By Anna Watson, founder of The Arnica Network (arnica.org.uk)
A man in a white coat, smiles, offers an injection to a puppet 'child' who is alone. 'Inoculation is the perfect Medication' he tells the child after dancing and singing with a syringe. (Cut to a nurse telling children elsewhere that if they are vaccinated with the MMR they won't get the Measles, Mumps and Rubella.) Will it hurt asks the boy, well it might says DR Ranj, but you can cry if you want to. Without waiting for an OK, the doc injects the boy who then says 'I‘m not sure I'm ready for my injection,' but the doc marvels 'I have already done it.'
Will Dr Ranj, who is a paediatrician from Kent, be struck off? A medical intervention, a vaccine in this case, was administered in a non life threatening situation without consent at all. The minor does not give informed consent and neither do his guardians or parents as they are not there. No risks or contra indications were discussed or considered.
Now Watch 'Inject to Protect' (www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/cbeebies/episode/b01p019d/Get_Well_Soon_Inject_to_Protect/) aired Wednesday 14th November at 4pm. (Editor's note – as of 19 July 2014 this video no longer appears to be available on the BBC.)
OK, it's not real life, it's a muppet puppet show. The GP, despite using the same make up artist as in Lazy Town, is a real GP and he is also the CBeebies doctor in their series 'Get Well Soon'. Will children, perhaps viewing alone, understand the difference between this and real life, or may it leave some with a warped sense of going to the doctor who listens to them but gives the medication despite their wishes?
At the *ADR CONFERENCE last year 'Is the Patient voice loud enough?' Dr Fleur Fisher told us that the foundations of medical ethics are Observation and Listening to Patients. Informed Consent is vital as ethically, risk is only passed to patient if every effort has been made to inform, so technically if a serious side effect was suffered the GP could be held responsible.
The guidance from the General Medical Council states that GPs should 'Listen to patients and respond to their concerns and preferences' and under Communicating with children and young people it stresses 'You must take children's and young people's views seriously and not dismiss their concerns, fears or views because of their age' and 'If a child or young person with capacity refuses to give consent, you must respect their decision'.
You can read more on patient's rights and doctor duties here:
On the issue of medical and scientific information given:
1. Is it legal to promote medicines to children suggesting that they are 100% safe?
The NHS website reports side effects and the UK has a vaccine damage payment fund for those left more than 60% disabled. CBeebies should have not have offered such simplification. Rounding up a few percent to a hundred negates the thousands of vaccine damaged children in the UK. Jackie Fletcher whose 20 year old son can't speak or walk, is doubly incontinent and who has fits every day. His injury was officially linked to the MMR this year and received a payment under the Vaccine Damage Payment Fund.
2. Is it ethical to promote medicines to children suggesting that they are 100% effective?
The efficacy rate is more like 95% so 5% of a 700,000 births a year means that tens of thousands of children every year will have the MMR but it will not work for them.
An adult may be able to separate the truth from a GP wearing make up and a cartoon character but a child may not. How many children saw this show alone and will have been left with the idea that medicines and syringes are totally safe and work without fail? How will the BBC find these hundreds of thousands of children and their families and apologise for promoting the dangerous image that it is OK for a single male to coerce a lone child into an injection that carries a potential risk.
I had to complain and did so using their online complaints facility.
The reply was returned as quick as you could say 'no conflicts of interest' with the opening line 'Firstly, we'd like to reassure everyone that no programme on CBeebies receives commercial sponsorship of any kind'. Obvious what other types of complaints they had received that morning, but nothing in response to my concerns. The show flouts its own charter guidelines on Accuracy and Bias.
If you are not happy with your reply you should escalate it to level 2 with the BBC and then level 3 and also complain to OFCOM [1] and the BBC trust. OFCOM received 50 complaints in the first week but we will wait and see if CBeebies merits investigation.
Syringe
Dr Ranj, to his credit, answered me on his Facebook page with the reasons and considerations for the show:
1. The programme is make-believe and involves puppets…. therefore please take it in that context.
2. In the episode, Deep came in for a pre-booked vaccination appointment – the aim of the episode was to explain to him why he was having it and to allay his fears not to 'persuade' him to have it.
3. In any case a child would not be able to give informed consent – hence the decision was already made.
4. Yes, I am a real doctor and I deal with children and with issues around such treatments EVERYDAY … .
The majority of people who watch the show appreciate it's intentions and have found it valuable, informative and entertaining. I stand by Get Well Soon and feel we have nothing to apologise about.
…..Well, just in case children can't always separate TV and cartoons with real life in such a sophisticated way please let's be more explicit with our children:
Children should not be left alone with an unfamiliar adult, even if they are dressed in a white coat.
Children should never play with needles.
Children should never be asked to make a decision to take a medication or injection without a guardian to share in making an informed choice.
No medication is totally safe and effective …… in fact some children are seriously injured like this toddler!
*Organised by PRIMM (Prescribing and Research in medicines Management) and DSRU (Drug Safety Research Unit)
[1] https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/specific-programme-epg
Image of syringe from Wikimedia Commons.
Headline *** BBC misses another child protection issue ***
Erm…. No It Doesn't in fact it does the Opposite
Since when has protecting Children against Diseases and Death been a child protection issue other than in the minds of Conspiracy theorists…
also why are you letting a Scaremongering Anti Vaccine propagandist write drivel on what looks like a Reputable News Site?
Mmmmmm………
I remember very recently when the people who said a major banking meltdown was on the way were all pooh-poohed as conspiracy theorists ……..
I remember when the people that said there were high profile paedophiles abusing children they were branded as cuckoo ………
I remember a time when the suggestion that UK MPs were on the fiddle would have been dismissed as laughable ………
Doubting what you are told by the powers that be is not a crime …… yet!
Erm as much as you might like to think – Uncovering Criminal activity – Is not the same as Vaccinating Children
& and all those things you mentioned are hardly dismissable accusations now are they, bankers have always been crooks – MP's have always been in it for the money, and after some high profile cases it was has hardly unbelievable that some famous people have been abusing there powers.
On the other hand, saving millions world Wide from death and disease is hardly a conspiracy, just a disgusting and dangerous hobby for those who try to stop children being protected……..
Mmmmmmm….
And I remember when kids died from Vaccine-Preventable diseases. I remember when women contract rubella and 20,000 babies were born with Congenital Rubella Syndrome during 1964 in the USA.
How about the tens of millions of newborns who contracted the hepatitis B virus from the chronic carrier mothers and the 90 % of them whose lives were cut short because of liver failure and/or hepatic cancer?
Take a look at this PKIDS website that addresses the issues of not vaccinating:
http://www.pkids.org/immunization/consequences_not_vaccinating.html
And you *claim* to be "child advocates".
Comparing Dr Ranj to Jimmy Saville – which is the undercurrent of this overblown nonsense – belittles the suffering of the many people against whom Saville offended and the very few who are, in reality, injured or hurt by vaccines.
"Get Well Soon" responsibly promotes good health practices, such as timely vaccination, in way that small children can grasp. Artistic license is taken simplification is necessary. The puppet is not a child and I've never heard my GP sing! And really, is the fact that a man on television may be wearing make up at all relevant? He might also use hair products – oh! the horror!
The Economic Voice, surely you should exercise higher editorial standards or do we have articles on the New World Order and the Illuminati to look forward to along side this fear and hate mongering?
I agree with your statement Autismum. What a poor choice to have someone who knows nothing about immunology and vaccine-preventable diseases and who has an anti-vaccine, anti-science agenda, blogging about medicine.
Just where is the journalistic integrity that is so sorely missing on this blog?
That dirty business of using Jimmy Saville to advance an anti-vaccine anti-science agenda was used recently on a notorious anti-vaccine website. At that website they slimed and libeled doctors, scientists and government officials who are on their "Enemies List".
Lilady. To label those campaigning for vaccine safety as anti-vaccine is like labeling all road safety campaigners as anti-driving. It is a cheap stereotype and a logical fallacy.
In addition, to call vaccine safety campaigners anti-science is a contradiction in terms, since since is about seeking, asking and answering questions. When scientists become held up as infallible and entirely altruistic experts, science becomes a religion, completely contrary to what it was originally, where there was strong competition between rival scientists. The high priests of science are those allied with corporations who have their products endorsed and purchased by government as a result of scientific findings which are often fixed to fit the bill. Government then have a vested interest in suppressing heretics to support their policies and politicians have a revolving door between government and corporate jobs.
I understand that this article is a position piece, but it's certainly on the outer fringe. Does this represent a the editorial position of this journal, or is this an unfortunate descent into anti-vaccine propaganda?
The article seems obsessed with the number 100%. How safe and effective does something need to be before it can be ethically called safe and effective? How about airline travel? Is it "safe" when it's a known fact that planes crash? Or is it "safe" because it is the lowest risk way of getting from A to B? Vaccines are "safe" because the risks are negligible and to claim otherwise is irresponsible. The author's fear mongering is unacceptable. I request that a reply be published by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
planning4crash: You've just accused every scientist everywhere of having ulterior motives and being amoral. Your circular reasoning about science become a religion is because you lack the depth of knowledge to understand how research is conducting and the dedication of scientists to make vaccines as safe as possible.
Not only are you anti-vaccine through and through you are a big government conspiracist, who sees conspiracies all about him. Perhaps that's the reason why you are posting here and defending this crank blogger.
Utter clap-trap. I stated that science becomes a religion when backed up by the force of law. When it is used as a tool and manipulated for corporate ends.
And I do rather dislike your use of neuro-linguistic programming by turning healthy skepticism into wild conspiracy theory. The polar opposite is what you promote, which is co-incidence theory, that is, you probably think it normal that autism has gone up from one in a few hundred to now less than one in 50 in some places. You probably think it a co-incidence that this co-incided with mega increase in childhood vaccine. You probably do not make any connection between allergic reaction to heavy metals in vaccines.
I also feel that it is ludicrous to not at least be free enough to question a multi-trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry. That profit incentive, alongside no-bid government contracts is enough incentive to cut corners.
But the concept of informed consent requires knowledge of potential risks. This is not taken into account with public policy which, from the sidelines appears more interested in corporate profits of pharmaceutical corporations who get these huge contracts.
Fact is, they still put aluminum and mercury in vaccines.
Here, is a reputable German paper reporting that cancerous monkey kidneys were used as the "nutrient solution" for the swine flu vaccine. And they said that witchdoctors no longer exist?!
– http://www.bild.de/news/bild-english/news/does-virus-vaccine-increase-risk-of-cancer-9295686.bild.html
Oh, and millions exposed to cancer causing SV40 virus from Polio vaccines produced, again, on Monkey kidney cells!
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SV40
Here, World Net Daily reports the use of tissue from aborted babies in vaccines, making us cannibals by injecting these:
– http://www.wnd.com/2010/04/146669/
So, with a track record like that. Parent's have a right to ask questions and demand answers.
I have to say I watched the show and was taken aback by some of the things i saw, especially being as this is the BBC.
To target young children with a programme that shows a very young child going to the doctor with no parent or guardian in attendance contravenes all aspects of parenting rights and child protection. The programme intimates that a doctor and a nurse are more knowledgeable about a child's wellbeing than anyone else. The anyone else presumably is a parent. The child was vaccinated effectively against his will, with no parent nor guardian in attendance.
With regard to the information portrayed in the show, not only was it incomplete. It was inaccurate.
The phrase "Just one inoculation is the perfect medication." is just one small example. The MMR the child was being offered is a booster dose, that child will have had an MMR at the age of one already. Ironically, the booster at school entry has only recently been introduced as the single dose has been deemed to be insufficient. As the vaccine documentation states in one small instance about mumps alone: "Although there are no data available concerning the protective efficacy of PRIORIX, immunogenicity is accepted as an indication of protective efficacy. However, some field studies report that the effectiveness against mumps may be lower than the observed seroconversion rates to mumps."
