Doc Who Tied Vaccine to Autism Ruled Unethical (1 Viewer)

[T Bell]

I'm a pediatrician so my opinion is biased but to suggest that the only reason to adhere to the current vaccine schedule is for convenience is ludicrous. To put your infant at risk for pneumococcal bacteremia or H flu epiglottitis or whooping cough for any longer than they need to be is foolish. Please read and understand the science behind the recommended vaccine schedule before you choose to delay or defer immunizations for your infant.

My daughter got all of her shots by age 2. You think her chances of getting any of those were significantly higher because we took a few months longer?

A lot of FUD being spread IMO.

As gianmarco eloquently stated above, your daughter's chances of contracting a vaccine preventable disease was not "significantly" higher because you delayed her schedule but I can guarantee you it was higher than it needed to be.

And, IMO, the only FUD being spread is coming from Wakefield, McCarthy and other fraudulent quacks.

I didn't do it based on anything those people said. My daughter was at home during that time, not in day care, and only had infrequent contact with other children. I was fine, and still am, with the risks of having her finish her shots a couple months later than the schedule.

Plus you'll never admit to being a careless parent anyway, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, amiright?

 

[cstu]

I'm a pediatrician so my opinion is biased but to suggest that the only reason to adhere to the current vaccine schedule is for convenience is ludicrous. To put your infant at risk for pneumococcal bacteremia or H flu epiglottitis or whooping cough for any longer than they need to be is foolish. Please read and understand the science behind the recommended vaccine schedule before you choose to delay or defer immunizations for your infant.

My daughter got all of her shots by age 2. You think her chances of getting any of those were significantly higher because we took a few months longer?

A lot of FUD being spread IMO.

Define significantly higher.

In my community, the number of lab confirmed cases of pertussis is well over 100 in the past few months. That's ten times what it was last year. There was a similar outbreak a few years ago.

I've seen three cases myself this season.

One of those was a grade school aged child who was dropping to the ground pale and choking with coughing spells. The parents had stopped vaccinating their children because they'd been getting "sick" after those doctor visits. The mom was in tears after the diagnosis. She didn't think the risk was high either.

I'm very happy your children are fully vaccinated. I appreciate the concern I hear from families who feel that multiple vaccines stress their immune system too much. As Gian has posted, it's well known that the antigenic load from a set of vaccinations is lower than many other situations children are commonly exposed. In fact, parents who bring their children into a doctor's office for additional shot visits because they've spread out shots are exposing their kids to more potential illnesses than they would have by sticking to the schedule anyway.

I don't have a website. I'm not selling books. I'm not selling chelators or diet aids. I'm not getting rich providing vaccinations. I'm in this game to advocate for child health.

Vaccinate your kids. On time. And make sure they know how to wash their hands well anyway.

I mentioned that my daughter was under two and you bring up school age children. Regarding the bolded, my daughter was far less exposed to those risks than other children since she was taken care of at home. In cases where kids go to daycare at a very young I age I'm fine with the vaccine schedule, or at least following it very closely. In my case after studying the pros and cons I wasn't convinced it was necessary to follow the schedule to a T.

FWIW my doctor (and likely my insurance company) didn't like it because I had to make office visits twice as often as scheduled. She did it but seems more concerned about the inconvenience than the risks (she never mentioned that she thought it was higher risk, simply that it was unnecessary).

 

[cstu]

I'm a pediatrician so my opinion is biased but to suggest that the only reason to adhere to the current vaccine schedule is for convenience is ludicrous. To put your infant at risk for pneumococcal bacteremia or H flu epiglottitis or whooping cough for any longer than they need to be is foolish. Please read and understand the science behind the recommended vaccine schedule before you choose to delay or defer immunizations for your infant.

My daughter got all of her shots by age 2. You think her chances of getting any of those were significantly higher because we took a few months longer?

A lot of FUD being spread IMO.

As gianmarco eloquently stated above, your daughter's chances of contracting a vaccine preventable disease was not "significantly" higher because you delayed her schedule but I can guarantee you it was higher than it needed to be.

And, IMO, the only FUD being spread is coming from Wakefield, McCarthy and other fraudulent quacks.

I didn't do it based on anything those people said. My daughter was at home during that time, not in day care, and only had infrequent contact with other children. I was fine, and still am, with the risks of having her finish her shots a couple months later than the schedule.

Plus you'll never admit to being a careless parent anyway, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, amiright?

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

 

[Joe Summer]

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

Every child who got sick, got sick because their parents had scheduled their vaccines a week later, or two weeks later, or three weeks later, etc.

 

[The Commish]

Donald Trump steps in it:

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 14h

Autism WAY UP - I believe in vaccinations but not massive, all at once, shots. Too much for small child to handle. Govt. should stop NOW!



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 14h

If I were President I would push for proper vaccinations but would not allow one time massive shots that a small child cannot take - AUTISM.



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 1h

Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 31m

With autism being way up, what do we have to lose by having doctors give small dose vaccines vs. big pump doses into those tiny bodies?

Worse than the Birther nonsense, because here he may be convincing some parents not to vaccinate their children.

Focus is on the wrong thing....if a person is persuaded by Donald Trump on what's right for their kid, they probably shouldn't be allowed to have kids, much less make choices on their behalf.

I'm a firm believer in giving the necessary vaccines, but they don't have to be done all at once, so part of what he says is valid. Our doctors have always been willing to spread them out so a two month old doesn't have to be stuck 4-5 times per visit and be on ibuprofen for the rest of that day.

