Measles outbreaks, religion, and the reality of the antivaccine movement

[SidDithers]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/08/28/measles-outbreaks-religion-and-the-reality-of-the-antivaccine-movement/

If there’s one thing antivaccinationists hate having pointed out to them, it’s that they are antivaccine. If you really want to drive an antivaccinationist up the wall, point out that they are antivaccine. Sure, there are a few antivaccinationists who openly self-identify as antivaccine and are even proud of it, but most of them realize that society frowns upon them—as well it should given how antivaccinationists are responsible for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease. Moreover, most antivaccine activists really believe that vaccines are harmful. They’re wrong, of course, but that doesn’t make them any less true believers. They really believe they are doing good as they do evil. Part of the reason that they believe that they’re doing good is because they manage to convince themselves that they are not actually “antivaccine,” but rather “pro-safe vaccine” or “pro-vaccine safety.” Of course, it’s fairly easy to put the lie to that claim. All you have to do is to ask them which vaccines they recommend, or if there are any vaccines that they would give to their children; alternatively, you can ask them what, specifically, it would take for them to start vaccinating their children. In the first case, the usual answer will be that no vaccine is recommended. In the second case, the response will usually be so convoluted and with so many conditions as to be virtually impossible for any vaccine to meet. For example, absolute 100% complete safety will be demanded before vaccination would even be considered.

Another thing that belies the claim by antivaccinationists that they are not “antivaccine” is how so many of them seem to be proud of discouraging other parents from vaccinating. For instance, I once pointed out that J.B. Handley, the founder of the antivaccine organization Generation Rescue, gloated over how his band “held together with duct tape and bailing wire, is in the early to middle stages of bringing the U.S. vaccine program to its knees.” Now, Anne Dachel, “Media Editor” for the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism is doing the same thing in a post entitled Google News Search on Vaccines, Exemptions Turns Up? All of Us:

Forget the autism issue. Just go to Google News and look up “Vaccines, Exemptions.” It’s a really big topic. Parents aren’t buying all the claims that vaccines are safe.

Despite a massive effort by health officials and doctors, parents continue to fear that vaccines can do more harm than good. Stories about more parents exempting their children are everywhere. I can’t help but notice that there’s special concern about the vaccination rates for kindergarten kids. If the youngest students are more likely to be exempted, that can’t be good for the vaccine promoters.

And I’m sure the pro-vaccine people don’t like to see these stories out there. If more parents are opting out, they may have good reasons. It causes other parents to be concerned too. If they start to really look into the issue, there’s plenty of info out there to scare them out of vaccinating.

Did you get that? Let me repeat it: Scare them out of vaccinating. That is the goal of people like Anne Dachel and her ilk. It is not to improve vaccine safety. It is, rather, the classic denialist desire to foment fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about vaccines. The end result of this FUD is to scare other parents out of vaccinating. Anne Dachel is antivaccine and proud of it, regardless of claims otherwise by various bloggers at AoA notwithstanding. To demonstrate that, as befits her position as the “media editor” of AoA whose main job appears to be to list stories on vaccines on AoA in order to send her flying monkeys swooping down into the comments of such stories to flood them with antivaccine pseudoscience, Dachel lists multiple stories about “concerns” over vaccines. One story notes that the state with the highest rate of vaccination among kindergarteners is Mississippi, at 99.9%, while the state with the lowest rate is Colorado, with only 82.9% of kindergarteners adequately covered by vaccines. Meanwhile, Vermont has the highest rate of non-medical exemptions.

Orac goes on to discuss the measles outbreak at the Texas church further down in his post.

Sid

[proverbialwisdom]

1. Sid, AOA isn't the issue. Here's a recent journal link to provide Orac for his feedback.

In particular, note the third rail topic (among others) included in Dr. Mumford's paper. Read the spectacularly heartening results of her practice's "modest trend." Look at the credentials of the editors and contributors, a gold standard for independent researchers, and the absence of pharmaceutical advertising in the journal which published her paper. Is Orac misframing the issue purposely?

http://najms.net/wp-content/uploads/v06i03.pdf#page=34

Preface to the special issue of autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the fastest-growing complex neurodevelopment disorder, continues to rise in its prevalence, now affecting up to 1 in 50 children in the USA, and averaging 1% globally, according to the latest CDC report. More children will be diagnosed with ASD this year than with AIDS, diabetes & cancer combined in the USA. ASD costs the nation $137 billion a year and this debt is expected to increase in the next decade. Hence, ASD has become a huge healthcare burden and global threat, categorized by the CDC as a national public health crisis.

ASD is characterized by social-communication impairment, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, which cause significant disability for those affected. With its etiology still largely unknown, and its pathophysiology poorly understood, ASD currently has no universally accepted therapy. ASD is affecting more and more families; unmet services and limited resources need to be addressed urgently. Researchers, clinicians, healthcare providers, social agencies and government need to coordinate efforts to develop more effective treatments and a satisfactory continuum of care, across the lifespan. Ultimately, a cure needs to be sought for the various subtypes of ASD that exist.

The current issue of North American Journal of Medicine and Science (NAJMS) represents a continuation of our previous two special issues on autism (NAJMS Vol. 5 Issue 3 and Vol. 4 Issue 3) published in July 2012 and July 2011, respectively. In this issue, we are honored to have another panel of expert researchers and clinicians on the frontlines of ASD research and treatment to present their newest research findings and views from different perspectives.

This issue of NAJMS consists of five original research articles, two comprehensive reviews, one case report and two commentary articles, covering topics in genetics, pathogenesis, metabolic disorder biomarkers of ASD, and a clinical study, that bring into focus our newest understanding and treatment strategies.

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The data presented in Dr. Mumper’s review of the medical literature, suggests that ASD may be impacted by environmental toxicants, duration of breastfeeding, gut flora composition, nutritional status, acetaminophen use, vaccine practices and use of antibiotics and/or frequency of infections. In her current general pediatric practice (Advocates for Children), she has noted a modest trend toward a lower prevalence of ASD than in her previous pediatric practice or recent prevalence estimates from the CDC.

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Xuejun Kong, MD
Editor-in-Chief, NAJMS
Department of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Harvard Medical School

Christopher J. McDougle, MD
Guest Editor, NAJMS
Lurie Center for Autism Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical School

More: http://www.democraticunderground.com/101672031

[Mariana]

2. I wonder if any vaccinated people have gotten sick

in this outbreak. The vaccines don't work for everyone. I had the vaccine and still got measles, from an unvaccinated kid, because my vaccine just didn't take for whatever reason. One of my classmates had the same thing happen. And our little epidemic stopped there, because everyone else's vaccines worked - or at least enough of them did that it wasn't able to spread to another susceptible person.

We were sick for weeks. I remember some of it, and I can say that I've never been as sick as that since. It beat my body all to hell and I kept getting sick afterward. As soon as I was well enough to start going to school again, chicken pox came around, and I was down with that for two weeks. After that I had a series of opportunistic infections. It was months before I was strong and healthy again.

These assholes like to pretend they aren't endangering anyone who's had the vaccine. It's a lie.