flu shots

For those questions and discussions on the McDougall program that don’t seem to fit in any other forum.

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Re: flu shots

Postby wade4veg » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:14 am

bbq wrote:Image

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2013/11/12/vaccines-a-peek-beneath-the-hood-by-roman-bystrianyk-and-suzanne-humphries-md/
England began keeping statistics in 1838, which was 62 years before official U.S. statistics were gathered. Looking at this data, we can see that the death rate from infectious diseases was high during the 1800s and declined from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s to almost zero.


OMG more from the wacky The International Medical Council on Vaccination..

Internet nut-jobs to the extreme... probably going to tie vaccinations in with the controlled demolition of Building #7 at the WTC

What next, we're secretly getting vaccinated from jet contrails?
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Re: flu shots

Postby Ginger » Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:27 am

In reference to polio in middle eastern countries: ¨Just two years ago — after a 25-year campaign that vaccinated billions of children — the paralyzing virus was near eradication; now health officials say that goal could evaporate if swift action is not taken.¨ ( from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/healt ... gency.html)
The return of this dreadful disease is primarily due to the dark ages mentality of the Taliban. Let's not forget that polio was epidemic in the US some decades ago (my sister was stricken with polio when we lived in New Jersey in 1952) and could also return if the ¨all vaccines are bad¨ mentality were to become common thinking. I can understand people wanting to evaluate the effectiveness/risks of current flu vaccines, but to label all vaccines as ineffective is both ignorant and irresponsible and disregards the well being of one's fellow humans.
I have traveled the wold all my life and I am eternally grateful for being immunized against small pox, yellow fever, cholera, tetanus, diphtheria, and other life threatening diseases.
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Re: flu shots

Postby bbq » Fri Jan 30, 2015 6:51 am

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Re: flu shots

Postby dinska » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:25 pm

I have a hard time believing that vaccinations need any more caveats than any other medication does due to tampering, production errors, etc.

I remember my Swedish great-grandfather (back in the 1970's) talking about his little brother dying of diptheria when he was eight. He was well over eighty years old and it was still a tragedy those years later. Without vaccines all of us would have those stories.

BTW guys, I don't think that being smug about WFPB is going to work as an invincibility shield.
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Re: flu shots

Postby Ginger » Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:44 pm

In today's NYTimes: As Measles Spreads in the US, So Does Anxiety
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/us/as ... v=top-news
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Re: flu shots

Postby bbq » Sat Jan 31, 2015 11:52 pm

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Re: flu shots

Postby VegOn » Sun Feb 01, 2015 6:03 am

I am not exactly sure why all of the graphs are being posted, as that poster does not include any explanatory text. It seems like it might be an effort to show that vaccines are unnecessary because, as a different poster asserted upthread, diseases were almost eradicated before the introduction of vaccines, and that there might be some kind of conspiracy to keep this fact hidden in order to trick people into getting unnecessarily vaccinated.

Unfortunately, posting graphs of the mortality rate does nothing to show whether the diseases were being eradicated. What it does show is that medical science was greatly improving in its ability to save lives by treating patients effectively. It also shows the results of improved access to health care and improved sanitation.

If one wanted to attempt to prove eradication by posting graphs, then the proper graph to examine would be the incidence rate. If diseases are almost eradicated, one would expect to see an incidence rate nearing 0. So many graphs were posted covering so many different diseases that it would be tiresome to examine each. So I'll just focus on measles.

Here is an incidence graph for measles in the United States between 1944-2007:

Image

There are years of both higher and lower incidence prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, but no data points suggest that measles was almost eradicated prior to the introduction of the vaccine.

I also want to point out the graph of the Canadian data. The Canadian graph posted does show incidence rates, but that graph is misleading. I found one that includes the actual data points for your viewing pleasure:

Image

Note that the last data point on the graph is 1958, as no national data is available from 1959-1968.