I did exactly what Trump suggests for my daughter - her shots were all a month apart, with the exception of MMR which we gave her last. There's no reason beyond convenience to give babies that many shots all at once.

Actually, there are definitely reasons beyond convenience to give them shots all at once.

First of all, more shots does not mean "massive dose". Just like most everything in life, things improve and become more efficient. The way vaccines work involves exposing the body to an antigen so that the body mounts an immune response to it. It's how natural immunity works--your body encounters an antigen and then your immune system works to fight it. Every time you get a cold, this happens. Every time ANYTHING foreign enters your body (even just a splinter), your immune system goes to work.

Well, recent vaccines are MUCH more efficient than the original polio vaccines. In fact, the combined antigenic load of all vaccines given at one time is lower than just the single original polio vaccine. The thought that babies are receiving some "massive dose" is absurd. It's less taxing on the immune system than many viruses that cause fever and days of illness.

But, more importantly, delaying vaccines is a big risk in and of itself. It is young infants that are most at risk to catch many of the vaccine-covered illnesses and suffer more severe complications. The longer vaccines are delayed, the more risk is being placed on them by potentially exposing them to dangerous but preventable illnesses. Why not delay until they are 2 years old? 4 years old? Why not just wait until they are 18 and they can decide themselves? Because any delay increases the risk they can catch something that is otherwise preventable.

Delaying vaccines isn't as bad as not vaccinating at all, but it similarly goes against mountains of studies that have shown delaying vaccinations is more dangerous and less effective than sticking to the vaccination schedule that has been put out.

I think you're under the assumption that the "delays" are long periods of time. For my kids, that wasn't the case. They were administered over a 2 week span each time. For us, it was about the child being stuck 4-5 times in one visit and the pain they were in the following couple days from that. Had nothing really to do with the medicine, just the administration.

 

[The Commish]

Can I get a quick list of anybody that is arguing against vaccinations?

Yeah this is what I'm wondering also. What's the significant difference between me going in on my son's birthday (1 year) and having them administer vaccines over that week and the following vs the person who schedules the visit a week after the birthday to have them all done at once? Who's the "slacker" exposing their child to unnecessary possibility of disease?

 

[gianmarco]

Donald Trump steps in it:

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 14h

Autism WAY UP - I believe in vaccinations but not massive, all at once, shots. Too much for small child to handle. Govt. should stop NOW!



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 14h

If I were President I would push for proper vaccinations but would not allow one time massive shots that a small child cannot take - AUTISM.



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 1h

Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 31m

With autism being way up, what do we have to lose by having doctors give small dose vaccines vs. big pump doses into those tiny bodies?

Worse than the Birther nonsense, because here he may be convincing some parents not to vaccinate their children.

Focus is on the wrong thing....if a person is persuaded by Donald Trump on what's right for their kid, they probably shouldn't be allowed to have kids, much less make choices on their behalf.

I'm a firm believer in giving the necessary vaccines, but they don't have to be done all at once, so part of what he says is valid. Our doctors have always been willing to spread them out so a two month old doesn't have to be stuck 4-5 times per visit and be on ibuprofen for the rest of that day.

I did exactly what Trump suggests for my daughter - her shots were all a month apart, with the exception of MMR which we gave her last. There's no reason beyond convenience to give babies that many shots all at once.

Actually, there are definitely reasons beyond convenience to give them shots all at once.

First of all, more shots does not mean "massive dose". Just like most everything in life, things improve and become more efficient. The way vaccines work involves exposing the body to an antigen so that the body mounts an immune response to it. It's how natural immunity works--your body encounters an antigen and then your immune system works to fight it. Every time you get a cold, this happens. Every time ANYTHING foreign enters your body (even just a splinter), your immune system goes to work.

Well, recent vaccines are MUCH more efficient than the original polio vaccines. In fact, the combined antigenic load of all vaccines given at one time is lower than just the single original polio vaccine. The thought that babies are receiving some "massive dose" is absurd. It's less taxing on the immune system than many viruses that cause fever and days of illness.

But, more importantly, delaying vaccines is a big risk in and of itself. It is young infants that are most at risk to catch many of the vaccine-covered illnesses and suffer more severe complications. The longer vaccines are delayed, the more risk is being placed on them by potentially exposing them to dangerous but preventable illnesses. Why not delay until they are 2 years old? 4 years old? Why not just wait until they are 18 and they can decide themselves? Because any delay increases the risk they can catch something that is otherwise preventable.

Delaying vaccines isn't as bad as not vaccinating at all, but it similarly goes against mountains of studies that have shown delaying vaccinations is more dangerous and less effective than sticking to the vaccination schedule that has been put out.

I think you're under the assumption that the "delays" are long periods of time. For my kids, that wasn't the case. They were administered over a 2 week span each time. For us, it was about the child being stuck 4-5 times in one visit and the pain they were in the following couple days from that. Had nothing really to do with the medicine, just the administration.

For most, the delays are long periods of time. Delaying one week is relatively insignificant. And your reason behind it (administration and not due to some perceived massive vaccination dose) is much more understandable. I don't agree with it as I'd much rather my kid get 4 shots all at once in a few seconds, cry it out for a couple minutes, and be done versus bringing her back and make her cry more times than necessary. Plus, instead of getting a fever for maybe a day or two and being done with it now you're potentially looking at the same fever but occurring twice instead of once. But again, that's more of a personal preference and I can see and appreciate the other side even if I don't agree with it.