A perfect medication would work in all cases, which the MMR does not – a fact easily ascertained from the manufacturer's SPC. A perfect medication would have no side effects, again the SPC has pages of ingredients, excipients, contraindications, cautions, side effects and post marketing observations of harm, while the NHS has a page dedicated to MMR side effects: http://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/2054/SPC/Priorix and http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/MMR/Pages/Side-effects.aspx
This is a complex topic and one for parents to make a decision on. If a child is disconcerted then it is for the parents to allay those fears or choose to ask the doctor or nurse to allay those fears, not some half-baked programme with half truths and untruths. A truly factual programme would ensure that the truth was whole. I wonder how these children would react if it explained to them what human diploid (MRC-5) cells were: http://www.immunizationinfo.org/issues/vaccine-components/human-fetal-links-some-vaccines
Yes, the information is complicated. It is too complicated for a child this young to make a decision on. If the BBC want to make 'factual' programmes about vaccination, they need to ensure they have the facts right. Regardless of who actually made the programme for them, I am going to presume that the buck stops with the BBC. please correct me if I am wrong.
If you're so concerned that the programme, "shows a very young child going to the doctor with no parent or guardian in attendance" (which is actually a puppet) then why did you not complain about the very first episode – there has been no change in format.
Does the idea of taking artistic liberties escape you? Really, your comments are terribly niave. Woolly and Tig are on around the same time. Do you think toy spiders come to life too?
The danger with fiction is that people do not analyse it the same way and do not question motives, etc. because it is seen as entertainment. People are therefore far more susceptible to conditioning from it than from a non-fiction programme where opposing views are put forth. This is why children act out roles they see in fictional films. The absorb it like a sponge.
Here is Alan Watt, clips from his radio show about how TV is used to programme people and that if it is watched, it should be watched critically:
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfTReNLDWg4
Ah, here is a better clip of Alan Watt talking about how TV is used for indoctrination:
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmBymKXgrV4
Since vaccines make corporations trillions of dollars you don't think efforts would be made to drop desired thoughts into the population?
I absolutely agree with Anna. This programme made me so uncomfortable. Get 'em while they're young…..make sure the next generation are well behaved and obedient citizens and do what the authorities tell them without question.
I'm afraid the general public need to stop doing things because they are told to do so by the government or the NHS or their GP. Dont just vaccinate because its what people do/ you never realised there was an option not to or thought to it was your place to question. Do your research. Ask questions. Then make an informed decision, after taking into consideration what you've learnt. If after researching you still think vaccination is a good thing, then go ahead.
"Dont just vaccinate because its what people do/ you never realised there was an option" right cos that's the only reason anyone vaccinates. Not because vaccination carries significantly fewer risks than the diseases they prevent or because it is the responsible thing to do. If you want to eschew vaccines just admit it is because you are fearful and can't really comprehend the science. At lease be honest with yourself even if you must come and stamp your proverbially feet on hysterical blog posts like this one.
I can't recall stamping my feet?
And I'm not at all fearful. I am happy and confident in my choices thank you, I don't feel the need to defend myself.
All I pointed out was that people should make an informed decision.
If you think vaccination is right for your child, then good for you. But don't try to make out that I am unable to comprehend the science or fearful or hysterical or any of the things that you appear to be, just because my choice is different
By your posts Pandmonimum, it seems that you are uniformed and unable to make an "informed choice"…which is based on perusing reliable science sources and not the stuff you read on crank anti-vaccine websites.
You're just a free rider..depending on other parents to immunize their children. Your actions to not vaccinate your child, puts that child at risk and puts children who are too young to be fully immunized and children who have real medical contraindications against receiving some vaccines, at risk as well.
Ok lilady, thanks for your opinion.
I made my decision from perusing both 'reliable science sources' and 'crank anti-vaccine websites'.
My decision. Not yours, and not any of your business.
I do not mean to compare the JS to Dr Ranj
…like the show I used 'artistic license' happy in the knowledge that pre-schoolers will not be my audience and will not take me literally…. but as outraged as you are about this piece, I am outraged that the BBC has failed children in its presentation of the MMR and what informed consent means.
Daniel, the show did not say it was safe & effective, it said that if you would only cry a little and said that if had the MMR you would not contract any of these diseases. This is highly inaccurate. Removing the fear felt by some children in a GP visit, especially when a needle is involved, is not my issue. But simplifying ADRs from vaccines and inflating the efficacy of the MMR should be an issue for us all.
You make no mention of Robert.
"Jackie Fletcher whose 20 year old son can’t speak or walk, is doubly incontinent and who has fits every day. His injury was officially linked to the MMR this year and received a payment under the Vaccine Damage Payment Fund."
I would not scare children with this story but I would not tell them inaccuracies about the MMR as cuddly either.
Not comparing Jimmy Saville to doctor Ranj? You are and deliberately so. If not, to which other child protection issue involving the BBC are you alluding. If you want to write such nonsense, fine, at least have the guts to own it.
"If a person is injured in a rail accident and campaigns for rail safety, how can they be called anti rail"
Jackie Flectcher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlBkB4aPXow
The issue for me is Informed Consent. Even the Health Department accepts that no vaccine is risk free. It is known that vaccines have the potential to cause permanent serious damage in susceptible individuals, a fact reinforced by the Government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, whose panel of experts recently agreed that 20 year old Robert Fletcher is ‘severely disabled as a result of (the MMR) vaccination’ and consequently awarded his family £90,000 in recognition of the damage caused. A pre-school child is not old enough to make an informed choice. The decision to vaccinate is an important one that only the parents can take, after they have considered the risks and benefits. It is therefore totally inappropriate to promote the MMR directly to re-school children, over the head of parents. It was also uncomfortable to watch a child (portrayed by the puppet) alone in a surgery, saying to the doctor "I don't want it" and the doctor saying I've done it anyway!
There is no pre-school child! It's a puppet.
MMR is not being promoted. Why a healthy child may have to go to the doctor and have an injection is being explained to children watching in a way they can understand. Yes, it's simplified and no, visiting the doctor isn't quite like that but this is TV. I think you are all forgetting that.
No one commenting here is saying vaccines are 100% safe nor 100% effective but what is being said is that this piece conflating child sexual abuse with a doctor passing on good health advice in a TV show is offensive and hysterical.
Nothing is 100% safe. Nothing. What vaccines are is safer than the diseases they protect against. Much safer. Hugely safer. Ridiculously safer.
It's dumb to oppose vaccines. It really is. It's a position based on fear and ignorance even when espoused by highly educated and intelligent people. It's still an uninformed naive position.
Daniel.
Insulting people by calling them dumb for questioning things is a contradiction in terms, since those incapable of questioning things are by default less intelligent than those incapable of asking questions.
There is a very small chance you will find yourself in a car accident, but to be for highway safety does not mean I am against cars and driving. Moreover, the highway safety advocate tends to be seen as pro safe driving.
If we sweep known side effects under the carpet we are abusing the duty of care we have for our children. The greatest falacy resulting from this is that all children get vaccinated by all vaccines without exemptions, yet it is clearly possible for trained physicians to identify those children most at risk of side effects. Examples include children who are presently sick or immune compromised. We go and treat those conditions and then the child can have a vaccine with less chance of side effect. Unfortunately vaccination has been treated as a quasi-religion where questioning is tantamount to heresy, with parents of vaccine injured children being hunted down like the Spanish Inquisition. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies are the high priests of this new religion.
Unfortunately Daniel, I fear that you are possibly quite naive. Understand that when there is a multi-billion dollar market for something, it is stupid to completely discount the risk that at some point in the chain of events somebody acted without altruism, and there are so many examples of corporate manslaughter in history that it is blindingly obvious that we should at least question our government when they mandate a treatment to the entire human race.
Not least because infectious disease collapsed in efficacy long before vaccines were introduced. It was hygiene which achieved that and yet vaccines take the credit.
As you will see from my links above, vaccines include heavy metals such as mercury and aluminum. The viruses used in them are grown in nutrient solutions which include cells from aborted babies and, cancerous cells from monkey kidneys, amongst other things. Frankly, as a Catholic and indeed as a human being, I am against my children being injected with cells from an aborted human baby. Call me a kook, but that is how I feel. And more to the point, I have the right as a sentient human being to feel that way and insulting those who hold such opinions only helps to polarize the debate.
In addition, when you look at the ingredients these are things we avoid like the plague in our environment and in our food, yet inject them into the veins of a child with an immature immune system? Anybody who would advocate the injection of mercury or aluminum into the veins of children, openly, would be called out as a child killer, yet that is what is done in big scale with vaccines. The purpose of the heavy metals is to agitate the immune system, to illicit a response. No kidding, they do that and more, and the point is that an immune compromised child risks allergic reaction to this and lasting damage.
But the main message here is, for those who observed denial about cigarettes being dangerous, who observed the thalidomide scandal, who see what has been done with asbestos. WMD's in Iraq, understand that in every multi-billion industry we cannot assume altruism at every stage of the process and must ask questions and support those who keep mega industries in check so that they know they are being observed and will be taken to justice if they screw up or cut corners in the interest of profit margins.
But do not discount malice. You know full well that the government is constantly saying that over-population is a problem. So unless you wish to be a sheep, use your human abilities to think and question and never, never take the good will of corporations and government for granted.
If you don't want people to accuse you of being dumb, I suggest you don't post comments full of excruciating dumb statements.
It is not true that "parents of vaccine injured children" are "being hunted down like the Spanish Inquisition".
It is not true that infectious diseases "collapsed in efficacy long before vaccines were introduced" because of improvements in hygiene – how does hygiene affects measles or Hib meningitis? As a biomedical scientist I have seen the dramatic reduction in Hib meningitis since vaccination was introduced with my own eyes.
The heavy metals you mention are present in vanishingly tiny amounts, far less than we are exposed to in food; no vaccine contains or has ever contained "cells from an aborted human baby", or "cancerous cells from monkey kidneys" for that matter. Vaccines are not injected into veins; the point of mercury in vaccines is as a preservative not "to agitate the immune system", and aluminum is used to increase the immune response so that the amount of antigen used can be reduced to make vaccines safer.
You have clearly read a lot of inaccurate information on antivaccine websites and have believed it without checking your facts. I'm afraid that really is dumb, and when spreading this sort of misinformation puts children's lives at risk it does need to be pointed out in the strongest terms.
For those who want to watch a great documentary movie about vaccines, watch The Greater Good.
Here, an article by the author: http://www.westonaprice.org/childrens-health/vaccinations
Here is the video: http://vimeo.com/42420188
How many more conspiracies are you going to "suggest" for the reasons why doctors are urging you to have your child fully immunized?
1. Your gambit about sanitary conditions improving (clean water, indoor plumbing) , as being responsible for the decline of vaccine-preventable diseases is "telling". Was clean water responsible for eradication of smallpox. How does clean water impact the transmission of diseases that are spread through contact with oral secretions or airborne droplets? BTW, which of the vaccine-preventable diseases are spread through the fecal-oral route? Which of the vaccine-preventable disease are spread through droplet and oral secretions routes? Which are the vaccine-preventable diseases are spread through sexual activities and/or blood borne exposures?
Why not share your knowledge about the routes of transmission, by naming those diseases and accurately describing their routes of transmission.
Vaccines are not administered via IV injection and your government nor any other government is trying to limit population or harm you and yours by vaccinations.
It is obvious to us who know some basic science, immunology and epidemiology that you are science illiterate. Your just a sheep who parrots the garbage science and conspiracy theories spoon-fed to you by anti-vaccine cranks.
Im a bit uncomfortable with the language "too late!" a bit like saying haha ive won and youve lost. unprofessional for a doctor; not in the js league but still language that conveys an abuse of power, a situation where a child is powerless to what is being done to them…..isnt "too late" making that childs concerns a joke and something to ignore?. Picture your own child at the doc asking about a vaccine how would it make you feel if they spoke to your child like that? what happened to "there that didnt hurt"?
Planning4aCrash, it's all very well to call yourself pro vaccine safety, but I say you are anti-vaccine. All of your arguments are classic anti-vaccine arguments. I won't counter them here and now. Anyone who is interested can find the science in momenst on the Internet so long as they avoid anti-vaccine, conspiracy theory websites.
