[Godstud]

So applicable.

Man spends all weekend Googling vaccines, feels confident he knows more than doctors
SEATTLE, WA – Local man Andrew Deltmor, 36, spent the better part of the weekend “researching” vaccines and now feels confident he knows more than most people on the subject, including medical doctors.

“I wanted to see what all the fuss was about with this whole measles thing,” explained Deltmor. “So I hunkered down in my mom’s basement and went to work. I read a bunch of articles on vaccines and the MMR in particular and now I know everything there is to know.”

Deltmor confirmed to The Science Post that he is now staunchly anti-vaccine.

“After reading what I read, I don’t see how anyone could not be against vaccines,” he said. “I started out reading a bunch of scientific studies but I didn’t really understand them. So instead I just Googled “Vaccines bad” and went from there. I ended up spending most of my time on Natural News, Info Wars and Age of Autism.”

This is a common theme through the anti-vaccine world. Anti-vaccers often find themselves unable to understand or interpret science and statistics so instead rely on conspiracy blogs.

“It’s just easier that way,” laughed anti-vaccer Toni Barck. “I always have trouble with the fancy maths so I just stick to the easy conspiracy sites.”

Mr. Deltmor is currently working on his own blog as well as schooling scientists and doctors on social media
http://thesciencepost.com/man-spends-al ... s0HCsp1PeM

[Verv]

@Drlee is absolutely right on the money. Your argument @ness31 is for the individual right to be foolish supersedes society's right to protect itself from fools.

Your coercion argument is fucking nonsense.

I have a question, though...

If everyone has been vaccinated, and is being routinely vaccinated, would this not mean that whatever threat exists of the return of measles is largely only shared among anti-vaxxers?

It would only be a threat to society insofar as the people who didn't vaccinate their kids would be threatened.

By the way: my position is that all kids should be vaccinated by default, and perhaps just to throw a bone to the anti-vaxxers maybe we should allow them to not vaccinate their kids but require them to bring their kids to the doctor once every two weeks (or some other determined amount of time) and pay for it out of their own pocket.

[Godstud]

Anti-Vaxxers spread their lies and cause more and more people to become vaccinated and then herd immunity becomes weakened, so no, it's not simply shared by foolish twats you ignore science and reason.

Also, some people cannot be vaccinated and so that further endangers those people.

Take them to the doctor, and get the fucking vaccination shot. It's that easy. Protect your kids if you even care about them.

[Drlee]

@verv If everyone has been vaccinated, and is being routinely vaccinated, would this not mean that whatever threat exists of the return of measles is largely only shared among anti-vaxxers?

Sort of. Certainly the anti-vaxxers would be at greater risk but not only them. Two points.

Immune compromised people who cannot take vaccines, and who are at tremendous risk should they contract some of these diseases, have to rely on herd immunity for their protection. Anti-vaxxers are a direct threat to these innocent people. Needlessly by the way.

The second point is that anti-vaxxers are talking about the immunization of their children, not so much themselves. In most cases they have had these childhood vaccines. So these innocent children are potential victims of their own parents' abject stupidity.

One could also mention that vaccines are not 100% effective but they are very very close so I will leave that out.

Just for the record, I would make flu vaccine mandatory in my perfect world. I get it every year as does everyone I can influence.

[ness31]

A woman by the name of Judy Wilyman received a PhD from the University of Woolongong which gave credence to the ‘anti vax’ movement.
There seems to have been an analysis of her thesis by another group of people and they have turned up flaws of bias. I’d like to post a link but I can’t find one from a good source that isn’t behind a paywall

[Drlee]

Here is all you need to know and more than you will understand:

University of Auckland biological scientist Helen Petousis Harris, who has a PhD in Vaccinology,[29] was highly critical of the thesis and writes:

Wilyman's "references to support these outrageous comments are from the bottom dwelling literature that includes 50-year-old discussions along with well-established, thoroughly debunked pseudoscience. At no point does she mention any of the vast scientific literature that includes large clinical and epidemiological studies - or attempt a critique of it."[1]
"It is [a] litany of deceitful reveries. How it could possibly pass as a piece of Doctoral level work is inexplicable and it has made no contribution to knowledge. Shame on you University of Wollongong."[

[Sivad]

“The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”

Demicheli V, Rivetti A, Debalini MG, Di Pietrantonj C. Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children. Cochrane Database of Syst Rev. 2012 Feb 15;(2).

Cochrane Reviews are recognized internationally as representing a gold standard for high-quality, trusted information.

[Sivad]

Just for the record, I would make flu vaccine mandatory in my perfect world. I get it every year as does everyone I can influence.

Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults

Cochrane Systematic Review - Intervention Version published: 07 July 2010

Main results

We included 50 reports. Forty (59 sub‐studies) were clinical trials of over 70,000 people. Eight were comparative non‐RCTs and assessed serious harms. Two were reports of harms which could not be introduced in the data analysis. In the relatively uncommon circumstance of vaccine matching the viral circulating strain and high circulation, 4% of unvaccinated people versus 1% of vaccinated people developed influenza symptoms (risk difference (RD) 3%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2% to 5%). The corresponding figures for poor vaccine matching were 2% and 1% (RD 1, 95% CI 0% to 3%). These differences were not likely to be due to chance. Vaccination had a modest effect on time off work and had no effect on hospital admissions or complication rates. Inactivated vaccines caused local harms and an estimated 1.6 additional cases of Guillain‐Barré Syndrome per million vaccinations. The harms evidence base is limited.

Authors' conclusions

Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission.

WARNING:
This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding.


