40 Reasons – Part 1

For the sake of getting to the crux of each point, I have tried to distill the stupid into a sentence or two where possible (full text here)

1. There is no scientific study to determine whether vaccines have really prevented diseases.

Really? Here’s a not very short summary of the incidence of disease before and after vaccination (thanks to the Canadian nurse whom I have never met but adore):

Polio

• Incidence before vaccination: 2.5 to 28.3/100,000
• Incidence after vaccination: 0 – Disease eradicated form Canada and most recently from India

Diphtheria

• Incidence before vaccination: In 1924, 9,000 cases reported.
• Incidence after vaccination: No cases reported since 1996 in Canada.

Tetanus

• Incidence before vaccination: 60 to 75 cases per year, with 40 to 50 deaths
• Incidence after vaccination: Fewer than 2 cases per year in past 15 years.

Pertussis (whooping cough)

• Incidence before vaccination: Over 150/100,000 cases per year with 50 to 100 deaths.
• Incidence after vaccination: 10/100,000 cases per year with 1 to 3 deaths in very young infants.

Heamophilus influenzae type b (HiB)

• Incidence before vaccination: Overall 2,000 cases per year with 1500 in those <5 years of age.
• Incidence after vaccination: Fewer than 50 cases per year.

Measles

• Incidence before vaccination: Cyclic epidemics every 2-3 years. 300,000–400,000 cases per year.
• Incidence after vaccination: Now fewer than 400 cases per year.

Mumps

• Incidence before vaccination: About 30,000 reported cases per year but many more not reported
• Incidence after vaccination: Fewer than 500 cases per year.

Rubella

• Incidence before vaccination: About 250,000 cases per year, with over 200 congenital rubella syndrome (CRS)/year
• Incidence after vaccination: Less than 100 cases reported per year, 1 to 2 congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) /year.

Hepatitis B

• Incidence before vaccination: 20,000 new infections per year, 1 in 200 people in population is a chronic carrier. BC had a rate of 33.7/100,000 in 1992.
• Risk of transmission from an infected mother to her newborn infant is 90%.
• Incidence after vaccination: From 1992 to 2002 in BC after adopting a Grade 6 vaccine program, overall rate acute infection fell from 7 to 2/100,000 and in 12 to 21 year olds from 1.7 to 0/100,000.Immunization of newborn infants prevents transmission from mother in > 90% of cases.

Varicella (Chicken pox)

• Incidence before vaccination: Infection in 50% of children by age 5 and 90% by age 12.
• Incidence after vaccination: Varicella mortality in the US has decreased by 76% with national program and coverage rates of 80% children younger than 36 months.

Streptococcus pneumoniae

• Incidence before vaccination: About 500,000 cases of pneumococcal diseases per year with over 200,000 in children under 5 years.
• Incidence after vaccination: In the US, clinical trials in infants showed vaccine efficacy of 94% for invasive diseases due to strains in vaccine and 89% for invasive disease due to any pneumococcal strain.

Neisseria meningitidis

• Incidence before vaccination: Endemic in Canada with epidemics every 10 to 15 years. 200 to 350 endemic cases per year. Rates in 3 highest age groups:
• <1 years 11.3/100,000;
• 1–4yr 2.4/100,000;
• 15 to19 years 1.5/100,000.
• Incidence after vaccination: In UK, routine infant immunization started in 1999 with follow up campaign for children and adolescents has decreased disease by >90%.

Let’s not forget the biggy – small pox. There has been no case of human small pox on this planet since 1976.
Still want a study? Here you go:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/298/18/2155.full

The objective of this study:

“To compare morbidity and mortality before and after widespread implementation of national vaccine recommendations for 13 vaccine-preventable diseases for which recommendations were in place prior to 2005.”

Results:

“A greater than 92% decline in cases and a 99% or greater decline in deaths due to diseases prevented by vaccines recommended before 1980 were shown for diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, and tetanus. Endemic transmission of poliovirus and measles and rubella viruses has been eliminated in the United States; smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. Declines were 80% or greater for cases and deaths of most vaccine-preventable diseases targeted since 1980 including hepatitis A, acute hepatitis B, Hib, and varicella. Declines in cases and deaths of invasive S pneumoniae were 34% and 25%, respectively.”

