To think this takes not vaccinating to a whole new level

[Swanlaked]

DD has a child at school who has cancer. The school sent a letter home asking all parents to please think about giving their child the MMR if they haven't had it and also to inform them immediately if any child was in contact with chicken pox.

One of the mums at the school is still refusing to have her 3DC vaccinated. No health issues it's big pharma/poison/conspiracy theory crap

AIBU at this point to think the school should seek removal of the children and tell the bloody thicko to find another school for them?

The trouble with assuming that adverse events that have not been accepted as such by doctors must include a proportion of genuine cases is that, by their nature, such reports must include cases that in themselves a product of sensational publicity, antivax propaganda, people who are simply in denial, and people jumping on the compensation bandwagon.

Before Wakefield turned up, and indeed before the MMR vaccine came into being, it was generally accepted that signs of autism commonly became evident between the ages of 2 and 3 when the children affected often demonstrated a serious regression. Then MMR came along and was generally given at the same ages, and people whose children developed autism and had been misled by Wakefield began to attribute a correlation that simply wasn't there.

Some of the reports may of course be genuine, because no-one claims that doctors are infallible, but realistically there is no likelihood that that is more than a small proportion at most; and realistically they will make very little difference to the risk/benefit statistics.

I think we are talking about children's lives and children's health. Therefore we are talking about the dangers of disease and the dangers of vaccines. Of vaccine products. Of specific vaccine products.

We are talking about the dangers of disease versus the danger of vaccines, including the belief of some people that all vaccines are more dangerous than the risks posed by the diseases in question. The statistics relating to smallpox, polio and indeed MMR show that that is not the case. When we are talking about children's lives and health, anti-vexers tend to focus solely on vaccine risk and close their minds to the risk of death and disability from the diseases themselves. I would hate to watch my child die of a disease which I know I could have prevented.

Winchester, you are asking people to assume an almost impossible burden of proof as a prerequisite to discussion - ie the total absence of something that by its nature is unmeasured.

It seems logical to me that unreported cases probably exist, for a wide variety of potential reasons. But that is not proof that they do, or if they do how many, and for what reasons they are unrecorded. It seems similarly logical that the number of cases where children were actually damaged by vaccines would be lower than the number of cases where parents believe their children to have been damaged by vaccines. But again that is conjecture rather than fact or proof.

You aren't going to get the unequivocal declarations you are looking for, simply because it is impossible for a critically-thinking person to make them.

So Jassy and Constance: you don't know. So why do you believe the official adverse event statistics?

It can only be a matter or faith. Or the appeal to authority. (obviously you would need to supply proof that the authority to which you appeal can be trusted - see peer review above as an example).

Rather weak positions from which to throw shame and scorn onto people who've made different choices to you.

Constance: the history of vaccinations matters not one iota to whether or not MMR is safe for my child. It suits pro-vaccine enthusiasts and campaigners to bring it up, as a silencer or as some kind of argument shutter downer, but it is utterly, wholly, comprehensively and without qualification absolutely irrelevant to the safety of DTaP, MMR, Men C or any other vaccine for my child.

It's a pretty central point to make the points you're making, don't you think? The whole basis for the other side of the argument hangs on this. And you're happy to make your mind up without actually knowing? That's less than objective

Understanding the relative risk is important. But if we are going to avoid making decisions until all negatives are proven, inertia will cripple us all. Each of us makes decisions on the best evidencebee have and our own understanding of risk.

I have seen no evidence that there are significant numbers of genuine unreported vaccine damage cases. Logically, I cannot rule out that they do not exist, and neither can I say that there are none (it seems likely to me that there would be some, but again that's conjecture).

I've explained why it is impossible to be declarative on this if you are thinking about it critically and objectively.

I've just come across official statistics for measles deaths. Between 1940 and 1968, when vaccination came in, deaths from measles per year ranged between 28 and 1145, the lower figures relating to the later period when medical care and treatments had improved. Between 1989 and 2013, they ranged between 0 and 4. Vaccination combined with a degree of improvement in medical care has reduced death rates massively.

Winchester woman - almost every medicine in the world has side effects. It seems highly, highly likely that there are unreported instances of side effects from paracetamol or ibruprofen. Does that mean you have similar concerns about those (and indeed, all other) medicines?

Don't you think it would be better to continue to educate non vaccinated children in mainstream schools where principles of vaccination are taught rather than encourage an alternative curriculum taught at home with parents who certainly are not going to teach about the principles of vaccination?

jassy

I think, if the vaccine companies were paying for it, we would find it a lot easier to get our hands on pretty convincing evidence. At the moment, to place less emphasis on it because less is known (when less is known because there is a self-serving desire for less to be known) is a completely circular argument. Or a strawman, I get mixed up.

There are thousands of reported but unrecorded vaccine damage cases. Many of them are similar. Many arose before there was any real publicity for vaccine damage cases.

There's some evidence for you. On what evidence do you assume that most of them are not genuine? If you believe that some are genuine, why not more? Why do you think they are unrecorded? The incompetence of medics? Have you ever even asked these questions of yourself?

On the basis of volume, similarity, the correlation of events and Occam's Razor I believe that some are true. I don't know how many. But it doesn't matter. It means I can no longer trust the official adverse event statistics. Then it all unravels.

Can we bear in mind that out of date stats for measles deaths etc. are not applicable to the current prognosis in light of advances in medical care.

Mum: I'm not comparing a vaccine to chemotherapy in real terms and I am profoundly sorry to hear about your son, and very sorry if anything I wrote here upset you.

The comparison was entirely abstract, and had nothing to do with the realities of your son's illness. Please do accept my apologies. It wasn't unkindly meant.

