Sticking Point: Vaccine Exemptions Stir Concern
In a highly unusual outbreak of measles in San Diego last month, 12 children fell ill - nine were not inoculated against the virus because their parents objected, and the other three were too young to receive vaccines. The parents who objected are among a small but growing number of vaccine skeptics who take advantage of exemptions to laws requiring vaccinations for school-age children. And the exemptions have been growing since the early 1990s at a rate that many epidemiologists, public health officials and physicians find disturbing, The New York Times writes.
Every state allows medical exemptions, and most permit exemptions based on religious practices, the paper continues. But an increasing number of the vaccine skeptics belong to a different group - those who object to the inoculations because of their personal beliefs, often related to an unproven notion that vaccines are linked to autism and other disorders. And 20 states, including California, Ohio and Texas, allow some kind of personal exemption, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In 1991, less than 1 percent of children in the states with personal-belief exemptions went without vaccines based on the exemption. By 2004, the most recent year for which data are available, the percentage had increased to 2.54 percent, according to Saad Omer, an assistant scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “If you have clusters of exemptions, you increase the risk of exposing everyone in the community,” he tells the Times.
Children who are not vaccinated are unnecessarily susceptible to serious illnesses, the paper adds, but also present a danger to children who have had their shots - the measles vaccine, for instance, is only 95 percent effective - and to those children too young to receive certain vaccines. Measles, almost wholly eradicated in the US through vaccines, can cause pneumonia and brain swelling, which in rare cases can lead to death. The measles outbreak in San Diego alarmed public health officials, sickened babies and sent one child to the hospital.
“I refuse to sacrifice my children for the greater good,” Sybil Carlson, whose 6-year-old son goes to school with several of the children hit by the measles outbreak in San Diego, tells the Times. “When I began to read about vaccines and how they work. I saw medical studies, not given to use by the mainstream media, connecting them with neurological disorders, asthma and immunology.” And she adds: “I cannot deny that my child can put someone else at risk.”
Here’s the rest of the story…
Prestige Bridging
Interesting and useful, thanks.
Tom
This story has an all too familiar and sad ring for many in the health care field. The political and media focus on medical issues today centers so exclusively on danger, risk, and negativity that health benefit has become a secondary, often forgotten consideration. Refusing or stopping treatment is an extreme example, but it probably happens more than we believe. Pharma critics allege that the industry minimizes disclosure of risks; those same critics may be guilty of doing exactly the opposite. In both cases, it’s the patient who loses.
Prestige Bridging
Interestingg Article.
Laurie
This all comes down to a lack of trust in medicine and the FDA, as it is today. The initial push to make HPV vaccines “mandatory” is a perfect example. Does another person or institution have the right to make a decision about my body? I think that’s the big question. When does the “public good” outweigh the right to make decisions about your own health? And if something is made “mandatory” who is going to accept the responsibility of a bad outcome?
I don’t have the answer, but it’s a situation that we are going to see alot more of as controversy abounds in the drug industry.
Nathan
Laurie,
Why is the HPV vaccine a perfect example? I think it’s a great example of a vaccine that SHOULD be manditory! We have frieghteningly few good treatments for cancer. Finally, we have a truely effective PREVENTION for one very deadly and common form of cancer. If we stop the spread of HPV, we stop the spread of cervical cancer. It’s simple. Short of massive use of “chastity belts”, I see no other way to stop the spread of what is essentially a communicable form of cancer.
Justice in Michigan
A question. So often we have heard the arguments here that (a) people should take responsibility for themselves and/or parents should take responsibility for their children; (b) we’ve had enough relying on the “Mommy state”; (c) it’s time to “grow up” for a change, etc..
And yet some of the same people who say this support mandatory Gardasil vaccination.
Given the mode of transmission, the herd immunity argument does not fit well for this instance.
Why is it right to be the “Mommy State” (or “Daddy State”) here?
Lisa Van S
Nathan,
HPV is not the only cause of cervical cancer,.. and the Jury is still out on how long the vaccine will stay effective in any one individual.
If you choose to vaccinate your daughter,..that’s ok. But dont tell any other Parent what they should or shouldnt do.
What if their was a vaccine for boys for the prevention of HPV,.. but their is a downside, the penis shrinks to the size of a pistachio nut. Would you still be anxious to mandate it for men and boys.
