Vaccines: Good or Bad?

You know, here is where I feel I want to make an appeal to critical thinking again.

What do we have here? We have a series peer-reviewed scientific studies (I only scratched the surface, there are more), versus an expressed opinion by a single scientist who serves as a spokesman for an organization. Said organization is playing to its membership, which is made up of family members of those with autism, who are hungry for something to blame, hostile to the medical establishment (since it hasn't found a cure for their kids), and frustrated by the slow pace of learning on the condition that affects their loved ones.

You can find a single person with letters after his name who will say ANYTHING. To suggest that there is parity here between this guy's opinion and the studies I cited is...well, frankly, it's pretty silly.

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Posted in reply to the post by HolisticKids:

Here is the full text of the article on the MMR and pervasive development disorders in Canada, authored by Dr. Fombonne et al, and claimed to be the final word that vaccines do not cause autism:

https://pediatrics.aappublications.o...int/118/1/e139

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Just to remind on my central point: though I think the book is pretty well closed on vaccines causing autism, even if it DID at the rates shown, such a social cost would be easily outweighed by the social cost of not having the disease immunity caused by the vaccines. So to me, it's moot. I don't see any credible reason to believe these vaccines cause autism, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But if I DID see such evidence, at the incidence rates shown, when it comes to diseases like polio, I'd go right back to: them's the breaks.

I've got other things to do, but I can't resist any longer!

If you accept these facts:

1) There is herd immunity and that it is effective at less than 100% vaccination level

2) There is some non-zero level of risk associated with vaccinations

Then:
The optimal level of vaccinations for a society is at the rate required for herd immunity, not more and not less. At a higher vaccination level, there is no societal benefit but there is an incremental individual risk that is taken on.

My sense is that if a community is given full information and free choice, then the optimal level of vaccination will result. If individuals are able to choose, there will be some percentage of people that will consider the risk of vaccination to be higher than the risk of not being vaccinated.

If the herd immunity has been well established, as is the case of this society (U.S.) and polio, then a significant number of people may choose to not vaccinate. If polio cases pick up (and are substantially more than the complications arising from the vaccinations), then fewer people will choose to not vaccinate.

What I've noticed is that the more we learn about health and our bodies natural systems to maintain it, the more the de-constructionist (not wholistic) sledgehammer approach to fixing/preventing problems needs to be reconsidered.

For instance, at least in the case of childhood diseases, nature's way of establishing immunity starts with breast feeding. (Now there's something that should be required!) After that, a child is exposed to a multitude of antigens and it's through that exposure, that sometimes results in a non-threatening illness, that full immunity is achieved.

The conventional approach is to prevent the baby from being exposed to natural antigens (have you seen some of the products out there to keep your baby "protected"? OMG!) and in their place present artificial/dead antigens (vaccines) at high levels when the babies immune system is still being developed, which while effective, are not as effective as the real thing. So there is now a non-zero level of adult infections of people who were immunized. And catching the disease as an adult is way more serious.
And who knows the side effects that may surface over the child's life that are very difficult to tie back to the vaccination. What if some form of cancer, say breast cancer, shows up 40 years later, and it's a mystery why the rates are so high?

My ex and I only vaccinated our kids for tetanus. And when we heard that some kid had measles, German measles, mumps or chicken pox, etc, we scheduled a play date! They lived through it (generally it was quite mild), we lived though it (though I was glad not to be faced with a serious case of whopping cough) and all is well.

Mark,



I would like to respond to your appeal to critical thinking and scientific study. I could be wrong but it appears by your posts that what you are calling scientific study falls primarily under positivist or post-positivist paradigms of research where the scientific method used aims at finding results that are statistically meaningful when applied to probable outcomes. So when we are talking about positivist or post-positivist scientific study we are talking about probabilities. However, we have known, for almost, what is it 80-100 years, that researcher bias affects the outcome of what is being studied. While post-positivist studies have tried to account for researcher bias it has still fallen short of giving us completely dependable results. Peer reviewed studies are valuable but can still be flawed if all of the peers are working in the same paradigm.



Social scientists have tried to address the short comings of positivist and post-positivist study by introducing new paradigms of scientific study such as Critical Theory, Constructivism, and Participatory Research. These three primarily but not exclusively use qualitative research as opposed the quantitative research that is employed in positivist and post-positivist study. The NSA and the majority of the pharmaceutical companies rely primarily on quantitative inquiry. There has recently been pressure on congress to define scientific study as only that which can be measured quantitatively.



The point I want to make is that when scientific inquiry is only dealing with the quantities and probabilities they are only addressing half of the picture. The quality of the outcome is meaningful. Science originated as a means of knowing. And one of the best ways of knowing is through experience. The anomalies in experience need to be accounted for otherwise our knowing falls short, science falls short. If we dismiss others experience as anecdotal or don’t take into consideration that there are intelligent individuals out there who may have stumbled upon a great discovery but can’t get their discovery peer reviewed because the majority of their peers are still not working in newer paradigms of research method, then we are not knowing the whole picture, we are not getting at the complete truth.



I am not advocating dismissing the value that positivism and post-positivism science has brought. I happen to agree with you that vaccinations have been extremely helpful in saving scores of lives. But I believe what I have been hearing others say is that the vaccinations cause problems as well. I don’t think the issue is settled. I don’t believe we should stop looking for other solutions just because science may have found one vaccine that works most of the time.



