Book Is Rallying Resistance to the Antivaccine Crusade

[Zeno Swijtink]

January 13, 2009

Book Is Rallying Resistance to the Antivaccine Crusade
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

A new book defending vaccines, written by a doctor infuriated at the claim that they cause autism, is galvanizing a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the United States.

But there will be no book tour for the doctor, Paul A. Offit, author of “Autism’s False Prophets.” He has had too many death threats.

“I’ll speak at a conference, say, to nurses,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go into a bookstore and sign books. It can get nasty. There are parents who really believe that vaccines hurt their children, and to them, I’m incredibly evil. They hate me.”

Dr. Offit, a pediatrician, is a mild, funny and somewhat rumpled 57-year-old. The chief of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, he is also the co-inventor of a vaccine against rotavirus, a diarrheal disease that kills 60,000 children a year in poor countries.

“When Jonas Salk invented polio vaccine, he was a hero — and I’m a terrorist?” he jokes, referring to a placard denouncing him at a recent demonstration by antivaccine activists outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

In recent years, the debate over vaccines and autism, which began in fear and confusion, has hardened into anger. As Dr. Offit’s book details, numerous studies of thimerosal, measles virus and other alleged autism triggers in vaccines have been conducted, and hundreds of children with diagnoses of autism have undergone what he considers sham treatments and been “cured.” Both sides insist that the medical evidence backs them.

As a result, “a few years ago this ceased to be a civil scientific discourse and became about crucifying individuals,” said Dr. Gregory A. Poland, chief of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic, who says he has had threats against his children. “Paul is a lightning rod, a figure who goes charging into the fray.”

Those backing Dr. Offit say he was forced into the role. Opponents of vaccines have held rallies, appeared on talk shows like “Oprah” and “Imus in the Morning,” been the heroes of made-for-TV movies and found a celebrity spokeswoman in Jenny McCarthy, the actress and former Playboy model who has an autistic son. Meanwhile, the response from public health officials has been muted and couched in dull scientific jargon.

“If the surgeon general or the secretary of health or the head of the C.D.C. would come out and make a really strong statement on this, I think the whole thing would go away,” said Dr. Peter J. Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, who has a severely autistic daughter whose disease, he argues, is genetic.

Asked why public health officials have been reticent, the acting surgeon general, Dr. Steven K. Galson, issued a statement saying that “childhood immunizations are one of the greatest achievements of all time” and that “scientific evidence clearly shows that vaccines do not contribute to autism.” He has spoken on issues like obesity, tobacco, air travel and exercise, but his office said he had not been questioned by journalists about vaccines and autism.

Dr. Offit’s book, published in September by Columbia University Press, has been widely endorsed by pediatricians, autism researchers, vaccine companies and medical journalists who say it sums up, in layman’s language, the scientific evidence for vaccines and forcefully argues that vulnerable parents are being manipulated by doctors promoting false cures and lawyers filing class-action suits.

“Opponents of vaccines have taken the autism story hostage,” Dr. Offit said. “They don’t speak for all parents of autistic kids, they use fringe scientists and celebrities, they’ve set up cottage industries of false hope, and they’re hurting kids. Parents pay out of their pockets for dangerous treatments, they take out second mortgages to buy hyperbaric oxygen chambers. It’s just unconscionable.”

His opponents dismiss him as “Dr. Proffit” because he received millions in royalties for his RotaTeq vaccine. One group he criticizes harshly in the book is Generation Rescue, which advocates treating autistic children with wheat- and dairy-free diets, vitamins and chelation to remove mercury from the body. Ms. McCarthy, her companion, the actor Jim Carrey, and Deirdre Imus, wife of the radio host, are all on its board.

J. B. Handley, who founded Generation Rescue in 2005, rejected Dr. Offit’s attacks, saying: “We have hundreds of fully recovered children. I’m very frustrated that Dr. Offit, who’s never treated an autistic child, is spending his time trying to refute the reality of biomedical recovery.”

He scoffed at the idea that Dr. Offit had had numerous death threats but condemned threats generally, saying he had received some himself. “No one should ever do that to another human being,” he said.

Dr. Offit now has his own celebrity ally, the actress Amanda Peet, who was introduced to him through a brother-in-law, a doctor at his Philadelphia hospital.

“Where I live in L.A.,” she said in a telephone interview, “there’s this child-rearing trend — only feed your kids organic food, detoxify your house. And there’s a lot of anticorporate fervor, anti-pharmaceutical company fervor.”

When she was pregnant, she said, “I’d have lunch with my friends who were moms, and they’d say they wouldn’t vaccinate, or would space out their vaccinations and hadn’t I heard?”

After quizzing several doctors in her family and Dr. Offit, she eventually agreed to become a spokeswoman for Every Child by Two, a vaccine-advocacy group founded by Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady.

