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Measles is back, and it's because your kids aren't vaccinated
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reply to post by RogerT
I appreciate your willingness to look at the sources, also.
Obviously, I am limiting myself for now to addressing your first position, that vaccines do not work.
It is my belief that the more vocal and radical members of the "anti-vaccination" cause, along with the profit-driven, secrecy-shielded pharmaceutical industry, have succeeded in polarizing this issue so that very little genuine dialogue occurs, and even less progress is made.
Part of the trouble is that there is a ton of evidence out there in the form of studies like the rotavirus study, but it's not easy for most people to read and analyze, so they rely on one of the two sides to report the gist of it for them. And of course the "gist" of it depends on who is doing the reading. You have provided an excellent, reasonably balanced, summary -- thank you.
I chose the rotavirus study because it raised so many good questions about what needs to be looked at, but didn't in any way involve what I think is the main argument in opposition to your second position, which is so-called "herd immunity". It is my contention that the total eradication of a disease is not the only reason for vaccination - that a vaccine can "work" if it significantly reduces suffering due to the organism it targets.
I have a feeling that by now we've lost any readers this thread still had, but who knows, maybe not.
Here's some of the issues the rotavirus study raises that complicate matters:
1) the big one. Side effects, both predicted and totally unexpected. This is the issue on which the pharmaceutical industry has lost so much credibility.
2) the impact of sanitation and adequate nutrition. In the brief survey of studies of measles outbreaks among vaccinated populations that I've started (no links because so far I've only scanned a bunch of abstracts) what is becoming abundantly clear is that these factors directly impact how effective the vaccine is. This leaves a number of questions: is there any point vaccinating a severely undernourished population if the vaccine will fail in many? In a well-nourished population does the high level of immunity achieved suggest that the population could have ridden out an actual outbreak without any major adverse effects?
3) the reason I liked the study so much for addressing the question of "does a vaccine work": it shows levels of protection achieved. It's not just immune vs. at risk: cases of rotavirus-associated diarrhea in the vaccinated population were less severe than among the non-vaccinated population. Also, its success rate of 85% is moderate enough to allow discussion of what level of protection is needed before we decide that a vaccine works.
If you don't mind, I'm going to continue to focus on the "do vaccines work?" question for a bit longer. And it may be slow going, because this week is really busy for me in real life too. I'll have to look into the arguments for and against the theory behind them -- if you could provide me with a link or two arguing against it would be appreciated, since I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find the pro- argument but my Google luck researching the anti-vaccine argument is pretty iffy. I tend to get tens or hundreds of links to alarmist websites that don't give any research or evidence to back their claims.
Just to leave you something to chew on, here's a study of a measles outbreak in a highly-vaccinated population (a boarding school in Pennsylvania) that I liked. The boarding-school setting mitigates one of the weaknesses in a lot of outbreak studies, which is the difficulty of determining a population. This study also highlights weaknesses in vaccination programs: the relatively high number of students who had been vaccinated abroad who got measles is particularly interesting. And of course, at the time of outbreak we can assume the patients all had access to clean water and adequate food.
Again, thanks for actually addressing the research with me -- I hope that we both can learn a lot about the issue this way.
I appreciate your willingness to look at the sources, also.
Obviously, I am limiting myself for now to addressing your first position, that vaccines do not work.
It is my belief that the more vocal and radical members of the "anti-vaccination" cause, along with the profit-driven, secrecy-shielded pharmaceutical industry, have succeeded in polarizing this issue so that very little genuine dialogue occurs, and even less progress is made.
Part of the trouble is that there is a ton of evidence out there in the form of studies like the rotavirus study, but it's not easy for most people to read and analyze, so they rely on one of the two sides to report the gist of it for them. And of course the "gist" of it depends on who is doing the reading. You have provided an excellent, reasonably balanced, summary -- thank you.
I chose the rotavirus study because it raised so many good questions about what needs to be looked at, but didn't in any way involve what I think is the main argument in opposition to your second position, which is so-called "herd immunity". It is my contention that the total eradication of a disease is not the only reason for vaccination - that a vaccine can "work" if it significantly reduces suffering due to the organism it targets.
I have a feeling that by now we've lost any readers this thread still had, but who knows, maybe not.
Here's some of the issues the rotavirus study raises that complicate matters:
1) the big one. Side effects, both predicted and totally unexpected. This is the issue on which the pharmaceutical industry has lost so much credibility.
2) the impact of sanitation and adequate nutrition. In the brief survey of studies of measles outbreaks among vaccinated populations that I've started (no links because so far I've only scanned a bunch of abstracts) what is becoming abundantly clear is that these factors directly impact how effective the vaccine is. This leaves a number of questions: is there any point vaccinating a severely undernourished population if the vaccine will fail in many? In a well-nourished population does the high level of immunity achieved suggest that the population could have ridden out an actual outbreak without any major adverse effects?
3) the reason I liked the study so much for addressing the question of "does a vaccine work": it shows levels of protection achieved. It's not just immune vs. at risk: cases of rotavirus-associated diarrhea in the vaccinated population were less severe than among the non-vaccinated population. Also, its success rate of 85% is moderate enough to allow discussion of what level of protection is needed before we decide that a vaccine works.
If you don't mind, I'm going to continue to focus on the "do vaccines work?" question for a bit longer. And it may be slow going, because this week is really busy for me in real life too. I'll have to look into the arguments for and against the theory behind them -- if you could provide me with a link or two arguing against it would be appreciated, since I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find the pro- argument but my Google luck researching the anti-vaccine argument is pretty iffy. I tend to get tens or hundreds of links to alarmist websites that don't give any research or evidence to back their claims.
Just to leave you something to chew on, here's a study of a measles outbreak in a highly-vaccinated population (a boarding school in Pennsylvania) that I liked. The boarding-school setting mitigates one of the weaknesses in a lot of outbreak studies, which is the difficulty of determining a population. This study also highlights weaknesses in vaccination programs: the relatively high number of students who had been vaccinated abroad who got measles is particularly interesting. And of course, at the time of outbreak we can assume the patients all had access to clean water and adequate food.
Again, thanks for actually addressing the research with me -- I hope that we both can learn a lot about the issue this way.
Originally posted by RogerT
as a bit of 'fun' playing with stats:
From the study: chances of contracting pneumonia and dying by taking the oral HRV vaccine Rotirax are 1 in 6,000.
From general rotavirus stats: chance of dying from contracting rotavirus in the USA are 1 in 45,000 to 1 in 135,000
So you are 7 to 21 times more likely to die from the vaccine than from the virus!
I'm not a gambling man, especially when it comes to the lives of my children, but I know which odds I'd rather take
[edit on 15/9/08 by RogerT]
I wasn't going to address this, but I find I have to. You are assuming that the Rotirax vaccine did cause the pneumonia cases, but there was not enough evidence to determine that. I hope that they do perform and publish follow-up studies because it is clearly a real concern.
Even if the pneumonia cases were in some way linked directly to Rotavirax, you are making the assumption that there would be the same rate of pneumonia among children in the U.S. as there was in the countries studied. Comparing rates of death due to pneumonia in South America vs deaths due to diarrhea in the United States is useless.
As you say, "fun with statistics"; can we try to be honest in our statistics in this debate in this thread? I was very glad to see you refuting the "63 were unvaccinated therefore 68 were vaccinated" fallacy earlier -- let's continue in that vein. I'm interested in the truth, not the propaganda.
[edit on 9/16/08 by americandingbat]
I chose the rotavirus study because it raised so many good questions about what needs to be looked at, but didn't in any way involve what I think is the main argument in opposition to your second position, which is so-called "herd immunity". It is my contention that the total eradication of a disease is not the only reason for vaccination - that a vaccine can "work" if it significantly reduces suffering due to the organism it targets.
I appreciate this point of view.
I'll adress it but first make even clearer my own standpoint.
I admit to being an extremist when it comes to health - well, extremist compared to the 'norm'. I am 100% pro natural healing and virtually 100% anti pharmaceuticals.
I believe 99.9% of allopathic medicine is at best a waste of money and time, and at worst the single biggest killer in the world today - there is plenty of documented evidence to confirm this.
The .1% I am all in favor for is mainly trauma surgery. If I get hit by a truck and my left arm is lying 12 feet away from my right arm on the pavement, I certainly want a trained surgeon to sew it back on again. I'll take the anaesthetic, although I'd rather have a well trained acupuncturist and/or herbalist on hand to manage the pain
I'm afraid for me that vaccines fall into the 99.9%, even though the root of vaccination goes back centuries to India etc, and the theory is basically homeopathic in nature.
Pasteur managed to vaccinate sheep in his lab against anthrax, yet the mystery around exactly how he did it seems to remain and the experiment fails to be reliably recreated. Now US taxpayers are footing a $877 million to Vaxgen to try to do the same thing against a rare disease that Pasteur with his 2 lab technicians and his somewhat limited resources at the farm of Pouilly-le-Fort in 1881 successfully immunized ungulates against over 100 years ago. Where's the sense in that, unless of course you are a Vaxgen shareholder?