Relying on science to justify one’s position is only valid when one defines science as all of the possible ways of knowing.



Tony

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Posted in reply to the post by Sonomamark:

You know, here is where I feel I want to make an appeal to critical thinking again.

What do we have here? We have a series peer-reviewed scientific studies (I only scratched the surface, there are more), versus an expressed opinion by a single scientist who serves as a spokesman for an organization. Said organization is playing to its membership, which is made up of family members of those with autism, who are hungry for something to blame, hostile to the medical establishment (since it hasn't found a cure for their kids), and frustrated by the slow pace of learning on the condition that affects their loved ones.

You can find a single person with letters after his name who will say ANYTHING. To suggest that there is parity here between this guy's opinion and the studies I cited is...well, frankly, it's pretty silly.

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Artwizard, thanks for an intelligent post. I don't disagree with much of what you write, except insofar as the statistical significance of the suspected downsides to vaccines is so slight that it clearly doesn't outweigh their benefit.

Also, I don't agree with a generalized declaration that "sharing a paradigm" will lead multiple independent investigators to arrive at distorted conclusions. Researcher bias gets ironed out when there are many independent investigations, as has happened with the proposed autism/vaccine link.

Social science, because it studies phenomena which cannot be precisely quantified, such as psychology, culture, and emotion, has had to look for new approaches to inquiry, but these are not good models for hard science. "Quality" is not meaningful (much less "only half of the picture") when asking a yes-or-no question. "Are vaccinations linked to autism?" is a yes-or-no question. And the preponderance of scientific evidence points to the answer being "no". To the degree that there is contrary evidence, it should be subject to the same standards of scientific rigor.

Mark

Barry, I like your breakdown of the issue but I don't agree with your conclusions. My concern is that parents are going to want "somebody else's kid" to be the one taking the miniscule risk of being vaccinated, and, within a generation or two, herd immunity will no longer function.

And again, I go back to the specific diseases in question. Measles, mumps, no big deal, so sure, it's optional. When it comes to polio, diphtheria, smallpox, typhoid, etc., these vaccinations should not be optional. In the case of rubella, because infecting a pregnant woman can lead to birth defects, I still say it's irresponsible not to vaccinate. If you have a daughter and never vaccinate her, you might well end up the grandparent of someone deaf or blind.

For what it's worth...

MG

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Posted in reply to the post by Barry:

My ex and I only vaccinated our kids for tetanus. And when we heard that some kid had measles, German measles, mumps or chicken pox, etc, we scheduled a play date! They lived through it (generally it was quite mild), we lived though it (though I was glad not to be faced with a serious case of whopping cough) and all is well.

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Hard science and Social science are difficult to tease apart. For instance Autism is classified as a psychological disorder but is seems clear that biological components to the disease play a major role. Yet, Pharmiceutical interventions alone doesn't help with the disease. Many of the recent advances in treating Autism come from psychological interventions enacted at a very early age. So there is a need to be asking psychological questions in order to work with it. Simple yes and no questions are going to be ellusive when dealing with something as complex as Autism. If quality is not meaningful then we are not asking the right questions.

If we are only using the hard sciences to explore the links between just about anything and anything else then we are not getting a complete picture. You cant separate mind/body, just like you cannot separate nature/nurture arguments. Each is always affecting the other. We can't rely on hard science alone in dealing with these complex issues. The reason there is not a consensus is that there are multiple perspectives being offered here. Each perspective requires a different response. One solution does not fit all. Values are a part of this equation, and thus quality is part of the equation.

This is an intriquing topic because there are a lot of issues at play; Social health, freedom of choice over what goes into our bodies, (the politics of reality :eek: ) etc. I appreciate your fair response. Mine is not always the voice of reason, but I appreciate the oppurtunity to still express my opinion and have it received, if not agreed with.

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Posted in reply to the post by Sonomamark:

Artwizard, thanks for an intelligent post. I don't disagree with much of what you write, except insofar as the statistical significance of the suspected downsides to vaccines is so slight that it clearly doesn't outweigh their benefit.

Also, I don't agree with a generalized declaration that "sharing a paradigm" will lead multiple independent investigators to arrive at distorted conclusions. Researcher bias gets ironed out when there are many independent investigations, as has happened with the proposed autism/vaccine link.

Social science, because it studies phenomena which cannot be precisely quantified, such as psychology, culture, and emotion, has had to look for new approaches to inquiry, but these are not good models for hard science. "Quality" is not meaningful (much less "only half of the picture") when asking a yes-or-no question. "Are vaccinations linked to autism?" is a yes-or-no question. And the preponderance of scientific evidence points to the answer being "no". To the degree that there is contrary evidence, it should be subject to the same standards of scientific rigor.

Mark

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Posted in reply to the post by Sonomamark:

Barry, I like your breakdown of the issue but I don't agree with your conclusions. My concern is that parents are going to want "somebody else's kid" to be the one taking the miniscule risk of being vaccinated, and, within a generation or two, herd immunity will no longer function.

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If you believe that vaccines really work, then the only people that benefit from herd immunity are the ones who don't vaccinate. So they are both the ones who create and bare the risk. Seems fair to me.

However if you then incorporate the social costs of someone getting a serious disease, that is costs to people other than the person getting sick (health care costs, etc.) then the picture is not as clear.