In an interview with Cookie, a magazine for parents, Ms. Peet called antivaccine parents “parasites” because they relied on other children’s immunity to protect their own. She later apologized for the word but emphasized that parents should get their medical advice from doctors, “not from me or any other celebrity.”

Dr. Nancy J. Minshew, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a leading autism expert, said she had begun telling any parent asking about vaccines to read the Offit book. A brain-imaging specialist who gets no money from vaccine companies, she said she had never met or spoken with Dr. Offit.

Autism, she said, is one of many diseases, like dyslexia, Elephant Man’s disease, tuberous sclerosis and schizophrenia, that are caused by genetic flaws but show no symptoms for years.

She blamed journalists for “creating a conspiracy where there was none.” By acting as if there were two legitimate sides to the autism debate, she said, “the media has fed on this — it’s great for ratings.”

Many doctors now argue that reporters should treat the antivaccine lobby with the same indifference they do Holocaust deniers, AIDS deniers and those claiming to have proof that NASA faked the Moon landings.

Dr. Offit’s book traces the history of autism theories, starting with the child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim’s blaming “refrigerator mothers.” It describes early false cures, including “facilitated communication,” in which assistants helped mute children type their thoughts; head-squeezing by osteopaths; cod liver oil; diets; and a 1998 fad for secretin, a pig hormone. It sums up 16 epidemiological studies showing no link between autism and either measles or thimerosal, a vaccine preservative.

To the newer argument that vaccines overwhelm babies’ immune systems, Dr. Offit notes that current shots against 14 diseases contain 153 proteins, while babies cope with thousands of new foreign proteins daily in food, dirt and animal hair, and that the smallpox vaccine that nearly every American over age 30 got as a child contained 200 proteins.

Arthur Allen, the author of “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver” (W. W. Norton, 2007), has publicly debated other journalists who argue that vaccines cause autism. Six years ago, he wrote a seminal article in The New York Times Magazine titled “The Not-So-Crackpot Autism Theory.” He later changed his mind and now “feels bad” about the article, he said, “because it helped get these people into the field who did a lot of damage.”

Dr. Offit’s book “needed to be written,” he said. But he is skeptical that it will end the struggle.

“There are still people who believe fluoride is dangerous, who think jet contrails cause cancer,” he said. “I’m waiting for the debate to get beyond that, but you’re not going to convert some people.”

[MsTerry]

Has this been proven false?

J. B. Handley, who founded Generation Rescue in 2005, rejected Dr. Offit’s attacks, saying: “We have hundreds of fully recovered children. I’m very frustrated that Dr. Offit, who’s never treated an autistic child, is spending his time trying to refute the reality of biomedical recovery.”

[Braggi]

Has this been proven false?

Well, I think you need to consider the source.

I found this which speaks to J. B. Handley's grasp of science. What it shows is that Mr. Handley is unlikely to do a very good job of even evaluating the condition: Respectful Insolence: Fun with phone surveys and vaccines

Enjoy reading,

-Jeff

[d-cat]

University of Calgary: How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Damage
YouTube - How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Damage - Uni. of Calgary

[Hotspring 44]

Zeno Swijtink wrote: “There are still people who believe fluoride is dangerous, who think jet contrails cause cancer,” he said. “I’m waiting for the debate to get beyond that, but you’re not going to convert some people.”
Here's a perfect example of someone is not going to “convert”. Fluoride - Side Effects & Dangers

Not all jet contrails are created equal.
Silver halide, for example is a neurotoxin in certain low dosage quantities.
Tiny oxidized particles of Silver halide have been used to seed clouds, to produce rain.

The term “Contrails” & the term “Chem-Trails” seem to be very commonly mistaken for each other.
So to make the statement that “contrails”, which are basically water vapor and that it (the contrails”), are somehow connected with the CIA as in some sort of a plot is technically incorrect and basically absurd.
These days’ contrails that people are sometimes referring to them as are more than just simply water vapor crystallized into ice accumulated in the thermal path that jets make when flying through the frigid upper atmosphere.
Nowadays people refer to the “Chem-Trails as “Contrails” incorrectly.
It would be all too easy to make fun of them but in reality, they have a case, you might actually be concerned about if you have young children that are still in their developing ages because certain oxidized metals are a definite health risk and others we just don't know yet they may or may not be.
Judging from what I have read lately, there has been a huge amount of microscopic sized particles of aluminum, raining down from the atmosphere in certain areas in northern California that people have had independently tested, which have contained extremely large amounts of those materials compared to normal levels of same materials in those areas.
About Chemtrails/Chemtrails or Contrails/Chemtrail FAQ's/Answers about Chemtrails and Contrails

AEROSOL OPERATION CRIMES & COVER-UP

Remember the legionnaire’s disease? And how it spread? NEWSMEAT ▷ Vets Sue CIA, Defense Over Military Experiments
Yeah that's right, the U.S. military; I suppose some of us may be too young or too “busy” to even remember reading about that. Or maybe it's to some people, just a grain of salt. Oh well. To each his or her own I guess.

