Vaccinate Your Children!

SpaceNut · 2019-08-15 20:59:00

43 year old Flight Attendant Diagnosed with Measles after NY Flight has died

louis · 2019-08-16 18:59:22

All is not well in Happy-Vaxo Land...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/16/us/v … -risk.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews … risks.html

SpaceNut · 2019-08-17 19:05:24

Lyme is bad in that serveral bactriums are to blame and having a generic one size fits all is the issue, expecting that it will only be lyme that its going to work on.
The use of a Rotavirus seems to be the issue.

1992 the Committee on Safety of Medicine considered all of the evidence and concluded that the benefits of vaccinating with Urabe mumps strain vaccines still outweighed the risks

SpaceNut · 2019-08-18 12:05:48

Measles clinic set up in Boisbriand after 5 cases reported in Hasidic community

SpaceNut · 2019-09-04 19:44:45

Facebook debuts vaccine education pop-up windows A new feature is rolling out on Facebook and Instagram to combat the spread of anti-vaccine misinformation

SpaceNut · 2019-09-07 20:25:56

Missing measles vaccination puts children at risk of other deadly diseases, scientists find

Children who catch measles are at risk of developing other deadly conditions in the following five years, because the disease erases their immunity, scientists have found.

louis · 2019-09-08 16:28:04

An interesting article:

https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2019/03 … XcgrJj7qIY

SpaceNut · 2019-09-08 16:48:44

Proving the cause and effect without a test first to baseline for preexisting conditions for any outcome from taking a vacine means assuming and we know what that means....

louis · 2019-09-08 18:40:45

This is where the difficulty lies. We know that some people survive disease infections very well and others suffer catastrophic effects - whether it be the flu, measles, HIV, TB or anything else. Why shouldn't we see something similar with vaccine effects?

SpaceNut wrote:

Proving the cause and effect without a test first to baseline for preexisting conditions for any outcome from taking a vacine means assuming and we know what that means....

SpaceNut · 2019-12-30 13:25:10

Its been quiet about the measels and other diseases as Seattle students told to get vaccinations or not return to school

SpaceNut · 2020-05-17 20:29:52

With the corona virus pandemic still in full swing many did not get the vaccine's for childhood diseases out of fear of catching corona virus while there getting them. With the latest being a long way off for a safe vaccine the choices will be to experiment with an unknown one for this disease and hope that its going to safe guard our children for the next deadly one from it.

GW Johnson · 2020-05-17 21:18:04

It is far past time to make vaccines mandatory. Period.

I have no patience at all with the science deniers and conspiracy theorists who are the anti-vaccine movement. Nor will I ever.

GW

louis · 2020-05-18 03:04:58

Pro-vaccinationism is more akin to a religion than science. It's more about narrative than facts. You would essentially be requiring Americans to subscribe to a particular religion.

I've read scientific papers which discuss the possibility that the (then new) SARS was getting a hold in the lungs of end of life patients who had had the flu vaccine - and found strong evidence for that. That accords with my general view that it is highly dangerous to seek to eliminate viruses from the lungs of people near the end of life via vaccination programmes. It's the equivalent of shooting one species of bird in the Brazilian rainforest and expecting there to be fewer birds in the forest next year. All you are doing is removing one species from an environmental niche, disturbing the ecosystem with consequences you can't predict. Elderly people's lungs aren't going to become more effective at warding off disease. A Covid-19 vaccination programme for them will simply allow other novel pathogens to get a hold.

They've even started giving the flu vaccine to children of primary school age in the UK. Totally unnecessary.

Vaccines have their place but mass vaccination for every disease is not the path to good public health.

GW Johnson wrote:

It is far past time to make vaccines mandatory. Period.
I have no patience at all with the science deniers and conspiracy theorists who are the anti-vaccine movement. Nor will I ever.
GW

SpaceNut · 2020-05-18 18:16:04

Like taking a medication has been found to not work...Trump says he's taking malaria drug to protect against virus

Vaccines, which provide artificially acquired immunity, are a much safer way to become immune. Vaccines can prevent a disease from occurring in the first place and also decrease the risk of complications and risk of transmission. It is much cheaper to prevent a disease than to treat it.

https://www.webmd.com/children/vaccines … paration#1
The point being made is you can not cure the damage a disease does once you get it...a vaccine prevent the disease from entering...

The pneumonia shot is a vaccine that helps protect you against pneumococcal disease, or diseases caused by bacteria known as Streptococcus pneumoniae. The vaccine can help protect you from pneumococcal disease for many years. One of the most common causes of pneumonia is infection of the lungs with the bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae.

But not all pneumonia is caused by that bacteria...that's why it did not work...

kbd512 · 2020-05-19 17:48:31

Louis,

We vaccinate against diseases that cripple or kill significant numbers of people so that they can lead normal lives without requiring significant ongoing medical treatment until they become immune or die. That is the most substantive underlying reason for all vaccination campaigns. It's about saving lives, labor, and money all at the same time. It's also some of the best-spent money in existence that has profound knock-on effects extending to nearly every aspect of human life.

The demonstrated efficacy of vaccinations are not associated with any form of religious belief, despite assertions to the contrary. It's data-driven through controlled studies involving tens of thousands to millions of people, rather than anomaly-driven, which is what the anti-vaccination people typically use to further their fear-based agenda. There's no such thing as a drug or vaccination that has the exact same effect in every single person it's administered to. Medicine is not like engineering, in that regard.

