Vermont House Votes To Remove Philosophical Vaccine Exemption
Source: By BOB KINZEL, VPR - Vermont's NPR News Source
7 hours ago
After a prolonged debate over legislation that would make it harder for parents to exempt their children from the state's mandatory immunization law, the Vermont House voted 85 to 57 Tuesday evening to remove the philosophical exemption to the law.
Audio from this story will be posted at approximately 11 a.m. on Wednesday, May 13.
Update 9:58 p.m. It was a debate that lasted more than four hours, and was one in which dozens of House members wanted to express their opinion on this emotional issue.
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Most of the debate focused on an amendment offered by Northfield Rep. Anne Donahue that would have retained the philosophical exemption but would have required parents to consult with a health care provider and review education materials on the benefits of vaccines in order to receive the exemption.
That amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 73 to 71. The House then moved on to the larger issue of the philosophical exemption.
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The Senate has already approved a measure that drops philosophical exemption, but this bill will be sent back to the Senate for its review because there are some minor differences between the approach taken by the House and the Senate.
Read more: http://digital.vpr.net/post/vermont-house-votes-remove-philosophical-vaccine-exemption
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)"I am pro vaccine. I had all of my six children vaccinated. I believe that vaccines save millions of lives. So let me explain why I edited the book Thimerosal: Let The Science Speak, which exposes the dangerousand wholly unnecessaryuse of the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in vaccines being given to millions of children and pregnant women here and around the world.
Vaccines are big business. Pharma is a trillion-dollar industry(1) with vaccines accounting for $25 billion in annual sales.(2) CDCs decision to add a vaccine to the schedule can guarantee its manufacturer millions of customers and billions in revenue(3) with minimal advertising or marketing costs and complete immunity from lawsuits. High stakes and the seamless marriage between Big Pharma and government agencies have spawned an opaque and crooked regulatory system. Merck, one of Americas leading vaccine outfits, is currently under investigation for deceiving FDA regulators about the effectiveness of its MMR vaccine. Two whistleblowers say Merck ginned up sham studies to maintain Mercks MMR monopoly.(4)
Big money has fueled the exponential expansion of CDCs vaccine schedule since 1988, when Congress grant of immunity from lawsuits(5) suddenly transformed vaccines into paydirt. CDC recommended five pediatric vaccines when I was a boy in 1954. Todays children cannot attend school without at least 56 doses of 14 vaccines by the time theyre 18.(6)
An insatiable pharmaceutical industry has 271 new vaccines under development in CDCs bureaucratic pipeline(7) in hopes of boosting vaccine revenues to $100 billion by 2025.(8) The industrys principle spokesperson, Dr. Paul Offit, says that he believes children can take as many as 10,000 vaccines.(9)
Public health may not be the sole driver of CDC decisions to mandate new vaccines. Four scathing federal studies, including two by Congress,(10) (11) one by the US Senate,(12) and one by the HHS Inspector General,(13) paint CDC as a cesspool of corruption, mismanagement, and dysfunction with alarming conflicts of interest suborning its research, regulatory, and policymaking functions. CDC rules allow vaccine industry profiteers like Dr. Offit to serve on advisory boards that add new vaccines to the schedule. In a typical example, Offit in 1999 sat on the CDCs vaccine advisory committee and voted to add the rotavirus vaccine to CDCs schedule, paving the way for him to make a fortune on his own rotavirus vaccine.(14) Offit and his business partners sold the royalties to his rotavirus vaccine patent to Merck in 2006 for $182 million.(15) Offit told Newsweek, It was like winning the lottery!(16) A 2009 HHS Inspector Generals report found that the CDC certified financial disclosure forms with at least one omission for 97% of committee membersand most forms had more than one type of omission. The same report stated that as many as 64% of committee members had potential conflicts of interest that CDC did not identify or resolve before certifying their forms.(17) In addition to lucrative business partnerships with Merck, Offit holds a $1.5 million research chair, funded by Merck, at Childrens Hospital in Philadelphia.(18) From this industry sinecure, he broadcasts vaccine industry propaganda and annually publishes books urging unlimited vaccinations and vilifying safe-vaccine advocates.(19) (20)
