Dec. 15, 1827: Boston Schools Require Vaccination

What a can of worms this thread could turn into!

Well, let me be the first off the mark to mention that Andrew Wakefield's findings were an out and out fraud. Since then, knowledgable people like Opra Winfrey, Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have found that they can kick start their flagging careers by hitching their wagons to the "anti-vax" horse...even though the horse is putrid and dead.

News flash....pointlessly fearful mothers have having children die because they listened to Oprah instead of their own doctor!

I would never normally suggest that the words "I am from the government and I am here to help you" are accurate, but I do have to admit that vaccines are one of the bright lights in a world full of pollution, global warming, and all the stuff that the occupy protesters were, um protesting.

All that I can say is that my auntie always made sure we got our shots when I was a kid. She barely survived polio, so she knows. Like clean water, and good roads, I am truly thankful for the hard working medical engineers who came up with a way to eliminate and DESTROY small pox. Now, lets do it with polio, aids, flu, and a hundred others! Yowzaaahhh!

Non-scientists often confuse correlation with causality. Women who use scented soap and drink French wine have fewer babies than those who don't. Does soap cause infertility? No, because there is no experimental evidence. The increase in the use of vaccines containing mercury correlates with increased autism. Of course there is no causality, and it's only a nasty rumor that in Denmark, where mercury is no longer allowed in vaccines, the rate of autism has gone down. I know that because the government (the same one that approves the vaccines) tells me so. There is a correlation between global temperatures and atmospheric CO2, but, in spite of no experimental evidence, the causality is certain. I know that, because the government tells me so.

Has it really?

Hmmm. First I heard of that.

But lets assume that one in ten thousand people got autism from the immunization shots. (which it doesn't). Have you ever seen a child coughing out its delicate lungs from whooping cough? Have you ever seen the heartache of a spontaneous abortion from measles induced side effects? Have you ever had a family member with polio...that lived to tell about life in an iron lung? Or have you visited an aging relative who is still in an iron lung thirty years later?

I am old enough to have seen these things.

They used to be fairly common scenes before vaccines were so wide spread. I note that they are becoming more common due to the influence of Oprah Winfrey and Doctor Oz watchers in North America.

There is a youtube video of the Danish Minister of Health warning that if there is widespread vaccination against the flu a few years ago, it would result in a catastophy of near biblical proportions. (something like 20% death rate from vaccinated individuals....which of course, did not happen.) She has since been fired. And rightly so. Perhaps that is where the rumours came from? (Have not been able to find that video, but I really have not tried all that hard. It is just one of several thousand videos by anti-vaxers)

(As far as the correlation between CO2 and global warming, there had BETTER be a man made cause because if "the sun is just warming up", we are all finished. At least if there is a man made cause, we can do something about it. But...I have seen ice core studies which have suggested that CO2 does not cause warming, but rather, it is merely an indicator. Who cares what causes it, we want to know how to stop it. But further discussion is fodder for a different forum thread entirely, so I will stop now.)

The correlation between MMR shots and autism? You start to test and notice symptoms of the pre-existing condition of autism about the same time as MMR shots are given. Because they happen at the same time, you think they are connected. Well, since I can prove that 97% of automobile accidents occured to people with shoes on, are we going to assume that wearing shoes causes accidents. Oh come on, a 97 per cent correlation! Don't you think that is significant? Correlational studies are not worth the funding, or the toilet paper they are written on.

"Have you ever seen a child coughing out its delicate lungs from whooping cough?" Yes, I have, my son, who was supposedly protected by a DPT shot. He and I have had just about every immunization one can think of, including plague. I'm not opposed to immunizations. I have a brother in law crippled by polio and had a friend die of it. Hooray polio vaccine!

Correlation doesn't prove anything, but lack of it can. They do have laws requiring drivers to wear shoes. Nearly all pedestrian victims of autos were wearing shoes. It's like saying pasteurized milk is a "gateway drug", since almost every crack addict drank milk first. Look at the "global temperature" records for the 1930's and consider that the Great Depression resulted in a decrease in fossil fuel use by about 30%. Does a negative correlation prove anything?

The MMR vaccine is only 95 per cent effective with one round. However, in 1989, a second round was recommended, because there WAS that five percent (your son I assume) just didn't get protected. Now, two shots are recommended, which pushes the immunity up to 99.7 percent. Not quite at 100 percent, but close. Herd immunity was no longer considered to be something you could rely upon because so many people were getting misinformation and NOT vaccinating their kids that the "herd" was becoming vulnerable.

This is a good overview of the DPT vaccine. Apparently in recent years, the disease has made a come back, a phenomon due to parents fearing side effects of the shot. Apparently the greatest side effect of not getting the shots is the disease itself, which has resulted in occasional cases of Dee Eee Aye Tee Aitch. If your son had got your DPT shot in Holland, he would not have been protected from Whooping Cough, since the initials DPT mean something different in Europe. (same reference as above)

Having had a little brother with whooping cough who was NEVER right after that childhood episode of pertussis my heart goes out to your son. Please accept my sincerest sympathy...it must have been horrible.

Most people don't know that you need to get boosters for this every ten to fifteen years, sometimes more if you live in an area with it being prevalent. Dana McCafferey died in her crib before she could get any shots....infected by a now very distraught grandfather who didn't know you need to get boosters at least once every twenty years. (How heart wrenching is that!)

Back when I was in the military (around 1977), we were all vaccinated against this "swine flu" that was about to lay waste to the world. Apparently it didn't. Trouble is...we would never know if it was the flu shot that stopped the epidemic, or if it just died out on its own. That would be a causational correlational study to try and determine if the mass inoculations worked. To think that the mass inoculations were useless is a bit like saying "Well, when I put the brakes on my car, it came to a stop just fine. Guess I didn't really need those brakes after all did I?" Using that analogy, I think that correlations might have their place....here is a graph of the H1N1 infection rates (Sorry, link no longer available.). Please note the correlation between the mass inoculations and the sudden disappearance of cases. OTOH, such a correlation may not actually exist...for instance, the disease may have simply killed everybody without an immunity to it, leaving only people with good resistance. The AIDS graph is skewed that way, and I think the old small pox graphs were skewed that way as well. So the lesson I take from this is to examine more than a few variables, and maybe most importantly, don't get your information from Jenny McCarthy.

On more or less related note...I wonder why this would ever be an issue. Do people REALLY not trust the government and big pharma so much that they would regard the requirement of booster shots as a "cash grab by big pharma"? I mean, REALLY DUDE? (insert eye roll here)