But for a moment, let's consider that you aren't ant-vaccine. What vaccines would you recommend and who should get them? There is no one who is not in favourite of safer everything. However, there is a difference between advocating for safer cars while you do not advocate giving up driving. I'm very interested in how you support the use of vaccines in our communities, vaccines that save millions of lives around the world every year, vaccines that have been proven safe and effective in hundreds of studies over a great many years in all parts of the world.
I don't believe you are really "pro vaccine safety". That's a code word for "I want to be anti vaccine but I still want to sound just a little bit reasonable". It doesn't work.
By the way. Which vaccines have mercury in them these days. Do you know or are you just trying to scare people? A mercury compound used to be present in vaccines until 2001 as a preservative. It was removed (it's still in some flu vaccines but you have an option to have a version without) because the anti-vaccine movement had scared enough people that it wasn't worth keeping it. And it was a mercury compound, not elemental mercury, that is quickly flushed from the body. Salt is a sodium compound. Are you anti-salt as well as anti-vaccine?
Daniel. No, I'm not anti-salt. And the issue about mercury is, that yes, some folk can detox from it, particularly when injected but, detox is very difficult from the blood stream.
BUT, principally, since this is applied to the whole population, it would be coo coo crazy to say that there is not a risk of folk with auto-immune issues having an allergic reaction. This is simply what Dr Natasha says, that some folk with weak or malfunctioning immune systems will have an allergic reaction to vaccines.
Every other drug is prescribed on the basis of a person's capability to deal with it, taking into account situation and potential drug interactions. Why not vaccines? If folk can react against freaking peanuts, no kidding that folk can react against aluminum and mercury compounds in the freaking bloodstream.
I meant to say, that detox is more likely when injected rather than injected.
Oh, goodness. The standard antivax tropes are out! Toxins, aborted babies, monkey cells… Can't you people 1. Give the truth or 2. find a new line? The same old things are so boring.
MMR does NOT and never DID contain thimerosol. It is a live virus vaccine. Aluminum is added in extremely tiny doses; any baby gets a dose greater than a vaccine of aluminum in his/her daily intake of formula/breast milk. There is NO risk to a baby/child from the MMR.
As for you, @planning4acrash; I'm sorry you are such a poor Catholic that you are going against NUMEROUS popes who have said that vaccines are good. They are not aborting babies left and right for vaccines. The original rubella line (nearly 50 years ago now, dear) was obtained from a fetus aborted when the mother had rubella very early in pregnancy. Even then, even now, no pope has spoken against vaccines.
Nothing is 100% safe. Vaccines aren't, cars aren't, eating isn't, drinking isn't. BUT, vaccines ARE safer than the diseases they protect against. And for all you people who say "well, but my mom/dad/uncle/grandparent had X illness and survived" – of course they did. It's pretty darn hard to talk to someone who died of the disease. But if you look around, you'll still find a lot of people who suffered from the results of the disease.
Since when did breast milk have aluminum. To suggest that no baby will have allergic reactions to aluminum being injected into their blood is rediculous and, I linked to mainline articles about cancer cells from monkey kidneys being used in the swine flu vaccine, and I'll post it again:
– http://www.bild.de/news/bild-english/news/does-virus-vaccine-increase-risk-of-cancer-9295686.bild.html
People like you were out telling folk they were conspiracy theorists that cigarettes were bad. Were you there with thalidomide? Indeed, that was a conspiracy theory when people were warning about it.
When it comes to the health of babies, shame on you for being rude about a parent's desire to ask questions. On the contrary, it would be irresponsible for parents to not read the insert and ask questions of the corporations making trillions of dollars off vaccine contracts.
"Since when did breast milk have aluminum." You are hilarious! Bless!
http://www.chop.edu/export/download/pdfs/articles/vaccine-education-center/aluminum.pdf
"During the first 6 months of life, infants could receive about 4 milligrams of aluminum from vaccines. That’s not very much: a milligram is one-thousandth of a gram and a gram is the weight of one-fifth of a teaspoon of water. During the same period, babies will also receive about 10 milligrams of aluminum in breast milk, about 40 milligrams in infant formula, or about 120 milligrams in soy-based formula."
Why haven't you answered the simple questions that I and other posters have posed to you?
Your tactic of jumping from topic to topic is so obvious, because you lack the knowledge to answer the simplest of questions about vaccines.
And I do not need a Pope to tell me that injecting babies with cells from dead babies is morally repugnant and I have the right as a sentient human being to object to it. For all those saying that we should be forced to have vaccines, as a human being I have the right to make a religious or moral waiver to injecting into myself or my children cells from aborted babies.
OK. So, I know that soy formula has aluminum, which is why most sensible people advise against it and, a mother on a natural wholefoods diet will not have aluminum in her system to levels which would cause harm. In addition, much of ingested aluminum will be chelated and taken from the body by gut flora but when you inject it, there is no easy chelation method so, injected aluminum is many times more dangerous than ingested aluminum which, as stated, can be almost eliminated by breast feeding and a natural wholefoods diet, which is what humans developed to cope with over millions of years..
Since when does a blogger who promotes "arnica" (a homeopathic "favorite" herb), have any credence within the science community?
The blogger uses this "analogy"…
"Will Dr Ranj, who is a paediatrician from Kent, be struck off? A medical intervention, a vaccine in this case, was administered in a non life threatening situation without consent at all. The minor does not give informed consent and neither do his guardians or parents as they are not there. No risks or contra indications were discussed or considered."
No, Anna Watson, your analogy and your reference to Andrew Wakefield the disgraced former doctor who was "struck off" by the GMC, was not delicensed by the GMC for lack of "informed consent":
http://www.gmc-uk.org/Wakefield_SPM_and_SANCTION.pdf_32595267.pdf
Wakefield relocated to Austin Texas, where he is supported by anti-vaccine organizations and where he continues to have an impact on public health. His latest "theory" and three visits to Minneapolis, where he scared Somali parents about the prevalence of autism associated with the MMR vaccine, caused an outbreak of measles in Hennepin County:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6013a6.htm
"On March 2, 2011, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) confirmed measles in a Hennepin County resident aged 9 months. As of April 1, investigation of contacts and heightened surveillance had revealed a total of 13 epidemiologically linked cases in Hennepin County residents. Of those cases, 11 were laboratory confirmed, and two were in household contacts of confirmed cases and met the clinical case definition for measles.
The patients included children aged 4 months–4 years and one adult aged 51 years; seven of the 13 were of Somali decent. Eight patients were hospitalized. Vaccination status was known for 11 patients: five were too young to have been vaccinated, and six (all of Somali descent) had not been vaccinated because of parental concerns about the safety of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The most recent rash onset was March 28. An additional, unrelated case of measles was confirmed in a Hennepin County resident aged 34 years who was exposed in Orlando, Florida, sometime during March 1–10.
The investigation determined that the index patient was a U.S.-born child of Somali descent, aged 30 months, who developed a rash February 15, 14 days after returning from a trip to Kenya. The patient attended a drop-in child care center 1 day before rash onset; measles developed in three contacts at the center and in one household contact. Secondary and tertiary exposures occurred in two congregate living facilities for homeless persons (four patients), an emergency department (two patients), and households (two patients). A virus isolate from the index patient was genotyped at CDC as B3, which is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa."
Your YouTube citations are quaint. Why don't you and Jackie Fletcher fund-raise for Wakefield, to repatriate him back to the U.K.? We have enough of our own home-grown anti-vaccine quacks here in the USA.
lilady, BSc-Nursing, retired public health nurse clinician/epidemiologist
Wakefield disgraced? Maybe you did not see that he won a High Court Appeal against being struck off, and the BMC as a result were forced to review their disciplinary procedure:
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17283751
The British Press, being cosy with the corporate world, decided to not run the story so people remain ignorant but some alternative media did interview him fairly such as here:
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17283751
In addition, many people are treating autism by using Wakefield's findings, by seeking out and treating inflammation in the gut caused by allergic reaction to the vaccine:
– http://www.gaps.me/
You still have not replied to question about when Wakefield won a High Court Appeal.
Why not?
Wakefield disgraced? Maybe you did not see that he won a High Court Appeal against being struck off, and the BMC as a result were forced to review their disciplinary procedure:
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17283751
The British Press, being cosy with the corporate world, decided to not run the story so people remain ignorant but some alternative media did interview him fairly such as here:
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fdrj7oMDZA
In addition, many people are treating autism by using Wakefield's findings, by seeking out and treating inflammation in the gut caused by allergic reaction to the vaccine:
– http://www.gaps.me/
@planningforacrash…X2:
Wakefield did not win any appeal from the GMC….where are your getting your information from?
(Citations desperately needed, here)
Let us know when you set up a fund for repatriation of Andy, Carmel and the Wakefield tribe back to the U.K…..I will gladly contribute to that repatriation fund and I will publicize your fund-raising efforts on all the science blogs in the USA.
Lilady, indeed, Wakefield did not win an appeal to the GMC, he won at the freaking High Court. I already gave the citation, you obviously didn't read my post, it was on the flipping BBC:
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17283751
@planningforacrash
Andrew Wakefield did not win anything in the high court. That article you linked to is about John Walker-Smith, a colleague of Wakefield's, who was found to have actually believed he was doing clinical work rather than the research Wakefield actually set him up to do. Nothing to do with Wakefield, who remains struck off.
Wakefield DID NOT "win a high court appeal against being struck off"
What planet are you on?
He's still a disgraced former doctor who was found guilty of the egregious medical harm he visited on the children in his "study", guilty of undisclosed conflicts of interest and guilty of ordering not-medically-indicated invasive, painful and dangerous tests on his subjects.
Let us know when you set up a fund to pay for Andy's repatriation back to the U.K. We are anxious to have this charlatan leave the USA.
mmm lots of emotive and inaccurate info coming out on both sides. The Rubella vaccine still uses the cell line from one or two aborted fetus, so not lots of babies, but ethics do not always have issue with numbers. Some still feel uneasy on an ethical basis.
Others feel uneasy on the biological issue of injecting human and animal dna into babies where many virus are too small to be filtered out. The FDA recently approved the use of human cancerous cells for the flu vaccine and earlier cancerous dog lines were approved by the FDA again for the flu vaccines.
On the mercury and aluminum issue. Mercury (thermerisol) was mostly removed for the child vaccines in the US from 2000, and the UK from 2007. The advice to reduce / remove mercury from childhood vaccines and those for pregnant mums in the US & UK was put on hold when the Swine flu vaccine was rushed through to fulfill the huge orders for this vaccine a few years ago. Mercury was in effect back in the schedule for this vaccine.
The FDA still says that thermerisol is safe, however, a typical dose of thimerosal-containing flu vaccine contains 25 micrograms thimerosal. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the safe limit for human exposure to mercury is 0.1 mcg per kilo of weight per day. Since almost half of the thimerosal is mercury, this means that each flu shot contains just over 12 mcg's of mercury, which would be considered unsafe for anyone weighing less than 120 kilos, or just under 265 pounds.
Mercury is also back for pregnant mums in the Flu vaccine which includes swine flu and you would have to make a request for mercury free. (Live vaccines do not use mercury true.) Aluminum is in some of the vaccines (flu vaccines and HPV) but a good Single vaccine clinic can source those vaccines with no or less aluminum where possible.
What is being dismissed is that while aluminum is naturally occurring in the soil and is found in formula and breast milk, it is not the same as the vaccines, and introducing it to the blood and ingesting it through the gut, I would suggest, should be judged differently. Furthermore the FDA safe levels for parenternal (injected) aluminum are far exceeded in the infant vaccine schedule
" Hib (PedVaxHib brand only) – 225 micrograms per shot.
Hepatitis B – 250 micrograms.
DTaP – depending on the manufacturer, ranges from 170 to 625 micrograms.
Pneumococcus – 125 micrograms.
Hepatitis A – 250 micrograms.
HPV – 225 micrograms.
Pentacel (DTaP, HIB and Polio combo vaccine) – 330 micrograms.
Pediarix (DTaP, Hep B and Polio combo vaccine) – 850 micrograms.