You can thank the good old days of the Cold War and specifically the Ronald Regan administration for that particular debacle.

As far as the vaccines are concerned however I basically agree with what was said about the main message the book is said to have in it.

I could go on and on about this particular subject.
But I just don't have time or energy also, I have been at the computer too long of a time today everybody have very good day.

January 13, 2009

Book Is Rallying Resistance to the Antivaccine Crusade
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

A new book defending vaccines, written by a doctor infuriated at the claim that they cause autism, is galvanizing a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the United States.

But there will be no book tour for the doctor, Paul A. Offit, author of “Autism’s False Prophets.” He has had too many death threats.

“I’ll speak at a conference, say, to nurses,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go into a bookstore and sign books. It can get nasty. There are parents who really believe that vaccines hurt their children, and to them, I’m incredibly evil. They hate me.”

Dr. Offit, a pediatrician, is a mild, funny and somewhat rumpled 57-year-old. The chief of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, he is also the co-inventor of a vaccine against rotavirus, a diarrheal disease that kills 60,000 children a year in poor countries.

“When Jonas Salk invented polio vaccine, he was a hero — and I’m a terrorist?” he jokes, referring to a placard denouncing him at a recent demonstration by antivaccine activists outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

In recent years, the debate over vaccines and autism, which began in fear and confusion, has hardened into anger. As Dr. Offit’s book details, numerous studies of thimerosal, measles virus and other alleged autism triggers in vaccines have been conducted, and hundreds of children with diagnoses of autism have undergone what he considers sham treatments and been “cured.” Both sides insist that the medical evidence backs them.

As a result, “a few years ago this ceased to be a civil scientific discourse and became about crucifying individuals,” said Dr. Gregory A. Poland, chief of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic, who says he has had threats against his children. “Paul is a lightning rod, a figure who goes charging into the fray.”

Those backing Dr. Offit say he was forced into the role. Opponents of vaccines have held rallies, appeared on talk shows like “Oprah” and “Imus in the Morning,” been the heroes of made-for-TV movies and found a celebrity spokeswoman in Jenny McCarthy, the actress and former Playboy model who has an autistic son. Meanwhile, the response from public health officials has been muted and couched in dull scientific jargon.

“If the surgeon general or the secretary of health or the head of the C.D.C. would come out and make a really strong statement on this, I think the whole thing would go away,” said Dr. Peter J. Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, who has a severely autistic daughter whose disease, he argues, is genetic.

Asked why public health officials have been reticent, the acting surgeon general, Dr. Steven K. Galson, issued a statement saying that “childhood immunizations are one of the greatest achievements of all time” and that “scientific evidence clearly shows that vaccines do not contribute to autism.” He has spoken on issues like obesity, tobacco, air travel and exercise, but his office said he had not been questioned by journalists about vaccines and autism.

Dr. Offit’s book, published in September by Columbia University Press, has been widely endorsed by pediatricians, autism researchers, vaccine companies and medical journalists who say it sums up, in layman’s language, the scientific evidence for vaccines and forcefully argues that vulnerable parents are being manipulated by doctors promoting false cures and lawyers filing class-action suits.

“Opponents of vaccines have taken the autism story hostage,” Dr. Offit said. “They don’t speak for all parents of autistic kids, they use fringe scientists and celebrities, they’ve set up cottage industries of false hope, and they’re hurting kids. Parents pay out of their pockets for dangerous treatments, they take out second mortgages to buy hyperbaric oxygen chambers. It’s just unconscionable.”

His opponents dismiss him as “Dr. Proffit” because he received millions in royalties for his RotaTeq vaccine. One group he criticizes harshly in the book is Generation Rescue, which advocates treating autistic children with wheat- and dairy-free diets, vitamins and chelation to remove mercury from the body. Ms. McCarthy, her companion, the actor Jim Carrey, and Deirdre Imus, wife of the radio host, are all on its board.

J. B. Handley, who founded Generation Rescue in 2005, rejected Dr. Offit’s attacks, saying: “We have hundreds of fully recovered children. I’m very frustrated that Dr. Offit, who’s never treated an autistic child, is spending his time trying to refute the reality of biomedical recovery.”

He scoffed at the idea that Dr. Offit had had numerous death threats but condemned threats generally, saying he had received some himself. “No one should ever do that to another human being,” he said.

Dr. Offit now has his own celebrity ally, the actress Amanda Peet, who was introduced to him through a brother-in-law, a doctor at his Philadelphia hospital.

“Where I live in L.A.,” she said in a telephone interview, “there’s this child-rearing trend — only feed your kids organic food, detoxify your house. And there’s a lot of anticorporate fervor, anti-pharmaceutical company fervor.”