To make comparison easier, here is the original graph without data points that was posted:

Image

There sure does seem to be something off on that second graph, doesn't there? Having the actual data points plotted makes it pretty clear that the second graph does not do a good job of representing that data. Why is there that dramatic drop that ends at the hash mark for 1959, when there was no reportable data?
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Re: flu shots

Postby f1jim » Sun Feb 01, 2015 9:38 am

Your points are valid. This is very much like looking at two sets of data for heart disease or diabetes. One set would be mortality from the disease the other would be incidence of each condition.
We might be getting better at keeping people alive with the condition but if the incidence of the disease is staying high or rising we are only applying a Bandaid to the issue. Once the condition such as measles was identified we began the process of learning how to treat the condition. That meant greater survival. It did little to prevent people from acquiring the disease. That is where vaccination comes into play.
We have to be careful about our numbers and what they actually mean. We also have to be careful about being manipulated by those with an agenda. Sometimes that means looking just below the numbers given to see the reality of the situation.

In fairness we must look at all studies and data points this way. Even those given to us by nutritional leaders supporting this way of eating. And the data given to us by those encouraging vaccinations. The recent flu vaccination for this season was by most accounts not a success. Next year? Who knows. Again, Dr. McDougall has found himself on both sides of the vaccination question. For most of the standard childhood vaccinations he recommends their use.
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Re: flu shots

Postby VegMommy » Sun Feb 01, 2015 12:34 pm

I have a one month old grandson. My daughter is worried about him contracting measles, since the vaccine isn't given until 12 months. Measles can be very dangerous for infants. She wouldn't have had to even think about this a few years ago, but now, thanks to Jenny McCarthy and others spreading the anti-vaccine "message", it's a very real danger. And I have to tell you, that makes me pretty angry.
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Re: flu shots

Postby bbq » Sun Feb 01, 2015 1:11 pm

I was so disappointed in the maturity of a particular reply and I just didn't know what else could be said afterwards, I respect those opinions while something like that might be a better fit somewhere else?

Fortunately others were actually relatively reasonable and encouraging all of us to look at this subject objectively. My own view was basically influenced by something that surprised me:

http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/04/measles-outbreak-traced-fully-vaccinated-patient-first-time

I was also taught to believe that vaccination would keep everybody safe and I trusted that as if that were some sorta medically proven fact. Things didn't quite work out that way and then I had to look things up on my own.

Then I learned quite a bit more about the history by reading this book, those 1-star "reviews" looked very strange to me since none of those "reviewers" actually purchased a copy @ Amazon.com to begin with:

http://www.amazon.com/Dissolving-Illusions-Suzanne-Humphries-ebook/product-reviews/B00E7FOA0U/?filterBy=addOneStar

In addition, graphs of typhoid fever and pellagra also showed pretty much the same pattern when compared to the measles counterpart:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4840a1.htm

Another quote below:

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S1.full
By the late 1950s, even before the introduction of measles vaccine, measles-related deaths and case fatality rates in the United States had decreased markedly, presumably as a result of improvement in health care and nutrition.

More about malnutrition:

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S4.full
Malnutrition. Malnourished children have impairments in multiple aspects of the immune system, prolonged excretion of measles virus, and higher measles case-fatality rates [9, 63, 192–194]. Measles contributes to the development of malnutrition because of protein-losing enteropathy, increased metabolic demands, and decreased food intake. Children who have measles early in life have significantly lower mean weights for age than do children of the same age who do not develop measles [183, 195].

Vitamin A deficiency. Children with clinical or subclinical vitamin A deficiency in many developing countries have increased case-fatality rates [196, 197]. Measles and other illnesses are associated with reductions in serum retinol concentrations and may induce overt vitamin A deficiency [197, 198]. Hospitalized US measles patients frequently have deficiencies in vitamin A; these children are more likely to have pneumonia or diarrhea after measles [73, 199, 200]. In countries with high measles mortality, treatment with vitamin A once daily for 2 days (200,000 IU for children ⩾12 months of age or 100,000 IU for infants <12 months) is associated with an ~50% reduction in mortality [196, 201–203]. The World Health Organization recommends vitamin A therapy for all children with measles [204]. For hospitalized children <2 years old with measles in the United States, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a single dose of vitamin A (200,000 IUfor children ⩾12 months; 100,000 IU for those <12 months) [205].

I still didn't understand why the message seemed to be so "definitive" in a sense that mission was accomplished by high percentage of vaccination instead of a combination of improvements over the years. Maybe some of us would interpret that as the gold standard or silver bullet, especially the officials didn't give (enough) credits to other factors.