The corruption has also poisoned CDCs immunization safety office, the research arm that tests vaccines for safety and efficacy. In August 2014, seventeen-year CDC veteran, Dr. William Thompson, who is author of the principal study cited by CDC to exculpate mercury- preserved vaccines from the autism link, invoked whistleblower protection, and turned extensive agency files over to Congress.(21) Thompson, who is still employed at CDC, says that for the past decade his superiors have pressured him and his fellow scientists to lie and manipulate data about the safety of the mercury-based preservative thimerosal to conceal its causative link to a suite of brain injuries, including autism.(22) (23)
Thimerosal is 50% ethylmercury, which is far more toxic and persistent in the brain than the highly regulated methylmercury in fish.(24) Hundreds of peer reviewed studies by leading government and university scientists show that thimerosal is a devastating brain poison linked to neurological disorders now epidemic in American children. My book, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak,(25) is a summary of these studies, which CDC and its credulous journalists swear dont exist. Although Thompsons CDC and vaccine industry colleagues have created nine patently fraudulent and thoroughly discredited epidemiological studies to defend thimerosal, no published study shows thimerosal to be safe.(26)
The common canard that US autism rates rose after drug makers removed most thimerosal from pediatric vaccines in 2003 is wrong. That same year, CDC added flu shots containing massive doses of thimerosal to the pediatric schedule.(27) As a result, children today can get nearly as much mercury exposure as children did from all pediatric vaccines combined in the decade prior to 2003.(28) Worse, thimerosal, for the first time, is being given to pregnant women in flu shots.(29) Furthermore, CDCs current autism numbers are for children born in 2002, when kids were still getting thimerosal in their pediatric vaccines. The best science suggests that thimerosals complete removal from vaccines is likely to prompt a significant decline in autism. For example, a 2013 CDC study in JAMA Pediatrics shows a 33% drop in autism spectrum disorder in Denmark following the 1992 removal of thimerosal from Danish vaccines.(30) That paper is among 37 peer-reviewed studies linking thimerosal to the autism epidemic.(31)
Thimerosal has precipitated a journalistic as well as a public health crisis. Big Pharma pumps over $3.5 billion annually into TV, newspapers, and other advertising, targeting news departments, which have become vehicles for pharmaceutical sales and propaganda platforms for the industry. Television and print outlets feature spokespeople like Dr. Offitwithout identifying their industry ties while censoring criticisms of vaccine safety and excluding the voices of informed vaccine safety advocates. Busy journalists parrot the deceptive talking points dispensed by government and pharma officials rather than reading the science themselves. Unable to argue the science, they bully, pillory, and demonize vaccine safety advocates as anti-vax, anti-science, and far worse. The unwillingness of the press to scrutinize CDC has emboldened both industry and agency to follow the lowest paths of easy profit and bureaucratic preservation.
The measles scare was classic disaster capitalism, with media outlets dutifully stoking public hysteria on editorial pages and throughout the 24-hour broadcast cycle. With Dr. Offit leading the charge, CDC, drug makers, and industry-funded front groups parlayed a garden variety annual measles outbreak into a national tidal wave of state legislation to ban religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions. The national media frenzy over 159 measles cases(32) left little room for attention to the the autism cataclysm which has debilitated 1 million American children since the pandemic began in 1989,(33) with 27,000 new cases annually. CDC refuses to call autism an epidemic. In defiance of hard science, and common sense, CDC and Offit have launched a denial campaign to gull reporters into believing the autism plague is an illusion created by better diagnosis.(34) (35) (36)
Big Pharma is among the nations largest political donors, giving $31 million last year to national political candidates.(37) It spends more on political lobbying than any other industry, $3.0 billion from 1998 to 2014(38)double the amount spent by oil and gas and four times as much as defense and aerospace lobbyists.(39) By February, state legislators in 36 states were pushing through over one hundred new laws to end philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions. Many of those state lawmakers are also on the industry payroll.(40) You can see how much money bill sponsors from your state took from Big Pharma on http://www.maplight.org .