OK, I'll do the math for you. A newborn who gets a Hepatitis B injection on day one of life would get 250 micrograms of aluminum. This would be repeated at one month of age with the next Hep B shot. When a baby gets the first big round of shots at 2 months, the total dose of aluminum can vary from 295 micrograms (if a non-aluminum HIB and the lowest aluminum brand of DTaP is used) to a whopping 1225 micrograms if the highest aluminum brands are used and Hep B vaccine is also given. These doses are repeated at 4 and 6 months. A child would continue to get some aluminum throughout the first 2 years with most rounds of shots.
Just to remind you, the FDA feels that premature babies and any patient with impaired kidney function shouldn't get more than 10 to 25 micrograms of injected aluminum at any one time. "
http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/vaccines/vaccine-faqs
Lilady, certifications or not, you are just plain rude. Jackie Fletcher is the most gracious lady who was treated like dirt by the speakers at our annual Government Immunisation conference. Her son was severely brain damaged by the MMR, can't walk, can't talk, can't go to the toilet, and has fits daily.. where on earth is your compassion as a human let alone as a nurse?
Thank you Anna. And relating to morality, numbers do not come into play for me. Use of fetal tissues in vaccines is immoral as far as I am concerned, period.
Regarding mercury, it has largely been replaced by aluminum, which Stephanie Seneff, PhD of MIT reckons is far more dangerous even than mercury. Its links with Alzheimer's disease make it impossible to discount links with autism. Here are links to her papers:
– http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/
Mercury has not been replaced by aluminium. I'm going to sound like an anti-vaxer here but DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!
Aluminium containing compounds (not elemental Al, btw) are used in vaccines as adjuvants – they make the vaccines more potent. Mercury containing compounds (not elemental Hg, btw) were used in vaccines (still present in some) as a preservative. They are antimicrobial.
Autismum, I know that aluminum containing compounds are used as adjuvants. My point is that where thimerosol is withdrawn, aluminum is in higher amounts. The issue is that the adjuvants are there to illicit an immune response, and given that the dose is not varied per individual, some have adverse immune responses. Mercury containing and aluminum containing compounds are both used for the same purpose, as adjuvants, and of course, both being toxic they are both anti-microbial, so we are both saying the same thing.
planning4acrash: Do try to look up the difference between an adjuvant and a preservative.
Where is you citation for your statement " My point is that where thimerosol is withdrawn, aluminum is in higher amounts."
Here's a blog written about Stephanie Seneff. She's been busy conducting *research* using the VAERS database…following in the footsteps of Mark and David Geier. You do recall, don't you, that Dr. Mark Geier is the chemical castrating doctor and chelator of autistic kids…for which his medical license has been revoked in eight States…and will be totally delicensed shortly in the few remaining States where he practices his dangerous quackery on autistic children. His son Mark, was charged with "practicing medicine without a license" in Maryland. (He only has an undergrad degree).
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/11/20/dumpster-diving-in-the-vaers-database-again/
Jackie Fletcher received compensation because her son's epilepsy (not autism), seemed to have been triggered by the MMR vaccine.
Why is Jackie and her son the "poster mom and child" for Wakefield's preposterous and fraudulent research about "vaccine-induced enterocolitis"?
I took on your hero "Dr. Bob Sears" recently on the Huffington Post and his "alternative vaccine schedules", as well as his deliberately unvaccinated patient who was the identified "index case" who caused a large outbreak of measles in San Diego:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/03/27/dr-bob-sears-vs-seth-mnookin-measles-out/
"….In response, frequent commenter here lilady challenged him:
Really, Dr. Sears?
Is this the same Dr. Bob Sears who appeared on the Dr. Oz Show? How about commenting on this video (at 1:00 minutes into the Part 4 “What Causes Autism†Show), Dr. Sears. Dr. Ari Brown stated succinctly to you that she believed the young patients infected by measles were your patients.
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/what-causes-autism-pt-4
You never “corrected†Dr. Brown and you quickly changed the subject. Why did you not deny that your patients were involved in the outbreak and…why did you change the topic, Dr. Sears?
We all await your explanation.
That explanation was:
Of course I remember the show, and her comment. BUT, she wasn’t accusing me of being the pediatrician that the measles patient went to see when he had measles and sat in his waiting room. She simply stated that that child was my patient (which is correct, but they didn’t come to see me during the measles illness). She was baiting me, and suggesting that the fact that that family had decided against the MMR vaccine long before they ever became my patients was MY fault. I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of acknowleding her comment.
What I was referring to by the statement “I had no idea†was that I never knew anyone, much less a supposedly respected reporter, was spreading the FALSE rumors that I was the pediatrician involved in the outbreak. I have simply been the family’s pediatrican over the years, but I practice far away from them, so they went to a local ped for THIS problem. Anyone who has written or suggested otherwise printing false information.
Talk about not owning up to one’s actions! Dr. Bob “empowers†and supports antivaccine parents in their decision not to vaccinated, and then he whines when it is pointed out that one of his unvaccinated patients was the nidus for a major measles outbreak….."
Now…who's being disingenuous here? An uneducated "arnica pusher" or a public health nurse clinician/epidemiologist?
" According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the safe limit for human exposure to mercury is 0.1 mcg per kilo of weight per day."
Correct but that figure relates to methylmercury (environmental mercury) not thimerosal or ethylmercury. You are being utterly disingenuous by your omitting that point.
"What is being dismissed is that while aluminum is naturally occurring in the soil and is found in formula and breast milk, it is not the same as the vaccines" In what ways is it different and why did you not make a similar point with regards to Hg (though I know that is because it didn't suit your paper thin argument to do so)
"introducing [Al] to the blood and ingesting it through the gut, I would suggest, should be judged differently." Why? Do you think your tummy has aluminiumases?
And then we get to Lilady being rude. For "rude" read "correct".
My compassion is with any child who has a developmental disorder. My son was born with a rare genetic disorder that left him as incapacitated as Jackie Fletcher's child along with immune suppression and a bleeding disorder due to pancytopenia. He only survived 28 years, dying peacefully in his sleep eight years ago, because he was fully immunized.
I worked as a public health nurse clinician/epidemiologist investigating individual cases and outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. I remember only too well kids who suffered through major organ failure and limb amputations and who died from bacteremia or bacterial meningitis before vaccines were developed to protect kids against these deadly diseases.
My childhood chum died from polio and my older cousin was left with permanent neurological sequelae due to measles encephalitis, before vaccines were developed.
You an the other hand, have zero education and zero qualification to blog about vaccines or the diseases they prevent. What colossal hubris you display in your ignorance.
Repatriate Wakefield. We do not want him in the USA. He already, by his activities with Somali parents in Minneapolis caused a major measles outbreak in that city. He's a public health menace.
Arnica links to a Facebook page and claims the child was injured by a vaccine.
Here's what the grandmother states on her Facebook page about her grandchild's illness…
""MY GRANDSON was VACCINATED WITH MMR AND FLU shots AT ONCE, HE IS IN THE HOSPITAL WITH A HORRID SKIN RASH COVERED FROM HEAD TO TOE. HE HAS TESTED POSITIVE FOR MEASLES, MONO, EPSTEIN BARR, AND ONE OTHER I CAN'T REMEMBER. IT IS HORRID, I HAVE PHOTOS! HE IS 1 YEAR OLD AND IN QUARANTINE. IT MAKES ME SICK TO MY STOMACH! I hope he has a chance!!! Dr's are stumped. dahhh!"
Scaremongering, eh?
Sigh.
Assuming the name "Arnica" implies homeopathy this is all quite predictable. What sort of logic would you expect from someone who promotes the use of distilled water, completely devoid of ingredients, to treat serious illness.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.
She's just a crank blogger and a health care professional wannabe, who spreads fear uncertainty and doubt.
What in gods name is this journal doing publishing this rubbish?
The anti-vaccine arguments are always the same, they are always misleading, unreferenced and designed to scare people into putting their children at risk. It's genuinely pathetic and has no place in an intelligent journal.
To be anti-vaccine is to be a conspiracy theorist. You must believe that there is a conspiracy to damage our children. (Some of them think vaccination is a form of intentional genocide. They say this out loud.) They believe that we are all being lied to about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines by: every scientific organisation on the planet, every medical institution on the planet (with the possible exception of homeopathic hospitals, but that's a whole other story), every government on the planet, every institution of higher learning on the planet. They believe that the huge amount of research into the safety and efficacy of vaccination performed in every part of the world has been faked in order to allow "big pharma" to damage and even kill our children for profit. They then decide that every disease for which a vaccine has been created was, ever so politely, going away all by itself.
Why, oh why, does a publication like this one give them a platform to spread their rubbish?
The pro-vaccine arguments are always the same, they are always misleading, unreferenced and designed to scare people into putting their children at risk…….
Thanks panda, I love your deeply considered replay.
So clearly you are anti-science, not just vaccines. Science is my only reference point. If you don't believe in science and consider it to be a conspiracy that's out to get you and your kids, please hand in your iPhone. It won't work for the likes of you. 🙂
Daniel, you are right, of course.
Magic and Mumbo jumbo, thats all I believe in.
Which means I get to keep my iPhone! Yay!
For me it is less conspiracy and more laziness.
Vaccines are so well established that continued robust scientific challenge is lacking. For a product that is not tested with benign placebo, (either other vaccines or part vaccines,) and only tested on healthy participants and not with other products and vaccines at the same time and not tested against control groups over time for long term health assessment, then surely there is room to question the safety and efficacy for these products.
For most children they are vaccinated – 95% in the UK for the first early vaccines and MMR at 90% now, and most children are fine after their vaccines. But for a small percentage, injury occurs, and for another small percentage the vaccines do not infer immunity. Therefore to imply to children in a children's show that vaccines work all the time and the only problem may be a few tears, is grossly inaccurate and unethical.
Many comments left here are not related to the point made in the article and are spiraling downwards – they are full or anger and incredibly polarised. Of course, there are extremists on both sides, those who will enforce vaccines with fines or jail (or gunpoint in Africa) in some countries, to those who think that the aim of the vaccine program is to kill us all, but this article is not that extreme. It asks for accuracy and openess in what is an emotive and complex issue.
Your wouldn't know science if it came up to you and slapped you upside the head.
What makes you think you have any qualifications or any education in science to blog about vaccines, immunology, bacteriology, virology and the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases?
Arnica, simply stated you are delusional by choosing a puppet character to hang your bogus anti-vaccine theories on.
You believe scientists are lazy? Really?
And you would like a randomised double blind test of vaccines; I assume you'd like that for every vaccine.
Do you have any idea how horribly unethical that would be? Imaging taking 100 children, vaccinating 50 for polio and not vaccinating the other 50. And doing that somewhere where polio was rampant – wouldn't be any point to the test otherwise. Then wait and see who catches polio. Would that satisfy you?
Anna, you like to think you sound reasonable. But you are pushing the anti-vaccine line and that is not, I repeat not, a reasonable position. No matter how hard you try you will sound shrill. Your positions are not backed up by the science that you clearly do not understand. Sounding reasonable does not make you position any more tenable.
Daniel. It has not escaped the the thinking amongst us, that you have committed complete Orwellian doublethink. You say with one breath that you believe in science, and yet then state that the scientific method is unethical in the case of vaccines.
You accept that proper testing is not done, but then post-hoc rationalize it and as a result commit crimestop. But do not take this to heart, since Orwell stated that only intelligent folk are capable of crimestop and doublethink.
Just want you to know that your Delphi technique will only work on some of the people some of the time.
Your organisation promotes "natural immunity" and opposes vaccination.
So, Anna, I have one question for you. What is your position on "pox parties". It's one of the most popular movements among "natural immunity" people. Are you for or against?
How about sending infected popsicles through the mail. For or against?
If you're for natural immunity you're in favour of kids catching life threatening diseases so they can get "natural immunity". Is that correct?
I don't know if you'll answer because if you told the truth it wouldn't sound "reasonable".
This is a straw man argument. A logical phalacy. Did you read Aristotle? Sure you did, that is why you employ his techniques, in reverse.