There may well be some instances of vaccines having beneficial effects on certain diseases in certain circumstances, but IMO the focus on vaccination diverts attention from the real issues of creating and sustaining health.
IMO, the cost of even a 'successful' vaccine is way too high, both financially and the almost certain damage a portion of the vaccine recipients will suffer as side effects.
Vaccination is part of the allopathic philosophy of 'poisoning yourself to health' - I just don't agree with it.
This leaves a number of questions: is there any point vaccinating a severely undernourished population if the vaccine will fail in many? In a well-nourished population does the high level of immunity achieved suggest that the population could have ridden out an actual outbreak without any major adverse effects?
Excellent observations. My response. No, yes
Vaccination is designed to invoke an immune response. The immune system requires nutrients and especially proteins to develop immune cells. The undernourished (3rd world) and malnourished (Western junk food eaters) simply cannot produce the desired response.
If you stick a toxin into someone without the vitality or health to respond, likelihood is they will get sick.
Allopathy would like us to believe that no matter how healthy, if we don't vaccinate against diseases, we may contract them and die. It's powerful marketing to say that without your product people will die.
However, this obviously isn't the case and even the slightest common sense illuminates the fact. We are surrounded, each and every second by countless infectious pathogens, yet we do not remain eternally diseased and destined to an early death (some my disagree). Even during the WORST plagues in history, the majority of people did NOT die.
The lies, fear mongering, obfuscation, hidden agendas and just plain arrogant ignorance are so widespread throughout the 'vaccination industry', that it has become a near impossible task for an 'aware' individual to make a fully informed decision, so it is far safer to simply 'say no' especially when safe and proven alternatives are abundant and easily accessible and applicable.
Both inoculation and vaccine campaigns have always been fraught with politics and financial interests. Despite the fact that inoculation was outlawed by the British Parliament in 1840, in 1853 The Compulsory Vaccination Act in England was passed by Parliament and every parent was required to have their baby vaccinated within 3 months of birth or face a fine of 20 shillings.
In modern times, we face similar threats that our children won’t be admitted to school unless they are jabbed with the hepatitis B vaccine (a rare syndrome) and whose safety data we have yet to see. The school nurse and Public Health Department, or school admittance policies should not be used to threaten you that you cannot enroll your kid, based on the madness surrounding the possibility that your 5-year-old will transmit a sexual, or needle-borne, or blood-product-transmitted “syndrome” that has a 99% or greater spontaneous resolution rate in otherwise healthy individuals, to someone else's 5 year old.
Currently, parents are being threatened that their daughters have a 70% chance of acquiring cervical cancer unless they fork over $300.00 dollars for a series of 3 HPV shots.
If you don't mind, I'm going to continue to focus on the "do vaccines work?" question for a bit longer. And it may be slow going, because this week is really busy for me in real life too. I'll have to look into the arguments for and against the theory behind them -- if you could provide me with a link or two arguing against it would be appreciated, since I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find the pro- argument but my Google luck researching the anti-vaccine argument is pretty iffy. I tend to get tens or hundreds of links to alarmist websites that don't give any research or evidence to back their claims.
I don't mind at all, but frankly, in view of my above rant, even if there is some validity in the vaccine theory, showing that something 'works' just isn't enough.
Aspirin certainly alleviates pain, but is the stomach bleeding worth it?
Popping a few Tylenol my relieve the headache, but what about the liver damage?
Oxytet can combat a bacterial infection, but wiping out your entire intestinal flora in the process isn't a smart move when a few cloves of raw garlic will do a better job without the associated demolision of your bodies natural balance and vitality.
So I guess I have moved on to 'Vaccines are unnecessary', although I'm happy to stay with the 'Vaccines don't work' if you like.
But why don't we stick with the childhood immunisation schedule vaccines, as this is what I believe is really destroying our childrens health and vitality on a massive and unprecedented scale.
Yes, most anti-vaccine info is alarmist and extremist. There's nothing worse than a converted smoker
Try 'the immunisation bible' for a fully referenced and studied approach. I believe this classic is now available as an ebook.
BTW, re the stats, I was just having a bit of fun and don't think those stats are at all accurate
Again, thanks for actually addressing the research with me -- I hope that we both can learn a lot about the issue this way.
me too.
reply to post by RogerT
I'm really still not done with "do vaccines work" because I can't see how we can decide whether they are necessary or not without first determining what all we're hoping they can do. But since I don't have time to read more studies today, I'm just going to address a few points from your latest response.
Would you take the antibiotics? I don't know if there are any kind of statistics on post-operative infection after limb reattachment without antibiotics, but I'm not convinced a couple cloves of garlic would do it.
How about other invasive procedures designed to correct physical anomalies that are not trauma-related? Surgery to correct congenital defects in infants? Catheter ablation to correct atrial fibrillation? Where does the line get drawn and why?
And what is it that makes "natural" medicines that an herbalist provides necessarily better than pharmaceutic agents developed in a lab? I don't mean politically better, or economically better -- I mean better for the health of the patient.
You accuse "allopathic" medicine of having a "poison yourself to health" viewpoint -- I would argue that it is the pharmaceutical companies, the mass media, and the consumer-driven medical model that have this viewpoint, not the practitioners of conventional medicine.
Why can't a vaccination campaign be combined with education about nutrition and holistic ways of maintaining health? I think most M.D.s would agree that the typical American diet is a major factor in disease and that it is preferable to maintain health rather than have to regain health -- in fact I think the second is the reasoning behind vaccination.
I raised the questions of a) whether a healthy population would be able to ride out an epidemic with less suffering than would be caused by vaccination and b) whether it is worthwhile to conduct vaccination campaigns in areas where we can predict a high level of failure due to malnutrition. You answered "yes" and "no", respectively. Can you provide supportive data for those answers?
I suspect our definitions of things like "effective" and "medically necessary" are too far apart to reach agreement, but I still think the exercise is worthwhile. If nothing else, it is helping me get a sense of the issues involved and the barriers presented by the current health communities (both alternative and conventional).
I'm really still not done with "do vaccines work" because I can't see how we can decide whether they are necessary or not without first determining what all we're hoping they can do. But since I don't have time to read more studies today, I'm just going to address a few points from your latest response.
The .1% I am all in favor for is mainly trauma surgery. If I get hit by a truck and my left arm is lying 12 feet away from my right arm on the pavement, I certainly want a trained surgeon to sew it back on again. I'll take the anaesthetic, although I'd rather have a well trained acupuncturist and/or herbalist on hand to manage the pain
Would you take the antibiotics? I don't know if there are any kind of statistics on post-operative infection after limb reattachment without antibiotics, but I'm not convinced a couple cloves of garlic would do it.
How about other invasive procedures designed to correct physical anomalies that are not trauma-related? Surgery to correct congenital defects in infants? Catheter ablation to correct atrial fibrillation? Where does the line get drawn and why?
And what is it that makes "natural" medicines that an herbalist provides necessarily better than pharmaceutic agents developed in a lab? I don't mean politically better, or economically better -- I mean better for the health of the patient.
You accuse "allopathic" medicine of having a "poison yourself to health" viewpoint -- I would argue that it is the pharmaceutical companies, the mass media, and the consumer-driven medical model that have this viewpoint, not the practitioners of conventional medicine.
Why can't a vaccination campaign be combined with education about nutrition and holistic ways of maintaining health? I think most M.D.s would agree that the typical American diet is a major factor in disease and that it is preferable to maintain health rather than have to regain health -- in fact I think the second is the reasoning behind vaccination.
I raised the questions of a) whether a healthy population would be able to ride out an epidemic with less suffering than would be caused by vaccination and b) whether it is worthwhile to conduct vaccination campaigns in areas where we can predict a high level of failure due to malnutrition. You answered "yes" and "no", respectively. Can you provide supportive data for those answers?
I suspect our definitions of things like "effective" and "medically necessary" are too far apart to reach agreement, but I still think the exercise is worthwhile. If nothing else, it is helping me get a sense of the issues involved and the barriers presented by the current health communities (both alternative and conventional).
I'm really still not done with "do vaccines work" because I can't see how we can decide whether they are necessary or not without first determining what all we're hoping they can do.
OK, if you like, but then let's focus on establishing whether each and every vaccine in the childhood vaccination schedule is effective or not.
You picked rotavirus as the starter, I'm curious as to why, as it is surely one of the most 'unknown' vaccines. Interestingly though, as an oral vaccine for an 'intestinal' related condition, it probably mimics the 'natural' disease methodolgy more than vaccine injections for airborne pathogens, which bypasses the bodies normal immune response procedures.
Why don't you start with measles, as this is after all what the OP is about.
We also need to decide what constitutes 'effective'. If a vaccinated subject gets the disease they are vaccinated against, then what?