Normally plaintiffs tort lawyers would provide a powerful check and balance to keep vaccines safe and effective and regulators and policymakers honest. But Pharmas dirty money has bought the industry immunity from lawsuits for vaccine injury no matter how dangerous the product. An obliging Congress disposed of the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial, making it impossible for vaccine-injured plaintiffs to sue pharmaceutical companies for selling unsafe vaccines.(41) Thats right! No Class Actions. No discovery. No depositions and little financial incentive for the industry to make vaccines safer.
Vaccine industry money has neutralized virtually all of the checks and balances that once stood between a rapacious pharmaceutical industry and our children. With the research, regulatory, and policymaking agencies captured, the courts closed to the public, the lawyers disarmed, the politicians on retainer and the media subverted, there is no one left to stand between a greedy industry and vulnerable children, except parents. Now Big Pharmas game plan is to remove parental informed consent rights from that equation and force vaccine hesitant parents to inject their children with potentially risky vaccines that the Supreme Court has called unavoidably unsafe.(42)
Ending exemptions is premature until we have a functioning regulatory agency and a transparent process. The best way to insure full vaccine coverage is for the vaccine program to win back public trust by ending its corrupt financial ties with a profit-making industry.
To educate yourselves about CDC corruption and the truth about vaccine science, I hope you will read Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak and download the important movie Trace Amounts(43) and insist your legislators watch it before voting on any of these bills."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
1 http://thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2014/thomson-reuters-annual-pharmaceutical-factbook-projects-industrys-sales-will-reach-1-trillion-in-2014.html
2 http://www.fiercevaccines.com/special-reports/top-5-vaccine-companies-revenue-2012
3 http://www.fiercevaccines.com/special-reports/merck
4 http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/merck-whistleblowers_b_5881914.html (An article detailing whistleblower allegations that Merck manipulated tests and data and falsely certified the efficacy of the mumps vaccine in Mercks MMR-II formulation)
5 http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/authorizinglegislation.pdf (This is the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act which granted legal immunity to vaccine manufacturers)
6 http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html Current ACIP recommended vaccine schedule for infants, children and adolescents through age 18)
7 http://www.copybook.com/pharmaceutical/news/271-new-us-vaccines-in-development
8 http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140127006347/en/Research-Markets-Global-Vaccine-Market-Expected-Surpass#.VQpOSBFFAdU
9 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-independent-are-vaccine-defenders/
10 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-106hhrg73042/html/CHRG-106hhrg73042.htm
11 http://vaccines.procon.org/sourcefiles/Burton_Report.pdf
12 http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/cdc_off_center.pdf
13 http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-04-07-00260.pdf (97% of CDC officials on vaccine committees have corrupting financial entanglements and conflicts of interest)
14 http://www.medicalveritas.com/manJune.pdf
15 http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/counting-offits-millions-more-on-how-mercks-rotateq-vaccine-made-paul-offit-wealthy.html
16 http://www.newsweek.com/dr-paul-offit-debunking-vaccine-autism-link-91933
17 http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-04-07-00260.pdf
18 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/06/25/vaccine-doctor-given-at-least-30-million-dollars-to-push-vaccines.aspx
19 http://vec.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/about-the-vaccine-education-center.html (This reference includes a list of the books that Dr. Offit has published)
20 http://paul-offit.com/ (This reference includes the articles and opinion pieces that Dr. Offit has penned)
21 http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press-release-statement-of-william-w-thompson-ph-d-regarding-the-2004-article-examining-the-possibility-of-a-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/ (This statement, made directly by Dr. William Thompson, includes an admission that CDC researchers intentionally hid a link between the MMR vaccine and autism)
22 http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2015/02/cdc-scientist-still-maintains-agency-forced-researchers-lie-safety-mercury-based-vaccines/ (This opinion piece by RKF Jr. includes admissions by Dr. William Thompson that the CDC forced him to lie regarding vaccine safety in light of the autism epidemic)
23 https://ww w.you tube.com/watch?v=sGOtDVilkUc (This video includes direct statements made by Dr. William Thompson regarding malfeaseance at the CDC)
24 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1280342/
25 http://thimerosalbook.com/home/ (Link to the book, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak)
26 Methodological Issues and Evidence of Malfeasance in Research Purporting to Show Thimerosal in Vaccines is Safe, Dr. Brian Hooker et al. 2014. www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/247218 (Critique of six epidemological studies cited by CDC to exculpate thimerosal)
27 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5306a1.htm (This article details the recommendations made by the ACIP in 2003 for the annual pediatric flu shot)
28 http://www.nvic.org/faqs/mercury-thimerosal.aspx (This article includes details the total level of mercury exposure prior to and after the addition of the flu shot to the pediatric and maternal schedule)
29 http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/qa_vacpregnant.htm
30 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23959427 (See Table 3 which shows a 1.5% autism spectrum disorder prevalence in 1994 dropping to 1% in 2004).