Of course, natural immunity comes from good diet, reduced toxins in the environment and an environment congenial to mental health and good routine. If you have ever got a cold sore or a cold when stressed, tired, cold or overworked, you know full well that illness is not simply a game of Russian Roulette.
What Arnica seeks to express is, that vaccination is not the only method to achieve immunity and, moreover, that it is important to analyse the side effects of pharmaceutical interventions. Particularly those used by the masses.
Daniel: this is long, sorry as I will be off line for a few days.
I do not have a science background, I am a primary school teacher and that is why I felt so outraged at the way this show simplified complex issues to children so much so that it became inaccurate. My degree is in Philosophy so I focus very much on the ethics and thinking around vaccination. As a mother I can observe, which is very much part of science, and I don't see that the vaccinated children are necessarily healthier. I have sat on Health Boards for 3 years, formerly PCTs in the UK and now GP commissioning boards, as the patient representative for public engagement. I have friends who are GPs, some are for and some are against vaccination. If I worked in Africa where children die daily I am sure I would have a different experience, I certainly would value breast feeding and clean water & sanitation and food far more, and who knows I may appreciate vaccines too.
My interest is in Natural Immunity, and will be drawn to certain initiatives – water being the number one factor in overall mortality (WHO) and Breastfeeding being the number one factor for mortality under 5s (UNICEF).
I have heard of a network in the UK where families are put in touch with each other if they want to catch certain diseases, but this has almost fizzled out now and in our network of 75 UK groups over 6 years I have not heard of anyone seeking a 'pox party'. Most parents tend not to intervene in this way and no I would not as a parent. Perhaps in the last century they did indeed and perhaps they still do in the US? Again – popsicles was a US idea and quite rightly banned.
Natural immunity starts in the womb, then is enforced during a natural birth, continues through breastfeeding, good nutrition and through managing fever. These natural supports do not necessarily stop disease, although they do stop some diseases, but a strong natural immunity reduces disease incidence, and also a healthy person is more likely to go through illness without complication. If my children needed medication or more I would not refuse it but I would use these interventions when really needed. So far we have not needed them apart from worming tablets in 10 years! If I thought vaccination was safe, effective and gave life long immunity then I would choose it for my children.
It does seem absurd sometimes to be one of the few percent who do not vaccinate at all so I continue to read and assess, go to government conferences etc etc as I have not closed up shop on my thinking. But the more I look the more absurd it is to increase the vaccination schedule. If vaccines were an exact science then every country would follow the same program, but countries develop their own schedules and individuals will react differently to drugs. One size fits all does not wash with medication.
I understand that you wouldn't randomise a trial with an established vaccine to see if it works, as with current thinking if these vaccines 'work', non vaccination may be putting children at risk of disease, but you certainly could have a control group. Not random of course, but with up to 2 million unvaccinated children in the UK with the MMR and half a million unvaccinated with anything there are large groups to choose from. When new vaccines are tested, then ethically you could have randomised control groups, but still other vaccines are given and the placebo is never benign which is unbelievable. And vaccinated groups have never officially been compared to unvaccinated groups for long term health which is surely what we all want. So vaccines do not even come under the standards for other medicines. Other medicines, some even with randomised double blind trials, do not fare so well, being the 5th leading cause of death in Europe.
Finally, trying to answer other questions. I question herd immunity as in the UK for the past 15 years our Measles vaccine coverage has been around 85%, far lower than the accepted level for herd immunity. However despite 2 million unvaccinated, the last death was in 1996 in an immune compromised traveling boy whose parents chose not to vaccinate. If I vaccinate my child in the misunderstanding that I am protecting my neighbour's children, would my neighbour support me if my child became vaccine injured?
Is this dreadful unscientific blog finally coming to an end?
Anna, your last post is a *gem*.
Let's just look at a few of your statements:
"I do not have a science background, I am a primary school teacher and that is why I felt so outraged at the way this show simplified complex issues to children so much so that it became inaccurate. My degree is in Philosophy so I focus very much on the ethics and thinking around vaccination."
So you are posting about the science of immunology, bacteriology, virology, vaccine-preventable diseases and the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases and you have no science background. You claim to be an expert on medical ethics and "thinking around vaccination", without any education/experience in science or medicine.
"My interest is in Natural Immunity, and will be drawn to certain initiatives – water being the number one factor in overall mortality (WHO) and Breastfeeding being the number one factor for mortality under 5s (UNICEF)."
What does clean water have to do with protection against vaccine-preventable diseases Anna?
Which V-P-Ds are spread through the fecal-oral route (where the lack of clean water and sanitation might have an impact in disease spread)?
Which V-P-Ds are spread through exposure to airborne droplets and/or exposure to oral secretions?
Which V-P-Ds are spread through exposure to infected blood and/or through sexual activity?
How long does maternal passive immunity transferred to the fetus a month or two before term last? What if a baby is born prematurely and has no maternal passive immunity? Just how long would maternal passive immunity be protective in a breast fed baby?
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/prinvac.pdf
"The most common form of passive immunity is that which an infant receives from its mother. Antibodies are transported across the placenta during the last 1–2 months of pregnancy. As a result, a full-term infant will have the same antibodies as its mother. These antibodies will protect the infant from certain diseases for up to a year. Protection is better against some diseases (e.g., measles, rubella, tetanus) than others (e.g., polio, pertussis"
What if the infant's mother never had the "natural disease" or never had vaccines, Anna?
Then you make this statement…
"It does seem absurd sometimes to be one of the few percent who do not vaccinate at all so I continue to read and assess, go to government conferences etc etc as I have not closed up shop on my thinking. But the more I look the more absurd it is to increase the vaccination schedule. If vaccines were an exact science then every country would follow the same program, but countries develop their own schedules and individuals will react differently to drugs. One size fits all does not wash with medication."
So you think that your deplorable lack of science education and your feeble attempts to read and interpret basic science, gives you the magical ability to blog about vaccines, eh?
Here's the NHS Schedule:
http://www.nhs.uk/Planners/vaccinations/Pages/Vaccinationchecklist.aspx
It does not vary too much from the WHO and CDC Recommended Schedules, but the WHO and the CDC both recommend Varicella and the universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccines. Hepatitis B vaccine given at birth prevents "vertical" and "horizontal" transmission of the virus to newborns and to young children. Do try to look up "horizontal transmission" of hepatitis B and also the consequences of a young child contracting the virus. (hint) The majority of the youngsters who contract the disease will be chronic carriers, with a high percentage of them dying from liver failure and/or liver cancer.
The NHS does provide varicella vaccine to certain high risk children and doctors and scientists will eventually "convince" the NHS to provide the vaccine to all children.
Here's your last statement…full of inaccuracies and indicative of your deplorable lack of knowledge about measles:
"…. However despite 2 million unvaccinated, the last death was in 1996 in an immune compromised traveling boy whose parents chose not to vaccinate. If I vaccinate my child in the misunderstanding that I am protecting my neighbour’s children, would my neighbour support me if my child became vaccine injured?"
Are you mistaken about the last death from measles, Anna or did you just pull that factoid from your fertile imagination?
Here are the statistics about reported cases and deaths directly from the HPA 1940-2008 inclusive:
http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733835814
You do know, don't you Anna, that measles is a live vaccine and that for many immune compromised children, any live vaccine is medically contraindicated?
Why are you blaming the parents of this dead boy for his death Anna. How can you be so heartless?
You are totally unqualified to blog about vaccines. You seem to think that a puppet is a real person. I also wonder about your emotional stability and your heartless atrocious blaming parents whose child died from measles, for his death.
Lilady, your post is a Gem. Basically, you are stating that Mothers have no business investigating what is good for their children and making decision for them. Essentially, you advocate the State being God, and taking full responsibility for the children.
This sounds very much like full implementation of one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto, i.e. abolition of the family unit.
In addition, it is very much the Soviet approach of rule by Council and experts. The only problem with that is, that those experts promoted by the State are only those who support government policy, for better and for worse and, the dominant players in forming government policy are the mega-corporations, since Mum's do not have enough cash to lobby government effectively.
And this is why under Communism they seek abolition of the family unit, since corporations and socialist governments seek to provide services previously provided, self sufficiently by the family unit. The ultimate tyrant seeks to replace the family unit and this is what you appear to advocate.
Given the clear conflicts of interest noted above, it is no wonder that parents everywhere are calling folk like yourself out for utter arrogance and tyrannical contempt.
Most likely you are a paid schill. That much is obvious by your use of Delphi techniques to throw people off the scent, to stop people thinking for themselves and making their own decisions.
Because that is what tyrants fear the most. Mao stated that he did not fear guns, he feared an idea. People who had ideas and followed through with them.
"You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future; not a future that will be, but one that might be. This is not a new world: It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: LOGIC IS AN ENEMY, AND TRUTH IS A MENACE".
@plannning: So I'm a *pharma shill* and a *communist*, eh?
Your unattibuted quote…is from "The Twilight Zone" a sci-fi TV show !!
“You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future; not a future that will be, but one that might be. This is not a new world: It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: LOGIC IS AN ENEMY, AND TRUTH IS A MENACEâ€.
C'mon "planning" you could do better than that…say…by providing sources from a reliable website. "The Twilight Zone TV Show" is not a reliable source.
You might want to defend Anna by providing those sources to prove that she is not fabricating her statistic conjured up in her fertile imagination.
lilady, public health nurse clinician-epidemiologist
Indeed Lilady, I consider the injection of heavy metals into children, like mercury and aluminum and, monkey kidney cells inoculated with viruses to boost their immunity to be The Twilight Zone.
I also consider the rejection of natural wholefoods for immunity and, the idea that government run our lives and run roughshod over parents as The Twilight Zone.
I did not actually call you a Communist, but stated that you are fulfilling one plank of the Communist Manifesto by rejecting the concept of Parental prerogative, replacing it instead with the justification dictatorial control over children with experts and politicians telling us what we can and cannot put into our bodies, using the force of law.
You are effectively an apologists for the Communist way. Since this also supports corporate pharmaceutical companies you also fulfill the objective of fascism, which is the merger of corporate and state powers again.
I make no apologies for suspecting you of being a paid schill for the big money interests which rake in trillions of dollars from vaccines worldwide in no-bid contracts and government mandated schedules.
Hi Anna,
I have already left on a holiday and do not have a computer with me so this will be short.
It is clear that you do not have a background in science. I'll just make a few points.
1. Your personal impressions about the health of children you see is not meaningful particularly since you are already biased towards your preferred position and whatever you see will support what you already believe.
2. If your unvaccinated children have not contracted chicken pox, mumps,measles, pertussis and other "natural" childhood diseases you might be congratulating yourself on fostering "natural immunity". They may not thank you if they, without immunity of any kind, contract the adult versions of the diseases from unvaccinated children in the future.
3. While there is such a thing as inherited immunity which is sometimes called natural immunity, it has nothing to do with most of the vaccine preventable diseases. The most common use of the term "natural immunity" these days is immunity acquired by contracting the actual illness. The immunity acquired this way is often better than what you'd get from a vaccine, but the disease does carry a downside of pain, suffering, long term effects and occasionally death.
4. What do you mean when you say "vaccine injury"? I suspect you are talking about autism. And vaccines do not cause autism. Believing it does will not make it so.
5. If I have trouble with my computer I don't get my gardener to fix it. If you don't like what science shows you could take it up with a scientist. If you believe that your uninformed opinion carries equal weight to well established science, I worry about what you are teaching your students.
6. I understand that you are sincere and like to think of yourself as reasonable but your clear lack of understanding of what the immune system is and how it works makes what you say unconvincing.
That's enough. I can't write more on this phone. I just ask the following – do what you will with your own kids, but stop preaching. If the ant-vaccine crowd wins we'll all get to discover what natural Immunity means. And none of us will like it.
And, by the way, vaccines do not cause autism and vaccines save millions of lives a year.