Some people have a really hard time distinguishing between the normative case and universal applicability. Some tiny fraction of the population will die after being injected with saline solution, but that vast overwhelming majority of people sent to hospitals don't die from dehydration or starvation as a direct result of the efficacy of supplying their bodies with IV water / electrolyte / nutrients when they can't drink and eat as they normally do.

Your specific child's specific response to specific vaccinations prepared in specific ways is not indicative of the normative result experienced by so many other people. While I sympathize with your position that "not every single person" can or should be included in or will be protected by vaccination programs, for the vast overwhelming majority of people, vaccinations first and foremost do no harm (or do less harm- a highly underrated state of affairs, in my book) and, equally important, are also highly effective at preventing adverse physiological effects from specific diseases.

SpaceNut,

Speaking of spreading false information, please stop spreading the political agenda driven false narrative that hydroxychloroquine and zinc are not efficacious in inhibiting the progression to serious viral infection from certain classes of viruses that include the COVID-19 virus. There are four different mechanisms by which hydroxychloroquine is known to inhibit viral reproduction or ameliorate immune system over-response to viral infection. Hospitals around the country are still administering hydroxychloroquine to their patients if they catch a COVID-19 infection early enough. The reason they're doing that doesn't have a thing to do with whatever President Trump did or didn't say about using it. They know that it works, and more importantly, they know why it works.

If someone has a very small brain tumor, then further growth of the tumor can often be stopped using a "gamma knife" radiation treatment / procedure. However, that doesn't mean radiation treatment will be useful for treatment of all brain tumors, irrespective of size and location. If that same person had a very large brain tumor, as my wife had, then a resection of the tumor will be required. Anyone stating that radiation treatment doesn't work because it can't be used as some kind of universal treatment for all brain tumors is willfully ignoring the underlying utility of said radiation treatments for non-medical reasons, such as fear of radiation or desire to be argumentative. When brain tumors are diagnosed early when they're still quite small, gamma knifing them is a well-proven treatment option that's far less invasive than cutting someone's head open.

Regarding the utility of strep vaccinations, you're engaging in another logical fallacy- "the step pneumonia vaccination didn't protect against all types of pneumonia bacteria, therefore it didn't work". No. Wrong. The vaccine did what it was designed to do. If you read the fine print, nobody making these vaccinations claims that they can provide complete protection in all cases for all people for all time. That sort of pedantic argumentation is what we colloquially refer to as "Stanford Science", which is, in point of fact, more akin to religious dogma than science.

In any event, like GW, I'm also tired of people using personal agendas or beliefs or over-generalization in lieu of broader understanding about why something works the way it does and what the current practical options are to solve a particular type of problem happen to be.

GW,

Louis isn't entirely wrong, but the points he's trying to make simply don't have much general applicability. From my perspective, that's what appears to be missing. Labeling someone a "science denier" because their line of reasoning isn't aligned with your own isn't an argument. In fact, it's just petty name-calling because you're too irritated by that person to formulate a well-reasoned response. I would agree that he's posted a number of articles with weak evidence or subsequently refuted evidence as to why specific vaccinations were not efficacious or had negative side effects. Weak is not the same thing as non-existent. As painful as it may be for you, all of us who believe in science have to continually acknowledge that fact.

We should be arguing for vaccination in the same manner that we'd argue a court case. Universal agreement is not required, nor will it ever be achieved, nor should we be seeking to achieve it. Dissent is part of a healthy debate. Almost anything is possible, yet only a few explanations carry enough water to tip the scale significantly in one direction or the other. The way I see it, the preponderance of evidence is entirely in our favor. We didn't arrive at the "we should vaccinate to the extent practical" position overnight. It's based upon multiple decades of research coming at the problem from every angle. Nearly all of what we actually observe through properly controlled experiment says that our system for formulating vaccinations, at worst does no harm and at best is highly effective at preventing disease. That should be how we attack weak arguments, rather than people, that are based upon weak or non-scientific evidence.

louis · 2020-05-20 07:12:00

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,
We vaccinate against diseases that cripple or kill significant numbers of people so that they can lead normal lives without requiring significant ongoing medical treatment until they become immune or die. That is the most substantive underlying reason for all vaccination campaigns. It's about saving lives, labor, and money all at the same time. It's also some of the best-spent money in existence that has profound knock-on effects extending to nearly every aspect of human life.

You see - you are already starting on the narrative, that vaccination is a vital contribution to good health. You're not looking at the evidence. If you look at health stats in the 20th century you can see that there were huge improvements in health well before the era of mass vaccination began. These improvements related largely to major public health improvements in things like sewage disposal, water treatment, pasteurisation of milk, higher food standards, access to good nutrition and improved housing conditions.

Part of this religious narrative, is to avoid mentioning the fact that most vaccines are funded by profit making companies - not just tiny little companies but huge companies worth tens of billions of dollars. That is the underlying reason why they are producing vaccines - for profit. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it means it skews their view of what is in the public interest.