Eventually a message to be delivered in such context could potentially result in a false sense of security, some of us might be under the impression that protection against measles would be taken for granted. Get a shot for this and take a pill for that, as if monotherapy were actually saving the day. Is it wise to put all your eggs in one basket?

Maybe sometimes it's necessary to unlearn what we've been told about doctors and learn more about what they're doing:

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/why-prevention-is-worth-a-ton-of-cure/
But can you really blame doctors for these deaths? You can when they don’t wash their hands. We’ve known since the 1840’s that the best way to prevent hospital-acquired infections is through handwashing, yet compliance rates among healthcare workers rarely exceeds 50%, and doctors are the worst. Even in a medical intensive care unit, even if you slap up a contact precautions sign, signaling particularly high risk, less than a quarter of doctors washed their hands. Many physicians greeted the horrendous mortality data due to medical error with disbelief and concern that the information would undermine public trust. But if doctors still won’t even wash their hands, how much trust do they deserve?

We've been led to believe that's reasonably safe but GSK actually got busted as a result of court's decision in Italy:

http://www.efvv.eu/index.php/24-newsflash

http://www.studiolegalecappellaro.it/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/vaccino_sentenza-n.-2664-14.pdf

A similar case and I happened to have a hard time finding any coverage by mainstream media in North America:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160054/MMR-A-mothers-victory-The-vast-majority-doctors-say-link-triple-jab-autism-Italian-court-case-reignite-controversial-debate.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/italian-court-reignites-mmr-vaccine-debate-after-award-over-child-with-autism-7858596.html

(Please, no "radical" theories required here.)

Finally, the ethics of what they did in India also seemed to be quite disturbing to me:

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-08-31/news/53413161_1_hpv-vaccine-cervarix-human-papilloma-virus

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2893485/Children-guinea-pigs-anti-cervical-cancer-drug.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2908963/Judges-demand-answers-children-die-controversial-cancer-vaccine-trial-India.html

Instead of investing so much on inoculation, how about more on nutrition as well as the distribution of starchy staple foods?

(Again, some of us would think I'm being too biased here and that's your own choice. We're all adults and all of us should make an informed decision, especially after reading that book as mentioned above.)
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Re: flu shots

Postby VegMommy » Sun Feb 01, 2015 1:54 pm

bbq wrote:I was so disappointed in the maturity of a particular reply and I just didn't know what else could be said afterwards, I respect those opinions while something like that might be a better fit somewhere else?


I don't know if this was directed at me, but it doesn't matter. I thought what was needed here was a taste of what these ideas are doing in the real world to real people.

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/30/382716075 ... -last-year

Measles Is A Killer: It Took 145,000 Lives Worldwide Last Year
JANUARY 30, 2015 5:55 PM ET


The number of measles cases from the outbreak linked to Disneyland has now risen to at least 98. But measles remains extremely rare in the United States.

The rest of the world hasn't been so fortunate. Last year roughly 250,000 people came down with measles; more than half of them died.

Currently the Philippines is experiencing a major measles outbreak that sickened 57,000 people in 2014. China had twice that many cases, although they were more geographically spread out. Major outbreaks were also recorded in Angola, Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Measles causes an intense fever, coughing, watery eyes and a signature full-body rash. The disease is rarely fatal in developed nations with modern health care systems but can cause brain damage and permanent hearing loss.

Once the virus starts spreading among kids who haven't been immunized, it's very difficult to stop.

"The measles virus is probably the most contagious infectious disease known to mankind," says Stephen Cochi, a senior adviser with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global immunization division.

Cochi's team tracks flare-ups of measles around the world. He says the current outbreak in the Philippines was sparked by Typhoon Haiyan, which battered the island nation late in 2013, killing more than 6,000 and hampering vaccination efforts. Cases started to multiply first in the storm-ravaged parts of the country.

"Then the virus spread to metro Manila and then other parts of the Philippines," he says. "That virus ... from the Philippines has spread all over the world, to the Middle East, to other parts of Asia, to the United States and Europe."

Some of the people who've caught measles in the current Southern California outbreak have the same strain of the virus that's circulating in the Philippines. The CDC has not yet pinpointed the origin of the first case at Disneyland.

From his experience tracking previous measles outbreaks in the U.S., Cochi says the source was probably an American.

"It's really traveling Americans who are unvaccinated, then return to the United States with the measles virus, that are causing most of the measles in the U.S. currently," he says.