First of all, if you accept that lower Vitamin D levels in Autumn contribute to more cases of the flu, then you accept that nutrition and other natural factors have a role to play in immunity and you must therefore accept that nutrition and other similar issues are complementary to achieving immunity. It is very clear also that stress is a factor in illness as are a host of other external factors. Quite clearly, the body has an immune system which can be nourished or not. The vaccine industry would have you believe that you can vax and then just eat MacDonalds all day, which is nonsense. In addition, the charts are clear, infectious diseases was on massive decline prior to vaccines being introduced, and the clear cause of that improvement was hygiene. If you do not accept that hygiene is a factor then there is no hope for you. So long as you accept that principle, then it is very silly to pooh pooh complementary approaches to nutrition and natural immunity, either as part of a comprehensive or reduced vaccine schedule or, as an alternative.
But the vaccine industry, like the tobacco industry will not accept cheap alternatives to its multi-trillion dollar model and whilst Moms can lobby for hygeine and nutrition for immunity, their words unfortunately do not match the LOBBYING power of big pharma. But fortunately you do not have control over what they do at home, so they can by-pass the BS.
Finally, You state that vaccines do not cause autism without providing any citation, yet autism has only sky-rocketed since the schedule of childhood vaccines has rocketed. This can't be denied with a straight face. Autism used to be very rare and be evident very early. One case in thousands of children. The new form of autism, unprecidented in human history, doesn't begin at birth but begins round about the age of vaccination and it is one case in 50. And please. Those who state that this is normal and has no external factor, that humanity has suddenly devolved genetically are talking utter crap and should wash their mouth out with carbolic soap for abusing parent's who seek answers. Folk like you will seek another drug to solve the symptoms, whereas mothers like Anna will seek ways to address the imbalances caused by the various changes in the modern world which have caused this new trend.
And there are a clear number of mechanisms. Such as inflammation in the gut where measles vaccine virus has been found in inflamed parts of the gut associated with immunity in autistic children.
Not only that, but those following the GAPS diet (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) are healing and often coming off the autistic spectrum or at the very least progressively improving their autistic children through using diet to heal said inflammation and re-balance the gut.
The GAPS website is: http://www.gaps.me/
There is also a good video on it here: http://vimeo.com/10507542
Two links to Dr. Campbell-McBride ?
I knew her name was familiar to me and I located the science blog where her *credentials*, her *work* and her *claims* based on pseudoscience were discussed.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/?s=Dr.+Campbell-Mcbride
Scroll on down to see that I posted on that blog…several times.
She is not licensed to practice medicine in the U.K. She is ignorant of gut pathology which she claims she is an expert in. She has never published her research to back up her *cures* of autism and she sells snake oil supplements to credulous patients and credulous parents.
Try again "planning", we are not impressed.
Complete slander and nonsense. Dr. Natasha is a medical doctor with two postgraduate medical degrees. One in Neurology, another in Human Nutrition. Since she doesn't work with the NHS she doesn't need an NHS licence to operate her private practice. Lies and slander from you.
Do you work for a Pharma company in their public relations dept? Freaked out about Dr Natasha treating folk with natural wholefoods. You say, snake oil supplements, ehem, she developed a probiotic sold by Protexin. That was it and we all know probiotics are immune supporting. The only other supplements she encourages are wholefood supplements like, seaweed, cod liver oil, fish oil, the aim of which is to resolve nutritional deficiencies. Oh, you freak, you will now tell me that nutritional deficiencies have nothing to do with illness? That only drugs will save the day?
Fortunately nobody listens to dis-info agents like you, and there is a vast network now of GAPS Practitioners and mothers who follow the simple principles of good diet, who, like their ancestors before them, treat their children by healing the gut with natural wholefoods. They recognizing, like Hippocrates, the connection between gut health and general health, including mental health.
They are, daily, depleting your paymasters of long suffering customers and soon you will have no customers left and will be as bankrupt as your forked tongue because as your algorithms show, you know that this knowledge is expanding exponentially, which is why people like you are paid to put people off the scent on forums like this.
Just recognize that this inhumane activity will provide you terrible providence. Remember that you reap what you sow. You probably even believe your own hyperbole and are suffering right now from completely avoidable ailments.
Campbell-McBride is not a licensed medical doctor in the U.K. She is an alternative medicine *practitioner* who markets her snake oil to patients and credulous parents who seek *treatments/cures* for their kids' autism.
Do'h I didn't slander her. Even in the U.K. slander is defined as *spoken* defamation and libel is defined as written defamation.
You have in fact libeled me by calling me a *Pharma Shill* and a Communist.
Do try to keep in touch with reality…you are just as delusional as "Arnica" who gets bent out of shape about a puppet, with your libelous labeling of me with a quote from "The Twilight Zone TV Show".
Have you got any more scripts from Sci-Fi TV shows, the bible or the Communist Manifesto, that you wish to defame/libel me?
Thanks for playing pseudoscience Bingo with me.
Lilady. Only a schill would call the treating of disease with natural wholefood a snake oil activity. What you have done is a character assassination (concurrent with Delphi technique)
You have completely evaded the simple suggestion that natural wholefoods, vitamins, minerals and probiotics, that they can benefit immunity.
Also, you and your ilk have made very weak arguments about how heavy metals in vaccines are fine. Making no consideration for how, spread across the nation that some people will have an allergic reaction even to small amounts of mercury and aluminum being injected into their veins. This should come as no surprise, since some people have anaphalactic shock with tiny amounts of peanut on the tongue.
You also have completely failed to even address my issue with cancer cells from monkey kidneys being used to culture virus used in the swine flu vaccine.
– http://www.bild.de/news/bild-english/news/does-virus-vaccine-increase-risk-of-cancer-9295686.bild.html
But I am sure, given you are clearly well trained, that you will will continue with straw man arguments and evading of clearly sensible concerns that any Parent should have the right to ask.
OK, Lilady, from Dr Natasha's website. Yes, she is currently an alternative practitioner BUT has spent five years as a practicing Neurosurgeon and five years as a Neurologist. She operated in Russia. Are you racist against Russian practitioners?
"Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride is a medical doctor with two postgraduate degrees: Master of Medical Sciences in Neurology and Master of Medical Sciences in Human Nutrition."
"She graduated as a medical doctor in Russia. After practising for five years as a Neurologist and three years as a Neurosurgeon she started a family and moved to the UK, where she got her second postgraduate degree in Human Nutrition."
http://www.doctor-natasha.com/dr-natasha.php
Look up the difference between "nutritionist" and dietician in the U.K.
In the U.K. as in the United States "Registered Dietician" is a "protected professional title" for those individuals who have real degrees and qualify to be a registered dietician.
Anyone can call themselves a "nutritionist" and according to her website she knows nothing about gut pathology.
She's not a licensed doctor in the U.K. and she calls herself a "nutritionist".
So now I am a "racist", eh? You're resorting to defamation because you're shilling for this quack who has no professional licensing in medicine or as a registered dietician in the U.K.
Lilady, you are ignorant of the situation in the UK.
Dieticians are a specific area of diatetics who tend to work in the NHS, and they simply regurgitate the official government dietary guidelines, on whole. They are registered. However, in the UK, Nutritionists are not registered, indeed there is no state regulation of them so, she does not have the option to be registered thus, this is a straw man argument.
You state that she is not a medical doctor, yet she was a registered medical doctor in Russia and she successfully runs a private clinic now following a further postgrad medical degree in nutrition which she combined with her specialism in neurology. My claims of racism referred to whether you are inherently against Russian doctors who are successful enough to have a thriving private practice, a network of trained therapists and to be a published author who developed a probiotics company?
What exactly, Lilady, have you achieved in your life that makes you pompus enough to poo poo somebody of such accolade. She at least deserves to have a fair hearing, particularly with all the testimonials.
Obviously your claim that she knows nothing about gut pathologies is nonsense and the truth is that you disagree with her point of view, but you are disingenuous in expressing that this way rather than just applying Delphi techniques to throw people of the scent, so that people go to the default position of purchasing expensive drugs from your paymasters or allowing their governments to do it on their behalf.
Lilady, you sound like you are American.
I have a question for you. Are you against the First Amendment? Also, do you talk to friends like this with such manipulative techniques or, do you not get invited to dinner parties?
She has no "specialism" in neurology…if she is "acting" as a doctor…then she's illegally practicing medicine without a license. She has no professional licensing in any field in the U.K.
I, OTH, am a Licensed Registered Nurse and I practice evidenced-based nursing.
You have libeled me repeatedly, because you a *shilling* for *Big Quackery*.
Lilady, you repetition makes no credence to your B.S. Natasha has a Posgrad Medical Degree in Neurology and, unlike tyrannical USA, Private British nutritionists and private practice practitioners like Natasha do not need a license. Government doctors, i.e. General Practitioners do.
Basically, you are making a straw man argument because you are demanding she have a licence which not only she does not need but, in Britain, since we are a more free country than USA, you can't even get that.
So can you please quit the moronic nonsense posts and maybe say something intelligent to counter her actual arguments rather than using the Delphi Technique of character assassination. I bet they taught you well at CIA college. A two day course in Co-intel-pro and you come out with this crap? Well, I guess this is enough to send people off the scent, which is what your ilk attempt to do by hyjacking threads in this way, sending folk down mindless rabbit holes,,
,, because what you don't want, what you are paid to avoid, is discussions about the case studies and theories about how nutrition is more powerful than the junk drugs peddled by multi-billion corporations who we are supposed to think are completely altruistic with no profit motive to corrupt their activities.
@ planning: Still shilling for the unlicensed medical doctor who "practices" as a nutritionist…not a licensed registered dietician?
Campbell-McBride claims to have been licensed as a medical doctor whose specialty was neurology. She also claims that throughout her years of practice as a neurologist…she never "saw an autistic person"….which is sheer unadulterated b.s.
She does NOT qualify as a professional licensed health care provider in the U.K., or in the United States.
Where's "Arnica"? Has she just disappeared after I and other posters ripped all her "theories" and "credential" to shreds?
Lilady, you are a freaking idiot, repeating nonsense. I have told you that Nutritionists do not need to be licensed dieticians in the UK and, Natasha was a licensed doctor in neurology in, I think, Russia. Again, so fearful of discussing the potential that whole food nutrition could be better than the drugs you peddle as a nurse, you default to character assassination. Here is the headline, you are not very good at it.
Maybe Anna got bored with your inane ramblings because you refuse to discuss any of the aspects that we put forward.
I personally know countless parents who have discarded angry folk like you to use whole food nutrition to bring their children off the autistic spectrum. Working with the body to deal with the gut inflammation Dr Wakefield identified in the gut, associated with MMR vaccine damage.
Clearly you are one of the new breed of medical "professionals" who delight in the discarding of the Hippocratic Oath. Since Hippocrates believed all disease begins in the gut, you will be delighted that we have progressed from that quackery towards pure science and hard core drug prescription. This trend is nothing to do with corporate profit, no, you are a true believer.
Thanks so much for all your inane posts. Your defense of Arnica only proves that she is unqualified to post as a science blogger.
Just keeping posting your rants…we are so enjoying them.
Lilady, of course, you do not need a qualification to have an adult conversation about concepts. Your default to this is because you have nothing to say about using whole food nutrition to deal with autism, etc. because you are wedded to the corporate pharmaceutical system.
However, if you believe your own baloney, you are at great risk of suffering degenerative disease yourself so, at least for your own sake, even if you do not let on about it, check out some of the things Dr Natasha suggests about using natural wholefoods to help heal the body. We are talking here about nutrient dense foods, probiotics, and the elimination of toxins and processed refined foods.
The nature of your posts suggest to me that you probably eat toxic, processed foods. No doubt, you do not take efforts to avoid GMO. Maybe the layers of disease this causes have caused you to take multiple pharmaceutical drugs, or at least may lead to that when you get older. Please, if not for yourself, at least for your family, look into this.
Lilady, is this you, vehemently defending corporate pharma? Raging against parents and thinking people everywhere?
How much do they pay you to do this? How much training do you get? Do you enjoy it?
http://blogs.forbes.com/people/lilady/
Lilady,
Planning is way out there and I'm not sure anyone else is reading this conversation. Anna will probably read it when she gets home, but she's also out of reach. If you're on Facebook have a look at my page at http://www.facebook.com/antiantivaccine. I'm trying to explore ways we can counter the success the crazies are having. A recent survey revealed that 20% of Americans believe vaccines cause autism. That's a scary statistic. Hopefully there are more productive things to do with your time than argue with planning.