Keep in mind that your stance on why and how long you delayed vaccinations is far different from most parents who delay weeks and months (and even longer) due to some idea that it's safer that way. You are NOT in the group that pro-vaccine schedule people are worried about. As seen above, this idea that just because a young child isn't around other kids means they aren't going to be exposed is incredibly naive and misguided. As I already pointed out above, most babies actually acquire pertussis from adults, not other school aged kids. Adults can carry other diseases as a result of immunity that has waned (especially visitors from other countries) and pass it on without any symptoms. Unless every member of the family never leaves the house for any reason, there is no way to eliminate potential exposures.

 

[The Commish]

Donald Trump steps in it:

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 14h

Autism WAY UP - I believe in vaccinations but not massive, all at once, shots. Too much for small child to handle. Govt. should stop NOW!



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 14h

If I were President I would push for proper vaccinations but would not allow one time massive shots that a small child cannot take - AUTISM.



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 1h

Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!



Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 31m

With autism being way up, what do we have to lose by having doctors give small dose vaccines vs. big pump doses into those tiny bodies?

Worse than the Birther nonsense, because here he may be convincing some parents not to vaccinate their children.

Focus is on the wrong thing....if a person is persuaded by Donald Trump on what's right for their kid, they probably shouldn't be allowed to have kids, much less make choices on their behalf.

I'm a firm believer in giving the necessary vaccines, but they don't have to be done all at once, so part of what he says is valid. Our doctors have always been willing to spread them out so a two month old doesn't have to be stuck 4-5 times per visit and be on ibuprofen for the rest of that day.

I did exactly what Trump suggests for my daughter - her shots were all a month apart, with the exception of MMR which we gave her last. There's no reason beyond convenience to give babies that many shots all at once.

Actually, there are definitely reasons beyond convenience to give them shots all at once.

First of all, more shots does not mean "massive dose". Just like most everything in life, things improve and become more efficient. The way vaccines work involves exposing the body to an antigen so that the body mounts an immune response to it. It's how natural immunity works--your body encounters an antigen and then your immune system works to fight it. Every time you get a cold, this happens. Every time ANYTHING foreign enters your body (even just a splinter), your immune system goes to work.

Well, recent vaccines are MUCH more efficient than the original polio vaccines. In fact, the combined antigenic load of all vaccines given at one time is lower than just the single original polio vaccine. The thought that babies are receiving some "massive dose" is absurd. It's less taxing on the immune system than many viruses that cause fever and days of illness.

But, more importantly, delaying vaccines is a big risk in and of itself. It is young infants that are most at risk to catch many of the vaccine-covered illnesses and suffer more severe complications. The longer vaccines are delayed, the more risk is being placed on them by potentially exposing them to dangerous but preventable illnesses. Why not delay until they are 2 years old? 4 years old? Why not just wait until they are 18 and they can decide themselves? Because any delay increases the risk they can catch something that is otherwise preventable.

Delaying vaccines isn't as bad as not vaccinating at all, but it similarly goes against mountains of studies that have shown delaying vaccinations is more dangerous and less effective than sticking to the vaccination schedule that has been put out.

I think you're under the assumption that the "delays" are long periods of time. For my kids, that wasn't the case. They were administered over a 2 week span each time. For us, it was about the child being stuck 4-5 times in one visit and the pain they were in the following couple days from that. Had nothing really to do with the medicine, just the administration.

For most, the delays are long periods of time. Delaying one week is relatively insignificant. And your reason behind it (administration and not due to some perceived massive vaccination dose) is much more understandable. I don't agree with it as I'd much rather my kid get 4 shots all at once in a few seconds, cry it out for a couple minutes, and be done versus bringing her back and make her cry more times than necessary. Plus, instead of getting a fever for maybe a day or two and being done with it now you're potentially looking at the same fever but occurring twice instead of once. But again, that's more of a personal preference and I can see and appreciate the other side even if I don't agree with it.

Keep in mind that your stance on why and how long you delayed vaccinations is far different from most parents who delay weeks and months (and even longer) due to some idea that it's safer that way. You are NOT in the group that pro-vaccine schedule people are worried about. As seen above, this idea that just because a young child isn't around other kids means they aren't going to be exposed is incredibly naive and misguided. As I already pointed out above, most babies actually acquire pertussis from adults, not other school aged kids. Adults can carry other diseases as a result of immunity that has waned (especially visitors from other countries) and pass it on without any symptoms. Unless every member of the family never leaves the house for any reason, there is no way to eliminate potential exposures.

Fair enough...for us, we didn't have any crying at all, either time and no real fevers to speak of except the first round of shots on our first child. That was before we decided to spread them out. Little guy couldn't be touched on his legs for about a day and he had a fever for three days. After that, we decided to spread them out and neither child has had any issues with fever or crying outside a whimper here or there. We had a discussion with our doctor about the most important vaccines (based on likelihood of catching what they prevent) and started there.

 

[culdeus]

So now that they say autism starts in the womb is it the vaccines the mother got as a child which caused it?

 

[St. Louis Bob]

I don't agree with it as I'd much rather my kid get 4 shots all at once in a few seconds, cry it out for a couple minutes, and be done versus bringing her back and make her cry more times than necessary.

How else am I going to make my kids hate doctors?

 

[jhib]

I'm a pediatrician so my opinion is biased but to suggest that the only reason to adhere to the current vaccine schedule is for convenience is ludicrous. To put your infant at risk for pneumococcal bacteremia or H flu epiglottitis or whooping cough for any longer than they need to be is foolish. Please read and understand the science behind the recommended vaccine schedule before you choose to delay or defer immunizations for your infant.