How do you incorporate vaccine induced disease like polio for example, where the vaccine actually brings on the condition in vaccine recipients as well as those around them? Would this be part of the 'effective' discussion or the 'safe' discussion?
Would you take the antibiotics? I don't know if there are any kind of statistics on post-operative infection after limb reattachment without antibiotics, but I'm not convinced a couple cloves of garlic would do it.
I was prescribed 30mg of oxytetracycline per day during my early teens and into my early twenties to combat acne. I tried many times to come off the antibiotics but the acne always returned. When I 'discovered' natural healing methods and put them into practice, the acne was gone within 10 days and I've never taken an antibiotic since, nor do I have the intention of ever taking them in my future.
I'm 'clean' from pharmaceuticals for almost 20 years now and have since done a lot of work on my body to heal the intestinal, liver and kidney damage done by the drugs.
I believe your question seperates the true natural healers from the wannabees and quacks. IMO there is never a need for pharmaceutical antibiotics.
You are not convinced about garlic because you have no experience and have not done the research. Garlic is not only antibacterial, but also antiviral and antifungal. However, you cannot patent garlic (currently) so Allopathy will never include this amazing plant into it's mainstream.
How about other invasive procedures designed to correct physical anomalies that are not trauma-related? Surgery to correct congenital defects in infants? Catheter ablation to correct atrial fibrillation? Where does the line get drawn and why?
I said the majority of the .1% is trauma surgery. Yes there are a few other areas of modern medicine that deserve attention.
And what is it that makes "natural" medicines that an herbalist provides necessarily better than pharmaceutic agents developed in a lab? I don't mean politically better, or economically better -- I mean better for the health of the patient.
You're kidding right?
the number of people having in-hospital, adverse reactions to prescribed drugs to be 2.2 million per year. The number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections is 20 million per year. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million per year. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million per year.
The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US.
Death by Medicine. By Gary Null, PhD; Carolyn Dean MD, ND; Martin Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; and Dorothy Smith, PhD
Of the 783,936 annual deaths due to conventional medical mistakes, about 106,000 are from prescription drugs, according to Death by Medicine. That also is a conservative number. Some experts estimate it should be more like 200,000 because of underreported cases of adverse drug reactions.
(OMNS) American poison control statistics show that in one year, there were 28 deaths from heroin; acetaminophen (the active ingredient in products like Tylenol ) killed 147. Though acetaminophen killed over five times as many as an illegal drug, few would say that we should make this generally regarded as safe, over-the-counter pain reliever require prescription
So what about death by herbs?
HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS
The 2003 Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers Toxic Exposures Surveillance System indicates a total of 13 deaths attributed to herbal preparations. Three of these are from ephedra, two from yohimbe, and two from ma-huang. Accepting all seven claims of deaths attributed to these products, we still find that there were over 20 times as many deaths each year from acetaminophen.
Only three deaths are attributable to other single ingredient botanicals, and oddly enough, their identity remains unnamed in the Toxic Exposures report. Reporting three deaths without naming the cause is a clear admission of uncertainty.
Millions of persons take herbal remedies, and have done so for generations. Indigenous and Westernized peoples alike have found them to be safe and effective, and the 2003 Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers Toxic Exposures Surveillance System confirms this (p 388-389). There have been no deaths at all from cultural medicines, including ayurvedic, Asian, Hispanic, and in fact, from all others.
Additionally, we find:
* Blue cohosh: 0 deaths
* Ginko biloba: 0 deaths
* Echinacea: 0 deaths
* Ginseng: 0 deaths
* Kava kava: 0 deaths
* St John's wort: 0 deaths
* Valerian: 0 deaths
Furthermore, there have been zero deaths from phytoestrogens, glandulars, blue-green algae, or homeopathic remedies.
I recommend you read this if your question is indeed genuine
You accuse "allopathic" medicine of having a "poison yourself to health" viewpoint -- I would argue that it is the pharmaceutical companies, the mass media, and the consumer-driven medical model that have this viewpoint, not the practitioners of conventional medicine.
Are you an MD? Are you telling me that MD's don't prescribe pharmaceuticals.
OK, it's either a poison it out or cut it out mentality. I've yet to meet a practising allopathic MD that knows much about health.
Why can't a vaccination campaign be combined with education about nutrition and holistic ways of maintaining health?
So you're an idealist
Well of course it can. But IMO, if the educational, legislative, financial, research focus was moved from combatting disease to promoting and preserving health, then vaccinations wouldn't be necessary even in your sense of the statement.
You answered "yes" and "no", respectively. Can you provide supportive data for those answers?
Not really. This is the difference between holistic medicine and allopathy. They live in distinct paradigms. To provide data you need a study. Studies need financing, which involves either a profit motive or a legislative motive. My assertions are validated by a gradual realisation of the natural order of things (call it common sense or awareness), I'm not aware of studies, although they may exist.
I suspect our definitions of things like "effective" and "medically necessary" are too far apart to reach agreement, but I still think the exercise is worthwhile. If nothing else, it is helping me get a sense of the issues involved and the barriers presented by the current health communities (both alternative and conventional).
I agree.
What's your angle here, just curious?
[edit on 17/9/08 by RogerT]
To get us started on the MMR effectiveness debate:
What's interesting about the MMR is that the majority of research and studies are now designed around the toxicity and dangers of the jab, particularly the autism link.
In the malaise, we seem to have forgotten that the diseases were already all but gone when the vaccines were developed and there is no proof, as far as I am aware, that the vaccinations did anything beneficial at all.
Of course there's the whole other argument that contracting measles is 'beneficial' as a childhood illness and actually helps to empower the immune system for later life. Don't flame me on this one people, I said it's an argument (worth considering), not a fact in each and every case.
[edit on 17/9/08 by RogerT]
[edit on 17/9/08 by RogerT]
After three years of study, a Medical Working Group representing 180 Swiss medical doctors specializing in general medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics published an article in the Spring 1992 Journal of Anthroposophic Medicine entitled "The Immunization Campaign Against Measles, Mumps and Rubella, Coercion Leading to Uncertainy: Medical Objections to a Continued MMR Immunization Campaign in Switzerland," concluding that mandatory, mass vaccination with MMR vaccine is ineffective and dangerous.
What's interesting about the MMR is that the majority of research and studies are now designed around the toxicity and dangers of the jab, particularly the autism link.
In the malaise, we seem to have forgotten that the diseases were already all but gone when the vaccines were developed and there is no proof, as far as I am aware, that the vaccinations did anything beneficial at all.
Of course there's the whole other argument that contracting measles is 'beneficial' as a childhood illness and actually helps to empower the immune system for later life. Don't flame me on this one people, I said it's an argument (worth considering), not a fact in each and every case.
[edit on 17/9/08 by RogerT]
[edit on 17/9/08 by RogerT]
What's your angle here, just curious?
I'll get this out of the way first. After a major health crisis in my late twenties, which required a combination of conventional and alternative treatments, I decided to go back to school to study biochemistry. I'm currently in my second year (Anatomy&Physiology and Organic Chemistry, mostly) of a post-bacc pre-med preparation program, but intend to go for a Ph.D., not an M.D.
So, I like this stuff. I'm fascinated by it. And you're the first person who has seemed remotely willing to play devil's advocate and look at the studies on their own merits rather than just saying "OMG! Do you know what's in them! Aborted human fetuses! Chick embryonic fluid! NWO conspiracy!"
Plus, I'm an idealist. I honestly believe that it's important to hear both sides of an issue. I honestly believe that the way the medical establishment runs now is profoundly diseased itself and I want to play whatever small part I can to make it better. But I think that tossing out pharmaceutical science altogether is as bad as continuing to let lawyers, businessmen, and the media make our medical choices for us.
Which leads me back to the question I asked that you didn't really answer: "why are herbal remedies intrinsically better than lab-prepared ones?"
You gave a lot of statistics and examples of how laboratory medicines have caused harm, but that wasn't the question. That addresses how they are used, not the medicines themselves. Nevertheless, thank you for the link to orthomolecular.org. I subscribed to their newsletter and will check it out.
And again, I think the statistics given are misleading. An example? 175 deaths per year from Tylenol. I don't doubt that's true, but I suspect a lot of them are suicides, some are probably overdoses in children who shouldn't have had access to pills. I bet the number of deaths due to doctor-recommended usage of Tylenol is rather small.
Are you an MD? Are you telling me that MD's don't prescribe pharmaceuticals.
OK, it's either a poison it out or cut it out mentality. I've yet to meet a practising allopathic MD that knows much about health.
I am telling you that most of the MDs I have encountered would prefer not to prescribe unnecessarily. Surgeons might sometimes be a bit trigger-happy with the scalpel if I may mix metaphors, and I am well aware that abuse is rampant in the system (including prescribing to get a patient out of the office, performing tests to get insurance to reimburse, etc.) But if you really haven't met an MD who would rather take tea for a sore throat than penicillin, you should meet more MDs.