@ Daniel:
I know "Arnica" has abandoned her blog in the face of overwhelming evidence that she is totally unqualified to blog about vaccines…and in the face of our catching her in blatant fabrications.
I continued to post at "planning" just to read his/her rants, delusions, libelous statements, spectacular ignorance about gut pathology and the outright "shilling" for an unlicensed doctor/nutritionist quack.
The unattibuted "quote" from The Twilight Zone TV series was "a bonus".
Sorry Daniel but "I don't 'do' Facebook", but you can find me on most of the science blogs. 🙂
You have still failed to address even the possibility that Hippocrates was right, that all disease begins in the gut or even the suggestion that a whole foods natural diet could possibly provide natural immunity. Again, you are just a downright insincere person who lacks any tact or care for alternative points of view.
And you have failed to address the possibility that human knowledge has advanced a bit in the last 2000 years. Most of your claims would have been right at home in ancient Greece.
Daniel. What you fail to understand is, that whilst technology has advanced, humans have not had enough time to evolve to adapt to processed junk food. Moreover, if we ever did, we would be a warped species with a fraction of the intellect and abilities we have today. This, whilst we can utilise technology, we must understand that a natural wholefoods diet and hygiene are just as important, if not more important to immunity than for profit drugs. If a Parent rejects MacDonalds and feeds her child organic food and nourishes them well then, unlike the fellow at the fast food joint, clearly they need less intervention, and that is simply the point Arnica attempt to make alongside a healthy criticism of the use of certain ingredients and methods in vaccines. Funny how I can criticize the use of factory farmed meat at MacDonalds and get away with it but, am not allowed, by tyrants like you to question the use of heavy metals, formaldehyde and cancerous monkey kidney cells in vaccines, injected into children.
I quite understand not doing Facebook. I'll see you on a blog or two. I usually blog as chaostica.
We should all be able to question any medical procedure, and legally in the UK we can refuse vaccines. Lay persons and patients all have access to the drug/vaccine insert, we have choices and we have a legitimate voice.
Patient choice and experience is the third strand of Evidence based medicine or EBM, as coined by David Sackett, and outcomes are better if the patient is included in the choices for treatment. Patients / public are finally being recognised far more in the health white paper in the UK. The Clinical commissioners HAVE to have a member of the public on the board, as do various other health boards, and their meetings will be in public. The other strands are clinical expertise and research of course. And many patient lead groups like Talk Allergy and the Encephalitis Association are patient founded and lead and are the main link on NHS choices. The term Expert Patient is well founded in some cases.
Phase IV testing is very important as the drug/vaccine goes live and is used not just on healthy volunteers but people with their individual pictures, susceptibilities, other lifestyle choices and prescriptions medications etc etc. It is here that the Yellow Card reporting system to the MHRA in the UK (totally funded by the pharma industry) is totally inadequate. Reports are not followed up with vaccines unless the family claim under the vaccine damage payment fund and here is the problem… legal aid is nearly impossible to get for vaccine claims. Won't bore you with why.
All the boring blurb above is just to say that although I have no science or medical background, I have not claimed otherwise, and my voice is valid. If I was a new GP training now I would only have 2-3 hours on pharmacovigilance which is not very much, and around a day on nutrition. It is not correct to assume that the layperson is ignorant and the GP knows it all. There is much room in between.
We should always question any medical product offered to us, especially as ADRs from pharmaceuticals are the 5th leading cause of death in Europe. Vaccines are not golden and apart from any other pharma product. They are never tested against benign placebo and the long term outcomes are not assessed.
Children who have the MMR may have more than a scratch on the arm and they still may contract one of the diseases. The risk has been assessed officially for us that the MMR is worth having but the actual details, so we can assess our own risk, should never be left out or worse, lied about… even to children. The BBC was wrong in my opinion.
It's true that legal aid is very hard to get. It is also true that spurious claims being made around the time Andrew Wakefield published his fairytales delayed many individuals with real vaccine injuries to get compensation.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2190391/Panel-rules-MMR-jab-girl-deaf–payout.html
Further, I have a question for the editors of this site: why is someone with, admittedly, no background in science writing "science" pieces? It does little for your site's credibility.
We have open minds and like to see all things that are 'accepted' questionned from time to time.
The vast majority of people that now openly question the actions of politicians and bankers as well as some decisions by judges are qualified in none of those disciplines but we let it by.
The medical profession has the very unique trust of the people in the UK and for some reason must never be questionned, why is this? After all, apart from a few volunteers, all of the players get paid or benefit financially from the treatments that are handed out.
The big difference between the medical profession and others is the playing of the medical qualification 'red card' when the questionning gets a bit too difficult to answer.
And, at the end of the day, the more money a bank loans out the more money it makes for its share holders and the same holds true for big pharma, the more pills and treatments they sell the better (and look at the way they enforce their patents, which affects the lives of those in poor countries-it all comes down to money).
We have already seen that some dentists put money ahead of patients:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1379417/Are-seeing-dentist-Pointless-X-rays-needless-check-ups-adding-rip-off.html
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/05may/Pages/oft-dental-charges-and-complaints.aspx
so we feel quite comfortable in putting other points of view.
Thank you administrator,Â
I did not expect to see you here. Once I saw that this was a post from the magazine itself I expected a response that suggested that your publishing this article was in the interests of "balance". That response is a typical media response to presenting the views of a suburban psychic so as to balance those of a Nobel Lauriet Physicist. It's what is also known as "false balance" or, more accurately, bad journalism. It is simply an indication that the journalist, or in this case journal, hasn't bothered to do his or her job.Â
On further reading I see that this isn't the case. You have clearly decided to not attempt to be unbiased. That's your right of course, though it's always better when your bias is clearly stated. I, for instance, am biased in favour of the scientific process and evidence.Â
It's clear from your reply that you feel that simply because thousands of people in many disciplines have devoted their lives to finding out the best way to protect ourselves from disease, a school teacher without any training whatsoever has equal, if not more, weight.Â
In searching your magazine I found quite a number of anti-vaccine articles but nothing that would really count as pro-vaccine, so apparently you have a barrow to push. Your bias is clearly showing my dear.
And by the way, all those mechanical engineers are being paid by Big Structures. Shouldn't you publish an article from your local plumber about how that bridge is bound to fall down?
Daniel, this is really getting tiresome. Admin explained that the scientists and doctors have a conflict of interest, which is why it is healthy to question their actions.
Even Quantum Physics admits that observations at the quantum level are affected by the observer. A multi-trillion profit incentive is a good example of that.
I do not need a degree in medicine to know that mercury and aluminum, even in small doses can be harmful to an immune compromised individual prone to allergies and, Mother's, due to their love and care and lack of a profit incentive are in a unique position to make decisions for their children.
"Patient choice and experience is the third strand of Evidence based medicine or EBM, as coined by David Sackett, and outcomes are better if the patient is included in the choices for treatment"
Those guidelines "as coined by David Sackett" http://www.hsl.unc.edu/services/tutorials/ebm/whatis.htm are provided for health care providers.
But you are not an evidence-based health care provider Arnica.
You are as anti-vaccine as they come, Anna:
http://www.arnica.org.uk/arnica-groups/arnica-group
The rest of your statement is just more garbled anti-vaccine themes, that are not based in evidence-based medicine, as advocated and promulgated by David Sackett.
@ adminstrator & Arnica:
The subject of this blog (supposedly) is vaccine-preventable-diseases and the vaccines they prevent.
Administrator, you have raised extraneous issues in a futile effort to shield Anna from the criticism of her preposterous premise of attacking a puppet employed to explain immunizations against vaccine-preventable-diseases, to children.
Your choice of this particularly blogger "Arnica" who is anti-vaccination and who has no science background in immunology and the epidemiology of VPDs is "telling".
Some of the posters here have science backgrounds and have requested that Anna/Arnica document some of her bizarre statements…including this one:
"“…. However despite 2 million unvaccinated, the last death was in 1996 in an immune compromised traveling boy whose parents chose not to vaccinate. If I vaccinate my child in the misunderstanding that I am protecting my neighbour’s children, would my neighbour support me if my child became vaccine injured?â€
I asked Anna/Arnica for documentation in the form of Government statistics for the number of cases of measles and the number of deaths. She just ignored my request.
I then provided the statistics about reported cases and deaths from measles 1940-2008 inclusive in this HPA link:
http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733835814
How about opening my link to verify that contrary to Arnica's claim there were no deaths from measles in 1996, but there were 16 measles deaths 1997-2008 inclusive?
16 measles deaths over that period? In that case it must be one of the smallest possible causes of death imaginable. In a population of 60million, 16 deaths is not even statistically significance, and if you claim to be a scientist, surely statistics is a factor in epidemiology?! Hipocracy I tell you.
We are talking one in a four million chance of dying from measles and, given that those who die are generally immune compromised, death is almost a zero chance for the majority of healthy people.
Certainly NO REASON to vilify mothers who are against injecting heavy metals into their children's blood stream. There is no justification for abusing parental rights over this. The HYSTERIA is clearly profit driven and your statistics prove outright that you are completely disingenuous.
90 people in USA are killed every year by bee stings. Should we spent billions of dollars there to provide every child with a mobile lightening rod?
I know this table but we read / understand it differently.
For the last 20 years, since 1992, nearly one older person every year has died from late complications with measles true. If this is significant to you then that is your professional and educated opinion, but it does not seem cost effective or otherwise to vaccinate healthy children with a million doses of the MMR each year, surely. While millions of children have been living in the UK without the MMR in these 20 years 2 children have died from acute measles but look at the state of their immunity. Any infection unfortunately could have done the same.
http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733835814
"In 2006 there was one measles death in a 13 years old male who had an underlying lung condition and was taking immunosuppressive drugs. Another death in 2008 was also due to acute measles in unvaccinated child with congenital immunodeficiency whose condition did not require treatment with immunoglobulin. Prior to 2006, the last death from acute measles was in 1992.
All other measles deaths, since 1992, shown above are in older individuals and were caused by the late effects of measles. These infections were acquired during the 1980s or earlier, when epidemics of measles occurred.
Graph: Measles notifications and deaths in England and Wales, 1940-2008
1 in 60,000,000 chance?
1 in a billion chance I'd inject any quantity of mercury or aluminum as part of a vaccine to protect against that. 1 in a trillion chance I would condone my hard earned cash spent to deal with this issue when tens of thousands die each year from not having enough cash to buy fuel, many children living in Britain in fuel poverty specifically due to farces like this.
Did I hear opportunity cost? Again, Lilady will claim she is scientific, yet she ignores official safety data sheets which clearly state mercury and aluminum to be completely toxic.
Arnica: You didn't read the link I provided incorrectly and your last statement in defense of your anti-vaccine stance is absurd…
Here from the NHS website, complications of measles:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Measles/Pages/Complications.aspx
Here from the NHS website, complications of Mumps:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Mumps/Pages/Complications.aspx
Here from the NHS website, complications of Rubella:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Rubella/Pages/Introduction.aspx
You're as anti-vaccine as they come. You have absolutely no science background whatsoever and you are totally unable to defend your utterly preposterous claim that you are "concerned" about a puppet educating little kids about immunizations against serious, sometimes deadly, VPDs.
Next you will say I am vaccine-phobic, in your dreadful use of neuro-linguistic-programming to throw people off the scent.
No, I am a sentient human being who has done my own person risk assessment. God provided me free will and you are a tyrant who does not believe me qualified to make a qualified decision.
You may wish government and big pharma to make a decision on my behalf but I will shove it where the sun don't shine.
Thanks for this ridiculous article. I've blogged a response:
http://www.skepticat.org/2012/12/daft-complaint-to-the-bbc-by-anti-vax-activists/
Well done Skepticat.