31 https://www.focusforhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Scientific-Papers-Showing-Linking-Thimerosal-Exposure-to-Autism-4-6-15.pdf (37 studies linking thimerosal to autism, Dr. Brian S. Hooker, 2015)
32 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6414a1.htm
33 http://www.all.org/pdf/McDonaldPaul2010.pdf (This EPA study calls 1989 the gateway year for the upturn in autism cases in the U.S. and the beginning of the autism epidemic).
34 http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/48/4/456.full (In this research paper, Offit and his coauthor, Jeffrey Gerber, claim that increases in autism are likely driven by broadened diagnostic criteria and increased awareness)
35 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4113600 (In contrast to the unsupported statement by Gerber and Offit, this paper from the UC Davis MIND Institute shows true increases in autism levels, far beyond that possible through broadening diagnostic criteria and increased awareness)
36 http://thimerosalbook.com/home/ Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, pp. 19-20, details the dramatic rise in autism incidence in the U.S. starting in 1989)
37 http://www.publicintegrity.org/2005/07/07/5786/drug-lobby-second-none
38 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=i
39 http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/02/11/12175/opinion-big-pharmas-stranglehold-washington
40 http://maplight.org/california/legislator/1397-richard-pan (This link gives an example of industry donations to state lawmakers, i.e., the campaign funding profile of Dr. Richard Pan, a state senator who is heavily supported by the health care industry and is leading the charge to remove parental vaccine consent rights in California)
41 http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/authorizinglegislation.pdf
42 http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf (The Supreme Court Bruesewitz v. Wyeth 2012 decision leading to the final abolishment of the rights of vaccine injured citizens to sue vaccine manufacturers)
43 http://www.traceamounts.com
RELATED: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017206443
longship
(40,416 posts)Your post is utter tosh.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,038 posts)Your post is ignorant of the article it is criticizing.
All six of RFK Jr.'s children are vaccinated. All of them.
longship
(40,416 posts)The extent that he is railing about mercury in vaccines is the extent that he is either a dumb fuck, or an anti-vaccine loon.
There's more mercury in a tuna fish sandwich than there ever was in vaccines. And there has been no thimerosol in childhood vaccines for years.
Whether or not his kids are vaccinated is irrelevant. He is a kook for spewing falsified rubbish.
Here, read all about it: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/trouble-in-the-library/
GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)RFK Jr. is one of the folks who constantly pushes an anti-science agenda.
He's right up there with Mercola, Mike Adams and Alex Jones in the pantheon of great American conspiracy nuts.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)is an anti-science nutjob who peddles lies that lead to children getting sick and dying.
Vaccines do not cause autism. That is scientific fact.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)1) Take up his challenge.
http://fox13now.com/2015/04/06/robert-f-kennedy-jr-talks-about-link-between-ingredient-in-vaccines-and-autism/
If somebody can show me a single study, one study, if any of the doctors youve mentioned can show me a single study that shows that thimerosal is safe, I will go on Anderson Cooper and publicly apologize. I challenge you. Find me one study.
~Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
2) Read the letter by Salon's founder dated 4/6/15, plus full rebuttal.
http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/articles/SalonRetraction_042415.html
...My critics have widely cited the Salon retraction to discredit me and the proposition that thimerosal is a potent neurotoxin that should not be in medicines. In recent weeks, newspaper editors and television producers have cited Salons action as justification for their decision to not run my editorials, articles and letters to the editor or to allow me to talk about vaccine safety on the air. I now briefly review the history of Salons withdrawal.
