Vaccines work. Smallpox is gone — GONE — not because of hygiene, but because of vaccinations. Hundreds of millions of people’s lives have been saved by vaccinations from smallpox alone, and you decide, despite incredible, overwhelming evidence, that it’s sanitation that did the trick? You’re completely wrong. Measles was almost gone. Polio was almost gone. All due to vaccines. And when people like you spread that kind of completely wrong information about vaccinations, and the rates go down, surprise: measles and polio make a comeback. And kids get sick, and some die.

We know that “injecting yourself with a known sickness” works, because that’s how the body works. It’s how our immune systems work.

I find it massively ironic that you sat at a computer, accessing the internet to relay your misinformation. You depend on science in every second of your life, yet deny the parts you don’t like.

Reality doesn’t care what you believe or disbelieve, and it doesn’t pick or choose. It all works.

If you have a child with autism, then I am honestly and sincerely sorry. But we know for absolute rock-solid fact that vaccines don’t cause autism. I certainly hope some other mother or father doesn’t have to mourn the death of their child from pertussis because antivaxxers ignored the vast amounts of solid evidence that vaccines prevent illness.

I wish people who make stupid remarks like above would have to raise a child with autism.

It is stupid to purposely inject yourself with a known sickness.

Hygiene and proper sanitation are the reasons why we no longer have the diseases we do.

What kind of dummy trusts a vaccine maker who is unwilling to take responsibility for any mistakes they make and makes their government do this for them? Toyota would NEVER get away with this.

63. Trent Says: is RIGHT.

“putting people’s health at risk without adequate production and safety monitoring of the vaccines is STOOPID!!!”

For that matter, there is no large randomized clinical trial on the influenza vaccine and whether it prevents death.

Marc Silberman, M.D.”

The novel H1N1 vaccine being developed must adhere to guidelines set forth by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA has announced that a vaccine will be accepted if it creates antibodies in 4 out of 10 recipients (40%), with at least 70 percent of those 4 achieving an antibody level believed to provide benefit. This means that an acceptable vaccine candidate would provide “protection” for 28% of vaccine recipients (70% of the 40%), or less than 3 in 10 recipients. The requirement drops to 18% efficacy for those over 65 years of age (60% of 30%).

So here are the facts, as documented by the CDC and the FDA:

As many as 3,000 Americans will be harmed by the novel H1N1 vaccine, based on past vaccine complications of 1 in 100,000, if all 300,000,000 people were vaccinated in the USA. BTW 1 in 100,000 is much higher a chance of dying than just going all natural at 1 and 15,000,000 for the whole world.

The vaccine may be ineffective in more than 7 out of 10 recipients.

And in case you think I am alone in my concerns, here is what several vaccine experts associated with the CDC and the U.S. government say on the subject.

“I am very skeptical of finishing vaccine before we know the appropriate dose to be included in each inoculation, before immunogenicity studies are complete, or before safety assessments have been finished,” William Schaffner, MD, Chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University and a member of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), wrote in an recent e-mail.

“We have assured both the profession and the public that the H1N1 vaccine will be evaluated with the same rigor that is applied to seasonal vaccine. We should NOT make vaccine available before the trials are complete and the results carefully assessed.”

Others are worried about a repeat of the last swine flu “pandemic,” now regarded as a public health and public relations debacle.

“I fear that a rush towards vaccinating the population without completing trials risks leading to the harmful outcome that we witnessed during the 1976 swine flu scare, where the government advocated rapid production and vaccination of the population without adequate safeguards, which led to an unexplained increase in cases of Guillain Barré syndrome (GBS), amongst other complications, and massive liability for the government,” wrote Amir Afkhami, MD, PhD, of George Washington University, an international expert on the 1918 Influenza pandemic and an advisor to the U.S. State Department, the U.S. military, and the World Bank on issues pertaining to infectious diseases, public health and, mental health.

“I think in this regard, we must learn from lessons of the past and be mindful of not jumping from the proverbial frying pan into the fire by putting people’s health at risk without adequate production and safety monitoring of the vaccines.”

Shane:
21,000,000 people in australia, 186 deaths, a 1 to 112903 chance of dying. Not bad, quite a bit worse than the world average. Wonder why?

Mike:
I’m making a point, more poeple die from over the counter pain meds in just the US than this. What this means is if you get a flu shot, you should never take an asprin. Get it? And no I don’t becasue it is untested, especially in the long term. Why risk that unknown just for being sick?