Cochi adds that someone infected with measles may be contagious for 24 to 48 hours before feeling sick. So a returning traveler could spread the disease and not even know it. And because measles is circulating all over the world, a traveler could pick it up almost anywhere. Even the European Union recorded several thousand cases last year.

Part of the reason measles drives public health officials crazy is that it's a people problem. Humans are its only host. As long as the virus can find new unvaccinated populations, it can reproduce, survive and spread. But if immunization rates were boosted around the world, measles wouldn't be able to keep jumping to new hosts. Then the disease would disappear.

One of the groups working to achieve that high immunity around the globe is the International Medical Corps.

Paul Robinson with the group says actually immunizing a child against measles is easy and cheap. Their biggest challenge is reaching children after disasters and in war-torn countries.

"The children under 5 are very vulnerable to measles," Robinson says. They're the primary target of vaccination campaigns. "It takes just a few days to get them vaccinated but it also takes a very short time for the virus to kill them."

Prior to the widespread use of measles vaccines in the 1980s, there were more than 4 million cases around the globe every year. That number has been cut significantly to roughly a quarter of a million. But measles is still out there, and as Cochi at the CDC points out, the virus is just a plane ride away from the United States.
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Re: flu shots

Postby VegOn » Sun Feb 01, 2015 4:01 pm

While everyone can appreciate that there were many factors contributing to a reduction in mortality from infectious diseases, it seems strange to deny that vaccines significantly contributed to the reduction in incidence of those diseases. Reducing the incidence not only impacts the number of people who die from a disease, it also impacts the number of people who are hospitalized, experience sometimes devastating and permanent side effects, and lose time/money from school/work.

Vaccines don't keep everyone safe any more than seat belts or airbags save every person involved in an automobile accident. Airbags are dangerous for certain populations (such as children/adults of small stature who are in the front seat) just as vaccines are dangerous for certain populations (such as the immunocompromised and those who are allergic to ingredients contained in the vaccine). There is a very high number of people who need to wear seat belts before a life is saved by a seat belt, just as there is often a high number of people who need to be vaccinated before a life is saved by a vaccine.

That doesn't mean I'm going to disconnect my airbags or stop using seat belts!

Good nutrition and hand washing are wonderful, but they aren't justification to avoid vaccinations any more than defensive driving habits are justification to avoid wearing a seat belt. All of those healthy habits together provide the best possible protection.
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Re: flu shots

Postby awest27 » Sun Feb 01, 2015 7:41 pm

All these vaccine threads are looking a lot like abortion topics or Mac VS PC. Enough already. There are some topics that you just aren't going to force your opinion on.
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Re: flu shots

Postby wade4veg » Sun Feb 01, 2015 10:43 pm

bbq wrote:I was so disappointed in the maturity of a particular reply

(Again, some of us would think I'm being too biased here and that's your own choice. We're all adults and all of us should make an informed decision, especially after reading that book as mentioned above.)


That was probably me.

Some people's minds are not safe on the internet. They open the door and any old idea can fly in and nest.

Like above in your massive linking of information.

You tell how a certain author opened up your mind. Good example of what you are letting in the door.

Look at that same author Suzanne Humphries, MD, and how she dismisses the use and value of the polio vaccine around the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twch-T-n8Ns

Plain and simple, the author you link us to is a classic nut-job. Preying people who leave the door to their minds open.

You'd do well to be careful who you let into your mind... if she is a example of "experts" you find to be credible.
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Re: flu shots

Postby CarrotTopsRGreen » Fri Feb 13, 2015 10:40 am

What I object to is the lack of freedom of choice some employers are giving to their employees. My husband works for a hospital, and in 2014 they decided that employees must have flu shots or be terminated. My husband did not want the flu shot, but he needed to keep his job, so he reluctantly had one, after making his objections known (which led to a disciplinary letter being placed in his HR file. They do not appreciate dissension in the ranks). He broke out in hives all over his body and now it is a workers' comp case, but he is having trouble finding a dermatologist who will see a workers' comp patient. He has to decide what to do for 2015 ... if for some reason an employee can get exempted from the requirement for a flu shot, they make them into pariahs by forcing them to walk around wearing face masks all day during "flu season." We are looking at our finances, figuring out if we can afford for him to retire next winter.
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