Quote of the Day - 01.29.09
| Thu Jan. 29, 2009 12:06 PM PST
QUOTE OF THE DAY....From Alison Singer, who recently quit as head of communications at Autism Speaks, on the overwhelming evidence that vaccines have nothing to do with the development of autism in children:
At some point, you have to say, "This question has been asked and answered and it's time to move on." We need to be able to say, "Yes, we are now satisfied that the earth is round."
There was a time when investigating vaccines and thimerosal as possible contributing factors for autism made sense. That time is long past. The Jenny McCarthyization of the autism movement needs to be put finally and firmly to rest, and research money spent on actual science. Enough's enough.
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I'm going into ID and have always been fascinated by this debatea, and I share Kevin's sentiments on the issue.
There is some legitimate debate over the role of vaccines. For example, when pertussis vaccine was first introduced, it's benefits were enormous and it was widely used. 50 years later some evidence that the vaccine caused rare neurologic injury forced it out of use until a replacement could be introduced. The only thing that had changed was the public's tolerance for rare adverse reactions.
These are the subtleties of the vaccine debate, and they're often lost in the choir of people making more outlandish and bogus claims.
Submitted by Kevin Drum on Thu Jan. 29, 2009 12:45 PM PST.
Huh: She was a latecomer to the scene, but she's made up for it by quickly becoming the poster child for idiotic claims.
I think that's true for vaccines, thimerosal, and autism.
It certainly doesn't mean all vaccines are safe, and often, vaccine proponents overreach and claim it does. Historically, we know that ain't true, and little has changed (apart from GWB leaving with the hope the FDA may get better.)
It doesn't mean that all vaccines are well tested, or have no known long term effects.
It doesn't mean that vaccines might not contribute to autism for other reasons.
It doesn't mean that parents can or should give up informed consent to random blatherers on the net, or the government.
It certainly doesn't mean that parents responsibly exercising informed consent to say no, should be labeled as kooks, or repressed religious jerkoffs (especially when so many are educated liberal parents.)
And it doesn't mean that parents should be goaded/shamed into vaccinations by pressure of "herd immunity."
It might mean the medical community has more work to do in terms of ongoing education and outreach to parents than simply having know nothings stomp their feet and call people who dissent idiots, or religious freaks.
My, but doesn't that shoe fit nicely?
It might mean the medical community has more work to do in terms of ongoing education and outreach to parents than simply having know nothings stomp their feet and call people who dissent idiots, or religious freaks.
Trollhattan: It might mean the medical community has more work to do in terms of ongoing education and outreach to parents than simply having know nothings stomp their feet and call people who dissent idiots, or religious freaks.
What, and give up the very essence of white lab coat hubris?
Because some vaccination programs were tremendously successful in terms of net reduction of illness, it logically follows that all vaccination programs are good. People in white lab coats have told you so! Do not ask questions!
It might mean the medical community has more work to do in terms of ongoing education and outreach to parents than simply having know nothings stomp their feet and call people who dissent idiots, or religious freaks.
It also might mean the parents have more work to do in terms of ongoing education than simply having know nothings stomp their feet and call people who dissent idiots, or medical apologists.
I sympathize with the underlying desire to figure out why the hell autism has been going up so much recently, though. The trick is to redirect the desire to blame vaccines into a desire to figure out the real cause(s). It's a shame to waste all this energy on a dead end.
The problem with saying reason ought to prevail (actually two problems) is that one, vaccination carries a free-rider problem (i.e. if every child but yours is vaccinated, your child is as safe as those accinated but doesn't even have to put up with the vaccination) and two, there's a lot of evidence that autism has a hereditary component, i.e. the parents have defective genes, and doesn't it feel nicer to blame Big Brother than to admit maybe you have defective genes?
don't expect resistence to vaccination to go away anytime soon.