When she was pregnant, she said, “I’d have lunch with my friends who were moms, and they’d say they wouldn’t vaccinate, or would space out their vaccinations and hadn’t I heard?”

After quizzing several doctors in her family and Dr. Offit, she eventually agreed to become a spokeswoman for Every Child by Two, a vaccine-advocacy group founded by Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady.

In an interview with Cookie, a magazine for parents, Ms. Peet called antivaccine parents “parasites” because they relied on other children’s immunity to protect their own. She later apologized for the word but emphasized that parents should get their medical advice from doctors, “not from me or any other celebrity.”

Dr. Nancy J. Minshew, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a leading autism expert, said she had begun telling any parent asking about vaccines to read the Offit book. A brain-imaging specialist who gets no money from vaccine companies, she said she had never met or spoken with Dr. Offit.

Autism, she said, is one of many diseases, like dyslexia, Elephant Man’s disease, tuberous sclerosis and schizophrenia, that are caused by genetic flaws but show no symptoms for years.

She blamed journalists for “creating a conspiracy where there was none.” By acting as if there were two legitimate sides to the autism debate, she said, “the media has fed on this — it’s great for ratings.”

Many doctors now argue that reporters should treat the antivaccine lobby with the same indifference they do Holocaust deniers, AIDS deniers and those claiming to have proof that NASA faked the Moon landings.

Dr. Offit’s book traces the history of autism theories, starting with the child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim’s blaming “refrigerator mothers.” It describes early false cures, including “facilitated communication,” in which assistants helped mute children type their thoughts; head-squeezing by osteopaths; cod liver oil; diets; and a 1998 fad for secretin, a pig hormone. It sums up 16 epidemiological studies showing no link between autism and either measles or thimerosal, a vaccine preservative.

To the newer argument that vaccines overwhelm babies’ immune systems, Dr. Offit notes that current shots against 14 diseases contain 153 proteins, while babies cope with thousands of new foreign proteins daily in food, dirt and animal hair, and that the smallpox vaccine that nearly every American over age 30 got as a child contained 200 proteins.

Arthur Allen, the author of “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver” (W. W. Norton, 2007), has publicly debated other journalists who argue that vaccines cause autism. Six years ago, he wrote a seminal article in The New York Times Magazine titled “The Not-So-Crackpot Autism Theory.” He later changed his mind and now “feels bad” about the article, he said, “because it helped get these people into the field who did a lot of damage.”

Dr. Offit’s book “needed to be written,” he said. But he is skeptical that it will end the struggle.

“There are still people who believe fluoride is dangerous, who think jet contrails cause cancer,” he said. “I’m waiting for the debate to get beyond that, but you’re not going to convert some people.”

[d-cat]

Many doctors now argue that reporters should treat the antivaccine lobby with the same indifference they do Holocaust deniers, AIDS deniers and those claiming to have proof that NASA faked the Moon landings.

This is a tactic often used by propagandists pushing something that isn't true. Another sign is when they refuse to have a debate, or face the people who challenge them. "I won't waste my time talking to such people." "The debate is over." I don't think I have ever seen Al Gore debate anyone on the issue of global warming, despite all the challenges he gets, most recently from the president of the Czech Republic. Probably just called him a "flat earther" instead.

Here is an example
RFK Jr calls Glen Beck fascist for questioning Global Warming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rp_hyN3jzI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT496-BLMvI

[Braggi]

This is a tactic often used by propagandists pushing something that isn't true. Another sign is when they refuse to have a debate, or face the people who challenge them. ...

But d-cat, on this issue the actual scientists have weighed in over and over. The studies have been done. Vaccines save lives and they don't cause autism.

Read up.

-Jeff

[Braggi]

d-cat, do a google search on "pre natal autism" and see what comes up. Since there are many factors that affect autism rates than can be measured before birth, please explain how it is that a vaccine caused that. Or is it that babies are now being vaccinated in the womb?

-Jeff

[d-cat]

I've researched the subject and I will not take vaccines and my family will not take vaccines. If your research leads you to a different conclusion, then enjoy your mercury, and other vaccine ingredients such as formaldehyde, aluminium, MSG, aspartame...

INFORMED CHOICE - Cocktail

https://www.vaclib.org/exemption.htm

[Braggi]

I've researched the subject and I will not take vaccines and my family will not take vaccines. If your research leads you to a different conclusion, then enjoy your mercury, and other vaccine ingredients such as formaldehyde, aluminium, MSG, aspartame...

Well, I realize science isn't your strong suit, but you might like to know that MSG is a natural, plant derived product and is completely non toxic. Enjoy your Chinese food and remember that it "... makes food flavors sing." (From an old Accent commercial.) Some tiny percent of the population is allergic to it but reactions are usually mild and temporary.

Aluminum? Perhaps you're worried that aluminum causes Alzheimer's disease? It doesn't, but then you'd have to follow science to know that. Avoid canned sodas and beer and you'll avoid most of the aluminum you'd ever come in contact with.