<>
Salons founder and former editor-in-chief, David Talbot, was likewise baffled and dismayed by Salons actions. He explained his reaction in a letter to me on April 6, 2015:"I was dismayed when I first heard that Salon had removed your article about the hazards of thimerosal from its web archives. As you know, I was no longer the editor of Salon when your article was published. And I am not an expert on the subject. But without taking a position on mercury preservatives in vaccines, I know enough about the debate -- and about the pharmaceutical industry's general track record on putting profits before people, as well as the compromised nature of regulatory oversight in this country when it comes to powerful industries -- to know that "disappearing" your article was not the proper decision.
I founded Salon to be a fearless and independent publication -- one that was open to a wide range of views, particularly those that were controversial or contested within the mainstream media. Removing your article from the Salon archives was a violation of that spirit and smacks of editorial cowardice. If I had been editor at the time, I would not have done so -- and I would have offered you the opportunity to debate your critics in Salon's pages.
In my day, Salon did not cave to pressure -- and we risked corporate media scorn, advertising boycotts, threats of FBI investigations by powerful members of Congress, and even bomb scares because of our rigorous independence. Throwing a writer to the wolves when the heat got too hot was never the Salon way. It pains me, now that I'm on the sidelines, to ever see Salon wilt in the face of such pressure.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)Do the 2014-2015 seasonal flu vaccines contain thimerosal?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several formulations of the seasonal flu vaccine, including multi-dose vials and single-dose units. (See Table of Approved Influenza Vaccines for the U.S. 20142015 Season.) Since seasonal influenza vaccine is produced in large quantities for annual vaccination campaigns, some of the vaccine is produced in multi-dose vials, and contains thimerosal to safeguard against possible contamination of the vial once it is opened.
The single-dose units are made without thimerosal as a preservative because they are intended to be opened and used only once. Additionally, the live-attenuated version of the vaccine (the nasal spray vaccine), is produced in single-dose units and does not contain thimerosal.
Is thimerosal being used in other vaccines?
Since 2001, no new vaccine licensed by FDA for use in children has contained thimerosal as a preservative, and all vaccines routinely recommended by CDC for children younger than 6 years of age have been thimerosal-free, or contain only trace amounts of thimerosal, except for some formulations of influenza vaccine.
EXCERPT FROM OP:
"The common canard that US autism rates rose after drug makers removed most thimerosal from pediatric vaccines in 2003 is wrong.
That same year, CDC added flu shots containing massive doses of thimerosal to the pediatric schedule.(27) As a result, children today can get nearly as much mercury exposure as children did from all pediatric vaccines combined in the decade prior to 2003.(28)
Worse, thimerosal, for the first time, is being given to pregnant women in flu shots.(29)" - RFK, Jr.
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO BELOW (Aug 27, 2014):
Senior CDC Scientist and Whistleblower Dr. William W. Thompson:"You know in the United States the only vaccine it's still in is for pregnant women.
I can say confidently I do think Thimerosal causes tics so I don't know why they still give it to pregnant women, like that's the last person I would give mercury to.
Thimerosal from vaccines causes tics. You start a campaign and you just make that your mantra.
Do you think a pregnant mother would want to take a vaccine that they knew caused tics? Absolutely not! I would never give my wife a vaccine that I thought caused tics.
I can say tics are four times more prevalent in kids with autism.
There is biologic plausibility right now to say that Thimerosal causes autism-like features."
Warning: Gratuitous image (fake 'fire' on pregnant abdomen) near end of 1:02 minute video. To avoid, listen to audio only.
CDC Whistleblower Dr. Thompson on Thimerosal and Pregnant Women
Published on Aug 27, 2014
FYI, posted previously:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017206443
VIDEO: Dr. Mark Hyman, MD, Dr. Martha Herbert, PhD, MD, Prof Sheldon Krimsky & Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)http://www.immunize.org/laws/flu_childcare.asp
States with Influenza Vaccine Mandates for Childcare: CT, NJ, NYC, RI
This page was updated on January 15, 2015
eg. http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/day-care-flu-faq.pdf
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)can we please keep up with the original point you were making?