I only have one factoid to share, and that is that veterinarians are now more cautious about vaccinating dogs in the same location on a yearly basis (they either rotate shot locations or else advise two- or three year- vaccines when possible). The reason for this is that there is a strong correlation between shot location and development of tumors in that same location. I don't think vets understand the link yet. Although I tend to trust the doctor that Kevin quoted as being honest and probably correct about the autism/thimerosal question, I don't take much that the medical establishment has to say at face value, particularly because of its collusion with Big Pharma.
it is part of the whole Reagan revolution you know -- the I am the only important person in the world and my kids are the only ones that count movement. so these 'well educated liberal parents' who don't vaccinate rely on conscientious ones who do to keep up herd immunity and keep their own darlings for whom no risk should be taken safe. free riders all.
I have always wondered about the correlation between constant ultrasounding fetuses and autism. if it increases the incidence of left handedness -- a brain effect -- why not autism. I suppose it has been studied but the one intervention I know of since the epidemic took off has been routine ultrasounds for no reason at all. They were rare 35 years ago -- picked up speed about 30 years ago and are totally routine now.
"We all know that autism has genetic causes, but it's highly associated with environmental factors we can't get our hands around," says Wright. "Vaccines fall into that category"
I have to disagree with her and you, Kevin.
Autism as well as some ADD mimics mercury poisoning, and although MANY, I say, MANY
credible sources have debunked the Thimerosol connection it is helpful to remember that (although the purportedly 'safe' kind) Thimerosol is MERCURY.
There is mercury in every niche and cranny of our world and the use of mercury as a preservative to decrease Big Pharma's unit cost by making one vial for multi-doses only adds to the environmental sources of mercury.
BTW; the credible researchers are members of the same club as Physicians and Hospitals, and we know how they protect their own.
artemesia do you have any data on how many parents are vaccinating their kids to keep up herd immunity? That is, presumably, they don't think their kids are any risk from the underlying disease itself, and they understand what the risks from the vaccination are, but they are consciously making the decision to vaccinate anyway to keep up herd immunity, for the altruistic good of the community.
My suspicion is that it's a very low number if any, so I am interested in seeing that data of yours.
I don't know of anyone who has vaccinated their kids for the altruistic herd immunity. I only know of people who push to make vaccinating kids mandatory for that reason. (Many of these people are often heard to shout at other times, "keep the governments off our bodies!))
I suspect that parents that don't think the benefits to their specific kids outweigh the risks to their kids don't vaccinate.
My problem with your free rider and herd immunity shaming is that we can't simultaneously tell people it's their decision, it's informed consent, and then call them names when they come to what we think is the wrong conclusion.
Either it's informed consent and a choice, or it's not.
Here's Richard Feynman on Cargo Cult Science, and I think what he says is applicable to decisions about vaccines:
I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of his work were. "Well", I said, "there aren't any". He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind". I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing -- and if they don't support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision.
If the layman disagree on the choice of vaccinations, it's ridiculous nonsense to berate them for their decision. We either respect them and their rights to choose and disagree with us, or we should stop calling ourselves liberals concerned with individual rights.
jerry quoth :
And it doesn't mean that parents should be goaded/shamed into vaccinations by pressure of "herd immunity."
Where do you live?
I don't want my kids hanging around with your kids.
In my school district, the children of those parents "responsibly exercising informed consent to say no" may not attend the public schools, and that's the way I want it.
Well, I vaccinated my kids according to the pediatrician's schedule, more or less, and one of my intentions in so doing, in addition to preventing my kids from contracting measles and whooping cough, was to protect other kids, too. To contribute to the public health by not having my kids be a disease vector. And they're fine, and not autistic. As is the case with the vast majority of vaccinated children.
"I don't know of anyone who has vaccinated their kids for the altruistic herd immunity."
