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Retracted

posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday March 15 2016, @10:59AM   
from the toxic-news dept.

From the (boneheaded) editor: My apologies. I pooched this one in a way that is exceptional, even for me. I humbly beg your forgiveness. The line for torches is on the left, and pitchforks is on the right. Please, move on to the next story and don't waste any further time on this one.

Regards,
cmn32480

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Original Submission

• Confessions of a reluctant non-vaxxer Confessions of a reluctant non-vaxxer (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2016, @05:31PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2016, @05:31PM (#318619)

  I'm posting this AC for obvious reasons.

  Like many things, people who don't vaccinate come in many flavors. Some people have religious issues. Some people believe they don't work. Some people question the business of mass vaccination. I can't speak to the first two because that is not where I am.

  I don't question the efficacy of vaccines, seriously that's just bad science most stuff is proven to be 70-99% effective in guarding against stuff in the near term. Long term protection is contested in some cases (Varicella, for example). I do, however question the safety of certain vaccines and the entire business around vaccines. The business of vaccinations is corruptible in the same way that the intersection of Big Business and Government always is. Some facts which not-distputable:

  1. Vaccine Manufacturers were indemnified against any lawsuits in the 1980's, which coincided with the establishment of the $0.75 fee on every vaccination dose, which goes to pay out settlements via the US Vaccine Claims Office. To date, the vaccine injury claims office has paid out almost 1 Billion dollars in settlements.
  2. Big Pharma Execs / CDC / FDA have a revolving door thing going with a bunch of top people (again, this should no surprising giving what we see in other industries).

  .

  There are other things that make you think:

  1. Pharmaceutical companies are able to fast-track stuff through the FDA with by submitting their own self-funded safety studies.
  2. Pharmaceutical companies spend about $250,000,000 every year on lobbyists.

  .

  When you put all of the above together, it's easy to see how many people feel that Companies are working only for their own best interest. They can create something, get it approved with less oversight than there should be and then lobby to get it added to recommended vaccine schedules, and lobby to get more of their product mandated by law.

  Is the above a giant conspiracy theory? Perhaps, except you'd be hard pressed to find someone who disagrees that the Fossil Fuel Industry or Giant Telecoms do the exact same thing. Why is the Pharmaceutical industry any different?

  If anyone is interested, take a look at the fact sheet of the manufacturer for DTaP http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM101580.pdf [fda.gov] (there is sheet out there for every shot your kid gets), some are more interesting than others.

  Here's a link that shows the ingredient list of all major vaccinations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vaccine_ingredients [wikipedia.org] Depending on how you feel about medical use of aborted human fetuses, do some research on MRC-5.

  Some also question the quantity of shots we're giving our kids. In 1980, kids got less than 10 shots over 5 years. Today they get almost 50 shots over the same time period, many times getting two or three at a time. Even my very pro-vax pediatrician concedes that's a lot for a little body to handle and recommends spacing them out over several weeks.

  Regarding the 'shedding' thing and how you can be contagious after a vaccination, this is true in at least one case: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM133539.pdf [fda.gov]

  I also used to not question it, until I had kids and started really giving a crap about the stuff they're exposed to. This led to research and questions and fence-sitting on this stuff. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, just give you a glimpse into mine, to so that the next time you hear about someone who doesn't vaccinate, your knee-jerk reaction isn't "IDIOT!", but rather, "What would cause someone to feel that the cure is worse than the disease?", so to speak, because it's not an easy decisions and there has been a lot of thought put into it. I completely accept that many people would go on the same journey of research and come to a difference conclusion.

• Re:Confessions of a reluctant non-vaxxer (Score: 3, Informative) by pTamok on Tuesday March 15 2016, @06:36PM

  by pTamok (3042) on Tuesday March 15 2016, @06:36PM (#318658)

  In this instance, your pediatrician is an idiot.

  Sorry, let me rephrase that: your pediatrician seems to be providing incorrect advice.