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)1. Critical pivot point:
http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CommissionersPage/ucm2005244.htm
http://time.com/3714242/candidate-to-lead-fda-has-close-ties-to-big-pharma/
Link from comments to AOA article below (post #25):http://www.putchildrenfirst.org/chapter2.html
...Shockingly, CDC received letters in July and September 1999 from Merck and SmithKline Beecham, respectively, letting CDC know that full production of Thimerosal-free vaccines for Hepatitis B and DTaP could be made available almost immediately. To SmithKline, CDC responded with a tepid letter thanking them for the offer, but not taking them up on it. Thimerosal would remain in the vaccines on the Childhood Immunization Schedule for three more years, into late 2002, before Thimerosal-free vaccines were finally available for all vaccines, as this letter from FDA to Congressman Dave Weldon demonstrates. CDC's inexplicable complacency in the face of the July 1999 statement to switch over to Thimerosal-free vaccines was highlighted in this March 2006 article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr in the Huffington Post.
2. How about repealing the immunity vaccine makers "enjoy" (WSJ term)?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123535050056344903
Vaccine Makers Enjoy Immunity
By AVERY JOHNSON
Updated Feb. 23, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET
One of the little-noticed reasons that Wyeth was attractive enough to command a $68 billion price for rival Pfizer Inc.'s planned takeover sits in a building catty-corner from the White House across Pennsylvania Avenue. That is where a special "vaccines court" hears cases brought by parents who claim their children have been harmed by routine vaccinations.
The court -- and the law that established it more than two decades ago -- buffers Wyeth and other makers of childhood-disease vaccines from much of the litigation risk that dogs traditional pill manufacturers and is an important reason why the vaccine business has been transformed from a risky, low-profit venture in the 1970s to one of the pharmaceutical industry's most attractive product lines today.
The legal shield, known as the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, was put into place in 1986 to encourage the development of vaccines, a mainstay of the nation's public-health policy. A spate of lawsuits against vaccine makers in the 1970s and 1980s had caused dozens of companies to get out of the low-profit business, creating a public-health scare.
The strategy worked and the public-health implications have been sizable. Vaccines have driven huge reductions -- and in the case of smallpox, for instance, complete eradications -- of major childhood diseases. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who developed a vaccine for rotavirus with Merck & Co., says, "If that Act didn't happen, I think American children would have been at risk."
<>
Related: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016115541
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I'm impressed at your creative ability to move the goal posts...
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)nobody's going to take your arguments seriously if you keep running away from them.
longship
(40,416 posts)Vaccines are safe and effective. Plus childhood vaccines have not had thimerosal in them for years.
And the science has spoken loudly about this.
Mercury in vaccines and autism - a failed hypothesis
RFK Jr. is a fucking ideological anti-vaccine idiot.
And a liar.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228
Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine (see Table 1). A preservative-free version of the inactivated influenza vaccine (contains trace amounts of thimerosal) is available in limited supply at this time for use in infants, children and pregnant women. Some vaccines such as Td, which is indicated for older children (≥ 7 years of age) and adults, are also now available in formulations that are free of thimerosal or contain only trace amounts. Vaccines with trace amounts of thimerosal contain 1 microgram or less of mercury per dose.
Page Last Updated: 06/18/2014
More: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/QuestionsaboutVaccines/UCM070430 (Page Last Updated: 08/22/2013)http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Thimerosal Content in Some US Licensed Vaccines
TABLE FOOTNOTE: (*) This product should be considered equivalent to thimerosal‐free products. This vaccine may contain trace amounts (<0.3 mcg) of mercury left after postproduction thimerosal removal; these amounts have no biological effect. JAMA 1999;282(18) and JAMA 2000;283(16).
The information in the table was updated December 11, 2013
WORSE?
Google and read: 2007 EMAILS FROM CDC AND FDA ON VACCINES AND MERCURY
The question asked is how these standards are confirmed. #Transparency
longship
(40,416 posts)There is absolutely no connection between vaccines and autism.
From the CDC: Concerns about Autism.
From Science-based medicine Blog (which addresses the actual research):Vaccines and Autism
From PBS Nova: Autism Vaccine Myth
RFK Jr. is an ignorant ideological idiot and a liar. Anybody who supports his narrative is in a similar category.
The science is very, very clear here. Vaccines are both safe and effective.
Then, there are the people who are harmed by lack of vaccination.
How one can hold up ones head up in public having been shown the science and the effects of the anti-vaccination position yet agree with ideological fools like RFK Jr. (or Jenny "Ate her Boogers on MTV" McCarthy), I cannot understand.