An objective look at the facts will quickly lead one to adopt a more sceptical and scientific attitude. Take novel pathogen pandemics. We had very few of those prior to the early 2000s. We've had three now and the last one has been devastating. This coincides with the era of a vast increase in the vaccination programme, with more and more diseases being covered by vaccines, in particular the flu vaccine.

So. an enquiriing mind, not one misled by religious "saviour behaviour" narrative will ask quite reasonably whether the two are connected.

They will also ask questions about the horrific increase in autism in children - itself an epidemic that attracts virtually no interest from the media.

They will also ask questions about the horrific increase in allergic disease in children, which leads to many more fatalities of otherwise healthy children every year compared with deaths from measles in otherwise healthy children.

The demonstrated efficacy of vaccinations are not associated with any form of religious belief, despite assertions to the contrary. It's data-driven through controlled studies involving tens of thousands to millions of people, rather than anomaly-driven, which is what the anti-vaccination people typically use to further their fear-based agenda. There's no such thing as a drug or vaccination that has the exact same effect in every single person it's administered to. Medicine is not like engineering, in that regard.
Some people have a really hard time distinguishing between the normative case and universal applicability. Some tiny fraction of the population will die after being injected with saline solution, but that vast overwhelming majority of people sent to hospitals don't die from dehydration or starvation as a direct result of the efficacy of supplying their bodies with IV water / electrolyte / nutrients when they can't drink and eat as they normally do.
Your specific child's specific response to specific vaccinations prepared in specific ways is not indicative of the normative result experienced by so many other people. While I sympathize with your position that "not every single person" can or should be included in or will be protected by vaccination programs, for the vast overwhelming majority of people, vaccinations first and foremost do no harm (or do less harm- a highly underrated state of affairs, in my book) and, equally important, are also highly effective at preventing adverse physiological effects from specific diseases.

I don't accept that in all cases vaccinations have "demonstrated efficacy". Nearly all trials are paid for either by big pharma, big charities like Wellcome or Government agencies - and these nearly all believe, as a matter of faith, that "vaccines are good". We've seen this with Covid19...everyone is assuming a vaccine programme is a solution: companies, charities and governments. There's no rational analysis. You can't expect them to conclude that vaccinations are ineffective or dangerous. Each vaccine is looked at on a narrow basis, not in terms of its overall effects on the health of the individual or society at large.

Evidence that mechanisms related to vaccination can explain incidence of autism are simply rejected out of hand and the autism epidemic continues to spread.

We need rational discussion, not repetition of the narrative. For one thing flu vaccines' efficacy is very variable and they often create bad reactions in older people, weakening them. Given that Covid19 is a master of mutation - there are several thousand variants and three major strains - it seems doubtful that any vaccine is going to be a magic cure. But if it is, it will open the pathway for another novel pathogen to create a pandemic.

We talk as though all diseases are the same. They are very variable in who they target. Polio was known as infant paralysis and tragically did take a desperate toll on younger people. I don't personally doubt that the vaccination programme was justified with that and a number of other diseases that were very focussed on younger, otherwise healthy people. Flu and Covid19 are not. They are typically killing off people near the end of life or people with serious underlying medical conditions. These pathogens are not like malaria which has built up a complicated life-cycle over maybe millions of years...if you kill off malaria, there won't be another similar disease coming along tomorrow to occupy that blood disease niche. But there are hundreds of pathogens that invade the lungs and they are mutating all the time. If we kill off the more successful ones, there is absolutely no doubt others will rise to take their place.

Last edited by louis (2020-05-20 07:15:25)

kbd512 · 2020-05-20 18:10:36

Louis,

Industrialization certainly created the conditions required for the expansion and specialization of the practice of medicine by providing the excesses of food / water / sanitation / transportation / education / medical equipment necessary for industrialized societies to invest the enormous time and resources to educate and equip their doctors and nurses, but you're conflating the knock-on effects of industrialization that prevented diseases in other ways with the prevention of diseases through medical technology. Eating three squares a day is not a "medical technology" per se, yet both children and adults who reside in countries with enough distributed wealth to provide proper nutrition and sanitation will generally live longer than those who reside in countries that do not. However, diseases like polio aren't caused by simple malnutrition, therefore any attempt to combat such diseases will need to use improved medical technology. That typically includes a vaccination program, since ingestion of fecal matter is not entirely preventable, even with first world sanitation standards.

The insinuation that profit is the overriding motivation for developing vaccines doesn't stand up to basic intellectual scrutiny. If the drug companies were only interested in profit, then there's a lot more money to be made in treating diseases than there is in preventing them. Large numbers of people within society wanted better medical care and industrialization provided the excess wealth to pay for it, therefore we have vaccines and drugs and medical procedures intended to improve the standard of care. Furthermore, governments of industrialized nations distribute medical technology as widely as agreed upon allocation of funding permits. Could some people in biomedical companies simply be greedy and evil? Certainly, but in the end companies are just organizations of people collectively working towards specific goals. If they become so greedy and evil that they start making products that don't work as advertised or cost too much, then people stop buying them and/or governments start banning them. However, greed / want of money is not the root of all evil; selfishness is. That said, some level of selfishness is required to merely survive. The argument has always been over what level of selfishness is appropriate or healthy for a society to have. If selfishness and want of money causes everyone to show up to work each day and put forth their best effort to improve the living conditions for everyone in a society, then most people would say that that's a good thing.