Both Jassy and I have said that we don't necessarily believe the official adverse event statistics, and it is inexplicable that you keep claiming that we do. We have both said that we accept that some of the adverse events reported but not included in the statistics may be genuine.

The question is: why do you assume as a result of those unreported events that all statistics are wholly unreliable? Looking at those measles statistics, we see a fall from 28 deaths a year to near zero, and where deaths have occurred they have coincided with periods when vaccination went down due to the MR scare. Similar benefits are recorded in relation to mumps and rubella. Official statistics seem to demonstrate that, in the UK, the number of deaths attributed to MMR is in the region of three in ten years. So, if you add in unrecorded events, and made a number of assumptions in antivax favour, you could more than triple that, and you would still be looking at one a year against a minimum of 28 a year from measles alone. Sure, one a year is too many, but the risk/benefit calculation is still extremely heavily in favour of vaccination, particularly when you take into account that hundreds of thousands of MMR vaccinations are administered every year.

gonetosee, I acknowledged that advances in medical care accounted for some of the fall in death rates. However, given the massive fall in the number of cases of measles itself, to deny the correlation with vaccine would be closing your eyes to simple reality. If the improvement were solely down to improved medical care, you would have to account for the rise in incidence of measles cases and measles-related injury and death earlier this century when vaccine rates fell. Medical care standards didn't coincidentally deteriorate at the same time, after all.

On what evidence do you assume that most of them are not genuine? If you believe that some are genuine, why not more?

On what evidence do you assume the contrary?

Why do you think they are unrecorded? The incompetence of medics? Have you ever even asked these questions of yourself?

If you had actually bothered to read my posts, you would see that I considered that question upthread.

So you do accept there are unrecorded adverse events - you do accept that adverse events statistics are unreliable - so you do - therefore - admit that the official risk/benefit ratio is unreliable.

On what basis then do you recommend that people vaccinate their children when the risk is unknown?

(The rest of your post is basically a lot of guessing. I don't just include death, by the way, in adverse events: in fact I have really been speaking about vaccine injury. )

I don't assume that most of them are genuine. It is impossible to know. That's entirely my point. It's impossible to know.

You may feel you are offering parents science, and evidence, and facts, when really you are inviting them to join you in an act of faith.

Yawn go & have the vaccination yourself.

My kids are vaccinated & I'm not risking their health for you.

I think, if the vaccine companies were paying for it, we would find it a lot easier to get our hands on pretty convincing evidence.

That's a pretty big think. You could just as easily find that you might get convincing evidence that the statistics are about right, but people wouldn't believe it because the vaccine companies did the work and we are instructed to dismiss their evidence.

At the moment, to place less emphasis on it because less is known (when less is known because there is a self-serving desire for less to be known) is a completely circular argument. Or a strawman, I get mixed up.

Well, no. You are placing less emphasis on something for which objective evidence is absent, and more emphasis on that for which there is evidence. You are not ruling it out but if you placed equal emphasis on every permutation of every possible aspect of vaccinations where there is a possibility of something we don't know about, for which there is no objective evidence, and gave it the same weight as the actual evidence, you would be taking a very irrational approach.

It's how anxiety can affect some people. 'But what if this?' 'Don't worry, there is only a very small risk of that.' 'But what if this other thing?' 'Ditto.' 'But what if the evidence is wrong? What if they've all lied?'

If you applied that sort of thinking to every decision you have to make you would find it challenging to leave your house.

Everything we do in life is based on an assessment of relative risk, weighing up what we do know and the possibility and likelihood of unknown factors. Should we give equal weight to all the various possible unknown factors? I'd suggest not.

So you do accept there are unrecorded adverse events - you do accept that adverse events statistics are unreliable - so you do - therefore - admit that the official risk/benefit ratio is unreliable

No. You are misrepresenting again.

You may feel you are offering parents science, and evidence, and facts, when really you are inviting them to join you in an act of faith.

No. There is a wide chasm between 'faith' and 'considering and weighing the available evidence and considering potential gaps in the evidence base before making a considered decision based on all the information available.'

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wwd9d

This documentary on bbciplayer shows how Drs take bribes from drug companies and how that makes Drs more likely to prescribe medication, in the UK.
That is what 'big pharma' is.

Well there are three positions.

You admit there are genuine but unrecorded adverse events. Conclusion: official statistics are unreliable as are risk ratios.

You admit there may be genuine but unrecorded adverse events but you don't know. Conclusion: official statistics may be unreliable to an impossible to know extent, but you continue to trust them as an act of faith.

You refuse to admit there are genuine but unrecorded adverse events. Evidence needed as to why.

It's not the third. So it's the first or the second. You don't know the risk benefit ratio but you trust medics (despite acknowledging incompetence/dishonesty) and corporations (lots of evidence of past misdemeanors here) and therefore continue to have faith in the official risk assessment, and to disbelieve multiple similar accounts of vaccine damage. However it remains an act of faith: you do not know the risk benefit ratio.

No. Your extrapolations aren't logical conclusions of your statements, and I have already responded to your misuse of 'faith'.

They are, it could not be more straightforward. It's why you're struggling.

It's faith. You don't know how much damage there is, how many incompetent medics there are, how many corrupt employees, or researchers, or statisticians. You don't know.

When you talk about evidence:

Excuse me : and the weight of evidence, information available and so on, you are refusing to acknowledge that it's your own bias as that guides you as to how to 'weight' the various pieces of evidence.

"It's faith. You don't know how much damage there is, how many incompetent medics there are, how many corrupt employees, or researchers, or statisticians. You don't know. "
On that basis, all belief in medical science (or indeed, anything you have not personally experienced with your own senses) is based on faith.