Well of course it can. But IMO, if the educational, legislative, financial, research focus was moved from combatting disease to promoting and preserving health, then vaccinations wouldn't be necessary even in your sense of the statement.
Now who's the idealist?
This is the difference between holistic medicine and allopathy. They live in distinct paradigms. To provide data you need a study. Studies need financing, which involves either a profit motive or a legislative motive. My assertions are validated by a gradual realisation of the natural order of things (call it common sense or awareness), I'm not aware of studies, although they may exist.
Huh. I thought I reentered this thread after a much-needed break to answer your challenge to show you studies? I'm sure there are some studies out there, and I imagine they will continue to become more prevalent as the older generation of MDs retires. I would look at insurance or state health programs as possible sources of funding. I'm interested in the dialogue with alternative practitioners, if they'll stoop to talk to a chemist.
Now, back on topic:
Vaccine effectiveness. I began with a rotavirus study for a lot of reasons, some of which I have already given. In addition, I wanted a sense of how willing you were to talk, and I wanted an example of a double-blind placebo-control study with large numbers. Because it is considered unethical to not give MMR vaccines, there are no recent studies of this type.
I entered the discussion without any expectation that I would change your mind -- hence the question of how many vaccines would I have to prove safe before you agreed to take a second look at the practice.
But I liked the way you stated your positions, and they were positions that I agreed had to be answered. This is why I'm unwilling to be forced into the discussion of whether vaccination was responsible for the decline in measles. The first question in my mind is still, do vaccines work? What do we want them to do? The rotavirus situation allows me to explore that in ways that the diseases vaccine supporters usually go straight to (eg smallpox or polio) don't. It is a disease that, in a healthy population, causes very little long-term damage or death, but is absolutely devastating to a population without adequate food and clean water. It is a vaccine that doesn't promise anything like 100% immunity, but that raises the survival rate significantly even for those who get the infection after vaccination.
I'm still working out in my own mind what I think constitutes "necessary" or even "useful". I think a vaccine works if it provides a significant percentage of the people who receive it with immunity or makes later infection less severe.
The study I linked yesterday provides evidence that the measles vaccine works in these terms, as does the article linked in the OP of this thread. In both cases the percentage of unvaccinated people among those who got measles is much higher than the percentage of unvaccinated people in the overall population. There are many many more similar studies of outbreaks in highly vaccinated populations that I could link in, but I don't think there's really anything new.
As for whether the measles vaccine is necessary, I guess we'll watch the areas where vaccination rates are declining and find out. I'll work on looking for studies that clarify whether vaccination was an important factor in reducing measles in the developed world this week.
P.S. actually I doubted garlic as a post-limb-attachment anti-infective because I'm not convinced you could get the tissue penetration I imagine you'd want for that sort of thing.
[edit on 9/17/08 by americandingbat]
No, garlic will work just fine for that, taken internally. Externally, you could use an anti-infection mixture containing garlic, horseradish, onion,
tea tree and a few other plants. To keep the blood moving to any infected area, hot and cold hydrotherapy combined with cayenne is the best.
The above will knock out just about any infection quick smart, even reverse and heal late stage gangrene (the kind that the allopaths would amputate for).
By the way, as well as antibacterial/fungal/viral, garlic also reverses diabetes
So what's your comments on the 3 year study by the 180 swiss doctors, finding that MMR jabs are dangerous and ineffective?
I thought I'd answered your question re drugs vs herbs etc, but obviously not to your satisfaction. You ask why are natural medicines better for the patients health than pharma drugs ... my answer: Pharma drugs cause toxic reactions that often end in death. Natural medicines, when used appropriately, are more effective than pharma drugs and improve vitality without adverse reactions. I can't think of any way to make this clearer.
Here's just one of very very many examples, which also somewhat addresses your comments about targetting 3rd world populations for mass vaccination (under the guise of humanitarian goals).
I'll search for a concise description of the 2 paradigms of natural healing and allopathy and post it if I can find it.
[edit on 18/9/08 by RogerT]
The above will knock out just about any infection quick smart, even reverse and heal late stage gangrene (the kind that the allopaths would amputate for).
By the way, as well as antibacterial/fungal/viral, garlic also reverses diabetes
So what's your comments on the 3 year study by the 180 swiss doctors, finding that MMR jabs are dangerous and ineffective?
I thought I'd answered your question re drugs vs herbs etc, but obviously not to your satisfaction. You ask why are natural medicines better for the patients health than pharma drugs ... my answer: Pharma drugs cause toxic reactions that often end in death. Natural medicines, when used appropriately, are more effective than pharma drugs and improve vitality without adverse reactions. I can't think of any way to make this clearer.
Here's just one of very very many examples, which also somewhat addresses your comments about targetting 3rd world populations for mass vaccination (under the guise of humanitarian goals).
The recommended AZT dose for African infants and small children is the same per kg of body weight as the original high-dose AZT that is widely acknowledged to have killed an entire generation of grown men, and which has not been administered for almost a decade (see here for a short history barnesworld.blogs.com...).
In the words of Claus Koehnlein, a German physician who has treated AIDS patients for ten years without AZT and its cousins:
"AZT kills everything that depends on DNA replication -- that means opportunistic infections and also cancers will respond to the treatment -- but at a high price.
I'll search for a concise description of the 2 paradigms of natural healing and allopathy and post it if I can find it.
[edit on 18/9/08 by RogerT]
reply to post by RogerT
Homeopathic Remedies are wonderful. I love them.
I hope Bill C-51's little brother doesn't get passed, or I'll be prescribing those also - vitamins and all.
Homeopathic Remedies are wonderful. I love them.
I hope Bill C-51's little brother doesn't get passed, or I'll be prescribing those also - vitamins and all.
OK I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, but here's the idea:
See this link for a more detailed summary of the differences
Here's another good one with link to the rest of the page:
curezone.com...
from same link
[edit on 18/9/08 by RogerT]
Two opposing viewpoints of health and disease have been evident since ancient times. The conventional view, or Allopathic (literally, “other disease”) sees problems coming from outside the body. Or simply, the cause of disease comes from outside, then invades the body and the person gets "sick."
The Germ Theory.
Allopathic philosophy says that when the body has symptoms like pain, fever, or nausea, that means the person has caught some bug, some disease and needs to have these symptoms “treated” - i.e., covered up. Usually with drugs.
If the disease localizes itself in one certain part of the body and won't go away, then that part of the body may have to be cut out with surgery. That's the allopathic viewpoint: disease, symptoms, drugs, surgery.
The holistic view is different.
Holistic philosophy says that the cause and cure of all disease lie within the body. The parts of the body are interrelated in ways that are so complex, so sophisticated, so elegantly orchestrated and exquisitely tuned, that all medical technology has only the crudest, faintest understanding of just a few basic mechanisms.
In most cases, the body can heal itself if provided with the opportunity.
It does this from the inside out - from the brain and spinal cord, outward through the nervous system, to every organ, and cell.
For every time you have ever been sick, there have been hundreds of times when your immune system has conquered a disease without any overt symptoms being expressed.
The mysteries of the body - its inner workings - are actually the most evolved systems in the universe. We are dealing with the life forces, the life substances - that which can never be viewed in dissection or isolated in laboratory culture.
To influence these subtle, delicate interweavings, natural cures seek to nourish and encourage the body back into a condition of balance, by gentle support.
See this link for a more detailed summary of the differences
Here's another good one with link to the rest of the page:
Allopathic medicine has always criticized holistic medicine with the same complaint down through the years, persisting intact to the present time: the same thing over and over - alternative medicine is unscientific, unproven, not supported by controlled clinical trials, undocumented in peer-reviewed journals, and anecdotal. They don't really say Alternative doesn't work; just that it's unproven. What this implies of course is that mainstream allopathy is objectively scientific and proven by clinical research.
There are two big problems with such claims:
1. it's apples and oranges
2. "science" is really not that scientific
Apples and oranges. Two different things, totally different paradigms. Alternative medicine is not just a different way to cure the diseases we might get. It is not competing with anyone in the Disease Care market. Holistic medicine doesn't cure diseases. It promotes a healthy condition which is not conducive to disease, by purifying the biological terrain, to allow the body to express its natural potential. All the time.
curezone.com...
the strength of holistic methods often lies in their empirically demonstrable value. Chiropractic, for one, has been around for over 100 years, with millions of people being cared for. The benefits of spinal correction are easily shown and easily understood. Chiropractic doesn't have to be "proven" except to a defense lawyer or someone with a political agenda to attack it.
Same way with acupuncture. The 12 meridians and the thousands of herbs employed by acupuncturists - none of this has been "proven" by strict "scientific" studies. After 4000 years, acupuncture is still around, and people still choose it as a helpful treatment.
Also for the minute dilutions employed by homeopathic medicine - these have never been written up in NEJM after double blind studies showed their effectiveness.