Research conducted over decades now has repeatedly failed to prove a causative link between autism and vaccination programs. The evidence hasn't been found because no matter what you believe to be true, regarding vaccinations and autism, there simply isn't enough evidence to state that vaccines cause autism. That said, I don't think any length of study, nor who paid for it, nor how thorough it was, would ever satisfy you. You're after a specific result, namely proving that vaccines cause autism, despite the weak to non-existent evidence. So far as we know, ASD doesn't have a singular cause.

With respect to the "article of faith" in question, most of us think preventing crippling or lethal diseases is preferable to trying to treat them. The cost of treatment versus prevention nearly always demonstrates that prevention is far less costly than treatment and has better long term outcomes. If a five dollar vaccine prevents a patient from spending tens of thousands of dollars in medical treatment and drugs associated with a trip to the ER and ICU, but especially knock-on effects from the infection such as susceptibility to other diseases later in life (chicken pox as a child and then shingles as an adult, for example), then most of us think that's a good thing. The vaccine also limits the amount of money that "Big Pharma" receives, so their ability to excessively profit from a lifetime of ongoing treatment through administered drugs, that may corrupt those involved in the manufacture / distribution / sale of pharmaceuticals, is likewise reduced.

Vaccinations don't create "pathways for new pathogens". The pathogens simply exist in nature and are constantly mutating, with or without the availability of a vaccine. Furthermore, I never suggested that we should try to vaccinate against every virus or bacteria. I keep talking about diseases that cripple or kill because those are the diseases for which there are very limited treatment options that result in better outcomes than vaccination. I think vaccinating against the viruses that cause common colds, for example, is likely to be a waste of our finite time / labor / capital resources when influenza-like viruses, cancer, diabetes, and heart diseases kill vastly greater numbers of people.

Each child born in an industrialized country represents an enormous investment in time / resources / money, therefore the fewer of them who are crippled or killed by preventable diseases such as polio, the more excess money is available to feed / clothe / house / educate them and the greater the chance that one of them or a group of them will solve a major technological challenge that humanity has yet to overcome, by simple probability. The more highly educated / experienced / well fed / well rested brains (the greater the number of people who are not merely toiling away, performing menial tasks to simply obtain enough food to eat) you have working on solving a particular problem, the greater the odds of solving the problem. No single person was responsible for the success of the internal combustion engine or battery, for example. A concerted effort involving nearly the entirety of humanity was required. In all recorded instances, population growth in industrialized countries also slowed or even reversed as access to education and technology became more pervasive. When children don't die during childhood or early adulthood as a result of wars and lethal diseases, then parents don't feel the need to have ten kids to ensure that one or two of them live to have a family of their own. Instead, they'll put all of their attention into raising and educating one or two children, typically with much better long term outcomes for their family, society, and humanity.

To, recap:

1. My focus has always been on preventing diseases that cripple or kill. As time progresses, progressively greater value is placed upon human life because we have sufficient excess of resources to devote to human life. The hospital and university flies patients from Africa / Asia / Middle East to see the neurosurgeon who operated on my wife, even though those people typically can't pay. Between the patients from America / Canada / Mexico / Europe and the rest of the world, they make enough money to pay the bills. If they were only interested in making money, then they'd only accept patients who can pay them what they ask for. Since that's clearly not how they operate, it's very difficult to come to the conclusion that making money is the only motivation behind their business activities, despite the fact that their business activities are for-profit.

2. Prevention is nearly always less costly than treatment and even if you can't pay, no hospital in America can legally turn you away. I suspect it's the same in Canada and in the UK. Yes, hospitals still break the law from time to time and when they get caught, whatever money was "saved" by acting unscrupulously will swiftly be gobbled up in lawyers fees and fines. Jail time is admittedly quite rare, but it does happen in particularly egregious cases. The net net is that the laws and system are set up in such a way to favor treatment over prevention because treatment does, in point of fact, generate far more income than prevention. Yet another way of looking at this is that our medical system is reactionary in nature, rather than pro-active; that typically means it's also behind the power curve during pandemics.

3. Despite fear-based accusations that vaccination programs are being used to "control" people or hurt them in some way or don't actually work, the bulk of available evidence does not support such accusations. Have "bad vaccines" (vaccines that either don't work or have negative side effects) ever been created? Sure, but the FDA's testing program has a tendency to weed those out before they're widely distributed. That's part of why they're so expensive to develop, but most see that level of study as necessary to ensure that when we claim a vaccine works as advertised, that we're basing that off of available experimental evidence rather than belief or the say-so of such and such pharmaceutical company.

4. No, we don't "talk as though all diseases are the same". You made that assertion all on your own, without anyone else ever claiming or thinking that way. Nobody here is thinking that preventing common cold viruses using vaccination programs is in the same ballpark as a disease like polio. That said, if we could prevent common colds, do you have any idea how much productivity would be gained by vaccinating against that?

5. For someone who claims to want "rational discussion", it's astonishing how often you willfully ignore fundamental science and engineering problems with other technologies such as batteries. I know exactly why you do that, though. You're clearly after a specific result. Since existing batteries can't provide the result you're after, you hand-wave the problems and assert that something better will become available in the future. No doubt, but when? 5 years? 10 years? 50 years? You're here chastising people for opposing your beliefs about vaccines whilst you display nothing short of dogmatic religious beliefs about photovoltaics and wind turbines and batteries. There's no such animal as a battery with an energy equivalence approaching gasoline, which is why we continue burning gas.