My daughter got all of her shots by age 2. You think her chances of getting any of those were significantly higher because we took a few months longer?

A lot of FUD being spread IMO.

As gianmarco eloquently stated above, your daughter's chances of contracting a vaccine preventable disease was not "significantly" higher because you delayed her schedule but I can guarantee you it was higher than it needed to be.And, IMO, the only FUD being spread is coming from Wakefield, McCarthy and other fraudulent quacks.

I didn't do it based on anything those people said. My daughter was at home during that time, not in day care, and only had infrequent contact with other children. I was fine, and still am, with the risks of having her finish her shots a couple months later than the schedule.

Plus you'll never admit to being a careless parent anyway, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, amiright?

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

I thought it was a few months?

 

[cstu]

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

Every child who got sick, got sick because their parents had scheduled their vaccines a week later, or two weeks later, or three weeks later, etc.

I'm not buying it unless I have proof. Until proven wrong, I believe those cases are caused by parents who never intended to ever give their kids vaccines. If I'm wrong I'd like to know so I don't misinform any other parents.

 

[cstu]

I'm a pediatrician so my opinion is biased but to suggest that the only reason to adhere to the current vaccine schedule is for convenience is ludicrous. To put your infant at risk for pneumococcal bacteremia or H flu epiglottitis or whooping cough for any longer than they need to be is foolish. Please read and understand the science behind the recommended vaccine schedule before you choose to delay or defer immunizations for your infant.

My daughter got all of her shots by age 2. You think her chances of getting any of those were significantly higher because we took a few months longer?

A lot of FUD being spread IMO.

As gianmarco eloquently stated above, your daughter's chances of contracting a vaccine preventable disease was not "significantly" higher because you delayed her schedule but I can guarantee you it was higher than it needed to be.And, IMO, the only FUD being spread is coming from Wakefield, McCarthy and other fraudulent quacks.

I didn't do it based on anything those people said. My daughter was at home during that time, not in day care, and only had infrequent contact with other children. I was fine, and still am, with the risks of having her finish her shots a couple months later than the schedule.

Plus you'll never admit to being a careless parent anyway, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, amiright?

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

I thought it was a few months?

It's been a few years now so I can't be sure of the exact dates but she got all of her shots within two years (the more I think about it she had everything she was supposed to get by 18 months). What we did when we could is not give her more than two shots at a time and do them a month apart.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

Every child who got sick, got sick because their parents had scheduled their vaccines a week later, or two weeks later, or three weeks later, etc.

I'm not buying it unless I have proof. Until proven wrong, I believe those cases are caused by parents who never intended to ever give their kids vaccines. If I'm wrong I'd like to know so I don't misinform any other parents.

You need proof that not vaccinating your kids OR waiting to vaccinate them puts your child at risk for catching the diseases? wtf

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

When my kids ride in my car I don't make them put on their seatbelts until we're 1 mile down the road because I've never seen proof that having them buckle up before we leave is safer.

 

[cstu]

When my kids ride in my car I don't make them put on their seatbelts until we're 1 mile down the road because I've never seen proof that having them buckle up before we leave is safer.

I have proof that they are safer never getting the car in the first place.

 

[cstu]

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

Every child who got sick, got sick because their parents had scheduled their vaccines a week later, or two weeks later, or three weeks later, etc.

I'm not buying it unless I have proof. Until proven wrong, I believe those cases are caused by parents who never intended to ever give their kids vaccines. If I'm wrong I'd like to know so I don't misinform any other parents.

You need proof that not vaccinating your kids OR waiting to vaccinate them puts your child at risk for catching the diseases? wtf

Proof that delaying a shot one month will put the child and at higher substantial risk.

How is 18 months a magical number for every child to get their shots?

 

[T Bell]

When my kids ride in my car I don't make them put on their seatbelts until we're 1 mile down the road because I've never seen proof that having them buckle up before we leave is safer.

I have proof that they are safer never getting the car in the first place.

Dear Santa,

Please send me the Analogies for Dummies book next Christmas, because I need it like Cindy Crawford needs legs.

Thanks,

cstu

 

[St. Louis Bob]

My GF in high school told me she was pregnant but I knew she was lying because we only had sex once.

 

[gianmarco]

I'm a pediatrician so my opinion is biased but to suggest that the only reason to adhere to the current vaccine schedule is for convenience is ludicrous. To put your infant at risk for pneumococcal bacteremia or H flu epiglottitis or whooping cough for any longer than they need to be is foolish. Please read and understand the science behind the recommended vaccine schedule before you choose to delay or defer immunizations for your infant.

My daughter got all of her shots by age 2. You think her chances of getting any of those were significantly higher because we took a few months longer?

A lot of FUD being spread IMO.

As gianmarco eloquently stated above, your daughter's chances of contracting a vaccine preventable disease was not "significantly" higher because you delayed her schedule but I can guarantee you it was higher than it needed to be.And, IMO, the only FUD being spread is coming from Wakefield, McCarthy and other fraudulent quacks.

I didn't do it based on anything those people said. My daughter was at home during that time, not in day care, and only had infrequent contact with other children. I was fine, and still am, with the risks of having her finish her shots a couple months later than the schedule.

Plus you'll never admit to being a careless parent anyway, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, amiright?

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

I thought it was a few months?

It's been a few years now so I can't be sure of the exact dates but she got all of her shots within two years (the more I think about it she had everything she was supposed to get by 18 months). What we did when we could is not give her more than two shots at a time and do them a month apart.