Allopathic posturing pretends that all drugs and procedures have been thoroughly tested in objective scientific research studies, which guarantees both safety and effectiveness. There are some basic problems with such a wish.
First of all, in the "controlled" study, scientists pretend they are testing some drug by isolating just one single variable, and holding all other factors the same, in order to prove the effectiveness of the drug.
The only way to do this is to place the subjects in a position of uncertainty and helplessness: the "double-blind" study. That means that supposedly neither the researchers nor the subjects know who's getting the drug and who's getting the placebo sugar pill.
The point is, the whole structure of such a design is flawed. Why? Because we're dealing with the innate healing systems of the human body. It doesn't respond normally in a situation of helplessness and uncertainty. That's not its normal condition. That's not how people live their lives.
So the outcomes of such artificial situations as the sacred double blind study are going to be essentially meaningless when applied to the normal everyday physiology of a healthy human.
from same link
[edit on 18/9/08 by RogerT]
At least 100,000 deaths a year from prescription drugs that were correctly prescribed and administered - wait a minute. All these drugs are tested by randomized, double blind controlled clinical trials, right?
So they're all "scientifically proven" to work, right? Employing the most rigorous of scientific testing procedures, only the drugs that have made it through all that are allowed to be put on the market, right?
So what's all this posturing about, that alternative medicine isn't reproducible in clinical trials, LIKE REAL MEDICINE IS.
Here we have the finished products of their own scientific processes, so I want to know, why are 160 of them taken off the market every year only to be replaced by about the same number? And why are they killing all these people? Many are starting to notice this!
curezone.com...
So what's your comments on the 3 year study by the 180 swiss doctors, finding that MMR jabs are dangerous and ineffective?
I don't have a link for it, so no comment. I have looked through dozens of abstracts saying they've found that MMR vaccination is safe and effective, so I'm not going to believe two sentences from one study that I don't know the source of.
By the way, as well as antibacterial/fungal/viral, garlic also reverses diabetes
I did a quick search of pubmed for studies on garlic and found quite a lot. It looks like (and yes, I'm talking from the conventional medical perspective here) allicin, a compound occurring naturally in garlic, interferes with RNA and DNA replication and has good efficacy against gram-negative bacterial pathogens (source), and some fungal and viral pathogens. It also seems to have synergism with (source) some pharmaceutic antibiotics.
I also looked into its use for diabetes, and found a couple of review articles (herbs review, botanicals and carb metabolism review) that urge further studies, and a number of animal studies, which suggests that in it's own slow way conventional medical science is listening.
I thought I'd answered your question re drugs vs herbs etc, but obviously not to your satisfaction.
And still not. Maybe if I put it this way: when I read or listen to "holistic" arguments against lab pharmaceuticals, I get the sense that they are arguing for a moral or spiritual superiority inherent in "natural" products vs. lab products. That if, for instance, an identical compound, with identical effectiveness and identical side effects, could be produced in a lab or by a plant, but the lab version was cheaper, herbalists would urge patients to use the plant version because it was "natural". This is a purely theoretic question, not a historical or scientific one. And maybe this mindset isn't actually common to all alternative practitioners, maybe I've just been biased by some that I've run into. If the question still isn't clear, I'll drop it -- it's not really that important in this context, just something I've always wondered.
The African AZT dosage information is of course profoundly disturbing. But again, I don't for a second doubt that pharmaceutics are misused both here and elsewhere. Obviously, I think it's an important enough issue to have spent many hours of my life looking into one area of possible abuse over the last few weeks. But it doesn't mean that all lab-derived products are evil.
Two different things, totally different paradigms. Alternative medicine is not just a different way to cure the diseases we might get. It is not competing with anyone in the Disease Care market. Holistic medicine doesn't cure diseases. It promotes a healthy condition which is not conducive to disease, by purifying the biological terrain, to allow the body to express its natural potential. All the time.
So I'm not sure why they can't cooperate. I'll say it again: most MDs (humans, not organizations) would rather people stay healthy. People say things like "they'll lose business" -- this is not true. There will be plenty of business for doctors for a long time. As both you and your source have admitted, there are conditions which conventional medicine is simply better at treating. And transitioning the developed world from a diet of McDonalds and sugar to health is going to take some time; ensuring clean water and sufficient food for the rest of the world is probably even further in the future.
These sources also completely ignore recent developments in molecular biology, for example, which are transforming how the medical establishment understands disease and health. An idea of "allopathic medicine" that hasn't evolved since the 1960s has been set up as a straw man for holistic medicine proponents, who insist that MDs are incapable of questioning established practice. This is simply not true. It does a real disservice to doctors, biologists, and chemists who seek to learn from outside the field, and I think it does a disservice to holistic practitioners whose energy gets focused on beating up the straw man.
Again, back to vaccines:
Since you haven't commented on either the Pennsylvania boarding school study or the article and related CDC press releases from the OP, I assume that you are stipulating that being vaccinated for measles makes you less likely to get measles during an outbreak and likely to have a less severe case if you do have a breakthrough infection. In other words, that the measles vaccine works.
I realize that that was only the first, and probably the least important, of your positions. I simply don't see a way to prove that vaccines are necessary as long as you insist that the alternative of a holistically treated, well-nourished, healthy population is a realistic alternative at present. In most cases, I think that in such an ideal world vaccines would not be necessary. All I can hope to do is demonstrate that in the world we live in, vaccines prevent more suffering than they cause -- and this of course will be a purely circumstantial case.
As far as safety is concerned, I'd like to see the study you referenced on the MMR vaccine.
I realize it must be frustrating to discuss this with someone who thinks there's validity in both conventional and alternative medicine, and I appreciate your persistence
P.S. -- now I'm curious: what's your angle? Are you a professional in the field?
[edit on 9/18/08 by americandingbat]
[edit on 9/19/08 by americandingbat]
Hmm to vaccinate or not.... When I was in my early 20's I discovered on a camping trip that the weasing I grew up with as kid was an allergy type of
asthma, the day I went to the doctors he suggested that I get a flu shot that it was supose to be bad this year, how he know that no clue. I had told
him that it was very rare that I even caught a sniffle, seriously couldn't remember when, but like the somewhat of a sheeple I was I said OK. Needles
to say a month later I caught the flu... go figure lol.
I don't have a link for it, so no comment.
Well I gave you the study title, date and publication. Maybe it's not online, but I guess that's what research is about
Here are some more regarding mumps:
The Mumps Vaccine and Neurological Disorders:
# Bottiger, M., et al. "Swedish experience of two dose vaccination programme aiming at eliminating measles, mumps and rubella." British Medical Journal 1987; 295:264-67.
# Thomas, E. "A case of mumps meningitis: A complication of vaccination?" Journal of the Canadian Medical Association 1988; 138:135.
# Champagne, S., et al. "A case of mumps meningitis: a post-immunization complication?" Canadian Disease Weekly Report 1988; 13-35:155-156.
# Ehrengut, W. "Mumps vaccine and meningitis." Lancet 1989; 2:751.
# Von Muhlendahl, K.E. "Mumps meningitis following measles, mumps and rubella immunisations." Lancet (August 12, 1989), p. 394.
# Cizman, M., et al. "Aseptic meningitis after vaccination against measles and mumps." Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 1989; 8:302-308.
# McDonald, J., et al. "Clinical and epidemiological features of mumps meningo-encephalitis and possible vaccine-related disease." Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal (November 1989), pp. 751-754.
# Gray, J.A., et al. "Mumps meningitis following measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation." Lancet 1989; i:98.
# Gray, J.A., et al. "Mumps vaccine meningitis." Lancet 1989; i:927.
# Murray, M.W., et al. "Mumps meningitis after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation." Lancet 1989; ii:877.
# \ "Mumps meningitis and MMR vaccination." [Editorial] Lancet 1989; ii:1015-1016.
# Forsey, T., et al. "Mumps viruses and mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine." British Medical Journal 1989; 299:1340.
# Forsey, T., et al. "Mumps vaccines and meningitis." Lancet 1992; 340:980.
# Miller, E., et al. "Risk of aseptic meningitis after measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine in U.K. children." Lancet 1993; 341:979.
# Sawada, et al. Lancet 1993; 342:371.
The Mumps Vaccine and Meningitis Attack Rates:
# Sugiura, A., et al. "Aseptic meningitis as a complication of mumps vaccination." Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases 1991; 10:209-213. [1 case of meningitis per 2000 doses of mumps vaccine.]
# Fujinaga, T., et al. "A prefecture-wide survey of mumps meningitis associated with measles, mumps and rubella vaccine." Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases 1991; 10:204-209. [6 cases of meningitis per 2000 doses of mumps vaccine.]
# Colville, A., et al. "Mumps meningitis and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine." Lancet 1992; 340:786. [1 case of meningitis per 3800 doses of mumps vaccine.]
The Mumps Vaccine and Diabetes:
# Sultz, H.A., et al. "Is mumps virus an etiologic factor in juvenile diabetes mellitus?" Journal of Pediatrics 1975; 86:654-656.