In closing, I see a rationalization pattern in your assertions and responses that ignores actual results in favor of desired results. As someone who believes in science, I can't completely exclude the possibility that some particular vaccine will later be determined to cause or worsen the effects of some other ailment, such ASD. However, I can state that available evidence collected from numerous studies conducted by different organizations across the world doesn't support such an assertion. If you want a rational public discourse on vaccines, then let's start there. Available evidence doesn't support the theory that vaccines cause or worsen autism. If you're serious about wanting rational debate about vaccines, then tell me what manner of study you think we'd need to undertake to eliminate vaccines as a cause or contributing factor for ASD? Furthermore, if the kids died from diseases they'd otherwise be protected against if they'd been vaccinated, then what manner of result do you find most preferable? Are you happier with a living child who has ASD or a crippled or dead child who didn't receive those dreaded vaccines?

louis · 2020-05-20 19:54:47

Sorry my comp was playing up so had to delete this as it made no sense!

Last edited by louis (2020-05-20 19:59:25)

louis · 2020-05-20 20:16:38

Will respond in more detail tomorrow I hope.

A few bullet points now:

1. You seem to be conflating public health measures with medical intervention - two entirely different health areas.

2. Mass vaccination is probably the most profitable enterprise on the planet apart from inventing a better mobile phone. Giving billions of shots to people once a year is like manna from heaven for a commercial pharma company. Every shot carries a profit, even if in some parts like Africa the shots are paid for by charities and international aid.

3. The flu is not a "crippling or lethal disease" for anyone between the age of 0 and 70 who is basically healthy. But still Big Pharma wants us all - everyone single one of us - to have the shot. Such altruism!

4. You seem ignorant of the ecosystem that is old people's lungs. If you kill off the most successful pathogens (things like flu viruses) you are most definitely creating a scenario where novel pathogens emerge which is exactly what we have seen with both SARS and Covid. Are you really claiming that killing off lung pathogens with vaccines creates no new opportunities for novel pathogens? I can't believe anyone would make that claim after thinking about it for five seconds! Do you think flu vaccines make old people's lungs healthy and young again? This is why I call it a religious narrative because clearly you must think that they do - that miraculously old people's lungs can now, suddenly, fend off other pathogens because they've had a flu or covid vaccine.

5. You are still fantasising about vaccines for things like the common cold (which does "cripple" and "kill" some vulnerable people) even though it will just weaken people's immune systems. If you want an analogy think of all these football players rested during the lockdown. They are all going crazy for the lack of that competitive edge. Even though they try and keep training, they know there is nothing like the actual competitive game to keep you focussed, keep you at your peak condition and give you that extra edge. I believe it's true of our immune systems. We need to respond to infections to have a strong immune system - and despite all our medical advances, we still depend strongly on our immune systems.