Aspartame? Another falsely accused chemical, but I avoid it because it tastes bad. Remember cyclamates? Probably not. That was the best tasting sugar substitute ever and was featured in the most popular "diet" beverages ever, Fanta and Tab. It was canned because of one bad study. When other studies showed it safe the government didn't relent and it's still outlawed. Bad science. Sugar's not really bad for you in reasonable amounts, so just use good, natural sugar and avoid bad tasting aspartame.

Formaldehyde? Humans aren't nearly as sensitive to it as most believe, but I'll agree with you I don't need any. See, we agree!

Now mercury. That's something we should look at. There isn't any in childhood vaccines. Hasn't been since 2001. Not because of science, but because of fears like yours. OK. No mercury. They still us a few molecules of it in flu vaccines (except for the "nasal spray" type) so avoid flu shots. Of course, the mercury in flu vaccines is of a type that isn't "available" to your body, so it just gets excreted, but you don't care about that. If you really really want to avoid mercury in your system, perhaps you should learn where mercury in our environment comes from and how to avoid it. It comes from burning coal, primarily. It's coal fired power plants that put the lion's share of mercury into our environment. So do everything you can to end our dependence on coal and you'll be doing a lot for yourself. Certain kinds of fish build up mercury in their tissues so you should learn what kinds of fish they are and avoid them. Albacore and swordfish are worst offenders if I remember right. Look it up. A serving of tuna can contain many dozens of times the mercury of a few vaccines. And the mercury in fish tissue is in a form that can cause harm.

You didn't mention arsenic but I will. A deadly poison? Yes? If every molecule of arsenic was removed from your body (yes, you've been poisoned) you'd die immediately. Same with copper which is certainly deadly poisonous above certain levels. I don't know about lead and mercury and uranium, but most of the elements are absolutely necessary for life. Fact is, we are born of the Earth and the parts that make up the Earth also make up us. It's the proportions that matter. Our bodies are designed to handle a certain amount of toxic substances. We have a nearly perfect "detoxifying" system built right in. It's working 24 hours a day. It's true that some people have damaged systems. Hepatitis and alcoholism damage the liver and folks with these conditions should be very careful about what they put in their systems. Most of us, thankfully, can handle occasional small doses of even pretty nasty toxins. It's the constant exposure we should really avoid. And yet, even industrial level exposures (as in 8 hour days) rarely cause the harm you'd expect. For instance: if electromagnetic radiation caused harm, the people to study are those who work with it all day long: computer professionals (the ones who work in big server farms), and electricians, and power company workers. Avoid some lone researcher working in a lab with a magnet and some cells under a microscope.

You should read up d-cat. And look to science instead of ignorant nutcases freaking out about things they don't understand as your sources of information.

Have a great life, choose to live in the light of knowledge rather than the fear of darkness, and please vaccinate your kids. Polio isn't a joke. It's real. Measles can maim and kill. Whooping cough is a horrible illness that can cause permanent harm. All these diseases are now coming back because of ignorant people choosing not to vaccinate. That's one of the saddest failures of our education system.

-Jeff

["Mad" Miles]

Braggi/Jeff, Everybody,

A note about mercury in our environment.

In, oh, 1996, I think, I organized the Chicago part of an international day of protest against the Canadian government, opposing their plans to build dams on the St. Marguerite river that feeds into Hudson Bay in northeast Canada.

These dams were primarily for hydroelectric power, destined for aluminum smelters, which require massive amounts of electricity. The power would also go for local use and sale to the U.S. north east. There was also some talk about the fresh water being sold to the U.S.. The existing power plants from the first two dams serve domestic use and smelting.

Among other things I learned while organizing the protest was that:

These previous dams created huge reservoirs, flooding lands that had been part of the forests and marshes that the indigenous Cree and Innu live on and with. With the reservoirs came natural mercury that leached out of the soil, into the water and into the food chain.

As the top predators in that ecosystem, predominantly because of fish consumption but also from other sources, these people have some of the highest levels of mercury recorded. Other than hatters in the 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe that is!

We marched on the Canadian consulate by the way, some twenty to thirty of us, down Michigan Avenue in the Loop. After picketing the entrance for a while, a consular official reluctantly met with four of us. (I declined, been there, done that.)

The project, SM3 (Saint Marguerite Three), has yet to be built.

Probably not because of our little effort, more because of larger protests in Canada and Europe. Most importantly because of the local opposition and the issues like the one I've just summarized. Sometimes you win, not often, but sometimes.

For Natural Wetlands and medically created disease immunity,

"Mad" Miles

[MsTerry]

Jeff, you are ignorant now.
Just because you are vaccinated, that doesn't mean you can't get any of these diseases.
You are saying that polio is coming back because people don't vaccinate???
Come on, Jeff, you can do better than that.
What is the source of these ills? Where do they come from?