AWS
Actually Lisa, the CDC has confirmed that all cervical cancer is caused by HPV. There may be individuals who are predisposed to developing cervical cancer, but the way it can develop is after HPV infection.
Former pharma Marketing Exec
As Laurie said, as I have also said before, this is an issue of trust. Can anyone here answer what the possible consequences of these vaccines are from the epigenetic perspective? No, we can’t and granted, because the field of epigenetics is so relatively new and there is still so much to learn, we are not probably going to be able to answer this for some time. So, yes I think if food and environment can affect our genes and we know viruses can cause long term debilitating illnesses, then yeah, it is hard to feel comfortable about deciding on whether your child should be vaccinated or not.
So, we really have several factors. Trust is the big one, but also too is the painful discovery that what we thought we knew, we didn’t, and while we thought we were preventing harm, we weren’t. This is like a “perfect storm” in a way. The mis trust from the greed, which we in pharma are clearly responsible for causing, combined with the advances in science which have helped to shed new and important light on the intricate working of our body, which in turn has helped us to find and correct the mistakes of the past.
But this underlying erosion of trust makes all of this difficult and complicated.
Some will say that there are so many of us who just want to ‘bash’ pharma. I would say there isn’t enough of us. This is a serious situation. We need to restore the trust or situations like this will happen more and more.
Can we assure the quality of the production of the vaccines, think about the current heparin scandal. The trust has been fractured…
About the HPV vaccine, personally, if I were a women and “eligible” for this vaccine, I wouldn’t have it, nor would I vouch for my child to have it.
Yes, parents are the guardians of their children. As long as a parent is competent and understands the risks and the benefits, the decisions must rest with them. They are the ones who make the life long unconditional commitment to safeguard the child. But parents need to take this responsibility very seriously.
This is a very interesting topic.
Nathan
Lisa,
In answer to your questions:
1) Cervical cancer kills ~4000-5000 people every year in the US. Virtually ALL cervical cancer is associate with HPV. ~70% of deaths are associated with one of the two strains for the vaccine.
2) I have two girls, age 1 and 3. They are both going to be vaccinated when they reach the appropriate age. If there were a vaccine for boys, I would gladly vaccinate my boys too. A side effect as bizzare as the one you mentioned would be picked up in clinical trials.
Nathan
Justice,
Actually the “herd immunity” DOES fit well for this vaccine. Do you know what horrible and promiscuous stuff goes on in high schools today? I’m going to be educating my daughters and doing everything that I can to keep them from being sexually active until they are married. However, I can’t control what is going to happen in the back seat of a car when my daughter is out on a date. I don’t want a spit-second bad decision that she makes to result in a life-devistating (and life threatening) disease.
Anon
Split second decisions in the back seats of cars are much more likely to result in pregnancy or other STDs than cervical cancer resulting from HPV.
Half the adult US population has been infected with HPV at some stage of their lives. Very, very few of them go on to develop cancer.
Healthy immune systems can clear HPV and 91% of HPV+ve women do so within 2 years.
Even in those with persistent infections, invasive cervical cancer develops rarely in those who are regularly screened (but might well become more common if women believe a vaccination prevents all cervical cancer and so don’t bother with screening).
“Herd immunity” is difficult to achieve when the male half of the population is not being vaccinated.
The arguments for using many vaccines are strong, but the real value of the HPV vaccines is not yet determined.
Vince
Nathan your comments are interesting how ever the as noted here http://www.kpcnews.com/articles/2007/03/14/online_features/hpv_vaccine/hpv01.txt one of the lead researchers has a different idea
“Diane M. Harper, a lead researcher in the development of the humanpapilloma virus vaccine, says giving the drug to 11-year-old girls “is a great big public health experiment.”
Cervical cancer is an almost completely curable disease if women are screened .So far the idea that this vaccine will prevent cancer deaths is unproven. The best surrogate for cervical cancer is grade 3 lessions so far the HPV vaccine has shown no effect in reducing those lessions.
Why mandate a vaccine which has not been shown to reduce cervical cancer death. When simple screening test can indeed virtually eliminate this problem.
Lisa Van S
Nathan,
Id like to refer you back to Former Pharma Marketing Exec’s comment. Again, his comments are wonderfully stated.