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,
Industrialization certainly created the conditions required for the expansion and specialization of the practice of medicine by providing the excesses of food / water / sanitation / transportation / education / medical equipment necessary for industrialized societies to invest the enormous time and resources to educate and equip their doctors and nurses, but you're conflating the knock-on effects of industrialization that prevented diseases in other ways with the prevention of diseases through medical technology. Eating three squares a day is not a "medical technology" per se, yet both children and adults who reside in countries with enough distributed wealth to provide proper nutrition and sanitation will generally live longer than those who reside in countries that do not. However, diseases like polio aren't caused by simple malnutrition, therefore any attempt to combat such diseases will need to use improved medical technology. That typically includes a vaccination program, since ingestion of fecal matter is not entirely preventable, even with first world sanitation standards.
The insinuation that profit is the overriding motivation for developing vaccines doesn't stand up to basic intellectual scrutiny. If the drug companies were only interested in profit, then there's a lot more money to be made in treating diseases than there is in preventing them. Large numbers of people within society wanted better medical care and industrialization provided the excess wealth to pay for it, therefore we have vaccines and drugs and medical procedures intended to improve the standard of care. Furthermore, governments of industrialized nations distribute medical technology as widely as agreed upon allocation of funding permits. Could some people in biomedical companies simply be greedy and evil? Certainly, but in the end companies are just organizations of people collectively working towards specific goals. If they become so greedy and evil that they start making products that don't work as advertised or cost too much, then people stop buying them and/or governments start banning them. However, greed / want of money is not the root of all evil; selfishness is. That said, some level of selfishness is required to merely survive. The argument has always been over what level of selfishness is appropriate or healthy for a society to have. If selfishness and want of money causes everyone to show up to work each day and put forth their best effort to improve the living conditions for everyone in a society, then most people would say that that's a good thing.
Research conducted over decades now has repeatedly failed to prove a causative link between autism and vaccination programs. The evidence hasn't been found because no matter what you believe to be true, regarding vaccinations and autism, there simply isn't enough evidence to state that vaccines cause autism. That said, I don't think any length of study, nor who paid for it, nor how thorough it was, would ever satisfy you. You're after a specific result, namely proving that vaccines cause autism, despite the weak to non-existent evidence. So far as we know, ASD doesn't have a singular cause.
With respect to the "article of faith" in question, most of us think preventing crippling or lethal diseases is preferable to trying to treat them. The cost of treatment versus prevention nearly always demonstrates that prevention is far less costly than treatment and has better long term outcomes. If a five dollar vaccine prevents a patient from spending tens of thousands of dollars in medical treatment and drugs associated with a trip to the ER and ICU, but especially knock-on effects from the infection such as susceptibility to other diseases later in life (chicken pox as a child and then shingles as an adult, for example), then most of us think that's a good thing. The vaccine also limits the amount of money that "Big Pharma" receives, so their ability to excessively profit from a lifetime of ongoing treatment through administered drugs, that may corrupt those involved in the manufacture / distribution / sale of pharmaceuticals, is likewise reduced.
Vaccinations don't create "pathways for new pathogens". The pathogens simply exist in nature and are constantly mutating, with or without the availability of a vaccine. Furthermore, I never suggested that we should try to vaccinate against every virus or bacteria. I keep talking about diseases that cripple or kill because those are the diseases for which there are very limited treatment options that result in better outcomes than vaccination. I think vaccinating against the viruses that cause common colds, for example, is likely to be a waste of our finite time / labor / capital resources when influenza-like viruses, cancer, diabetes, and heart diseases kill vastly greater numbers of people.
Each child born in an industrialized country represents an enormous investment in time / resources / money, therefore the fewer of them who are crippled or killed by preventable diseases such as polio, the more excess money is available to feed / clothe / house / educate them and the greater the chance that one of them or a group of them will solve a major technological challenge that humanity has yet to overcome, by simple probability. The more highly educated / experienced / well fed / well rested brains (the greater the number of people who are not merely toiling away, performing menial tasks to simply obtain enough food to eat) you have working on solving a particular problem, the greater the odds of solving the problem. No single person was responsible for the success of the internal combustion engine or battery, for example. A concerted effort involving nearly the entirety of humanity was required. In all recorded instances, population growth in industrialized countries also slowed or even reversed as access to education and technology became more pervasive. When children don't die during childhood or early adulthood as a result of wars and lethal diseases, then parents don't feel the need to have ten kids to ensure that one or two of them live to have a family of their own. Instead, they'll put all of their attention into raising and educating one or two children, typically with much better long term outcomes for their family, society, and humanity.
To, recap:
1. My focus has always been on preventing diseases that cripple or kill. As time progresses, progressively greater value is placed upon human life because we have sufficient excess of resources to devote to human life. The hospital and university flies patients from Africa / Asia / Middle East to see the neurosurgeon who operated on my wife, even though those people typically can't pay. Between the patients from America / Canada / Mexico / Europe and the rest of the world, they make enough money to pay the bills. If they were only interested in making money, then they'd only accept patients who can pay them what they ask for. Since that's clearly not how they operate, it's very difficult to come to the conclusion that making money is the only motivation behind their business activities, despite the fact that their business activities are for-profit.
2. Prevention is nearly always less costly than treatment and even if you can't pay, no hospital in America can legally turn you away. I suspect it's the same in Canada and in the UK. Yes, hospitals still break the law from time to time and when they get caught, whatever money was "saved" by acting unscrupulously will swiftly be gobbled up in lawyers fees and fines. Jail time is admittedly quite rare, but it does happen in particularly egregious cases. The net net is that the laws and system are set up in such a way to favor treatment over prevention because treatment does, in point of fact, generate far more income than prevention. Yet another way of looking at this is that our medical system is reactionary in nature, rather than pro-active; that typically means it's also behind the power curve during pandemics.
3. Despite fear-based accusations that vaccination programs are being used to "control" people or hurt them in some way or don't actually work, the bulk of available evidence does not support such accusations. Have "bad vaccines" (vaccines that either don't work or have negative side effects) ever been created? Sure, but the FDA's testing program has a tendency to weed those out before they're widely distributed. That's part of why they're so expensive to develop, but most see that level of study as necessary to ensure that when we claim a vaccine works as advertised, that we're basing that off of available experimental evidence rather than belief or the say-so of such and such pharmaceutical company.
4. No, we don't "talk as though all diseases are the same". You made that assertion all on your own, without anyone else ever claiming or thinking that way. Nobody here is thinking that preventing common cold viruses using vaccination programs is in the same ballpark as a disease like polio. That said, if we could prevent common colds, do you have any idea how much productivity would be gained by vaccinating against that?
5. For someone who claims to want "rational discussion", it's astonishing how often you willfully ignore fundamental science and engineering problems with other technologies such as batteries. I know exactly why you do that, though. You're clearly after a specific result. Since existing batteries can't provide the result you're after, you hand-wave the problems and assert that something better will become available in the future. No doubt, but when? 5 years? 10 years? 50 years? You're here chastising people for opposing your beliefs about vaccines whilst you display nothing short of dogmatic religious beliefs about photovoltaics and wind turbines and batteries. There's no such animal as a battery with an energy equivalence approaching gasoline, which is why we continue burning gas.
In closing, I see a rationalization pattern in your assertions and responses that ignores actual results in favor of desired results. As someone who believes in science, I can't completely exclude the possibility that some particular vaccine will later be determined to cause or worsen the effects of some other ailment, such ASD. However, I can state that available evidence collected from numerous studies conducted by different organizations across the world doesn't support such an assertion. If you want a rational public discourse on vaccines, then let's start there. Available evidence doesn't support the theory that vaccines cause or worsen autism. If you're serious about wanting rational debate about vaccines, then tell me what manner of study you think we'd need to undertake to eliminate vaccines as a cause or contributing factor for ASD? Furthermore, if the kids died from diseases they'd otherwise be protected against if they'd been vaccinated, then what manner of result do you find most preferable? Are you happier with a living child who has ASD or a crippled or dead child who didn't receive those dreaded vaccines?