Measles can maim and kill. Whooping cough is a horrible illness that can cause permanent harm. All these diseases are now coming back because of ignorant people choosing not to vaccinate. That's one of the saddest failures of our education system.

-Jeff

[Sylph]

You are saying that polio is coming back because people don't vaccinate???

It's happening in Africa. In Nigeria, and spreading to surrounding countries. Children are paralyzed for life because people got scared of vaccines.
So, it's way off in Africa, how can it affect us?
We are more connected, in 2009, to the rest of the world, via travel and immigration than ever before....

"Despite a massive international effort to eradicate poliomyelitis, the disease is alive and well in some corners of the world. Several previously polio-free African countries have now become re-infected because of major outbreaks in northern Nigeria where, experts say, vaccine campaigns are flawed and failing."
A Scourge of Childhood Reemerges as Polio Spreads in Western Africa: Scientific American

[MsTerry]

Sylph, you didn't answer my question on how it is spread.
from your article

Polio is transmitted via the fecal-oral route: To catch the disease, a person must ingest the feces of an infected person. This happens relatively easily in areas with poor sanitation systems where drinking water is contaminated with sewage and human waste.

It's happening in Africa.

[Sylph]

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a polio carrier (only one in 200 people exposed become ill) would come to the USA and prepare a salad for you in a local kitchen.
Good thing you probably had your vaccinations!

Sylph, you didn't answer my question on how it is spread.
from your article

Polio is transmitted via the fecal-oral route: To catch the disease, a person must ingest the feces of an infected person. This happens relatively easily in areas with poor sanitation systems where drinking water is contaminated with sewage and human waste.

[Braggi]

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a polio carrier (only one in 200 people exposed become ill) would come to the USA and prepare a salad for you in a local kitchen. ...

The most likely route of transmission is from one child to another in a day care center, at a school etc.

It's also possible a person with less than stellar hygiene could have used the shopping cart ahead of you. You just never know, do you?

Vaccines work best when 95% or so of the population has been vaccinated. No individual is 100% guaranteed protection, but the odds are much better that you will avoid infection after exposure than a non-immunized person. That's a pretty good thing.

The best way for my child to be protected is if your child is also protected. Thanks for being responsible, loving and nurturing by vaccinating your kids.

-Jeff

[Sylph]

The non-vaccinated had better stay out of Europe too!

"More than 12,000 cases of measles were reported in Europe in the two years spanning 2006 and 2007, a new study published in the Lancet has revealed.
All but 15% occurred in just five countries - the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Romania - and most were infections of unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children."
Measles: Europe Unlikely To Meet 2010 Ellimination Target After MMR Vaccination Slump | World News | Sky News

Here is an excellent, long article history of the vaccine debate in England:
spiked-essays | Essay | Anti-vaccination nation?

[MsTerry]

How many died?

"More than 12,000 cases of measles were reported in Europe in the two years spanning 2006 and 2007, a new study published in the Lancet has revealed

[Braggi]

How many died?

Read up. You know how.

Love,

-Jeff

[Sylph]

Only 7 confirmed deaths in two years, (deaths that were completely unnecessary), but dire complications can occur. Thousands were hospitalized.
“Although measles in Europe might be perceived as a
mild disease, it still causes deaths; seven deaths were
reported during the 2 years of the study. The full extent of
mortality is not completely apparent in the short term
because the fatal complication subacute sclerosing
panencephalitis, although rare, can develop years after
acute measles infection.
Moreover, measles mortality could be underestimated since most surveillance systems do not systematically obtain outcome data, and measles
might not be noted on death certificates. Indeed, death
certification errors are well recognised.
We acknowledge that although we reported acute
encephalitis as a complication of measles, other com-
plications such as pneumonia were recorded only in
relation to deaths.” complications measles morbidity europe 2008 lancet - Google Search

The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2003;187:S8–S14
© World Health Organization 2003.
The Global Burden of Measles in the Year 2000—A Model that Uses Country‐Specific Indicators

The estimation of the global burden of measles is challenging in the absence of reliable and comparable surveillance systems worldwide. A static model is described that enables estimation of measles morbidity, mortality, and disability for the year 2000 on the basis of country‐specific information (i.e., demographic profile, vaccine coverage, and estimates of case‐fatality ratios). This approach estimated a global incidence of 39.9 million measles cases, 777,000 deaths, and 28 million disability‐adjusted life years. The World Health Organization regions of Africa and Southeast Asia had 70% of incident cases and 84% of measles‐related deaths; 11 countries alone (Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Uganda) account for 66% of deaths. This approach quantifies the measles burden by considering country‐specific indicators, which can be updated, permitting an assessment of country, regional, and global changes in the burden associated with measles infection.

["Mad" Miles]

There have been recent news reports that vaccination rates in Africa are actually lower then officially reported. The pressure to get international funds, when the infrastructure is not there to actually carry out the mission, plus corruption among officials, has led to this fraud.

