You guys ought to publish your theories!

[mtrycraft]

The herb and vitamin industry get around the approved drug laws because they are classified as food or food supliments and therefore not subject to the same restrictions as medicines.

Thanks to congress caving in the the huge lobby and money.

[Thomas_A]

Mtry,



I just want to add that these media reports do have very serious consequences on the vaccination coverage, with increasing cases of e.g. pertussis. We are having a hard time convincing the public and also how MDs should communicate with people.

I agree that studies are very important to follow the vaccination program, for security reasons. This should and must be done. However, as for now there is no association of the various disease "reported" and vaccination. This goes for the things already discussed and also sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and some others too. There is no association at all with vaccines. Case reports that have initiated these discussions have been few cases, unblinded, containing experimental and statistical errors and poor confounder testing. After extensive studies independently, these reports have never been confirmed. Those small studies have however, the "alternative medicine" used to "prove" their points. Sad and dangerous.

T

[skeptic]

Unlike buying the wrong audio equipment by following bad advice on the internet, anyone foolish and impressionable enough to follow the insane advice here about not getting vaccinated is putting life in jeopardy. Is it really safe to get vaccinated? My 95 year old aunt gets a flu shot every year at the insistance of her doctors even though she has had two heart attacks in her life. If she caught the flu, she would almost certainly wind up in the hospital and it could very well kill her. She's never had a bad reaction to a flu shot. Are there an infinitesmal number of cases of people getting sick and even dying as a reaction to a vaccination? Alternative medicine proponents will find them and use them to convince some people that vaccines are deadly but it is following their alternative advice which really puts you at risk.

[Thomas_A]

Unlike buying the wrong audio equipment by following bad advice on the internet, anyone foolish and impressionable enough to follow the insane advice here about not getting vaccinated is putting life in jeopardy. Is it really safe to get vaccinated? My 95 year old aunt gets a flu shot every year at the insistance of her doctors even though she has had two heart attacks in her life. If she caught the flu, she would almost certainly wind up in the hospital and it could very well kill her. She's never had a bad reaction to a flu shot. Are there an infinitesmal number of cases of people getting sick and even dying as a reaction to a vaccination? Alternative medicine proponents will find them and use them to convince some people that vaccines are deadly but it is following their alternative advice which really puts you at risk.

Sceptic,

just those few case reports used have shown contain errors in methods and biased. Although case reports may be very good reasons to initiate larger studies, they do very much harm to the public when media uses these reports in the wrong way. Also, the "alternative medicine" propopents. After all, when these case reports have been followed up by many independent, well-controlled studies, no association between vaccination and the particular complication has been found. The rates of the particular diseases that have been suggested to be caused by vaccination have been found to be no different than for unvaccinated people. Allergy has been discussed a lot though, but most of it in favor of vaccination.

There is one "hypothesis" regarding allergy which is called the "hygiene hypothesis". It goes that western people live cleaner today than before. Further, to mount a "tolerance" against agents you would need some "dirt" or microbes so that you become colonized and exposed early during life. If not, you would not develop a complete immune system and could overreact to agents later during life.

The hypothesis is interesting but not proven. Also, exposing people to various immunogens during vaccination could have an effect to "protect" from allergy, as has been discussed for e.g. BCG vaccination. It has however, not been proven.

Future will tell.

Thomas

[skeptic]

Even if everything the alternative medicine people said was true, the numbers are so heavily skewed in favor of vaccination that to reject it is insanity. At worst the risk to any one individual is negligable compared to non existant if they are wrong.

There are some vaccinations which MIGHT carry some risk. Our primary care physician would not give us shots for Lyme disease and vaccinations soldiers received for anthrax may have had some effects on some soldiers fighting in the middle east. I'm sure both of these vaccinations are being studied for possible risks and methods of improvement.

The hygiene hypothesis says that exposure to some pathogens, especially harmless ones early in life helps the immune system develop so that it is better able to fend off much more dangerous pathogens later in life and that there is less susceptablility to allergies. This is based on statistical data so far as corroboration with direct biological proof has not yet been offered as far as I'm aware. I am happy to say that people in my family did not grow up in an obsessively sterile environment and therefore aside from a few recent spring pollen allergies, do not suffer allergic reactions to common substances like chocolate, strawberries or wine... thank goodness.

[mtrycraft]

Unlike buying the wrong audio equipment by following bad advice on the internet, anyone foolish and impressionable enough to follow the insane advice here about not getting vaccinated is putting life in jeopardy.


Not only theirs but others as well.

Alternative medicine proponents will find them and use them to convince some people that vaccines are deadly but it is following their alternative advice which really puts you at risk.

Yes, they do single those out. But, would they show the consequences of not vaccinating? Facts getting in their way?