have labeled anti-vaccine so their analysis can be independently analyzed.
5. In just one of the many examples of intellectual bias, the authors perseverate about the internet access the public has to personal and emotional experiences of families with vaccine injured children. They, however, apparently have no problem with the use of visual images of children who were injured or died from polio as an incentive to the public to get vaccinated.
6. This article is a sophomoric attempt to label the vaccine safety and informed consent movement as "anti-vaccine" in order to deflect attention from the very real gaps in scientific knowledge about the biological mechanisms of adverse responses to vaccination. Should the Institute of Medicine be labeled anti-vaccine for repeatedly publishing reports over the past decade calling for increased scientific research into outstanding questions about vaccine safety? Instead of analyzing websites which are pointing out and asking for answers to outstanding scientific questions about vaccine safety, these doctors should be pulling their microscopes out of storage and finding out why some children are not able to handle the 36 doses of 11 vaccines they are now getting. They could work to develop genetic and other biomarkers to identify and screen out high risk children. That would go a long way toward re-instilling trust in national vaccine policies and eliminating some of the nagging doubts about vaccines that parents of learning disabled, hyperactive, epileptic, autistic, asthmatic, diabetic and mentally retarded children talk about on the internet.
7. History shows that challenge to the status quo, which is embodied in much of the free speech that is taking place on the internet, is a first necessary step to meaningful reform of powerful institutions. We proudly stand by the content of our website at www.909shot.com which details our 20 year public record of working to institute vaccine safety and informed consent protections in the mass vaccination system, including playing a major role in obtaining a safer pertussis vaccine for American babies licensed in 1996. We will stand by that accomplishment any day even if we haven't published peer reviewed articles in JAMA.
Finally, this kind of pretentious posturing by doctors who claim that they engaged in "critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content" did not remove the responsibility from JAMA editors to exercise a little self discipline and pass on this one. What the publishing of this kind of junk science does is fuel the suspicions of parents that those in power are determined to silence the voices of people suffering because science will not listen and does not care. It is a sad commentary on an even sadder reality that faces many families with vaccine injured children.
To view the JAMA article: To view the JAMA article
I noticed you used the term dis-ease in the previous thread. Does that differ from disease?
link to below...
Vaccinosis
Dr. Richard Pitcairn D.V.M. Ph.D., Discusses Chronic Disease Caused By Vaccines
By Laura Wallingford
"In this article we begin to address the subject of vaccinosis, the general name for chronic dis-ease caused by vaccines.
For some readers the very idea that vaccines are anything but wonderful and life-saving may come as a surprise, and it's not a very pleasant one. After all, the general population pictures vaccines as one of modern medicine's best and brightest moments, saving literally millions from the scourge of diseases like poliomyelitis and smallpox."
"In the process of training as a doctor or veterinarian, one goes in as a relatively naive young person. The conditioning is heavy; it costs a lot of money, and of course you want to do well. Students are told how wonderful vaccines are, and they don't really question it; they accept as a fact that they're these great boons to health, are never harmful, and have saved a lot of lives—it's black and white.
The companies making the vaccines have great amounts of money and influence to campaign and advertise. You have a situation on the one hand where doctors are conditioned to accept, and on the other hand companies powerful enough to squelch negative comment."
Please read the rest of this excellent article
Immune-mediated hematological disease and transient bone marrow failure are increasingly recognized sequelae of...vaccination. ... Postvacinal polyneuropathy is a recognized entity associated with...vaccines. ...Adverse reactions to vaccination have also recently been reported with increasing frequency in cats." (Dr. Dodds, 1990)
"Homeopathic veterinarians and other holistic practitioners have maintained for some time that vaccinations do more harm than they provide benefits. Vaccinations represent a major assault on the body's immune system." Dr. Charles E Loops DVM
Do you really have that much trouble formulating independent thoughts?
answer my question TomB - are you associated with quackwatch.com?
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