Lisa Van S
AWS,
CDC is just as fatally flawed as the FDA.
ol cranky
how long before insurance companies refuse to pay to treat diseases like measles or their sequalae because parents refuse to take reasonable preventative measures like immunization?
Atlex
Hypothetical question…if my immunized child gets severely or fatally ill with measles from an unvaccinated child, do I have the right to sue the other set of parents? Justice, any thoughts on this?
Lisa Van S
Atlex,
If your child is immunized he/she wouldnt catch the measles,. correct. If they do,.. then one can assume that the vaccine was ineffctive.
I had been immunized as a teen, only to find out after giving birth to my first child that I no longer had the antibodies and was immunized again. The hospital would not allow me to be discharged until I did.
Lisa Van S
Ol Cranky,
Keep pushing the envelope (Nanny State), and before you know it,.. consent wont be needed for clinical trials, why?, Because,. individuals like you will say consent isnt needed,.. reasonable, preventaive measures must be taken.
Justice in Michigan
I have no legal view (remember, I’m not a lawyer), but can an immunized child get measles from an unimmunized? If so, what benefit was the immunization?
_Playing_ lawyer - it would seem hard to prove from where the measles came short of locking both kids in an hermetically sealed room for a few weeks. That would lead to other legal problems.
There is another relevant issue here, though. Mandatory vaccine manufacturers enjoy FDA preemption from liabity. If injury occurs and is proven, potential compensation comes through the Gov.. Presumably, we would see something similar if/when FDA preemption becomes law for drugs. At least, that would be my guess.
ol cranky
Uh Lisa I posed a question and, considering the pitiful lack of insurance coverage for many in this country as well as many who are underinsured, it was posed to get people thinking. This posed question and a question of consent for clinical trials are completely unrelated.
Furthermore I resent the hell out of you suggesting that I am in any way against a need for consent to treatment let alone consent to participate in clinical trials. You know better than most who have read any post I’ve made how committed I am and have always been to truly informed consent (as well as adherence to GCPs, ICH and CFR).
You lose any credibility you may have by making such rude, inaccurate and outlandish accusations. Any legitimate comment/concern you have may well go unnoticed if you continue to go off on personal and inane attacks on people with whom you disagree. Please try to take the time to try to understand a comment before you go on the warpath.
Former pharma Marketing Exec
On the theme of informed consent and parents being the guardian of their children, and in view of “ol Crnaky’s” question. Let me ask this. If a parent decides not to have their child inoculated and the child happens to get sick, for whatever reason, does the health care team stamp a “non compliant/non adherent flag somewhere. Does this affect in anyway the treatment and care of the child? Does this entail an attitude of “you didn’t follow the advice, we will treat, but you get what you get?” Yet, it seems to me this is precisely the attitude for the children who do develop autism. We say “tough luck” and send the child home with the family and force the child, the parents and any siblings in the family to a lifetime of stressful situations.
Didn’t we have a case (yes I know it is just one) where it was deemed that a really extenuating set of circumstances stemming from the vaccine did provoke the autism?
If the government is so willing to take the stance that vaccines are not the underlying cause, they why don’t they give us all some guarantee and set up a system that provides for total care and support for the child and relief programs for the family? One would think that this would certainly provide the incentive/motivation to rigorously inspect the current system.
Lisa Van S
Ol Cranky,
“Uh Lisa, I posed a question, It was posed to get people thinking”
I in no way mean to be disrespectful, But, you posed the question not me,.. SO, you got what you asked for.
Phew, I was quite calm in my earlier post,..so I suggest you reread your post,.. and then reread mine,.. and then ask yourself, who was really on the “warpath”!
ol cranky
You think asserting a totally unsubstantiated claim that I am against informed consent in any arena of healthcare was a calm, well thought out and legitimate response to my question?
Had I advocated a plan to punish the patient, I would have expected not only slammage for that view, I would have expected people to call me a hypocrite as well (since I have always advanced a view that HCPs/insurance companies do not have the right to impose their moral views to withhold or impede legitimate treatment or standard medical care).
I did not indicate that I thought the insurance companies should be allowed to play the “gotcha” game nor did I support it in any way. There was no pro (or con) stated or implied, re-read it:
Considering you have problems with how your taxpayer dollars are spent in treatment and rue when they are used for treatment you deem inappropriate or unnecessary, it’s a very legitimate question to pose because we, as a society, will need to make some hard decisions about insurance, healthcare and taxpayer burden.