The spread of polio in northern Nigeria is related to suspicions in the traditional Islamic community about the intentions of the national government, which is dominated by the Christians in central and southern Nigeria.

There was in interesting series of articles on Slate.com a few months ago about the way excretia is handled, or not, around the world. It was a book review and interview with the author. Highly interesting, really gross and enlightening about the details regarding the lack of waste management the world over.

The definition alone of "helicopter toilet" is alone worth investigation.

Not everyone takes care of their shit the way we do. And one tentative conclusion is that parts of rural China are ahead of the West when it comes to doing so.

All of the details for what I've referred to here are easily found with some simple googling. Check it out!

"Mad" Miles

[MsTerry]

Nowhere does it say that the measles were the cause.

about 200,000 children a year die of measles, usually because they are malnourished and get no medical care.

love you too

Read up. You know how.

Love,

-Jeff

[MsTerry]

THAT IS EXACTLY 0.05833%!
nowhere does it say that measles were the sole cause of death

Only 7 confirmed deaths in two years,

[Sylph]

THAT IS EXACTLY 0.05833%!
nowhere does it say that measles were the sole cause of death

Or, as is more usual in medical literature, 5.8 in 10,000. A little easier to get the mind around. I'd play the lottery if the odds were that "good"! Not a high number, true. However, this horrible disease is preventable. There are many complications, including brain damage and blindness. The saddest thing is when the kids with immune disorders, who can't be vaccinated, or don't get a good response from vaccination, die because other kids' parents didn't vaccinate and the herd immunity falters.
In the Lancet article, it states that the cases were clinically confirmed and epidemiologically linked. In some cases, measles caused pneumonia which caused death. Does this mean that the measles virus was not the cause of death?

Clinical, laboratory-confirmed, and epidemiologically linked cases that met the requirements for national surveillance were
analysed.

[MsTerry]

Sylph, I had the measles when I was a kid, and so did everyone else in my neighborhood.
You seem to have a medical background, and having such, you must also know that not JUST one cause leads to infant deaths. You mentioned pneumonia, why do only some kids develop this and others not?
Did none of those kids have vaccines?
How many kids die annually from vaccines?

Or, as is more usual in medical literature, 5.8 in 10,000. A little easier to get the mind around. I'd play the lottery if the odds were that "good"! Not a high number, true. However, this horrible disease is preventable. There are many complications, including brain damage and blindness. The saddest thing is when the kids with immune disorders, who can't be vaccinated, or don't get a good response from vaccination, die because other kids' parents didn't vaccinate and the herd immunity falters.
In the Lancet article, it states that the cases were clinically confirmed and epidemiologically linked. In some cases, measles caused pneumonia which caused death. Does this mean that the measles virus was not the cause of death?

Clinical, laboratory-confirmed, and epidemiologically linked cases that met the requirements for national surveillance were
analysed.

[phooph]

If you understand that the original outbreaks of HIV in Africa occurred in areas targeted by the WHO for Polio and Hep B vaccination programs you may understand the reluctance of Africans to participate in the current efforts. What role they actually played in the outbreak is a little foggy, and stored samples of the suspect polio vaccine in the US indicated no contamination with HIV. Dirty needles or Hep B vaccine, however, may be the impicated. An experimental Hep B vaccine was used not only in Africa but on the gay population of NYC where the first outbreaks in the US occurred and then spread to gay populations around the country. The WHO was concerned enough about this that it sent a doctor to investigate with the conclusion that there was some relationship between the outbreaks and the vaccination programs.

Origin of HIV-1?
"Hepatitis B Vaccine and the Origin of HIV/AIDS: Perspectives on a Possible Vaccine Induced Pandemic"
Early Hepatitis B Vaccines and the “Man-Made” Origin of HIV/AIDS:

Viral contamination is a troublesome issue in the creation of vaccines. How do you find virus free animals in which to incubate the serum? Even Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, has stated that it is a near impossibility, and who knows when some as yet unidentified virus may lurk in the bodies of animals used for serum incubation. Consider the scare over bird flu and the use of chickens to make some vaccines.

It's happening in Africa. In Nigeria, and spreading to surrounding countries. Children are paralyzed for life because people got scared of vaccines.
So, it's way off in Africa, how can it affect us?
We are more connected, in 2009, to the rest of the world, via travel and immigration than ever before....

"Despite a massive international effort to eradicate poliomyelitis, the disease is alive and well in some corners of the world. Several previously polio-free African countries have now become re-infected because of major outbreaks in northern Nigeria where, experts say, vaccine campaigns are flawed and failing."
A Scourge of Childhood Reemerges as Polio Spreads in Western Africa: Scientific American

[phooph]

Polio outbreak in Nigeria sparked by oral vaccine - USATODAY.com

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a polio carrier (only one in 200 people exposed become ill) would come to the USA and prepare a salad for you in a local kitchen.
Good thing you probably had your vaccinations!