2. There are no long-term studies on vaccine safety.

Seeing as vaccination against small pox was stopped around 1986, most of those who were vaccinated against it were so 26 years ago (people serving in the military still receive small pox vaccine). In that time there have been no, that’s zero, reports of small pox vaccine toxicity. Is that long term enough?
Again, if its studies you need:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11505437

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=smith%2C%20woods%2C%20pediatrics%20125

“Timely vaccination during infancy has no adverse effect on neuropsychological outcomes 7 to 10 years later”

3. There has never been any attempt to compare a vaccinated population against a non vaccinated population

Now this gets my goat. The ethics of not vaccinating a whole group of people against potentially lethal diseases to make any point aside, why would comparing vaccinated against entirely unvaccinated when looking at, say, the MMR vaccine make any sense? One variable at a time dear.
My fear is, that with increasing numbers of people refusing to vaccinate their children, this kind of study need not be hypothetical any longer. I’m not psychic but I can predict that if you were study rates of infection the unvaccinated groups would come out as having suffered the most – needlessly of course. There are NO benefits, only risks, to refusing vaccination for children with no underlying medical reason to caution against them.
There are many studies looking at vaccinated against unvaccinated for particular vaccines. Here are some studies comparing vaccinated against unvaccinated for outcomes other than infection with the disease against which the vaccine offers protection:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10443507

“Epidemiological evidence indicates infants immunised against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT) are at decreased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15908618

“Immunisation against DTP or MMR does not increase the risk of hay fever”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14523220

Study looking at outcomes for vaccinated vs unvaccinated individuals with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (DiGeorge syndrome)

“The data suggest that this is a cohort of patients with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome who have tolerated live viral vaccinations without evidence of significant side effects.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17272598

“This study shows that the risk of eczema or recurrent wheeze at 1 year of age does not differ between infants with different vaccination status at the age of 6 months.”

4. There are no tests to determine the effects of multiple vaccines.

What exactly is meant by “tests”? Measuring immunity in individuals who have received vaccines? Well titres can be done for that. I’m going to assume that what is actually meant is studies.  This is, clearly, the “too many too soon” gambit. On and in us live ten to a hundred times more wee beasties than there are cells in the body and you can add to that  fungi and molds. Though many of these organisms are beneficial to us the immune system keeps them in balance. It is a constant job. As well as “good” organisms there are “bad” organisms living on an in us. If vaccines are a pollutant then they are so at the level of peeing in the ocean.

Back in the day – about a hundred years ago – the only vaccine available was that against small pox which just so happens to have been the largest virus infecting mammals. The vaccine contained 200 proteins.

To take the USA vaccine schedule of 2011,  with its 14 vaccines, children from birth to 16 receive only approximately 160 immunological components in their vaccines:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=offit%2C%20quarles%2C%20gerber

Deja vu?…

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedterm=smith%2C%20woods%2C%20pediatrics%20125

“Timely vaccination during infancy has no adverse effect on neuropsychological outcomes 7 to 10 years later”

It’s not just safety that’s an issue with combining vaccines but how they interact with one another. What follows are precisely the kinds of studies that have never been done on “alternative” vaccination schedules

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22327497

“ Conclusions The reduced-antigen-content dTpa-IPV vaccine was non-inferior to full-strength DTPa-IPV vaccine with respect to immunogenicity. The vaccine was well-tolerated and can be confidently used as a booster dose in pre-school children.”

5. There is no scientific basis for vaccinating infants.

Isn’t the fact that the suffering in infants with vaccine preventable diseases is often far in excess of that of older children and adults in general not a compelling reason to vaccinate? Infants are more likely to suffer complications of a disease.
Kids are dirty little things and make very efficient vectors for infectious diseases.Vaccination while young will prevent the spread of disease when they are older and more sociable (also the vaccine will have come into full effect meaning that, in the case of some vaccines, they will have better immunity than if only very recently vaccinated – one reason why some people will still, say, catch the ‘flu shortly after vaccination). Kids are more suseptible to catching then spreading disease for a number of reasons: poor hand hygiene, lack of social airs and graces (kids will fling themselves at just about anyone and eat and drink from each other’s utensils without a second thought) and suffer a greater number of injuries that break the skin – think of all those cuts and grazes that provide excellent routes of entry for all kinds of nasties.

To quote from the website Vaccinate your Baby:

“Vaccines are recommended for very young children because their immune systems are not yet fully mature and also because their stomachs produce less acid, making it easier for ingested bacteria and viruses to multiply. These factors leave them the most vulnerable to the devastating effects of these serious diseases.“

Part 2>>>