kbd512 · 2020-05-21 10:21:31

Louis,

1. A vaccination program is a public health measure.

2. Mass vaccination is nowhere near the most profitable enterprise on the planet. There are just two global eradication programs in existence, polio and guinea worm disease when last I checked. Come on, Louis, enough with the hyperbole already.

3. Influenza still kills at least as many people as motor vehicle accidents, but you keep reading more into this than I ever stated or even thought, for that matter. I never suggested making Influenza vaccinations mandatory, for example. It doesn't matter if "Big Pharma" wants you to get a flu shot, either. They don't make the rules. Governments do that. Remember?

4. Nobody thinks a vaccine makes a 70 year old's lungs equivalent to those of the average 20 year old. Seriously, where do you come up with this stuff? If your own immune system successfully kills off one virus, do you automatically become ill from the next virus? Since your own immune system is actively killing off viruses and bacteria with or without vaccines, your line of argumentation here makes little sense. Vaccinating against something like COVID-19 is NOT going to immediately cause people to die from other viruses that they inhale. Everything that was killing them before will STILL be killing them afterwards. Vaccinating against Influenza A doesn't automatically make Influenza B or Influenza C more lethal. This is just more non-sequitur thinking.

5. I'm not "fantasizing" about anything. A vaccine is nothing more than a training aid for your own immune system. It's like getting a sneak peak at the other team's play book. Teaching your "football players" all the known "plays" that the other team "makes" doesn't make your team "less prepared" to face off against them in a "real game". I'm sorry, but this is just silly.

louis · 2020-05-21 13:25:07

This article from the Financial Times begs to differ with your claims on profitability of vaccines:

https://www.ft.com/content/93374f4a-e53 … 8b0d268c39

It does matter if Big Pharma wants us to have their shots because they have a lot of influence over the medical profession who then exert that influence over us.

My point about viruses and end of life elderly does not relate to one individual. When they study the lungs of Covid patients they find there are lots of other pathogens in the lung. What you've got there is an ecosystem and the various pathogens are fighting to get an edge. If humans intervene and kill off one pathogen then it is virtually guaranteed that others will emerge because end of life elderly people cannot fight them off. The problem as we have seen with Covid is that some of these novel pathogens might be a much greater threat.

You believe the narrative, I look at the science:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335060/

The above shows that the narrative view of vaccinations ("they cure disease and prevent deaths") is simplistic. It is always a much more complicated reality.

2. Virus interference (increased susceptibility to other viruses following flu and similar vaccinations) is an acceptable scientific hypothesis. Even this negative hit piece has to admit there are plenty of studies which show it to be a reality:

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/no-ev … -covid-19/

3. Here's a good article about the decline in children's health since mass vaccination programme got a grip. It's not the only culprit but it's plainly not delivering on the promise of good health. Now 54% of children in the USA have chronic health conditions. The idea that the vaccine culture is producing robust and healthy children is plain hooey.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/too- … children/#

And here is a good article about how the debate on vaccines is being skewed by powerful actors like Bill Gates and how information about vaccination is being suppressed. Who knew that the Vaccine Court has already paid our $4 billiion in compensation to victims of vaccination?

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news … ensorship/

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,
1. A vaccination program is a public health measure.
2. Mass vaccination is nowhere near the most profitable enterprise on the planet. There are just two global eradication programs in existence, polio and guinea worm disease when last I checked. Come on, Louis, enough with the hyperbole already.
3. Influenza still kills at least as many people as motor vehicle accidents, but you keep reading more into this than I ever stated or even thought, for that matter. I never suggested making Influenza vaccinations mandatory, for example. It doesn't matter if "Big Pharma" wants you to get a flu shot, either. They don't make the rules. Governments do that. Remember?
4. Nobody thinks a vaccine makes a 70 year old's lungs equivalent to those of the average 20 year old. Seriously, where do you come up with this stuff? If your own immune system successfully kills off one virus, do you automatically become ill from the next virus? Since your own immune system is actively killing off viruses and bacteria with or without vaccines, your line of argumentation here makes little sense. Vaccinating against something like COVID-19 is NOT going to immediately cause people to die from other viruses that they inhale. Everything that was killing them before will STILL be killing them afterwards. Vaccinating against Influenza A doesn't automatically make Influenza B or Influenza C more lethal. This is just more non-sequitur thinking.
5. I'm not "fantasizing" about anything. A vaccine is nothing more than a training aid for your own immune system. It's like getting a sneak peak at the other team's play book. Teaching your "football players" all the known "plays" that the other team "makes" doesn't make your team "less prepared" to face off against them in a "real game". I'm sorry, but this is just silly.