My parents did. But we have a lot of doctors in our family. That, and both of my parents had friends were stricken with polio. Polio really scared a few generations of people. And they really wanted to put an end to it. Unfortunately, vigilance in fighting diseases tends to suffer from the success of fighting diseases. Polio seems a lot more frightening when you actually meet people who have it. One of my favorite travel experiences was talking to a polio stricken man in Laos. He was so proud that they had finally eliminated the disease. That didn't help him, but he was glad that nobody else would face his fate. And he had very high praise for Doctors Without Borders. I give them money in his honor.
That's funny. I've know lots of "educated liberal parents" who are also kooks. Education and liberalism are hardly buffers against stupidity and unreason. In some respects they go together quite nicely.
What I find disturbing about the whole "autism is increasing" meme is that no one is looking at how autism is defined. It's a damnably hard disorder to pin down. In fact, it has all the hallmarks of a diagnosis in search of patients. There is good empirical evidence for the increased incidence of some disorders (asthma in particular), but I don't think autism counts as one of them.
"If the layman disagree on the choice of vaccinations, it's ridiculous nonsense to berate them for their decision. We either respect them and their rights to choose and disagree with us, or we should stop calling ourselves liberals concerned with individual rights."
Passing over for the moment the fact that liberals and conservatives are both equally willing to transgress against "individual rights", just in different arenas...
I, for one, am very glad that "individual rights" did not carry the day during the concerted and often draconian worldwide effort to eliminate smallpox. There's an example of a once-dreaded disease that has now been relegated to the status of a bioweapon-bogeyman that can only return if one of the three labs that still possess samples of the damned bug decide to release it for some reason.
If the similarly concerted effort, back in the 1950s and 1960s, to eliminate malaria had been just as draconian, millions of people would be spared a great deal of suffering today. Instead, people continue to die for the sake of local political sensitivities and a few raptor species.
"I don't know of anyone who has vaccinated their kids for the altruistic herd immunity."
My parents did. But we have a lot of doctors in our family.
Your parents innoculated you though they felt you would probably not get polio or be harmed by it or it's vaccine, but because they wanted to keep the neighbor's kid from getting polio?
Interesting.
The immune systems of autistic children are vulnerable.
Heavy vaccinations (too many vaccinations, at too young an age) are thought by some people to further weaken the immune systems.
Yeah, I can accept that thimerosal is not the culprit. But I don't think that vaccines are blameless.
Some kids can be genetically predisposed to autism. And the heavy vaccinations can be what tips them over into the autism spectrum.
"Interesting".
My response to you: how smarmy.
In a sense, everyone who has their children vaccinated for polio does so for altruistic reasons. After all, the chances of any given person actually contracting polio these days are vanishingly small, at least in this country, because of the vast majority of people who did and do get vaccinated. This is what your conscientious objectors count on, else polio would again become a serious health threat, with frequencies far higher than any adverse reactions to the vaccine. Calling them freeloaders is about the most accurate epithet on this comment thread.
No one who spares a moment to think about it can reasonably consider their choice to have their children vaccinated a purely selfish one. We do it because if enough of us didn't, the whole enterprise would be useless and polio would again be a threat. It's one example of a civic duty that is willingly performed by almost everyone in this nation, and we should be proud of it.
Joel,
My kids had all but one or two of the required/suggested childhood vaccines (in the old regime).
The two they didn't have is because we exercised informed consent. Read about the vaccine. Read about what it treated, who was likely to get it, what the side effects were, and decided for ourselves which was better.
That decision was respected, encouraged, applauded and made with the information and recommendations of their physician, M.D.
I am sorry to have to inform you that the "vaccine controvery" and "informed consent" goes even up to MDs too.
Childhood vaccines used to be given to protect the child period. And then it was to protect pregnant women that the infected child may run into.
Since then we've decided that herd immunity, protecting someone else's kid, is reason enough to make vaccines mandatory, and to berate people who exercise their right of choice.
Bah. You don't want to live next to me. Boo hoo. I am happier living in a well educated community that respects individual rights anyway.