Jim
It amazes me how people can have so much faith in the for-profit medical system in this country. Children today suffer from auto-immune disease in epidemc proportions. Gardisal prevents 4 strains out of 100 strains that exist for HPV. Don’t you think that once we suppress those 4 strains that the virus will mutate to create another dominate strain? This is exactly what happened with the Prevnar vaccine. Viruses and bacteria have been on this Earth since it was craeted. We owe our existence to these viruses because exposure to them created our immune systems which protect us from all diseases not just the ones in the CDC’s vaccination schedule. Drug companies are making billions of dollars becuase parents no longer have the capability of critical thinking.
horuscat
Vince,
One of my doctors told me that screening for cervical cancer is ineffective because not all of the cervix can be reached in a vaginal exam. I was not getting a good visual when she was telling me this, so I don’t know if she is right or not.
She did say the state of women’s health screening is really behind the times.
Nathan
Jim says:
“Gardisal prevents 4 strains out of 100 strains that exist for HPV. Don’t you think that once we suppress those 4 strains that the virus will mutate to create another dominate strain? This is exactly what happened with the Prevnar vaccine.”
A few points:
1) It protects against 2 strains that account for 70% of cervical cancer deaths.
2) Yes, I agree with you to a degree. These other strains WILL multiply more rapidly. But what should our responce be? Do we throw our hands in the air and give up? Of course not. We currently have the ability to essentialy ERADITCATE 4 strains of HPV. Why not do it?
3) You are correct that this is happening with Prevnar. That is why companies are now coming along with follow-on vaccines that innoculate against up to 13 strains.
4) Vaccines HAVE completely erradicated some diseases. Look at smallpox and polio. No one is even vaccinated for these diseases anymore because they have been essentially eliminated from the human population. The same is possoble with other communicable diseases — but only if WIDESPREAD MANDITORY VACCINATION is adopted.
Nathan
Former pharma Marketing Exec,
I suggest you keep up your autism research… Maybe you’ll stumble upon something accurate. Vaccines save thousands upon thousands of lives every year. The HPV vaccine has the potential of doing the same. You find me a credible scientists or scientific agency that thinks there is a link between autism and vaccines. I haven’t found ANY. Here’s a quote from a recent news article:
The Centers for Disease Control says “There is no convincing scientific evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics says”No scientific data link thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines with any pediatric neurologic disorder, including autism.”
The Food and Drug Administration conducted a review in 1999 — the year thimerosal was ordered to be removed from most vaccines — and said that it “found no evidence of harm from the use of thimerosal as a vaccine preservative, other than local hypersensitivity reactions.”
The Institute of Medicine’s Immunization Safety Review Committee concluded “that the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.”
And a study of California Department of Developmental Services data published last month indicated that there was “an increase in autism in California despite the removal of thimerosal from most vaccines.”
Atlex
Lisa, vaccines are not 100% effective. (What is?) An unvaccinated child has a much higher risk of acquiring measles and my child’s exposure to that child in school or at the playgorund increases the risk for my child. See my point?
Given the press reports about the increasing number of parents avoiding these vaccines, I’ll bet that someone tests this in court.
Lisa Van S
Atlex,
I dont doubt that, But, If a vaccine or medication is deemed to be ineffective should a parent be held responsible because of a medical decision they made?, Or should the manufacturer who has deemed their product safe and “Effective” in spite of advertising the opposite.
Press reports on Autism,… are more devastating!
NO DOUBT parents are left with difficult decisions.
IM curious,.. do you have children? If you dont,..then maybe you should refrain from being critical of desicions that other parents have to make. I am in no way trying to be disrespectful here, a Nanny State will do more harm,.. than good.
Atlex
Lisa,
I have three children, but even if I didn’t, I can be legitimate in my concern and opinion. As for manufacturers, I don’t know of any that suggest that drugs or vaccines are 100% effective. My point is this…(hypothetical situation and data) if a vaccine is 99.9% effective, that could mean that my child might get the disease 1x per 1000 exposures. In his/her lifetime, there might be 250 exposures, yielding a 1/4 chance of getting the disease. However, if unvaccinated children increase the number of exposures to say 1000, the odds of getting the disease increase 4 fold. Again, this is hypothetical, but if my vaccinated child came down with measles after being exposed to it by a unvaccinated child, I’d be really pissed off. Would I sue the other parents? If the outcome was serious, I’d certainly consider it.