# Sinaniotis, C.A., et al. "Diabetes mellitus after mumps vaccination (letter)." Archives of Disease in Childhood 1975; 50:749-750.
# Quast, U., et al. "Vaccine-induced mumps-like diseases." Developments in Biological Standardization 1979; 43:269-272.
# Otten, A., et al. "Mumps, mumps vaccination, islet cell antibodies and the first manifestation of diabetes mellitus type I." Behring Institute Mitteilungen 1984; 75:83-88.
# Helmke, K., et al. "Islet cell antibodies and the development of diabetes mellitus in relation to mumps infection and mumps vaccination." Diabetologia 1986; 29:30-33.
# Fescharek, R., et al. "Measles-mumps vaccination in the FRG: an empirical analysis after 14 years of use. II. Tolerability and analysis of spontaneously reported side effects." Vaccine 1990; 8:446-456.
# Pawlowski, B., et al. "Mumps vaccination and type-1 diabetes." Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 1991; 116:635.
# Adler, J.B., et al. "Pancreatitis caused by measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine." Pancreas 1991; 6:489-490.
# Albonico, H., Klein, P., et al. "The immunization campaign against measles, mumps and rubella -- coercion leading to a realm of uncertainty: medical objections to a continued MMR immunization campaign in Switzerland." JAM 1992; 9(1). [180 European medical doctors jointly noted that the mumps vaccine "can trigger diabetes, which only becomes apparent months after vaccination."]
Atypical Mumps:
# Gunby, P. "'Atypical' mumps may occur after immunization." Journal of the American Medical Association 1980; 243(23): 2374-75.
# Family Practice News (July 15, 1980), p. 1.
The Mumps Vaccine is Often Ineffective and Alters the Epidemiology of the Disease (It Causes Higher Rates of Mumps in High-Risk Groups):
# Fiumara, N.J., et al. "Mumps outbreak in Westwood, Massachusetts -- 1981." MMWR 1982; 33(29):421-430.
# Kaplan, K.M., et al. "Further evidence of the changing epidemiology of a childhood vaccine-preventable disease." Journal of the American Medical Association 1988; 260(10):1434-1438.
# Briss, P. A., et al. "Sustained transmission of mumps in a highly vaccinated population: assessment of vaccine failure and waning vaccine-induced immunity." Journal of Infectious Diseases 1994; 169:77-82.
# Sawada, et al. Lancet 1993; 342:371.
# CDC. "Mumps -- United States, 1985-1988." MMWR 1989; 38:101-05.
Girls who contract mumps naturally during childhood are less likely to develop ovarian cancer in later life:
# West, R. "Epidemiologic study of malignancies of the ovaries." Cancer 1966; 19:1001-1007.
# Wynder, E., et al. "Epidemiology of cancer of the ovary." Cancer 1969; 23:352.
# Newhouse, M., et al. "A case control study of carcinoma of the ovary." Brit J Prev Soc Med 1977; 31:148-53.
# McGowan, L., et al. "The woman at risk from developing ovarian cancer." Gynecol Oncol 1979; 7:325-344.
I did a quick search of pubmed for studies on garlic and found quite a lot. It looks like (and yes, I'm talking from the conventional medical perspective here) allicin, a compound occurring naturally in garlic, interferes with RNA and DNA replication and has good efficacy against gram-negative bacterial pathogens.
Yes, that's what I'd expect from medical science. That's also the reason why aspirin causes stomach bleeding and willow bark doesn't. That's what I mean when I refer to the arrogant ignorance of allopathy. There's really no need to understand why garlic works, just know that it does and eat it. As I said, garlic is unpatentable, so pharma will do their best to understand and create an expensive pill that has some of the same qualities, but they will fail to reproduce the miracle of garlic, as they have failed with all other attempts at isolating and recreating plant phytochemistry. IMHO.
I also looked into its use for diabetes, and found a couple of review articles that urge further studies, and a number of animal studies, which suggests that in it's own slow way conventional medical science is listening.
Why do we need further studies? Just eat 6 cloves or raw organic garlic a day, add in a bit of cleansing and nutrition, and watch the diabetes go away.
Really, you are making my case against medical science for me.
That if, for instance, an identical compound, with identical effectiveness and identical side effects, could be produced in a lab or by a plant, but the lab version was cheaper, herbalists would urge patients to use the plant version because it was "natural".
Nice idea, but not really possible:
1. Plants cannot be reproduced in a lab - if you think it's possible, then make up a compound in the lab, put it in the ground and see if it grows into a plant.
2. As plants grow pretty much for free, SmithKlineBeecham will not be able to create a cheaper version.
[continued next post]
[edit on 19/9/08 by RogerT]
These sources also completely ignore recent developments in molecular biology, for example, which are transforming how the medical establishment understands disease and health. An idea of "allopathic medicine" that hasn't evolved since the 1960s has been set up as a straw man for holistic medicine proponents, who insist that MDs are incapable of questioning established practice. This is simply not true. It does a real disservice to doctors, biologists, and chemists who seek to learn from outside the field, and I think it does a disservice to holistic practitioners whose energy gets focused on beating up the straw man.
Look, good for you for having an interest in molecular biology. It's a fun hobby and I'm glad it's evolving. Perhaps in a few centuries, when pharma is but a mere memory and financial profit motives are considered an obscene obsession of previous generations, then maybe molecular biologists will begin to scratch the surface of knowlege.
In the meantime, whilst we are waiting for 'science' to catch up, we can use plants to heal ourselves without having to know quite how they do it. We can also use plants to teach us about ourselves, but that's another thread entirely.
Again, back to vaccines:
sure why not ...
Since you haven't commented on either the Pennsylvania boarding school study or the article and related CDC press releases from the OP, I assume that you are stipulating that being vaccinated for measles makes you less likely to get measles during an outbreak and likely to have a less severe case if you do have a breakthrough infection. In other words, that the measles vaccine works.
Well now you're putting words in my mouth or just baiting me.
I believe others have done a pretty thorough job on debunking the OP article.
So now I suppose I have to read the boarding school study - sigh.
I'll do so, only because the rotavirus study you posted was at least trying to show something good for vaccines, even though it does suggest the opposite - streuth even the FDA recognised this!
All I can hope to do is demonstrate that in the world we live in, vaccines prevent more suffering than they cause -- and this of course will be a purely circumstantial case.
Well personally I think that's a lost cause and the evidence is stacked overwhelmingly against you, but even if you're right, that's not very comforting for the hundreds of thousands of 'vaccine victims'.
Isn't that a bit like supporting the accidental/intentional slaughter of 87,558 – 95,557 civilians in Iraq in order to 'oust a 'bad guy'? Collateral damage?
Do a little harm for the greater good?
Sounds like the bogus argument for the viscious annual torture and slaughter of millions of animals by vivisection.
Trouble is, the 'greater good' is an illusion at best and a despicable lie at worst, so all we are left with is the 'little harm', which actually turns out to be of catastrophic proportions.
I already presented a documented position that 3/4 million US citizens die at the hands of the medical establishment annually. I wonder what that number is globally and what portion of that we could attribute to vaccinations?
"I was told by this preacher that when the government introduced the National Immunization Days in 1997, most of the children after vaccination started dying. The preacher told me that they had so much death that his cassock, that he wears to go and conduct the burial ceremony, got old.
In the same room there was one mother who had four children, and she hid one and took three other children for vaccination, and three children died and that one survived. Now when I went to do my presentation and I asked most of the people who were there - about two, three thousand people - each person had the same story. .........
At the main hospital in Mbarara during that month of 1977 more than 600 children had died following polio vaccination. 600 children ! So even some of the timid medical practitioners who were initially afraid to come out, started coming out giving information and saying 'Oh, we knew this oral polio vaccine was trouble because as soon as the child receives it, they get a temper-ature and their health goes downhill and there is nothing that you could do.' "----Kihura Nkuba (Nov 2002)
Perhaps if all the money wasted on vaccine development and manufacture, and all the money wasted on scientific posturing and 'proving' of already well established and time tested practices, were spent on providing access to water and arable land for the homeless and starving, we would have a good start and feel much better about ourselves.
P.S. -- now I'm curious: what's your angle? Are you a professional in the field?
No. Just a converted smoker
[edit on 19/9/08 by RogerT]
The boarding school article link is 404. do you have another link?
Instead of commenting on it, I'll reassert some common sense about 'scientific study' via this excellent link:
curezone.com...
Now are you still asking why drugs are inferior to natural cures?