Phil:
I’m not talking about doctors making money, I’m talking about the pharm industry making money. Too different things. Who do you think pays for all those fancy billboards and TV commercials?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/29/business/AP-EU-Britain-Earns-AstraZeneca.html

My point guys, think outside the box, I thought you did that here? Are you independent thinkers or followers? Using statistics on chances of death, getting vaccinated with a long term untested altered virus in a perfectly healthy individual, on the chance you may get sick and have an almost near 0 chance of dying, is not independent thinking. Thats following what the pharm companies wish you to think.

Once again I bring you to the simple stat I love to use. In the USA ALONE there are 7800 deaths per yr in over the counter pain meds, in the world, I would bet this is in the hundereds of thousands. Yet where are the billboards for this, are you getting where I’m going here people? On precription meds, my god the stats climb astronomically higher.

My point is H1N1 is HYPE, you wouldn’t know it existed if the media didn’t pick it up, just like you didn’t know hundreds of thousands died from OC pain meds around the world until you seek that info out on your own.

I am suprised I got no one agreeing with me on this, I though with the stats, this is a no brainer.

I have to clear something up with this last post from me, I’m NOT anti-vaccine, I’m just anti-sucker. Many vaccines have great need, but just know when you’re getting taken for a ride. And lastly High risk groups, kids/pregnant, should get H1N1 vaccine.

The source of the mumps there is indeed worrisome. I hope your doctor is contacting the appropriate people. I actually don’t know the protocol; should he call the CDC? Any doctors here? I’m curious now.

check out http://whatstheharm.net to see some stories…

My point. Think! When you see a billboard saying get your flu shot avoid the 2009 pandemic, and you actually did. Kill yourself for being an idiot.

In USA 7800 Deaths per yr, from over the counter pain killers (asprin/tylonol), where is the media covering this pandemic. LOL

7. John:

Who cares about your “faith”? I don’t. Instead, I will offer you the tools to determine truth from lies, fantasy from reality, error from accuracy. It’s a very simple philosophy, a rigorous application of logic, called the Scientific Method. Evidence does not require faith, merely eyes to see and the wit to accept what is writ plain.

26 Just Me:

There is no such thing as “alt-med”. It’s an oxymoron. If it works, it’s what we in the science disciplines refer to as “medicine”. There IS something called “alternative TREATMENT” that may or may NOT have good correspondence with reality. If it doesn’t work, we call it BS.

Everyone wants to be compensated for their efforts, whether it’s from the bright idea called a Hoola Hoop to medicine that prevents people from dying. Which do YOU think deserves the bigger re-imbursement?

GAry 7

The numbers you quote are not puzzling at all. In fact, such numbers are actually meaningless. I’ll provide a simplified example to illustrate:

Suppose you had a population of 10000 people, and 99% have received the vaccine, which is 90% effective. This means that, of those 10000 people, 9900 will be vaccinated and 100 will not be, and of the 9900 who are vaccinated, the vaccine will provide immunity for 8910. This will leave us with 100 unvaccinated people who have no immunity and 990 vaccinated people who do not have immunity because the vaccine did not work for them.

If an epidemic breaks out and all 10000 people are exposed, if all the people who are vulnerable get infected, you will have almost 10 times as many vaccinated people among the sick as unvaccinated people.

You can fiddle with these numbers in any number of ways to produce a 75%/25% ratio of vaccinated/unvaccinated among the infected people, and pertaining to the question of vaccine effectiveness, it means absolutely nothing.

Stupid antivaxxers. Why don’t they warn parents over cooking food for children because of ‘dangerous compounts’ in everyday food? Everything is dangerous when you get too much of it.

Should we stop questioning their beliefs entirely, and thereby voluntarily relinquish our own self-identity as skeptics?

Should we counter their propaganda campaign with our own, lies vs lies, and start spreading false but comforting and appealing pro-vaccine pap (we could say vaccines contain anti-oxidants, we could say vaccines improve your sex drive, we could say vaccines make you more beautiful, we could redefine autism as a sacred possession by angels and divine gift of the vaccine gods)

Should we get various priests to publicly bless vaccines before administration and cast out the demon mercury?

Should we establish a new pro-vaccine religion and start proselytizing?

Or should we stop trying to convince and merely compel, making vaccinations mandatory and jailing all who refuse (it would have to be jail. Fines won’t work because you need to remove the non-immune to keep up herd immunity)?

Out with it John. Which of these options would you prefer? Or do you have an alternative?

Thanks,
The Skeptical Teacher

twitter.com/skepticalteach

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I have no alternative but to view these anti-vaccine people, and the people who support their beliefs and echo their distorted ideas on the Internet and in the real world, as extremely selfish and horribly irresponsible people who aren’t at all bothered by the trail of misery and death that closely follows them.