For what reason? You've stated already you want a link showing that something bad happens when you wait a month. My question to you is why would you wait a month? Is there a link you can show that there's some benefit in doing so? There's mountains of evidence that shows there is no benefit in doing so and increases adverse events, so what were you trying to accomplish by waiting an extra month to get the other vaccines?

 

[igbomb]

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

Every child who got sick, got sick because their parents had scheduled their vaccines a week later, or two weeks later, or three weeks later, etc.

I'm not buying it unless I have proof. Until proven wrong, I believe those cases are caused by parents who never intended to ever give their kids vaccines. If I'm wrong I'd like to know so I don't misinform any other parents.

So for this you demand proof yet you delay giving your kids their vaccines based on verifiably incorrect 'proof' that it is better to space them out?

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

Every child who got sick, got sick because their parents had scheduled their vaccines a week later, or two weeks later, or three weeks later, etc.

I'm not buying it unless I have proof. Until proven wrong, I believe those cases are caused by parents who never intended to ever give their kids vaccines. If I'm wrong I'd like to know so I don't misinform any other parents.

You need proof that not vaccinating your kids OR waiting to vaccinate them puts your child at risk for catching the diseases? wtf

Proof that delaying a shot one month will put the child and at higher substantial risk.

How is 18 months a magical number for every child to get their shots?

What does "substantial" mean when it comes to the health of your own child?

 

[ScottNorwood]

Pretty sure that posting on message boards causes autism.

 

[T Bell]

Please, link me to cases of children who got sick because their parents got a vaccine a week later than the almighty schedule. I'll wait...

Every child who got sick, got sick because their parents had scheduled their vaccines a week later, or two weeks later, or three weeks later, etc.

I'm not buying it unless I have proof. Until proven wrong, I believe those cases are caused by parents who never intended to ever give their kids vaccines. If I'm wrong I'd like to know so I don't misinform any other parents.

You need proof that not vaccinating your kids OR waiting to vaccinate them puts your child at risk for catching the diseases? wtf

Proof that delaying a shot one month will put the child and at higher substantial risk.

How is 18 months a magical number for every child to get their shots?

What does "substantial" mean when it comes to the health of your own child?

I believe he defines it based upon the answer to the question, "Can I still make another one that looks fairly similar to this one?"

 

[T Bell]

Pretty sure that posting on message boards causes autism.

...well ####.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

These things just bum me out. If people can't be convinced that vaccinating their babies is a good thing we really don't stand much of a chance as a species. The world is so much more complicated in so many areas.

 

[BobbyLayne]

Autism and the Agitator



APRIL 21, 2014
What do you call someone who sows misinformation, stokes fear, abets behavior that endangers people’s health, extracts enormous visibility from doing so and then says the equivalent of “Who? Me?”

I’m not aware of any common noun for a bad actor of this sort. But there’s a proper noun: Jenny McCarthy.

For much of the past decade, McCarthy has been the panicked face and intemperate voice of a movement that posits a link between autism and childhood vaccinations and that badmouths vaccines in general, saying that they have toxins in them and that children get too many of them at once.

Because she posed nude for Playboy, dated Jim Carrey and is blond and bellicose, she has received platforms for this message that her fellow nonsense peddlers might not have. She has spread the twisted word more efficiently than the rest.

And then, earlier this month, she said the craziest thing of all, in a column for The Chicago Sun-Times.

“I am not ‘anti-vaccine,’ ” she wrote, going on to add, “For years, I have repeatedly stated that I am, in fact, ‘pro-vaccine’ and for years I have been wrongly branded.”

You can call this revisionism. Or you can call it “a complete and utter lie,” as the writer Michael Specter said to me. Specter’s 2009 book, “Denialism,”looks at irrational retorts to proven science like McCarthy’s long and undeniable campaign against vaccines.

McCarthy waded into the subject after her son, Evan, was given a diagnosis of autism in 2005. She was initially motivated, it seems, by heartache and genuine concern.

She proceeded to hysteria and wild hypothesis. She got traction, and pressed on and on.

In 2007, she was invited on “Oprah” and said that when she took Evan to the doctor for the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, she had “a very bad feeling” about what she recklessly termed “the autism shot.” She added that after the vaccination, “Boom! Soul, gone from his eyes.”

In an online Q. and A. after the show, she wrote: “If I had another child, I would not vaccinate.”

She also appeared on CNN in 2007 and said that when concerned pregnant women asked her what to do, “I am surely not going to tell anyone to vaccinate.”

Two years later, in Time magazine, she said, “If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the measles.” I’ve deleted the expletive she used before the second “measles.”

And on The Huffington Post a year after that, she responded to experts who insisted that vaccines didn’t cause autism and were crucial to public health with this declaration: “That’s a lie, and we’re sick of it.”

I don’t know how she can claim a pro-vaccine record. But I know why she’d want to.

Over the last few years, measles outbreaks linked to parents’ refusals to vaccinate children have been laid at McCarthy’s feet. The British study that opponents like her long cited has been revealed as fraudulent. And she and her tribe have gone from seeming like pitifully misguided dissidents to indefatigably senseless quacks, a changed climate and mood suggested by what happened last month when she asked her Twitter followers to name “the most important personality trait” in a mate. She got a bevy of blistering responses along the lines of “someone who vaccinates” and “critical thinking skills.”

Seth Mnookin, the author of the 2011 book “The Panic Virus,” which explores and explodes the myth that vaccines cause autism, noted that McCarthy had a relatively new gig on ABC’s “The View” that could be jeopardized by continued fearmongering. What once raised her profile, he said, could now cut her down.