[Braggi]

Polio outbreak in Nigeria sparked by oral vaccine - USATODAY.com

That's terrible news as is the "official" response to the outbreak. They should have copped to it as soon as they learned about it.

That said, I picked two interesting and bottom line tidbits from the article:

"In 2003, politicians in northern Nigeria canceled vaccination campaigns for nearly a year, claiming the vaccine was a Western plot to sterilize Muslims. That led to an explosion of polio, and the virus jumped to about two dozen countries."

So, last time officials stopped immunizing the general population an "explosion" of polio spread among about two dozen countries. That shows how dangerous polio still is and how important it is to immunize nearly everyone.

Also from the article: "More than 10 billion polio doses have been given to children worldwide, and the vaccine has been credited with cutting polio incidence by more than 99% since 1988. Far more children are paralyzed by the wild polio virus than the virus spread by the oral vaccine. But no vaccine is risk-free."

How about that? "... cutting polio incidence by more than 99% ..." That's pretty good numbers. We certainly need to keep up the pace of immunizations. Perhaps we could reach 99.5% or even better. And maybe we ought to give up on the oral vaccine in places where water quality is suspect.

-Jeff

[Sylph]

If you understand that the original outbreaks of HIV in Africa occurred in areas targeted by the WHO for Polio and Hep B vaccination programs you may understand the reluctance of Africans to participate in the current efforts. What role they actually played in the outbreak is a little foggy, and stored samples of the suspect polio vaccine in the US indicated no contamination with HIV. Dirty needles or Hep B vaccine, however, may be the impicated. An experimental Hep B vaccine was used not only in Africa but on the gay population of NYC where the first outbreaks in the US occurred and then spread to gay populations around the country.

I don't have time to research all the claims made by Horowitz, but at first glance he seemed a little suspect for recommending silver for HIV!

After a bit of research, I am convinced that Doctor of Dentistry Horowitz is a certified nut-job! He is all about selling his books, quack remedies, 'personal consultations' and high-priced speaking engagements. Check this out...he says Kissinger is the Beast of Revelation! But the word vaccination also comes out to be 666. Wow.

Bible Code Discovery Proves "Beast" Identity And Global Conspiracy
"Sandpoint, ID - The identity of the notorious "beast" that prospers from the greatest plagues in history is offered as prophetic revelation in a new book by award winning health science writer, Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz. The revelation makes it possible, for the first time, to prove statistically, a global genocidal conspiracy.

According to the Bible, during the End Times tribulation, God's counsel to humanity for physical and spiritual salvation from the prophesied plagues involves gaining encrypted "wisdom," a code, that identifies the deceptive culprits in a global conspiracy to commit genocide, that is, the mass killing of people for economic gain. The Book of Revelation (21:9) implicates idol worshipers who misuse drugs, and their power, in connection with what might best be called "iatrogenocide" in which malpracticing M.D.s-medical dieties-have been increasingly implicated. In Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism and Toxic Warfare (Tetrahedron Publishing Group, 2001; 1-888-508-4787), this secret code and hidden intelligence is detailed. Hinting the beast's number-"666"-is also the name of a man, Revelation 13:18, advises the wise to "count" to determine the devildoer's identities. Counting a name, according to Dr. Horowitz's book, requires an alphanumeric code which apparently relates to the multiples of six (6), whereby A=6, B=12, C=18 and so on through the letter Z. Assigning these numbers to the letters of suspected villains reveals the conspirators in a statistically provable global conspiracy."

"Among the names of leading suspects," Dr. Horowitz advises, "[Henry] Kissinger is the only name that decodes to '666'."

[phooph]

This is the kind of thing that leads to suspicion about motives from the Muslim community.

That's terrible news as is the "official" response to the outbreak. They should have copped to it as soon as they learned about it.

That said, I picked two interesting and bottom line tidbits from the article:

"In 2003, politicians in northern Nigeria canceled vaccination campaigns for nearly a year, claiming the vaccine was a Western plot to sterilize Muslims. That led to an explosion of polio, and the virus jumped to about two dozen countries."

So, last time officials stopped immunizing the general population an "explosion" of polio spread among about two dozen countries. That shows how dangerous polio still is and how important it is to immunize nearly everyone.

Also from the article: "More than 10 billion polio doses have been given to children worldwide, and the vaccine has been credited with cutting polio incidence by more than 99% since 1988. Far more children are paralyzed by the wild polio virus than the virus spread by the oral vaccine. But no vaccine is risk-free."

How about that? "... cutting polio incidence by more than 99% ..." That's pretty good numbers. We certainly need to keep up the pace of immunizations. Perhaps we could reach 99.5% or even better. And maybe we ought to give up on the oral vaccine in places where water quality is suspect.

-Jeff