| Re: So it's official, encouraging skepticism and doubt is "poor science", according to UK Govt's chief medical ossifer. |
BT Openworld |
| Mike Dworetsky (platinum198@pants.btinternet.com) |
2004/02/24 15:17 |
"Danny Kodicek" <dannynews@well-spring.co.uk> wrote in message
news:moL_b.10459$h44.1109308@stones.force9.net...
>
> "Mike Dworetsky" <platinum198@pants.btinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:c1fnc1$eaq$1@sparta.btinternet.com...
> >
> >
> >
> > "Jerzy Jakubowski" <branchofjesse@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:b9b3de8.0402240253.15fdda7e@posting.google.com...
> > >
> >
>
http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1154677,00.html?79%
> 3A+Uk+latest
> > There's nothing wrong with (literally) healthy skepticism or doubt, but
> the
> > study was based on only 12 autistic children brought in to Dr Wakefield
by
> > parents involved in the lawsuit for which he was a consultant. Conflict
> of
> > interest? I think so. Where would his funders be if his study claimed
no
> > basis for the legal action??? So would he have looked extra hard for a
> link
> > even if one did not exist? That's the implication.
>
> And a fair point it is, however it's hard to find studies that *aren't*
> tainted by self-interest. When researching this issue before having my own
> children vaccinated, I found that all the pro-MMR information was produced
> either by the government or by the drug companies, while all the anti-MMR
> information was produced by angry parents. I couldn't track down anything
> that seemed like neutral information, and it was all low on science or
> statistics and high on rhetoric. It is very hard to find middle-range
> medical information on serious topics in general, aimed at the
> science-minded but non-technical reader who can't spend weeks (and money)
> ploughing through the original journals.
>
> For what it's worth, I concluded that the autism link was almost certainly
a
> red herring, and besides anything else any danger from autism is
definitely
> less than the danger of the diseases themselves. But I couldn't find any
> good reason to go for the triple jab rather than single vaccines except
> cost, and that made me a little nervous about the motives behind the
> propaganda.
>
> My concerns about vaccination are more complex and it's hard to find
people
> that are willing to debate them properly. Everyone's so focused on the
> autism issue that the other issues about vaccination in general have been
> forgotten - issues like whether wholesale vaccination is potentially
> damaging to the immune system, and whether it encourages new and deadlier
> strains of the diseases to appear (when did measles become such a serious
> killer? Of course there were always deaths, but they were a rarity and
most
> infected children simply got over the disease. Nowadays it seems that when
> there's an outbreak, there are proportionally far more deaths. Anyone seen
> any statistics on this issue?)
>
> The hard fact for any parent to accept is that some children will die. My
> own children may be among them. It may happen through an accident, or
> illness, they could be abducted or suffer a self-inflicted teenage drug
> overdose. These terrible things happen. You do your best as a parent to
take
> the risks that you think are best, but either way tragedies can occur. Is
it
> better to get an exposure to childhood diseases and take the higher risk
of
> death along with, perhaps, a healthier immune system later in life? Or to
be
> immunised and have a possible (but unknown) risk from autism and perhaps a
> lowered immune response? Who knows?
>
> What I do know is that there's all kinds of hysteria about this issue
which
> seems scientifically absurd, such as nursery schools refusing to accept
> unvaccinated children because they could be 'a risk' to the other pupils
> (how can they be a risk if the vaccination works?). That kind of thing
> immediately raises my suspicions that there is more to the politics of
this
> question than meets the eye.
>
> Danny
>
You raise a number of good points. One of the problem with measles and
mumps is not the death rate (low but not negligible even among relatively
resistant Europeans without vaccinations, and extremely low among the
vaccinated) but other damage which can be permanent, such as brain damage
and sterility.
Some racial groups have very low immunity levels. The Pacific islanders
were almost wiped out in some places as a result of measles epidemics
brought by missionaries.
Rubella is not usually serious to the person getting it but if a pregnant
woman gets it there can be serious birth defects as a result. This is its
main public health hazard and the principle reason for vaccination. The
main reason to vaccinate males for rubella is to suppress the ability of an
infection to go epidemic and infect large numbers of unvaccinated females of
child-bearing age. A high percentage of vaccinated people lowers the risk
of the unvaccinated getting the diseases.
From a public health point of view it is essential that a high percentage of
the population is vaccinated and immune (or naturally immune through a
previous natural infection). Otherwise you can get serious epidemics going
through the school population.
The sensational press goes for the big headlines, but if some kid in your
community gets very ill from measles and dies or becomes sterile as a result
of mumps, chances are you won't read about it in the newspaper. But this
will be the result if too few children get the immunisation as a result of
all the sensation.
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)
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