As she does her convenient pivot, the rest of us should look at questions raised by her misadventures.COMMENTS

When did it become O.K. to present gut feelings like hers as something in legitimate competition with real science? That’s what interviewers who gave her airtime did, also letting her tell the tale of supposedly curing Evan’s autism with a combination of her “Mommy instinct” and a gluten-free diet, and I’d love to know how they justify it.

Are the eyeballs drawn by someone like McCarthy more compelling than public health and truth? Her exposure proves how readily television bookers and much of the news media will let famous people or pretty people or (best of all!) people who are both famous and pretty hold forth on subjects to which they bring no actual expertise. Whether the topic is autism or presidential politics, celebrity trumps authority and obviates erudition.

There’s also this: How much time did physicians and public officials waste trying to neutralize the junk in which McCarthy trafficked? As Fred Volkmar, a professor at Yale University’s medical school, said to me, “It diverts people from what’s really important, which is to focus on the science of really helping kids with autism.”

 

[BobbyLayne]

http://jennymccarthybodycount.com/Anti-Vaccine_Body_Count/Home.html

 

[Nugget]

Not sure where I stand on the debate - Here is a link to the CDC schedule. LINK

6 shots at 2 months seems a little scary. What if there is an allergic reaction- which one caused it?

 

[igbomb]

Not sure where I stand on the debate - Here is a link to the CDC schedule. LINK

6 shots at 2 months seems a little scary. What if there is an allergic reaction- which one caused it?

Just read through this thread and look for anything posted by Jene Bremel and Genedoc. Both are experts with a lot of terrific insight.

 

[Kal El]

My wife and I have vaccinated our children because they attend the day care where my wife works, and they can't attend otherwise. Yes, they hate the pain caused by the needles, but they don't get any more shots for a while, so they'll be able to go to the doc without staring daggers at him or the nurses. Personally, I'd rather console a child that got stuck with a needle that will help them stay healthy, rather than risk losing them to a disease that has almost been eradicated in this part of the world. Jenny Mccarthy may be trying to change her image, but that won't bring back the children lost due to her bad advice.

 

[NCCommish]

My wife and I have vaccinated our children because they attend the day care where my wife works, and they can't attend otherwise. Yes, they hate the pain caused by the needles, but they don't get any more shots for a while, so they'll be able to go to the doc without staring daggers at him or the nurses. Personally, I'd rather console a child that got stuck with a needle that will help them stay healthy, rather than risk losing them to a disease that has almost been eradicated in this part of the world. Jenny Mccarthy may be trying to change her image, but that won't bring back the children lost due to her bad advice.

 

[T Bell]

Jenny McCarthy needs to engage in at least five, grade A hard core porn movies in the next several months to make up for this.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

My wife and I have vaccinated our children because they attend the day care where my wife works, and they can't attend otherwise.

If it wasn't for the day care situation would you have vaccinated your children any way?

 

[gianmarco]

Yet another blog with some good points

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Yet another blog with some good points

I would like to know why those whose children end up in the PICU with tetanus or whooping cough now trust us to save the life of their child?

Why do you run to a doctor when you are terrified your child has tetanus after refusing to vaccinate? Why am I now competent to save your child’s life when they have meningitis or epiglottis, but I wasn’t competent enough to keep them from getting sick?

If there was no medical help for your unvaccinated child if they acquired a vaccine preventable illness would you think about vaccinating?

If you’re not willing to run to your anti-vaccine friend, treat your child with advice from non-scientific sites on the internet, go to your chiropractor, or your holistic healer with your dying child perhaps you shouldn’t be taking their advice about vaccines.

–Anonymous

Effin' A.

 

[Kal El]

My wife and I have vaccinated our children because they attend the day care where my wife works, and they can't attend otherwise.

If it wasn't for the day care situation would you have vaccinated your children any way?

In all likelihood, yes we would have. My wife and I received vaccinations when we were little in the 80s, and we turned out as fine as children from the 80s could be expected to.

 

[culdeus]

Another study coming out shortly clearly links maternal age as a determining factor. I don't have a link yet. We already have paternal age as a major driver.

 

[igbomb]

Another study coming out shortly clearly links maternal age as a determining factor. I don't have a link yet. We already have paternal age as a major driver.

No doubt this will be the one to finally convince all of those vaccine skeptics.

 

[culdeus]

Another study coming out shortly clearly links maternal age as a determining factor. I don't have a link yet. We already have paternal age as a major driver.

No doubt this will be the one to finally convince all of those vaccine skeptics.

The thing is it almost fits too well. With the men the gene expressions for brain and emotional functions are already found to be degenerating at age 30 and by 40 they are in bad shape. Past 40 it is a total crapshoot.

Now, if they can find this in women too past 35 this isn't shocking, but with smart guys freezing their sperm at age 30 for later use it makes the calculation for women a little harder since egg harvesting is more invasive than spanking off in a cup.

 

[igbomb]

Another study coming out shortly clearly links maternal age as a determining factor. I don't have a link yet. We already have paternal age as a major driver.

No doubt this will be the one to finally convince all of those vaccine skeptics.

The thing is it almost fits too well. With the men the gene expressions for brain and emotional functions are already found to be degenerating at age 30 and by 40 they are in bad shape. Past 40 it is a total crapshoot.

Now, if they can find this in women too past 35 this isn't shocking, but with smart guys freezing their sperm at age 30 for later use it makes the calculation for women a little harder since egg harvesting is more invasive than spanking off in a cup.