Enjoy your government mandated bodily incursions.
"Interesting."
Well, I come from a pretty weird family. I always just assume that other families are different. Those of us who aren't doctors are engineers, scientists or lawyers. And most of the lawyers are scientists, too. As are most of the doctors. In my family, you're a slacker if you have only one post-graduate degree. There was no decision about vaccines in my family. You just did it for the benefit of society. Because that's what science says you should do. My mom certainly didn't do it for my health. She wouldn't even take me to the hospital when I broke my neck. It never did get set right, and now nobody will insure me.
utisoft, you're bloviating about altruism and people's motivations. You have no data to back up your maunderings. And yet you're happy to call people names who disagree with you and insist you are correct.
At least I've qualified my suspicions by saying they are my suspicions and I have no data. But in the sense you are right, that people do this for altruistic reasons, I suspect it is very small.
No one I know ever vaccinated their kids because they were afraid of their neighbor's kids getting ill. To berate people who decide that their own kids welfare comes before altruism to other families, is ridiculous.
(To claim your parents had you vaccinated because of altruism and not concern over your sake is extremely hard to believe.)
If you don't want to respect a parent's informed consent, or your own right to determine what happens to your body, just come out and say so. That *used* to be a fundamental liberal value.
Health care workers get flu shots in part to protect their sick, much more vulnerable patients and contacts.
Yes, that's why they wash their hands too. I'm not sure of the relevance since we're not talking about health care workers.
Nevertheless, medical ethicists have challenged whether health care worker vaccinations should be mandatory.
Because that's what science says you should do
Science called up my family and said for the benefit of society, we should exercise informed consent. I wonder if you were prank called.
"But in the sense you are right, that people do this for altruistic reasons, I suspect it is very small."
Jerry, you are probably right about that. I can only speak for my family. But as I've said, it's a weird family. That we did the vaccinations for altruistic reasons leads me to believe that most families do not. Whatever it is that my family does, it's certainly not normal.
utisoft: What I find disturbing about the whole "autism is increasing" meme is that no one is looking at how autism is defined.
WTF? Who isn't looking at how autism is defined. There is legitimate debate, and significant research, on the question of whether autism rates are actually increasing or whether it's being better diagnosed these days. And yes, they also looking at changing clinical definitions (DSM), differences in definitions between countries, etc.
It's amazing that you say "no one is looking at how autism is defined" when in fact that's one of the hottest topics of debate.
In fact, it has all the hallmarks of a diagnosis in search of patients.
The search seems to have succeeded, as there are millions of patients so diagnosed.
Question for those who know more about this than I do: how does not vaccinating create a free rider problem? Obviously, lots of unvaccinated kids is bad for each other, because they can pass the diseases between each other. But wouldn't the vaccinated kids be protected anyway? Or does having lots of unvaccinated kids running around create some sort of risk for the kids who are vaccinated?
How far do you take informed consent? What about the guy with drug resistant TB who declines treatment and wants to hop on a plane and fly across the country? If your decisions legitimately put others at risk, then I don't know how much informed consent you get.
Yeah, I can accept that thimerosal is not the culprit. But I don't think that vaccines are blameless. Some kids can be genetically predisposed to autism. And the heavy vaccinations can be what tips them over into the autism spectrum.
This is like saying "yeah, I can accept that 1+1=2. But I think it's possibly also equal to 3. In general 1+1=2, but if the + sign is big enough, it might tip it over into the 3 spectrum."
No.
The studies out there are not only pretty damning of the thimerosal claim. They're also damning of the whole vaccination claim. Vaccinations are not a factor in autism. Unless you back entirely off the ludicrous vaccination thing, you don't get to be considered a non-crazy here.
Jon: Or does having lots of unvaccinated kids running around create some sort of risk for the kids who are vaccinated?