Ignorance is appalling on this issue. Vaccines are safe, and effective.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)STAT SOURCE (AutismSpeaks publication): http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026268802#post29
IACC EXCERPT (9/23/14): http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017218238
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BY ESTABLISHMENT RESEARCHERS:
Amaral, Zahorodny, Dawson, Gerberding: http://www.democraticunderground.com/101681839
Zimmerman: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026160996#post34
Healy: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-open-question-on-vaccines-and-autism/
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE BY CLINICAL PRACTITIONERS:
Mumper, Thomas: http://www.democraticunderground.com/101672031#post22
Lin: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016122529#post5
Poling: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026160996#post78
VICP OVERVIEW: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016115541
Update at AOA today - Maine Hearing (video)
Read around. Developing...
longship
(40,416 posts)Last edited Fri May 22, 2015, 08:10 AM - Edit history (3)
You apparently do not know how to vet scientific claims.
First, anecdotal evidence is utterly worthless. That is why clinical trials are blinded, the best are double blinded and prospective.
Second, there are no authorities in science except for nature herself. The science stands on its own and may either be right or wrong. When one evaluates a proposition one should consider the entire literature and not vest ones opinion on any individual study.
Third, everything published at the Age of Autism site is utter rubbish. They are nothing but anti-vaccine loonies there.
That you cite that site, it is no wonder you have things so wrong. You are being deceived by anti-vaccine ideologues. They are a dangerous lot. People die because of them. Most of them are children.
Congrats! That is what that position accomplishes. Dead kids. I give you this, yet again.
And BTW, I was born in the 1940's and went to school in the early 1950's. So I remember kids walking the halls in braces on their legs due to polio. And also, kids who would just suddenly disappear from the school hallways never to be seen again.
I also remember the Salk Vaccine. Every student at my elementary school queued up and took the jab. The result was that polio has all but been eliminated from the world. Like Smallpox it could be, because there is no known other animal vector for the infection.
The solution to these things is vaccination. Polio can go the way of Smallpox. However, anti-vaccination lunatics are spreading fear and doubt about the vaccinations. That has resulted in outbreaks of polio which, thanks to easy global travel and low vaccination rates here, could result in the horrors of my youth returning with leg braces, and iron lungs, and kids dying. And don't get me started about whooping cough. Or measles. Or chicken pox. (My father had shingles in his 80's. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.)
Vaccinations are safe and effective.
Get your vaccines, people.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)Fig 1. Prevalence of Five Developmental Disabilities, Metropolitan Atlanta Developmental Disabilities Surveillance Program, 19912010.
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0124120 April 29, 2015
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Trends in the Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cerebral Palsy, Hearing Loss, Intellectual Disability, and Vision Impairment, Metropolitan Atlanta, 19912010
Kim Van Naarden Braun*, Deborah Christensen, Nancy Doernberg, Laura Schieve, Catherine Rice, Lisa Wiggins, Diana Schendel, Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp
Developmental Disabilities Branch, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
Citation: Van Naarden Braun K, Christensen D, Doernberg N, Schieve L, Rice C, Wiggins L, et al.
(2015) Trends in the Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cerebral Palsy, Hearing Loss, Intellectual Disability, and Vision Impairment, Metropolitan Atlanta, 19912010. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0124120.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0124120
Academic Editor: Marina A. Pavlova, University of
Tuebingen Medical School, GERMANY
Received: December 3, 2014
Accepted: February 26, 2015
Published: April 29, 2015
Abstract
This study examined the prevalence and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), cerebral palsy (CP), hearing loss (HL), intellectual disability (ID), and vision impairment (VI) over a 1520 year time period, with specific focus on concurrent changes in ASD and ID prevalence. We used data from a population-based developmental disabilities surveillance program for 8-year-olds in metropolitan Atlanta. From 19912010, prevalence estimates of ID and HL were stable with slight increases in VI prevalence. CP prevalence was constant from 19932010. The average annual increase in ASD prevalence was 9.3% per year from 19962010, with a 269% increase from 4.2 per 1,000 in 1996 to 15.5 per
1,000 in 2010. From 20002010, the prevalence of ID without ASD was stable; during the same time, the prevalence of ASD with and without co-occurring ID increased by an average of 6.6% and 9.6% per year, respectively. ASD prevalence increases were found among both males and females, and among nearly all racial/ethnic subgroups and levels of intellectual ability. Average annual prevalence estimates from 19912010 underscore the significant community resources needed to provide early intervention and ongoing supports for children with ID (13.0 per 1,000), CP, (3.5 per 1,000), HL (1.4 per 1,000) and VI (1.3 in 1,000), with a growing urgency for children with ASD.