SpaceNut · 2020-05-21 15:48:19

Trump’s Vaccine Chief Has Vast Ties to Drug Industry, Posing Possible Conflicts

The flip side is we take lots of over the counter medicines in hopes that it will ease the pain or lower our temperature, take lots of vitamins for all sorts of reasons but none cure anything, they do not prevent much of anything and yet we take them. The event of disease if prevent saves lives by taking a vaccine before it happens and not after as the damage is already done.

The well care part of medical care is not doing its job, the doctors as well as hospitals are passing out Band-Aids and heaven forbid that you do get sick we are just trying to make you feel better but not fix you...

kbd512 · 2020-05-21 20:14:32

Louis,

I responded to the specific claim that you made, knowingly or otherwise, stating that "Mass vaccination is probably the most profitable enterprise on the planet...". Vaccine production is not even close to the "most profitable enterprise on the planet". Please respond to what I actually stated and make statements that are supported by actual evidence. The article you posted states that vaccines are among the most profitable products that pharmaceuticals manufacturers produce.

1. Some of these articles are written for people who are not virologists or epidemiologists. Please forgive them if they also post information intended for the general public, most of whom are not scientists.

2. The "virus interference" theory doesn't have much evidence supporting it. We can always revisit that theory after more conclusive evidence has been gathered. That military report doesn't say what you want it to say. Incorrect interpretations don't change what the report intended to convey (this goes back to my response to point #1- many in the general public seem to incorrectly interpret the language of a technical report to mean something other than what the report writer intended to convey). That's why that same report also recommended that military personnel receive their influenza vaccinations.

3. Children are not suffering from declining health, as an age group, as a result of receiving vaccinations. Apart from STD's, most chronic health conditions have little to do with infectious disease. That said, not adding to the list of chronic health conditions by not being susceptible to diseases you've been vaccinated against is generally a good idea.

Incidentally, I don't take medical advice from Bill Gates, President Trump or other politicians, media personalities, or anyone else who is not a medical doctor. There are truly excellent reasons for educating and training surgeons for 15 to 20 years before they're allowed to perform surgeries on their own, for example. I fail to see how people who haven't dedicated their lives in that way to their art will come to better informed and well-reasoned conclusions without the benefit of that level of first-hand knowledge and experience. Doctors are still humans, therefore they obviously make mistakes, but most of us don't ask brain surgeons for advice on fixing our cars, nor do we ask auto mechanics for advice on brain surgery.

kbd512 · 2020-05-21 20:28:51

SpaceNut,

Vitamin C may not be a "cure" for anything, yet if you eat a diet without any you'll quickly "discover" that it "actually does something" for your body.

Scurvy is still a thing in Canada

The reason the health care industry will try to make you "feel better" is that there's far more money to be made in ongoing treatment of pain and diseases than there is in cures or vaccinations.

louis · 2020-05-22 04:44:47

OK - here you go:

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200 … firms.aspx

That study shows "Big Pharma more profitable than most other large public firms". Take that together with my link showing vaccine production is among the or the most profitable of large pharma company activities and I think my claim is perfectly reasonable.

As for the other stuff, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I think though that, while it might be a minority viewpoint within the scientific-medical community, there are scientists who are extremely concerned about the overall effects of vaccination particularly in young children and it is certainly the case that children are no longer getting more healthy. The three As - asthma, allergies and autism - (each life threatening and life shortening in their own way) have all risen at a staggering rate, and whether you like it or not, some scientists do see a link with vaccination. The problem I feel is that debate is being shut down and censorship put in place to prevent proper scrutiny of the case for vaccines.

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,
I responded to the specific claim that you made, knowingly or otherwise, stating that "Mass vaccination is probably the most profitable enterprise on the planet...". Vaccine production is not even close to the "most profitable enterprise on the planet". Please respond to what I actually stated and make statements that are supported by actual evidence. The article you posted states that vaccines are among the most profitable products that pharmaceuticals manufacturers produce.
1. Some of these articles are written for people who are not virologists or epidemiologists. Please forgive them if they also post information intended for the general public, most of whom are not scientists.
2. The "virus interference" theory doesn't have much evidence supporting it. We can always revisit that theory after more conclusive evidence has been gathered. That military report doesn't say what you want it to say. Incorrect interpretations don't change what the report intended to convey (this goes back to my response to point #1- many in the general public seem to incorrectly interpret the language of a technical report to mean something other than what the report writer intended to convey). That's why that same report also recommended that military personnel receive their influenza vaccinations.
3. Children are not suffering from declining health, as an age group, as a result of receiving vaccinations. Apart from STD's, most chronic health conditions have little to do with infectious disease. That said, not adding to the list of chronic health conditions by not being susceptible to diseases you've been vaccinated against is generally a good idea.
Incidentally, I don't take medical advice from Bill Gates, President Trump or other politicians, media personalities, or anyone else who is not a medical doctor. There are truly excellent reasons for educating and training surgeons for 15 to 20 years before they're allowed to perform surgeries on their own, for example. I fail to see how people who haven't dedicated their lives in that way to their art will come to better informed and well-reasoned conclusions without the benefit of that level of first-hand knowledge and experience. Doctors are still humans, therefore they obviously make mistakes, but most of us don't ask brain surgeons for advice on fixing our cars, nor do we ask auto mechanics for advice on brain surgery.

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