Anna Watson has given us who are pro-vaccines (yes we *own up* to our stance about VPDs prevention), and who understand immunology, virology, bacteriology and epidemiology, to speak out about the anti-vaccine movement.
I've provided you with the NHS sites that detail the complications of measles, mumps and rubella, for kids whose credulous parents deny their children MMR vaccines…thus putting babies too young to have received the NHS recommended 2-shot MMR series, and kids who have valid medical contraindications to receive the vaccine, at risk.
Your continued support of the disgrace former medical doctor Andrew Wakefield is "telling".
I'd glad contribute to a fund to repatriate Wakefield back to the U.K….we have an ample supply of our own home-grown quacks in the U.S.A.
Sentient human? who says that? lol
The term "Big Pharma" is used by anti-vaccinationists without any understanding of the issue … being 'sentient' doesn't equate to being intelligent and using god to justify an opinion is laughable.
I can see clearly that you lack the understanding of the issue as you are simply quoting from the anti-vaccination textbook without understanding .. you ingest more toxins in one day of your life than you get in the whole (total) childhood immunisation regime.
Failing to immunise can also cause DEATH. These are not benign childhood diseases, these are diseases that maim and kill. A normal thinking adult doing a risk / benefit analysis will always choose to immunise.
The administrator said,
"The medical profession…for some reason must never be questionned, why is this?"
Apart from being hogwash, the above is a non sequitur. Anna Watson's piece is not questioning the medical profession, it is criticising a TV puppet show aimed at reassuring infants about a process that their parents may or may not choose for them but which is in line with both Department of Health and World Health Organisation policy. Anna fails to tell us what terrible consequences she thinks could result from the programme and, since publicising the article on my blog, I'm unsurprised to see that both Dr Ranj and the CBeebies facebook page have been inundated with messages of support from outraged parents who agree that the article is execrable nonsense.
It beggars belief that this article appears in the ST&E section of your website and indicates that you're out of your depth on those topics.
I am so glad this thread and article has been brought to my attention.
As an Oxford graduate the one thing I learned very quickly when I entered the corporate world was big money buys results, even scientific results and can manipulate historical stats.
So you trust vaccinations and the corporate drugs industry because they have satisfied governmental and international safety protocols and adhered to policy?
Has anyone else noticed the embarrassing lengths that the pro-vaccination advocates on this thread are determined are prepared to go to in order to prevent anyone from even questioning blind faith in the global multi-billion dollar vaccination industry?
Slightly suspect why the comment sections of sites like this get filled with almost religious zeal from the pro-vaccination lobby.
I detect vested interests and money at play here seeing as the usual 'Your argument is flawed' backed up by a straw-man argument is at at the forefront of the criticism.
Several million dollars a year (conservative estimate) are spent by drugs companies on recruiting graduates to comment on posts such as this and setting up so called independent blogs to defend their positions.
How do I know this? because I paid off my student debts in 3 months prior to graduation by commenting and setting up blogs to do just this.
One of the preferred methods of attack taught to us was to attack the reputation of the site within the thread in order to nullify the argument of the author.
Many children have been seriously hurt by inoculations (there is no doubt of this) yet there is no acceptance of this from the pro-vaccination lobby and actually denied such findings within this thread.
Why is it that a primary school teacher is being attacked in such a vigorous way? Just because an individual is not an expert in a given field does not mean they don't have the right or the ability to express an opinion.
Most journalists do a generic training yet find themselves quoted as authorities in fields which they have no expertise in.
Do you think newsreaders are experts in the contents of the autocue they read?
Brave move to post this article Economic voice, you will make lots of enemies by doing so but only the right kind of enemies.
Anna you have ruffled some feathers, keep it up.
I have no more to add to this thread and no desire to respond to derogatory slurs or provide any further proof of my credentials from anonymous individuals who for some reason take it upon themselves to spend hours discrediting legitimate opinions held by many people.
As I said, this smacks of a corporate attack.
Hello Toby
Thank you for informing us that you are an Oxford graduate.This is presumably to make us think you must be an intelligent person who speaks with authority – otherwise, why mention it? You certainly don't need to be one to know that "big money buys results, even scientific results and can manipulate historical stats". Most of us know that already.
What you should have learned at Oxford is that an argument stands or falls on its own merits, regardless of who is making the argument or why.
You've made some rather curious observations about this thread which, as far as I can see, has attracted only about a dozen individual commenters, about half of whom are critical of the article. This is what you call being "filled with almost religious zeal from the pro-vaccination lobby"? Anyone expressing disagreement with this article is apparently, in your view, a member of the pro-vaccination lobby going to an "embarrassing length" and probably in the pay of Big Pharma.
Overreact much?
By the way, nobody has used the word 'flawed' except you. The only person using the word 'fallacy' was planning4acrash, who is on your side. And until you specify which particular argument you think is a straw man, we can safely dismiss that charge as so much waffle.
You claim you commented on and set up blogs because you were paid by drugs companies to do so. If that's true then shame on you. If, as I believe, it is a desperate fabrication, then shame on you. Either way, you flag up of your lack of integrity. How lucky for the, erm, 'anti-vax lobby' that they have you on their side.
Now, to deal with the silly points you attempt to make:
Nobody has said Anna Watson doesn't have a right to express an opinion. In fact, she does this ad nauseum on her own website and elsewhere on the web. What is being challenged here is:
(1) The content of her article and her interpretation of a children's TV programme;
(2) The fact that this site, which appears to be a serious news site, should carry such an article of such poor quality. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a well-reasoned piece.
(3) I myself challenged the fact that it is carried in the science section. Anna's article focuses on the ethics of a kid's show. She is not a scientist and makes no scientific arguments whatsoever.
Your comments about journalists and newsreaders are complete non sequiturs. I shouldn't need to explain why, you being an Oxford graduate an' all. (Did you, perchance, mean Oxford poly? Sorry, but I simply can't believe you've had a top uni education with arguments like that!)
You say, "Anna you have ruffled some feathers, keep it up."
Yes, that's exactly what I told her in my blog (which, you may like to note, Anna herself described as a "very good rebuttal"). The more these bad arguments and conspiracy theories are aired; the more ridiculous anti-vaxers look and the more they are marginalised.
Nice work. Thanks.
Yes, shame on me.
"So you trust vaccinations and the corporate drugs industry because they have satisfied governmental and international safety protocols and adhered to policy?"
I trust vaccines because I understand the science of immunology and disease epidemiology/consequences of not vaccinating..and because there exists very intensive ongoing mechanisms in place to monitor the safety of vaccines:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Vaccine_Monitoring/Index.html
"Has anyone else noticed the embarrassing lengths that the pro-vaccination advocates on this thread are determined are prepared to go to in order to prevent anyone from even questioning blind faith in the global multi-billion dollar vaccination industry?"
What embarrassing lengths do you mean? I readily admit to being "pro-vaccination" and pro public health and pro science. I have provided links to reliable websites. You, OTH, have provided zero links to your uneducated opinions.
"I detect vested interests and money at play here seeing as the usual ‘Your argument is flawed’ backed up by a straw-man argument is at at the forefront of the criticism.
Several million dollars a year (conservative estimate) are spent by drugs companies on recruiting graduates to comment on posts such as this and setting up so called independent blogs to defend their positions.
How do I know this? because I paid off my student debts in 3 months prior to graduation by commenting and setting up blogs to do just this.
One of the preferred methods of attack taught to us was to attack the reputation of the site within the thread in order to nullify the argument of the author."
You are accusing doctors and nurses of indulging in criminal behavior and risking their livelihood and their professional licenses…just because you claim you were part of a criminal scheme. Project much?
Unlike you, I didn't resort to criminal activities to pay off my university tuition and unlike you who are unlicensed…I'd never risk my livelihood and my professional license for this "grand international conspiracy".
"Many children have been seriously hurt by inoculations (there is no doubt of this) yet there is no acceptance of this from the pro-vaccination lobby and actually denied such findings within this thread."
Citations desperately needed here…from reputable first tier, peer reviewed medical journals to provide us the numbers of children who were seriously hurt by vaccines-versus-the number of children who were seriously hurt…or who died as, a result of not receiving those immunizations.
"Why is it that a primary school teacher is being attacked in such a vigorous way? Just because an individual is not an expert in a given field does not mean they don’t have the right or the ability to express an opinion."
Could it be that Arnica chose a puppet show, to base this whole nonsensical anti-vaccine blog on?
Could it be that Arnica's *opinion* is not based on science and she has been given a platform for her crank anti-vaccine *opinion*?
Hi Toby,
Have you ever heard of an "argument from authority"? I guess not. Your comment has been pretty thoroughly dissected by the previous two comments, but I do feel the need to say a thing or two.
First, if you want to be taken seriously do not start by saying that you're an Oxford graduate. You are attempting to inflate your importance before you have even begun to make a case. Then when your case is weak you sound foolish. I note you don't say anything about what you studied at Oxford. It can't be science because you appear to be ignorant of science and I hope it's not English because your grammar is atrocious in parts.
Second, you say you paid off your student loans in 3 months as a big pharma shill. That suggests that Big Pharma pays extraordinarily well for what is pretty obviously unskilled labour. While pharma shills certainly exist, the PR industry exists for that purpose, it's surprising that they would hire someone who knows exceptionally little about the topic and seems devoid of relevant skills at such exorbitant rates.
In either case you are attempting to speak from unchallengeable authority. You seem to believe that your authority should be the final word on the subject, yet you make your case very poorly and offer no citations to back up your assertions. All you offer is your Oxford/criminal past, and Toby, that is not enough.
You finish by saying you won't offer proof of your credentials. This leads me to believe you've aired this tired argument before and people haven't believed you. Well, it's happened again. But whether you are an Oxford graduate or have ever been a pharma shill are utterly irrelevant.
You're welcome back if you have anything to say, but for now you have added nothing to the discussion.
Dean Burnett has also written a response to this article in the Guardian.
It's entitled: When preschool entertainment and vaccination controversy collide
Dear me.. Anna Watson/Arnica isn't going to be too happy with that Guardian article. 🙂
The Guardian? such a reputable paper, I'll take my chances with anna first darlings 🙂
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/03/paedophilia-bringing-dark-desires-light
Got any proper arguments?
Of course she has no "proper arguments" Skepticat. And if Anna Watson had any proper arguments or citations from reliable sources, to mitigate the damages to "her career", she would have presented them already.
Wow. ""Adult sexual attraction to children is part of the continuum of human sexuality; it's not something we can eliminate,"" They actually say that. Of course, back in the day, parents would murder any adult who fiddled with their children and the police would turn a blind eye.
I spent a while in Africa and asked the locals how the children were free to play in the streets and run around unsupervised. He said, that if anybody lays a finger on them, well, basically, they get put six feet under.
But this is a good article to share, since it is another example of the general acceptance of child cruelty becoming normalized. Pumping mercury and aluminum into children prior to their immune function being developed is a similar thing to these evil bastards here who are attempting to normalize pedophilia and have it accepted.
It is a shame that nobody took out Saville early on. Had somebody shot him maybe it would be a sign to all the others high up in the BBC, Judiciary, royalty and health service who were part of his pedophile ring.
Another crackpot blog trying to scare people into thinking that vaccinations are more harmful than the actual diseases. I am all for freedom of speech when it is intelligent but DANGEROUS articles such as this should not be allowed to be published. Its because of this that the death rate of preventable diseases has increased. People with no concious that by not vaccinating and getting herd immunity that they are leaving those with health conditions that mean they are unable to vaccinate at serious risk
I support free speech "BUT".
Well in that case, you should support others contravening your free speech, and you should consent to me telling you to not talk. By the same logic. Unless of course if you declare yourself Queen of England.
I'm *wondering* why Anna Watson/Arnica has abandoned this blog?
Could it be that complaints lodged against Dr. Ranj, the pediatrician that Anna Watson/Arnica viciously attacked, did not warrant an investigation?
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/enforcement/broadcast-bulletins/obb221/obb221.pdf
Seriously what is this world coming too? Its a bloody childrens programme to make kids more at ease with going to the doctor! People need to get a life! Its puppets no real children,my sons love the show and I think its really good for children to watch!