I was actually unaware that the link had only been drawn to paternal age. I thought that the age of the mother was the more understood driver.

Regardless, it seems like a pretty obvious and believable explanation. The rising age of mothers seems to coincide quite well with the spike in autism.

 

[Jayrod]

Another study coming out shortly clearly links maternal age as a determining factor. I don't have a link yet. We already have paternal age as a major driver.

Isn't maternal age a huge determiner of Down's as well?

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/g1lev1/an-outbreak-of-liberal-idiocy

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/g1lev1/an-outbreak-of-liberal-idiocy

There was a thread a while ago where I was trying to post examples of science-denial on the left. I can't find the thread, but if I could, I'd post that link there as well.

 

[NCCommish]

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/g1lev1/an-outbreak-of-liberal-idiocy

There was a thread a while ago where I was trying to post examples of science-denial on the left. I can't find the thread, but if I could, I'd post that link there as well.

Don't care what part of the political spectrum they fall on they are idiots.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Genetically modified food is a better example IMO.

Blogs and social media chatter often paint liberals, particularly Whole Foods-shopping, "earth mother" types, as the lead proponents of the anti-vaccine movement. Yet this view has been contradicted by surveys in the past, and was once again revealed to be flawed by data published this week.
The latest data comes from a survey of 2,316 U.S. adults by a researcher who works at the universities of Yale and Harvard. While questions about human-caused climate change divided along political lines--with liberals believing it is happening and conservatives denying it--there was no such correlation with anti-vaccine views. The vast majority of people believe the benefits of childhood vaccinations outweigh the risks, regardless of their politics. And the survey found anti-vaccine views are more common among Republicans.

Although the data clashes with some peoples' perception of the typical vaccine skeptic, it chimes with previous surveys. In 2009 the Pew Research Center found almost 50% more Democrats than Republicans said they would take the swine flu vaccine. More detailed data emerged last year from a Public Policy Polling survey of 1,247 U.S. voters. PPP found 12% of people who described themselves as very liberal believe vaccines cause autism, compared with 22% of hardline conservatives.

 

[The Dreaded Marco]

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/g1lev1/an-outbreak-of-liberal-idiocy

There was a thread a while ago where I was trying to post examples of science-denial on the left. I can't find the thread, but if I could, I'd post that link there as well.

Bill Maher should've been in this Daily Show video. Hopefully he was in your thread.

 

[The Commish]

Genetically modified food is a better example IMO.

Blogs and social media chatter often paint liberals, particularly Whole Foods-shopping, "earth mother" types, as the lead proponents of the anti-vaccine movement. Yet this view has been contradicted by surveys in the past, and was once again revealed to be flawed by data published this week.
The latest data comes from a survey of 2,316 U.S. adults by a researcher who works at the universities of Yale and Harvard. While questions about human-caused climate change divided along political lines--with liberals believing it is happening and conservatives denying it--there was no such correlation with anti-vaccine views. The vast majority of people believe the benefits of childhood vaccinations outweigh the risks, regardless of their politics. And the survey found anti-vaccine views are more common among Republicans.

Although the data clashes with some peoples' perception of the typical vaccine skeptic, it chimes with previous surveys. In 2009 the Pew Research Center found almost 50% more Democrats than Republicans said they would take the swine flu vaccine. More detailed data emerged last year from a Public Policy Polling survey of 1,247 U.S. voters. PPP found 12% of people who described themselves as very liberal believe vaccines cause autism, compared with 22% of hardline conservatives.

Tend to agree....sort of amazing the tolerance level that America has for the crap that passes as "healthy" in this country. Pretty sad when other first world countries reject your food imports

 

[Sarnoff]

Whole Foods: America's Temple of Pseudoscience

Americans get riled up about creationists and climate change deniers, but lap up the quasi-religious snake oil at Whole Foods. It’s all pseudoscience—so why are some kinds of pseudoscience more equal than others?

If you want to write about spiritually-motivated pseudoscience in America, you head to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It’s like a Law of Journalism. The museum has inspired hundreds of book chapters and articles (some of them, admittedly, mine) since it opened up in 2007. The place is like media magnet. And our nation’s liberal, coastal journalists are so many piles of iron fillings.

But you don’t have to schlep all the way to Kentucky in order to visit America’s greatest shrine to pseudoscience. In fact, that shrine is a 15-minute trip away from most American urbanites.

I’m talking, of course, about Whole Foods Market. From the probiotics aisle to the vaguely ridiculous Organic Integrity outreach effort (more on that later), Whole Foods has all the ingredients necessary to give Richard Dawkins nightmares. And if you want a sense of how weird, and how fraught, the relationship between science, politics, and commerce is in our modern world, then there’s really no better place to go. Because anti-science isn’t just a religious, conservative phenomenon—and the way in which it crosses cultural lines can tell us a lot about why places like the Creation Museum inspire so much rage, while places like Whole Foods don’t.

My own local Whole Foods is just a block away from the campus of Duke University. Like almost everything else near downtown Durham, N.C., it’s visited by a predominantly liberal clientele that skews academic, with more science PhDs per capita than a Mensa convention.

Still, there’s a lot in your average Whole Foods that’s resolutely pseudoscientific. The homeopathy section has plenty of Latin words and mathematical terms, but many of its remedies are so diluted that, statistically speaking, they may not contain a single molecule of the substance they purport to deliver. The book section—yep, Whole Foods sells books—boasts many M.D.’s among its authors, along with titles like The Coconut Oil Miracle and Herbal Medicine, Healing, and Cancer, which was written by a theologian and based on what the author calls the Eclectic Triphasic Medical System.