  The immune system, even in infants, has the ability to respond to a lot of different challenges, and it is not a case of lining each disease up serially to be knocked off by the child's immune system, one-by-one. People have looked into the so-called benefits of 'staging' vaccines, and they are non-existent. The longer the child remains unvaccinated, the greater the chance of the child succumbing to the disease it is meant to be being vaccinated against. This has been investigated. Staging is baloney. See: ama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=200499 (Timeliness of Childhood Vaccinations in the United States)

  We found that 11% of children were undervaccinated for measles for more than 6 of a possible 8 months during the first 24 months of life and another 3% were undervaccinated for 3 to 6 months. Because only a single dose of measles vaccine is recommended in early childhood, these delays represent a period of complete lack of protection against measles. Elimination efforts have greatly reduced the incidence of measles in the United States to only 56 reported cases in 2003.31 However, risk of importation remains high due to global measles circulation, high rates of transmission, and the large volume of travelers to and from the United States.32 With each imported measles case, population immunity is tested and an outbreak or epidemic could result if there are enough susceptible hosts due to delays in vaccination, lack of vaccination, or inadequate immune response to vaccination. The US measles epidemic in 1989 to 1991 was caused by a failure to provide timely vaccination,33 and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “only a sustained effort to provide age-appropriate vaccination will prevent another resurgence of measles.”2

  Pertussis is another example of the importance of timely vaccination. During 2003, 11 647 cases of pertussis were reported in the United States31; incidence was highest among infants who were younger than 6 months34 and infants accounted for the highest proportion of pertussis-related hospitalizations and deaths.35 Among infants who contracted pertussis during the 1990s, at least 44% were undervaccinated for their age. Furthermore, among the 25 pertussis-related deaths in infants aged 2 to 11 months, 15 had not received any doses of pertussis vaccine.36 While these children were too young to have received the complete 4-dose series of DTaP, data suggest that the risk of pertussis-related hospitalization is decreased if children have received 1 or 2 doses of vaccine.35 Furthermore, because siblings are a source of transmission to infants too young to be vaccinated,36,37 timely vaccination of these children can indirectly protect young infants by decreasing their exposure. We found that 16% of children were undervaccinated for DTaP for more than 6 of the first 24 months of life and another 14% were undervaccinated for 3 to 6 months.

  The capabilities of the immune system were illustrated when Paul Offit made his infamous 10,000 vaccines remark. It is worth reading and understanding what he actually said, rather than relying on third-party reporting:

  http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2015/10/06/to-all-who-use-paul-offits-10000-vaccine-paper-to-scare-others-put-up-or-shut-up-and-that-means-you-age-of-autism-and-all-your-team/ [leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk]

  Parent

• Re:Confessions of a reluctant non-vaxxer (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2016, @06:51PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2016, @06:51PM (#318669)

  "Vaccine Manufacturers were indemnified against any lawsuits in the 1980's"

  This isn't exactly true. The Wikipedia article is worth reading (I don't want to rehash the details when you can simply read them on Wikipedia).

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_court [wikipedia.org]

  To think of this from an economics perspective there is a difference between

  Manufacturing Cost
  Producer surplus
  Consumer surplus

  So lets say the cost of a drug is $10 million (hypothetical numbers for simplicity of course).

  Lets say the drug company receives $20 million in revenue

  That's $10 million profits.

  Now the key here is consumer surplus. Say consumers pay $20 million but the net social benefit is $100 million. That's $80 million in consumer surplus (gross consumer surplus) that the drug manufacturers do not get money for. Which is a good thing, consumer surplus is why we have economies.

  Now lets say the people that are negatively impacted by vaccines are damaged by $20 million. So the net consumer surplus is then $80 gross - $20 million damages = $60 million.

  If the pharmaceutical corporations had to pay those damages out directly their cost would be $30 million vs a $20 million revenue. They would operate at a loss by $10 million.

  So they threaten to stop producing vaccines. If they stop producing vaccines the total loss in net consumer surplus would then be $60 million. So the government offers to step in and help pay for some of the damages to maintain the overall benefits in consumer surplus.

  At least that would be the theory behind why it might make sense for the government to help.

  Parent