Posted on 02/11/2015 9:10:08 AM PST by iowamark
The current controversy over whether parents should be forced to have their children vaccinated for measles is one of the painful signs of our times.
Measles was virtually wiped out in the United States, years ago. Why the resurgence of this disease now?
The short answer is that false claims, based on other false claims, led many parents to stop getting their children vaccinated against measles.
The key false claim was that the vaccine for measles caused an increase in autism. This claim was made in 1998 by a doctor writing in a distinguished British medical journal, so it is understandable that many parents took it seriously, and did not want to run the risk of having their child become autistic.
Fortunately, others took the claim seriously in a very different sense. They did massive studies involving half a million children in Denmark and 2 million children in Sweden.
These studies showed that there was no higher incidence of autism among children who had been vaccinated than among children who had not been vaccinated.
Incidentally, the “evidence” on which the original claim that vaccines caused autism was based was just 12 children....
Unfortunately, it takes time to run careful scientific studies, involving vast numbers of children in different countries. That allowed the propaganda against vaccines to go on for years...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
“The key false claim was that the vaccine for measles caused an increase in autism. This claim was made in 1998 by a doctor writing in a distinguished British medical journal, so it is understandable that many parents took it seriously, and did not want to run the risk of having their child become autistic.”
Investigations by Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer reported that Andrew Wakefield, the author of the original research paper, had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest,[2][3] had manipulated evidence,[4] and had broken other ethical codes. The Lancet paper was partially retracted in 2004, and fully retracted in 2010, when The Lancet’s editor-in-chief Richard Horton described it as “utterly false” and said that the journal had been “deceived.”[5] Wakefield was found guilty by the General Medical Council of serious professional misconduct in May 2010 and was struck off the Medical Register, meaning he could no longer practice as a doctor in the UK.[6] In 2011, Deer provided further information on Wakefield’s improper research practices to the British medical journal, BMJ, which in a signed editorial described the original paper as fraudulent.[7][8] The scientific consensus is that no evidence links the MMR vaccine to the development of autism, and that this vaccine’s benefits greatly outweigh its risks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy
“Fortunately, others took the claim seriously in a very different sense. They did massive studies involving half a million children in Denmark and 2 million children in Sweden.”
It’s called “mopping up” and is one of the reasons the “settled science” paradigm is hard to break. In our time of apathy + stupidity + drugged up + spiritual illiteracy + political manipulation through media and education paradigms are probably unassailable. I know three kids who were fine before vaccinations and became autistic after. That tells me a lot more than this socially motivated/situated research. Before anyone tries to tell me how stupid and unscientific I am, read Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Right. And Vioxx was perfectly safe until it was proven to cause heart attacks. I don’t believe the mainstream medical press any more than the MSM. Vaccines are a goldmine for Big Pharma.
Hey, giving birth the natural way 100 years ago meant a very high mortality rate for both mother and child. But it was the “natural” thing to do.
Some parents to be are still choosing natural child birth and sometimes the results are tragic.
It was junk science that the doctor based his “study” on. As a result, millions of kids are at risk.
I’m really surprised by how uncritical people are of science.
“At least in the mature sciences, answers (or full substitutes for answers) to questions like these are firmly embedded in the educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice.”
“For these men the new theory implies a change in the rules governing the prior practice of normal science. Inevitably, therefore, it reflects upon much scientific work they have already successfully completed. That is why a new theory, however special its range of application, is seldom or never just an increment to what is already known.”
Thomas Kuhn, who is a scientist. Unlike Thomas Sowell.
Unfortunately, a kid sick with measles will make other kids sick including those who were immunized. The kids who were immunized will be less sick but will be sick just the same. And what about people who have compromised immune systems.
The rule of a true libertarian should be: I can do whatever I want as long as it doesn’t harm you or anyone else. Unfortunately, this rule doesn’t always apply and their actions do end up hurting others.
“And Vioxx was perfectly safe until it was proven to cause heart attacks.”
In 2005, advisory panels in both the U.S. and Canada encouraged the return of rofecoxib to the market, stating that rofecoxib’s benefits outweighed the risks for some patients. The FDA advisory panel voted 17-15 to allow the drug to return to the market despite being found to increase heart risk. The vote in Canada was 12-1, and the Canadian panel noted that the cardiovascular risks from rofecoxib seemed to be no worse than those from ibuprofen—though the panel recommended that further study was needed for all NSAIDs to fully understand their risk profiles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib
“Right. And Vioxx was perfectly safe until it was proven to cause heart attacks.”
Not quite, but your point is a good one.
In this case the link between vioxx and increased chance for heart problems was determined in long range large number studies.
And that is exactly how the link between vaccination and autism was shown to not be present. Long term large number studies.
I have 10 nieces and nephews who were born naturally with no doctors present. Everything went well. Mother, baby, and father were able to sleep in their own beds without a bunch of nurses trying to force this thing and that thing on the parents.
If the MSM telling me to take. I will not.
I would not refer to you as stupid and unscientific.
I hold no medical degree and I gather you do not either.
What you do seem to be doing, though, falls under the logical fallacy of correlation equaling causation.
If anyone comes to my house and tries to vaccinate my kids, that’s an assault on my family. I’ll meet it with due resistance.
As well you should, given that you have availed yourself of your rights as a citizen in the state in which you reside.
Whether your science is good or bad.
And I suspect, in the case of the measles, that your science is bad. But that’s not the issue in the case of you exercising your rights. You don’t need scientific justification.
It’s just common sense. Kid was fine, got the vaccine, the kid has autism. That tells me all I need to know. If I trusted the scientists (you know, the guys who say everything evolved from some big bang somewhere, and that my minivan is causing icecaps to melt), the pharmaceutical companies (the guys who say all bad behavior can be cured by drugs) and the politicians (...), I would not believe my own eyes. None of those guys can compel me to ignore my own experience.
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