You can buy chocolate with “a meld of rich goji berries and ashwagandha root to strengthen your immune system,” and bottles of ChlorOxygen chlorophyll concentrate, which “builds better blood.” There’s cereal with the kind of ingredients that are “made in a kitchen—not in a lab,” and tea designed to heal the human heart.

Nearby are eight full shelves of probiotics—live bacteria intended to improve general health. I invited a biologist friend who studies human gut bacteria to come take a look with me. She read the healing claims printed on a handful of bottles and frowned. “This is bulls###,” she said, and went off to buy some vegetables. Later, while purchasing a bag of chickpeas, I browsed among the magazine racks. There was Paleo Living, and, not far away, the latest issue of What Doctors Don’t Tell You. Pseudoscience bubbles over into anti-science. A sample headline: “Stay sharp till the end: the secret cause of Alzheimer’s.” A sample opening sentence: “We like to think that medicine works.”

At times, the Whole Foods selection slips from the pseudoscientific into the quasi-religious. It’s not just the Ezekiel 4:9 bread (its recipe drawn from the eponymous Bible verse), or Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, or Vitamineral Earth’s “Sacred Healing Food.” It’s also, at least for Jewish shoppers, the taboos that have grown up around the company’s Organic Integrity effort, all of which sound eerily like kosher law. There’s a sign in the Durham store suggesting that shoppers bag their organic and conventional fruit separately—lest one rub off on the other—and grind their organic coffees at home—because the Whole Foods grinders process conventional coffee, too, and so might transfer some non-organic dust. “This slicer used for cutting both CONVENTIONAL and ORGANIC breads” warns a sign above the Durham location’s bread slicer. Synagogue kitchens are the only other places in which I’ve seen signs implying that level of food-separation purity.

Look, if homeopathic remedies make you feel better, take them. If the Paleo diet helps you eat fewer TV dinners, that’s great—even if the Paleo diet is probably premised more on The Flintstones than it is on any actual evidence about human evolutionary history. If non-organic crumbs bother you, avoid them. And there’s much to praise in Whole Foods’ commitment to sustainability and healthful foods.

Still: a significant portion of what Whole Foods sells is based on simple pseudoscience. And sometimes that can spill over into outright anti-science (think What Doctors Don’t Tell You, or Whole Foods’ overblown GMO campaign, which could merit its own article). If scientific accuracy in the public sphere is your jam, is there really that much of a difference between Creation Museum founder Ken Ham, who seems to have made a career marketing pseudoscience about the origins of the world, and John Mackey, a founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, who seems to have made a career, in part, out of marketing pseudoscience about health?

Well, no—there isn’t really much difference, if the promulgation of pseudoscience in the public sphere is, strictly speaking, the only issue at play. By the total lack of outrage over Whole Foods’ existence, and by the total saturation of outrage over the Creation Museum, it’s clear that strict scientific accuracy in the public sphere isn’t quite as important to many of us as we might believe. Just ask all those scientists in the aisles of my local Whole Foods.

So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently? The most common liberal answer to that question isn’t quite correct: namely, that creationists harm society in a way that homeopaths don’t. I’m not saying that homeopathy is especially harmful; I’m saying that creationism may be relatively harmless. In isolation, unless you’re a biologist, your thoughts on creation don’t matter terribly much to your fellow citizens; and unless you’re a physician, your reliance on Sacred Healing Food to cure all ills is your own business.

The danger is when these ideas get tied up with other, more politically muscular ideologies. Creationism often does, of course—that’s when we should worry. But as vaccine skeptics start to prompt public health crises, and GMO opponents block projects that could save lives in the developing world, it’s fair to ask how much we can disentangle Whole Foods’ pseudoscientific wares from very real, very worrying antiscientific outbursts.

Still, we let it off the hook. Why? Two reasons come to mind. The first is that Whole Foods is a for-profit business, while the Creation Museum is the manifestation of an explicitly religious and political movement. For some reason, there’s a special stream of American rage directed at ideological attacks on science that seems to evaporate when the offender is a for-profit corporation. It wasn’t especially surprising that Bill Nye would go and debate Ken Ham; it would have been unusual had he, say, challenged executives at the biotech company Syngenta—which has seemingly been running a smear campaign against a Berkeley biologist—to a conversation about scientific integrity, or challenged Paleo Magazine’s editors to a debate about archaeology. For those of us outside the fundamentalist world, I imagine that the Creation Museum gift shop is the one part of the museum that makes some kind of sense. Well, okay, they’re trying to make money with this stuff. Meanwhile, Whole Foods responds to its customers, as any good business should.

And, second, we often have it stuck in our heads that science communicators have only failed to speak to the religious right. But while issues of science-and-society are always tied up, in some ways, with politics, they’re not bound to any particular part of the spectrum. Just ask Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., liberal political scion and vaccine skeptic extraordinaire, or Prince Charles, who pushed British health ministers to embrace homeopathic medicine.

Bringing sound data into political conversations and consumer decisions is a huge, ongoing challenge. It’s not limited to one side of the public debate. The moral is not that we should all boycott Whole Foods. It’s that whenever we talk about science and society, it helps to keep two rather humbling premises in mind: very few of us are anywhere near rational. And pretty much all of us are hypocrites.

 

[timschochet]

I shop at Whole Foods because the fruit and vegetables look better and I find them tastier. Also because they have a greater variety of meats, fish, and cheeses.