[edit on 19/9/08 by RogerT]
Instead of commenting on it, I'll reassert some common sense about 'scientific study' via this excellent link:
CLINICAL EXPERIENCE IS ANECDOTAL
Anecdotal is another favorite word used to slam holistic medicine. Allopaths say that holistic methods are unscientific because results are simply anecdotal, meaning case by case. The real meaning of anecdotal, however, is case history. In actuality, in the practice of medicine nothing is more important than the case history. That's how people's lives really are affected by illness and by health; case history is what really happens to people, real people - the patients who really walk in the door. The point here is that actual case histories cannot be controlled by studies bought and paid for by those whose interests are best served by a certain outcome. "Scientific" studies and reporting can be controlled by political and economic consideration - unwanted research topics never get funding; unwanted data often is ignored or not reported. By contrast, patients who actually walk in the door are not subjects in a research project.
Hundreds of case histories, anecdotal individual cases, year after year accumulate to give a doctor the most valuable source of information possible: clinical observation. The years of experience and clinical observation - these are not to be trivialized as something intrinsically inferior to the "real science" that gets published in medical journals.
Mainstream medicine may use this "anecdotal" ploy not only against holistic ideas, but also against any medical ideas or research that is beginning to stray outside the fold of Pharmaceutical Economics. New ideas are not welcome until the Angle has been figured out. For now, just remember this - the word "anecdotal" is a red flag that means "probable snowjob ahead."
curezone.com...
Allopaths hope to give the impression that mainstream pharmacology and standard hospital procedures are "backed by scientific research" and are therefore not only safe, but superior to any procedures of Alternative Medicine. In this way, with the help of the legislature and the twin Doberman FDA and FTC, natural cures will be forced out of the market. $5.8 billion every year is spent reinforcing the inaccurate notion of the "scientific validity" of mainstream medicine into the public awareness: in commercials, medical publications and general media. (CLA, Jan 99)
Scientific? Fully 80% of surgical procedures have never been tested for safety or efficacy in clinical trials. As for The Machines glittering all throughout the hospital, there are no standards of efficacy for an instrument to be introduced into practice, except incorporation into the insurance billing codes. No machine ever has to be proven to be of any value whatsoever. The patient's long-term welfare is not an issue. In addition, it is an amazing fact that physicians are not required to be certified by any independent professional organization to show they know the proper use of the medical devices they operate
Overall, 51 percent of approved drugs have serious adverse effects which are not detected prior to approval. JAMA 1998; 279:1571-1573
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, Apr 1998, side effects to prescription drugs are now at least the FOURTH leading cause of death in the United States! (Lazarou) This amazing study escaped the attention of mainstream media, for obvious reasons. The researchers did a meta-analysis, comparing 39 different studies of drug side effects. This was only the second meta-analysis ever done in mortality from drug side effects. Their findings:
· At least 106,000 Americans die from drug reactions every year
· At least 2.21 million Americans have adverse drug reactions requiring hospitalization.
The researchers emphasized that these figures are only for drugs which are “properly prescribed and properly administered,” and only takes into account hospitalized patients! This does not even include the thousands of other deaths from wrong prescriptions and errors in administration, or patients who are at home.
The study probably does not portray an accurate picture of the true numbers involved, according to JAMA’s own editor David Bates, in an editorial appearing on p.1216 of the same issue. Why not? Because of routine underreporting of adverse incidents by hospital staff, in order to avoid scrutiny from regulators and patient attorneys. Stands to reason.
Bates actually estimates that as few as 1 in 20 adverse drug reactions actually gets reported! Using stats like that could easily make adverse drugs reactions the #1 cause of death in the US, which may actually be true. But since there’s really no way to track it, they backed off and just stuck with fourth place. And this is JAMA, not the Chiropractic Report or some New Age newsletter from Santa Cruz.
Now are you still asking why drugs are inferior to natural cures?
[edit on 19/9/08 by RogerT]
Oh the link is now working. So here goes ....
So this study takes 9 cases and tries to draw statistical proof for the effectiveness of measles vaccine! Even though 7 of the measles cases were in vaccinated people (hmmm, so doesn't really work does it?!)
IMO, this is nonsense, sorry.
The reports states that not all students were indigenous to the US and in fact the 'foreigners' had higher incidence. What do we know about the billion other factors involved here - nothing! Maybe the unvaccinated 2 that contracted were acutely poor lebanese visitors who lived on a diet of rice and beans. Maybe they were from extremely rich lebanese families and lived a diet of coca cola and twinkies.
Looks like the study was sponsored by the CDC, so no real surprise as to the conclusion reached.
"Ideally, the experimenter works in a closed system, affected only by the determinants that he has introduced, under the conditions he has selected. Naturally, however, events never occur in a closed system. They are determined and modified by circumstances and forces that cannot be foreseen, let alone controlled."
Rene' Dubos - The Mirage of Health 1957
One last thought and I think I am probably done with this thread:
300 years ago, the German philosopher Wilhelm Leibniz pretty much nailed it. He predicted there would be a scientific revolution, a long period of scientific analysis and overspecialization in which "science" would be worshipped over all else.
No universal thinking would be considered.
Then finally, Leibniz said, the wheel would turn and there would be an awakening to a holistic view, and many of the "scientific" approaches would be abandoned as barbaric and obsolete.
I'm certain mass vacinations will be included in the barbaric and obsolete category. Until then, I'll continue to avoid them, for myself and my children, and resist any and all attempts by legislation to force their ineffective, unnecessary and dangerous toxins upon us.
[edit on 19/9/08 by RogerT]
We identified 9 laboratory-confirmed cases at the school: 8 students and 1 staff member. Among them, 2 had never received any doses of measles-containing vaccine (MCV), 1 received 1 dose of MCV, and 6 received 2 doses of MCV.
So this study takes 9 cases and tries to draw statistical proof for the effectiveness of measles vaccine! Even though 7 of the measles cases were in vaccinated people (hmmm, so doesn't really work does it?!)
IMO, this is nonsense, sorry.
The reports states that not all students were indigenous to the US and in fact the 'foreigners' had higher incidence. What do we know about the billion other factors involved here - nothing! Maybe the unvaccinated 2 that contracted were acutely poor lebanese visitors who lived on a diet of rice and beans. Maybe they were from extremely rich lebanese families and lived a diet of coca cola and twinkies.
Looks like the study was sponsored by the CDC, so no real surprise as to the conclusion reached.
"Ideally, the experimenter works in a closed system, affected only by the determinants that he has introduced, under the conditions he has selected. Naturally, however, events never occur in a closed system. They are determined and modified by circumstances and forces that cannot be foreseen, let alone controlled."
Rene' Dubos - The Mirage of Health 1957
One last thought and I think I am probably done with this thread:
300 years ago, the German philosopher Wilhelm Leibniz pretty much nailed it. He predicted there would be a scientific revolution, a long period of scientific analysis and overspecialization in which "science" would be worshipped over all else.
No universal thinking would be considered.
Then finally, Leibniz said, the wheel would turn and there would be an awakening to a holistic view, and many of the "scientific" approaches would be abandoned as barbaric and obsolete.
I'm certain mass vacinations will be included in the barbaric and obsolete category. Until then, I'll continue to avoid them, for myself and my children, and resist any and all attempts by legislation to force their ineffective, unnecessary and dangerous toxins upon us.
[edit on 19/9/08 by RogerT]
If you're done, you're done. Thanks for sticking it out with me this long.
I'm left in a bit of a quandary. I still don't see why the scientific and holistic paradigms are mutually exclusive, but your entire argument against scientific medicine is that it is anti-holistic.
Let's take the garlic and diabetes issue. Why not continue analytic investigation? By all means, recommend garlic to diabetics, so long as there is no evidence that it has undesirable effects. But that doesn't mean you can't try to find out how it works. The insight gained might suggest other uses for it, or other plants that might work similarly, or the shape of the universe, or any number of things. Deny ignorance in all forms.
You started with three positions:
1) vaccines don't work
2) vaccines are unnecessary
3) vaccines are unsafe
I agreed to take up position #1 to kick things off. I provided a study that showed that one vaccine is effective in providing resistance to a microorganism that contributes greatly to human suffering. You agreed that it seemed to. I admitted that studies on whether the measles vaccine works would only give circumstantial evidence, and pointed to the OP study and one from a boarding school as representative.
You claim that the OP study has been debunked in this thread -- I have not seen this. I have seen a lot of argument about vaccines being unnecessary and unsafe, and a number of people who claim to debunk the actual conclusion of the CDC study by misrepresenting the statistics. But the case made by the 2008 measles statistics is that with measles vaccination rates falling, measles cases are rising. The percentage of unvaccinated people among those who get measles is higher than the percentage of unvaccinated people in the general population.
This is borne out by a vast number of studies of breakthrough measles cases in highly vaccinated populations, as well as studies of measles epidemics in countries where there is not a high rate of vaccination. Put together, they make a convincing, albeit circumstantial, case that being vaccinated for measles virus is protective against contracting measles. You have scoffed at the boarding school study because it involved only nine cases -- if this were the only such case that would be fair (though somewhat hypocritical, considering that holistic medicine has long chided scientific medicine for refusing to acknowledge anecdotal evidence). It is instead a representative case out of a great number of such cases. I could provide bibliography if you want, or you can do a pubmed search on "measles outbreak", or you could actually read the breakthrough outbreak studies that your sources cite as evidence that breakthrough outbreaks occur. Many of those ended up on my list too, as evidence that in breakthrough outbreaks (often involving importation from countries with low vaccination levels) vaccination provides protection.