LINK FROM: http://www.ageofautism.com/2015/05/age-of-autism-weekly-wrap-epidemic-this-epidemic.html
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)I should let them know you're attempting to misrepresent their work.
Why don't you say that global warming causes autism?
It's as well thought out as your argument.
STOP THE MISREPRESENTATION. It's lying.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)I was demonstrating the value of AOA as a news aggregator about autism. Never would've seen that really important recent study by the CDC which appears to definitively answer the question, "Is autism increasing?" ANSWER: YES, IT IS.
My post addressed longship's third point. That's all. Autism is exploding in the US according to the CDC. Did the media report this?
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)global warming?
people eating more kale?
renewable energy?
every upward trend you see, vaccines right?
having concerns about thimerosal is one thing, and it's out of most vaccines by now. but declaring that it's likely that vaccines cause autism is just you making stuff up.
and putting scientific literature links below BS conclusions that YOU, not any credible scientist has made, is a pretty shitty thing to do to the scientists you quoted.
that's like saying chemtrails are a thing and quoting a meteorologist's scientific paper about clouds. i'd be pissed if i were him.
of course i'm guessing you probably do think there is basis for the chemtrail conspiracy theories, and why wouldn't you? you wrongly believe science supports the nonsense you're posting here, why wouldn't you think it supports the nonsense about chemtrails (which are actually contrails...)?
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Or lack of cheese causes suicide. I don't know because fuck you statistics.
My uncle's sister's college roommate's department store cashier's drug dealer's lawn trimmer ate cheese once and he got hit by a bus.
Why do you science worshippers love suicide and people getting hit by busses?
longship
(40,416 posts)And notice that the rates of autism did not go down. So that kind of falsifies the anti-vaccine kook claim that autism is from the mercury in the vaccines.
And here is a study that the anti-vaccine kooks will just love.
Congenital Rubella and Autism Prevented by Rubella Vaccination
Oopsie. I guess vaccination is good for the kiddies after all. Just as we all should have known.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)CreekDog
(46,192 posts)NONE.
which means YOU DON'T HAVE ANY.
this is the strongest case you can make and IT'S NO CASE AT ALL.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Including major-league asshat RFK Jr.
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)In this context, the term, 'philosophical' has arty-farty, flaky overtones, and is just an outrageous misnomer. It has nothing to do with philosophy. I wonder who drafted the damned bill. Land of the free! The citizenry have literally become peons of Big Pharma.
In the UK, when questioned, one of the Tory ministers at the time - I think it was Blair - who was pushing for people to have their children receive a cocktail of vaccines, admitted that his own children had not had them, and did not protest, either, that they would in the near future.
One MP in the UK described children receiving the vaccines as kind of 'shock troops'! He actually meant to laud the courage of their parents! Reminds me of the Tory minister, Selwyn Gummer, during the CJD crisis, who had his little daughter publicly eat a beefburger.
bananas
(27,509 posts)Puts the reasoning behind each on a level playing field.
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)Fournier
(42 posts)Objections to the vaccine are based on (weak) empirical grounds. I don't know about "artsy fartsy" connotations of the word "philosophical." Most people have no idea whatever what the word connotes.
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)It applies to this particular context, in which, as you discern, it is wholly inappropriate. In the Arts faculty of a university, invocations of philosophy are appropriate, and thus the term, 'arty-farty', would not be appropriate.
Fournier
(42 posts)In this context, "philosophical" has a negative connotation, because it suggests speculation instead of real evidence.
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)brooklynite
(94,727 posts)And where do they put it in?
Response to brooklynite (Reply #28)
Post removed
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Here it comes.
Almost.
Working on it.
Oh, I'll get around to it eventually.