Atlex
Former pharma Marketing Exec
Nathan,
I am not saying that vaccines do not save lives. I am questioning the significant increase in autism. To say there is no link is wrong. Just recently we have had a case where vaccines were link to autism and the parents who brought the case to trial won.
What I do know is that we have altered our biology with all the latest drugs we take and what we are doing to the environment. It is time to look at vaccine programs and look at how we administer them. Maybe technology is completely not ready for this yet. The recent case showed that in this particular instance the child had an underlying cause that was exacerbated with the vaccines and caused autism.
This is not difficult for me to imagine at all, particularly with the increase in births due to IVF. So, if I were a parent in today’s world, I would be very tempted to have GEP and genetic screening done before administering vaccines.
I think it is wrong for all of the organizations to make “blanket” statements like that, but I understand why they do. Otherwise there would be pandemonium and even more people would refuse to have their child vaccinated. It still doesn’t make what they are doing right. Statements like that are made with the mind set that the public and parents cannot be trusted to have the information to make the right decision.
Form my perspective, forewarned is forearmed and this does relate back to informed consent. If we fully know the risks we are more free to make better decisions.
Interesting, on the one hand people argue that the government should not play a role in drug research and work on directing the public money to the diseases that need it, but yet the government has the biggest finger n the pie…
After considering all of this, I also consider the link to adherence to GMP. Maybe this is a problem and I wonder if we need to look and see how we have altered mfg vaccines and if this in anyway could be a part of the problem.
My position is that I do not buy that vaccines do not cause autism. We are not being told everything we need to know in this case. Not so surprising in today’s world.
Atlex
FPME,
Please provide specific citations to your claim that a recent “case where vaccines were link to autism and the parents who brought the case to trial won.” If it was the one recently in the press, the headlines indicated this, but the substance of the story was different. The case pointed to a possible worsening of an underlying condition that had autism-like symptoms. Nowhere was there an suggestion by the government of even the parents that vaccines cause autism.
Atlex
Former pharma Marketing Exec
Altex,
You need to carefully re read what I stated in my post.
My post makes the case for pre-testing to avoid problems like this recent case.
Additionally, there are real concerns over the use of mercury in these vaccines. Some “experts” say that it isn’t more than what you find in a tuna fish sandwich. But do we fully understand what even that affect has on the toddler having the vaccines? No - we don’t. That is my point.
How many times have we heard this in the past? Many times. Is the public being “placated” until we find the right “new and improved” formula? Probably. My stance still is, in today’s world, no one has the best interests of my child in the forefront than me. That is the way it should be for all parents.
Nathan
FPME says:
“My stance still is, in today’s world, no one has the best interests of my child in the forefront than me. That is the way it should be for all parents.”
That statement is very true. The problem is that government policies don’t look out for the good of the INDIVIDUAL. They look out for the good of SOCIETY as a whole. Vaccines do cause risk to individual children. If one individual here and there avoides getting a vaccine, then fine — no major harm is done to anyone. If massive numbers of children fail to be vaccinated, then it causes a real problem. Society suffers and individuals suffer.
Government policy should (and usually does) look first to the good of SOCIETY and secondly to the good of the INDIVIDUAL. Parents are looking only at the good of the INDIVIDUAL. No question about it: manditory vaccination CAN be bad for particular individuals. But almost nobody (other than you and Lisa) suggest that manditory vaccination is bad for our society.
If genetic testing can identify which individals are at risk of poor responce to vaccines, then let’s get them tested. But so far no such genetic test has been developed. Till then, our only choice is to continue down the road of manditory vaccinations. The alternative will result in the harm and death of many thousands of children.
Rocky
First, since some of you guys seem to be all for the gov’t looking first to the good of society then secondly to the good of the individual I guess you are ready to go ahead and volunteer to cede your constitutional rights to the gov’t and become founding members of “Big Brothers’ Boys.” Sure you will have to deal with cameras following you around to make sure you don’t break a law or cheat on you taxes or anything else the gov’t deems “not good” for society as a whole, but as you wonder what happened to your freedom of speech and your other rights just remember you are giving them all up for the “Good” of the whole society.