It is true that on the individual level vaccination is a form of gambling. By not vaccinating you are taking the chance that you will not be exposed to the disease and that, if exposed, you will not have complications from it. By getting vaccinated, you are taking the risk that you will have some side effects. The major arguments in this thread and others I've seen have been about what those side effects are. Unfortunately, our conversation did not get to that point. If there is someone else still out there reading who wants to pursue it with me, I might be willing. But only if that person is able to differentiate between the groups that pressure medical practitioners and medicine itself.
I am not interested in the debate about whether we can trust businessmen to make medical decisions, or whether the profit motive plays too significant a role in health care historically and currently. We can not, and it does. I do not believe the alternative medical community is immune to this motive, but I'm not interested in that debate either.
At this point I can only offer my impression, which is that vaccines are effective in what they claim to do, that they have prevented more suffering than they have caused, and that doctors and researchers work very hard to make sure that adverse effects are investigated and vaccines are pulled if they are found to cause harm.
Working against them, in my opinion, are the companies that put profit ahead of safety, the lawyers who encourage malpractice suits which drive doctors to seek refuge behind one-size-fits-all guidelines, and the ad industry and media who have sold a vision of chemically induced perfect health magically without side effects, self-discipline, or exercise.
I suppose I can't blame holistic practitioners for avoiding any association with MDs -- what if they had to start providing what we demand of doctors?
I'm left in a bit of a quandary. I still don't see why the scientific and holistic paradigms are mutually exclusive, but your entire argument against scientific medicine is that it is anti-holistic.
Let's take the garlic and diabetes issue. Why not continue analytic investigation? By all means, recommend garlic to diabetics, so long as there is no evidence that it has undesirable effects. But that doesn't mean you can't try to find out how it works. The insight gained might suggest other uses for it, or other plants that might work similarly, or the shape of the universe, or any number of things. Deny ignorance in all forms.
You started with three positions:
1) vaccines don't work
2) vaccines are unnecessary
3) vaccines are unsafe
I agreed to take up position #1 to kick things off. I provided a study that showed that one vaccine is effective in providing resistance to a microorganism that contributes greatly to human suffering. You agreed that it seemed to. I admitted that studies on whether the measles vaccine works would only give circumstantial evidence, and pointed to the OP study and one from a boarding school as representative.
You claim that the OP study has been debunked in this thread -- I have not seen this. I have seen a lot of argument about vaccines being unnecessary and unsafe, and a number of people who claim to debunk the actual conclusion of the CDC study by misrepresenting the statistics. But the case made by the 2008 measles statistics is that with measles vaccination rates falling, measles cases are rising. The percentage of unvaccinated people among those who get measles is higher than the percentage of unvaccinated people in the general population.
This is borne out by a vast number of studies of breakthrough measles cases in highly vaccinated populations, as well as studies of measles epidemics in countries where there is not a high rate of vaccination. Put together, they make a convincing, albeit circumstantial, case that being vaccinated for measles virus is protective against contracting measles. You have scoffed at the boarding school study because it involved only nine cases -- if this were the only such case that would be fair (though somewhat hypocritical, considering that holistic medicine has long chided scientific medicine for refusing to acknowledge anecdotal evidence). It is instead a representative case out of a great number of such cases. I could provide bibliography if you want, or you can do a pubmed search on "measles outbreak", or you could actually read the breakthrough outbreak studies that your sources cite as evidence that breakthrough outbreaks occur. Many of those ended up on my list too, as evidence that in breakthrough outbreaks (often involving importation from countries with low vaccination levels) vaccination provides protection.
It is true that on the individual level vaccination is a form of gambling. By not vaccinating you are taking the chance that you will not be exposed to the disease and that, if exposed, you will not have complications from it. By getting vaccinated, you are taking the risk that you will have some side effects. The major arguments in this thread and others I've seen have been about what those side effects are. Unfortunately, our conversation did not get to that point. If there is someone else still out there reading who wants to pursue it with me, I might be willing. But only if that person is able to differentiate between the groups that pressure medical practitioners and medicine itself.
I am not interested in the debate about whether we can trust businessmen to make medical decisions, or whether the profit motive plays too significant a role in health care historically and currently. We can not, and it does. I do not believe the alternative medical community is immune to this motive, but I'm not interested in that debate either.
At this point I can only offer my impression, which is that vaccines are effective in what they claim to do, that they have prevented more suffering than they have caused, and that doctors and researchers work very hard to make sure that adverse effects are investigated and vaccines are pulled if they are found to cause harm.
Working against them, in my opinion, are the companies that put profit ahead of safety, the lawyers who encourage malpractice suits which drive doctors to seek refuge behind one-size-fits-all guidelines, and the ad industry and media who have sold a vision of chemically induced perfect health magically without side effects, self-discipline, or exercise.
I suppose I can't blame holistic practitioners for avoiding any association with MDs -- what if they had to start providing what we demand of doctors?
reply to post by americandingbat
I think you are missing the point.
As a scientist currently focusing your life on the pursuit of 'knowledge' I can understand why you would want to defend the scientific process so vehemently.
Look, I'm a scientist by education, so I get it.
Rotavirus: you posted a study that suggests a vaccine reduces incidents of diahrrea but also suggests the same vaccine increases death by pneumonia. How can you claim this vaccine 'works'? The FDA of course, agrees to it's licensing but urges more studies on the pneumonia issue! - what a surprise. When the vaccine has killed thousands and maimed tens of thousands more, like all the previous rotavirus vaccines, it will be removed from the US market but probably still sold abroad. Do you defend this kind of behaviour 'in the name of science'?
Measles: the OP article says 'measles cases are increasing' and 'measles vaccination is decreasing' then makes a link between the two, based on the pharma PR that the measles vaccine protects against measles!
Perhaps measles is on the up because MacDonalds market share increased, or because of chemtrailing or because of climate change or a billion other possible reasons. Perhaps measles IS on the up because of vaccine avoidance, and the vaccine does prevent the disease, but measles is a beneficial disease to contract as a child (see the studies on mumps in females and cancer protection).
My point - we know so little but are sufficiently arrogant to think we know enough to manipulate body chemistry. Medical science is little more than Dr Frankenstein out of control.
Studies are ALWAYS flawed.
The only REAL evidence is anecdotal.
Common sense trumps science every time when it comes to health.
It is just NOT common sense to INJECT several cocktails of poisonous substances and pathogens into an infant with an underdeveloped immune system. It is even more foolish to do that to an undernourished or malnourished infant who doesn't even have the vitality necessary to combat the introduction of these substances.
Anecdotal evidence overwhelmingly supports common sense - of course it does. You can hide the truth and present lies as fact in studies, but it doesn't change what's so.
Drugs are poisonous - you simply cannot poison yourself to health.
I think you are missing the point.
As a scientist currently focusing your life on the pursuit of 'knowledge' I can understand why you would want to defend the scientific process so vehemently.
Look, I'm a scientist by education, so I get it.
Rotavirus: you posted a study that suggests a vaccine reduces incidents of diahrrea but also suggests the same vaccine increases death by pneumonia. How can you claim this vaccine 'works'? The FDA of course, agrees to it's licensing but urges more studies on the pneumonia issue! - what a surprise. When the vaccine has killed thousands and maimed tens of thousands more, like all the previous rotavirus vaccines, it will be removed from the US market but probably still sold abroad. Do you defend this kind of behaviour 'in the name of science'?
Measles: the OP article says 'measles cases are increasing' and 'measles vaccination is decreasing' then makes a link between the two, based on the pharma PR that the measles vaccine protects against measles!
Perhaps measles is on the up because MacDonalds market share increased, or because of chemtrailing or because of climate change or a billion other possible reasons. Perhaps measles IS on the up because of vaccine avoidance, and the vaccine does prevent the disease, but measles is a beneficial disease to contract as a child (see the studies on mumps in females and cancer protection).
My point - we know so little but are sufficiently arrogant to think we know enough to manipulate body chemistry. Medical science is little more than Dr Frankenstein out of control.
Studies are ALWAYS flawed.
The only REAL evidence is anecdotal.
Common sense trumps science every time when it comes to health.
It is just NOT common sense to INJECT several cocktails of poisonous substances and pathogens into an infant with an underdeveloped immune system. It is even more foolish to do that to an undernourished or malnourished infant who doesn't even have the vitality necessary to combat the introduction of these substances.
Anecdotal evidence overwhelmingly supports common sense - of course it does. You can hide the truth and present lies as fact in studies, but it doesn't change what's so.
Drugs are poisonous - you simply cannot poison yourself to health.
Everytime I got a measles vaccination, I got a really bad case of the measles!
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