It can. Immunizations don't necessarily confer perfect immunity, nor does the immunity last forever. There is also the case of children too young to have received an immunization for disease X, or who haven't yet received a second the second shot that some people need to confer immunity (that's why kids get an MMR at around a year and a second at around 5 years - the first one doesn't confer immunity on everybody).
"I'm not sure of the relevance since we're not talking about health care workers"
The point about health care workers is that part of their reason for getting vaccinated is altruistic. It's not to hard to believe then that some people also vaccinate their kids for partly the same reason.
Jon, the issue is that there are kids at risk who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, and perhaps people like pregnant women who can't get vaccinated and have babies at risk.
dru, as you know that happened in 2007, and is discussed briefly and who knows with what accuracy at the wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can munge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_tuberculosis_scare#Isolation_and_law
"The federal statute granting quarantine authority allows isolation or quarantine but only for individuals coming into the country from a foreign country or territory."
Medical quarantine conflicts with civil rights as we like to claim we understand and advocate them. So too does mandatory injections. That is why up until recently, progressives have tended to err on the side of human rights and trust that education, outreach, and science will prove an effective deterrent against infection disease. Recently we have decided we need to mandate vaccinations even against one's stated non-consent.
I am not sure how we moved from keep the government off our bodies, to stick your kids with needles or else, but Kevin blogrolls many people who advocate this position all the time and are prime believers that anyone who disagrees is a religious godbag and sexual repressive. So maybe Kevin can tell us.
Personally, I favor the old position: keep the government off our bodies (except in case of medical emergency.)
ObGodwin: You know what government liked to test on its citizens against their will? Yeah, the US Public Health Service.
"Unless you back entirely off the ludicrous vaccination thing, you don't get to be considered a non-crazy here."
Maybe you can explain how a mercury derivative is more safe than MERCURY. When yer done with that, try explaining the symptoms of autism and how they mimic MERCURY POISONING.
Call me crazy but it seems a reasonable request.
Decided to do some googling about the thimerosal/autism debate. Here's an exceptionally interesting article from Robert Kennedy, Jr. about a government coverup regarding a thimerosal/autism study by the CDC which supports a link between the two. Perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to accept the good doctor's words.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7395411/deadly_immunity/" rel="nofollow">Deadly Immunity, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Rolling Stone, 2005
Foo says:
"The studies out there are not only pretty damning of the thimerosal claim. They're also damning of the whole vaccination claim. Vaccinations are not a factor in autism. Unless you back entirely off the ludicrous vaccination thing, you don't get to be considered a non-crazy here."
I say: I don't think anything is proved. To truly prove that vaccinations have no effect, you'd have to have a large number of kids who have no vaccinations and compare them to a large number of kids who do have them. Have studies like this been done? I don't believe so. Even if they were done, whatever the results were, you could say that the cultures of the two sets of kids were different and possibly that makes a difference.
But still, it would be interesting to compare two large sets of vaccinated and non-vaccinated kids and see what the autism rates are.
Why do kids today need so many vaccinations?
I can see the need for polio and smallpox vaccinations.
But measles and mumps? When I was growing up, kids just had the diseases and got well. Nobody died. Nobody stressed out about them.
"On the other hand, that's what everyone says about their families.... :)"
Of course they do. I used to think my family was dysfunctional. Now I know that all families are dysfunctional. But here's something I've never seen in any other family: Every single person who is even remotely related to me has a college degree or is too young to have graduated college. And those children will graduate college. I was ten years old when I learned that there were people who didn't go to college. We perform scientific experiments at family reunions. Not because we think it's cool, it's just what we do. Hell, my grandfather had a full blown chemistry lab in his basement. He invented polypropylene that basement. It was part of his tree grafting experiments. He also cooked up some butyl rubber there. He only co-invented that substance (with Robert Thomas). I've met a lot of families whose names are on buildings at universities throughout this county. But I have yet to meet a family like ours. Consider this: we are the first family in the history of the world to have three generations of female lawyers. No doubt, we'll be the first with four.
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