Also, the real point in the discussion regarding vaccines is that there has not been enough non-biased research to show whether there is a link between the vaccines, preservatives in the vaccines, etc. and autism or other disorders. We as parents deserve to have as much information as possible before we take a chance of damaging our children for life. Would any of you drink a glass of chemicals right now unless I told you what it was and how it might act on you? Maybe some of you would from your posts . . . especially if I could get a doctor or someone who plays a doctor on tv to tell you it was safe.
And honestly even if we could do genetic screenings to see if certain children could die or be permanently disabled if they are administered certain vaccines what will that really accomplish? Won’t someone start yelling that allowing too many medical passes from vaccinations is increasing their child’s chance to get a disease, and they will start screaming about lawsuits or gov’t intervention or that we need to sacrifice some children for the “good” of the whole society?
If you want to start sacrificing a child for the greater good why don’t you start with yours first!
People HAVE lost faith in the “for profit” healthcare system; the reason is because people have learned that they and their loved ones are just that: cash cows. They take drugs that are later recalled by the FDA after people have died but the pharmaceutical company has made billions. Remember Fen-Phen, Redux, Baycol, etc? The insurance companies deny medical treatment to some people with illness, but the company makes billions. And innocent children get illnesses like autism after a vaccination but the companies make billions. It goes on and on. Am I saying the whole system is totally wrong. No there are some good doctors, researchers, etc out there, but they are drowned out in the brilliant green of the all mighty dollar bill.
Oh, since someone wanted proof that there was a link between vaccines and autism or any other types of disorders, let me ask you a question first. Years ago was there definitive proof that tobacco could contribute in some way to people contracting cancer?
Of course not. People were told smoking was good for you, advertised as such I believe. Not for years did our wonderful “mommy” government discover that the tobacco companies weren’t telling the truth. No all the info about tobacco causing cancer was buried deep down in the tobacco companies vaults, but they sure knew about it. They felt no need to tell the public about it though did? Why? They would have lost billions in profits!
And yet some of you guys don’t understand why some people would be skeptical of the drug companies or the goverment disavowing any possibility of a relationship between the vaccines, the preservatives, too many shots, too young an age, etc. and autism or other disorders?
I’m just guessing here that if some of you saw a small white creature that walked like a duck and made quaking sounds like a duck you would be unable to say it was a duck unless the government told you it was a duck. Right?
Of course not. You are all intelligent people. You are standing beside these antiquated notions out of fear . . . fear of illnesses most of us have never seen, fear of what could happen if these illness broke out again, and fear that is propulgated by the drug companies who make billions of dollars by keeping you terrified. Please wake up and understand that most people who are complaining about vaccines are not wanting them done away with totally: we are concerned that too much of a good thing is not so good anymore and that maybe we dont know if they are really that good.
Open your minds to the idea that maybe we need to rethink this whole thing. Don’t let fear keep you from looking at the possibilities that maybe you aren’t helping your children you are hurting them or potentially hurting them. Think for yourself! The government wasn’t created to do that for any of us!
Former pharma Marketing Exec
To Rocky - Brilliant Post - I couldn’t have said it any better. That is precisely what this site is all about, the opportunity to open our minds and ask serious questions about the way we do things and why….
Nathan, in the recent case that I talked about the parents did have the child tested and this is how they determined that in this particular case the vaccine was indeed very toxic to her and caused the autism.
So, it is available. Now what I would like to see happen is that the word get out there to parents. They have something to help them make a better more informed decision and it will provide them with a great deal of information and probably guidance throughout their child’s life. But if the word doesn’t get out there, some children will not be vaccinated even though it would not have harmed them.
It just makes the case stronger for better communication. Let’s agree that we all want the best thing for our children. Then we put something in place that gives a fair shot to everyone to make the right decisions for their family, not only a few enlightened individuals.
Nathan
Rocky says:
“If you want to start sacrificing a child for the greater good why don’t you start with yours first!”
I have. My children have all been vaccinated. They will continue to be vaccinated against any life-threatening disease for which vaccines are available.
As a society should be abondon manditory seatbelt and airbag usage because they sometimes kill automobile occupants? Rocky, feel free to drive without your seatbelt — I’ll stick with the government crash statistics on this one. I’ll also stick with the FDA decision that vaccines, on the whole, are good for society and good for the individual. If you want to play russian roulette with your kids health, that’s your buisness.
Nathan
FPME,
Are you suggesting that all kids should have this genetic test run on them prior to being vaccinated? How much does the test cost? Who will pay for it? Do we even have the CAPACITY to test that many children? If not, what do we do in the meantime?
As I’ve already stated, if a genetic test can predict vaccine (or drug) toxicity, then we should seriously look into it. However, I don’t think there are too many genetic tests that are ready for prime-time yet. Even the HER-2 breast cancer genetic marker is only tested for in individuals that have a history of breast cancer. Genetic testing just isn’t cheap yet. Maybe soon it will be.
Atlex
Former pharma Marketing Exec,
You continue to suggest that there is some recent case where genetic testing proved that a vaccine caused autism. As I asked before, please produce a reference (not just the title of an article in the lay press).
Atlex
Anonymous Patient
Altex,
Have a read…
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Chief Medical Correspondent
Some new news to share about autism today. At a press conference this morning, a Georgia family will describe how the government has conceded that a vaccine “contributed” to their daughter’s autism symptoms. The family will receive compensation from a federal vaccine court.
That doesn’t mean the federal government agrees that vaccines cause autism (click here for more on autism). Nor does this 9-year-old girl’s case mean the 4,900 other families in the vaccine court have won their claim that vaccines resulted in their children’s autism. That case continues.
Advocates who see a vaccine-autism link point to Hannah Poling’s case as a big victory for their cause - evidence of the potentially disastrous side effects of vaccines.
Within 48 hours after receiving her vaccinations, Hannah, then 19 months old and by all accounts a normal little girl, developed a high fever, inconsolable crying and some signs of regression, including difficulty walking and speaking.
Over the next several months, she had countless visits with doctors finally culminating in the diagnosis of encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder. At the same time, and this is potentially very important, she had genetic testing and was found to have the gene for an underlying mitochondrial disorder (click here for more about mitochondrial disorder).
So, did the vaccines worsen an already existing condition leading to the symptoms of autism? That is what the government seems to have conceded. And, if so, was it caused by the mercury preservative thimerosal, which was present in Hannah’s vaccines several years ago, or was it the profound immune response that vaccinations cause in the body?
The Centers for Diseases Control, American Academy of Pediatrics, Institute of Medicine and other prestigious medical organizations maintain there is no link between vaccines and autism.
As many experts have told me, this case is likely to raise more questions than it answers. But, these are good questions and important ones for anyone who cares about this issue. What do you think?
Editor’s Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.
Anonymous Patient
Nathan,
I am suggesting that we take the necessary steps to educate the public about choices and options.
Do we have the capacity to do this type of testing? Well, you seem to be a better capitalist than me, but I would say, “If you build it, they will come…”
Melody
Rocky–
As I read through this thread, and contemplated an appropriate response, especially aimed at Nathan’s pro-pharma propaganda, I found your comment:
Oh, since someone wanted proof that there was a link between vaccines and autism or any other types of disorders, let me ask you a question first. Years ago was there definitive proof that tobacco could contribute in some way to people contracting cancer?
As we discuss trust–whether it be to the profit-driven industry, or the tarnished regulatory agency, or the medical profession, itself– your comment shows where/how our distrust was born. Thanks.
Former pharma Marketing Exec
Thanks Anonymous - you made my work easy!
Actually, Altex if you google you will find other information on this.
Former pharma Marketing Exec
Nathan,
In what I have seen and read on this subject if a parent has reason for concern, then why wouldn’t they be given the option to have gene testing. Are parents being informed about additional options and choices?
Furthermore, where is the data that shows us just how safe these newer type vaccines are? Has the mfg process been changed so much so that it cannot be compared to the vaccines of a decade ago?
How much does the public know about this? Should we be led to believe that these are the same as they ever where? No, we shouldn’t because they are not.
There is a false sense of security…
harpy
I don’t usually side with the pharma boys, but, seriously, vaccines are a GOOD thing.
The data “do not show any recent decrease in autism in California despite the exclusion of more than trace levels of thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines (and) do not support the hypothesis that that exposure (to it) during childhood is a primary cause of autism,” the study concluded.
Link