Plain language summary



Vaccines to prevent influenza in healthy adults

Over 200 viruses cause influenza and influenza‐like illness which produce the same symptoms (fever, headache, aches and pains, cough and runny noses). Without laboratory tests, doctors cannot tell the two illnesses apart. Both last for days and rarely lead to death or serious illness. At best, vaccines might be effective against only influenza A and B, which represent about 10% of all circulating viruses. Each year, the World Health Organization recommends which viral strains should be included in vaccinations for the forthcoming season.

Authors of this review assessed all trials that compared vaccinated people with unvaccinated people. The combined results of these trials showed that under ideal conditions (vaccine completely matching circulating viral configuration) 33 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. In average conditions (partially matching vaccine) 100 people need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. Vaccine use did not affect the number of people hospitalised or working days lost but caused one case of Guillian‐Barré syndrome (a major neurological condition leading to paralysis) for every one million vaccinations. Fifteen of the 36 trials were funded by vaccine companies and four had no funding declaration. Our results may be an optimistic estimate because company‐sponsored influenza vaccines trials tend to produce results favorable to their products and some of the evidence comes from trials carried out in ideal viral circulation and matching conditions and because the harms evidence base is limited.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/do ... .pub4/full

[Drlee]

Sorry Sivad. You do not understand what you are reading and, as usual, cherry pick your nonsense. That is why the educated among us are rejecting our anti-vaxxer garbage out of hand.

The WHO, which allows Cochrane to appoint participants to its efforts, says this:

WHO recommends annual vaccination for:

pregnant women at any stage of pregnancy
children aged between 6 months to 5 years
elderly individuals (aged more than 65 years)
individuals with chronic medical conditions
health-care workers.

No doubt you believe that the member countries, many of which are very poor indeed and can't afford widespread vaccination, recommend flu for the above because they are ALL on the take. Or maybe it is that just about every virologist, immunologist and epidemiologist just happened to miss something that you pulled up on the internet. (I am still waiting for my check from the pharm company. It must just be late.)

And, of course, you point to an opinion about reporting methodologies to support your absurd claims absolutely disregarding the absolute fact that children are rarely maimed or killed by measles in the developed world. And that is not because we have better hospital beds.

You should see smallpox. It is a really fun disease. Oh wait. You can't see it....

Anti-vaxxers are idiots.

By the way. CDC (a group that Sivad claims is crooked) published this about the 2017-2018 flu season:

Abstract
Background

The severity of the 2017–2018 influenza season in the U.S. was high with influenza A(H3N2) viruses predominating. We report influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) and estimate the number of vaccine prevented influenza-associated illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths for the 2017–2018 influenza season.
Methods

We used national age-specific estimates of 2017–2018 influenza vaccine coverage and disease burden. We estimated VE, and 95% confidence intervals (CI), against medically-attended RT-PCR confirmed influenza virus infection, in the ambulatory setting, using a test-negative design. We estimated influenza type/subtype-specific burden using multipliers applied to population-based rates of influenza-associated hospitalizations. We used a compartmental model to estimate numbers, with 95% credible intervals (CrI), of influenza-associated outcomes prevented by vaccination.
Results

The VE against outpatient medically-attended, laboratory-confirmed influenza was 38% (95% CI: 31–43%) including 22% (95% CI: 12–31%) against influenza A(H3N2), 62% (95% CI: 50–71%) against influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, and 50% (95% CI: 41–57%) against influenza B. We estimated that influenza vaccination prevented 7.1 million (95% CrI: 5.4 million–9.3 million) illnesses, 3.7 million (95% CrI: 2.8 million–4.9 million) medical visits, 109,000 (95% CrI: 39,000–231,000) hospitalizations, and 8,000 (95% CrI: 1,100–21,000) deaths. Vaccination prevented 10% of expected hospitalizations overall and 41% among young children (6 months–4 years).
Conclusions

Despite 38% VE, influenza vaccination reduced a substantial burden of influenza-associated illness, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in the U.S. during the 2017–2018 season. Our results demonstrate the benefit of current influenza vaccination and the need for improved vaccines.

8000 people saved.

Now those who know how to read the above also note that there is a rigorous standard applied.....

Is this at odds with Cochrane? Not really. If one looks at the 2018 and understands what he/she is reading it doesn't.

[Pants-of-dog]

“The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”

Demicheli V, Rivetti A, Debalini MG, Di Pietrantonj C. Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children. Cochrane Database of Syst Rev. 2012 Feb 15;(2).

Cochrane Reviews are recognized internationally as representing a gold standard for high-quality, trusted information.

Please provide the context for this quote, so that we can confirm that you are not cherry picking out of context quotes, thanks.

[Sivad]

Not all vaccines are safe for all people, at all ages, in all quantities. Full stop! There is no question that scientifically and medically, that statement can proven with ample evidence. In fact, U.S. taxpayers have compensated the families of vaccine injured children to the tune of $4 billion dollars in the past 30 years. Unfortunately, even a statement as common sense as that is treated by many online as dangerous. Now, tech companies like Facebook and Google have taken the stand to help purge the world of what they call "vaccine denial." So does that action make our society or world a safer place? No. Let's give it a Reality Check.

[Godstud]

Not all vaccines are safe for all people, at all ages, in all quantities. Full stop!

That's why you consult a doctor and you don't do it yourself Duhhh!!!

Do you think that repeating the obvious is edgy, or something?

Your post is crap, as usual, and you have to rely on Youtube to provide you with your source(which is any idiot who can post a video).

[Drlee]

. Now, tech companies like Facebook and Google have taken the stand to help purge the world of what they call "vaccine denial." So does that action make our society or world a safer place? No. Let's give it a Reality Check.

Didn't bother to watch this garbage. You are wasting your time unless you are doing SEO for really stupid people.

Anti-Vaxxers are among the stupidest people around.

[Sivad]

Is this at odds with Cochrane? Not really.

The simple answer is that we do not understand what the target is. What is the threat of influenza, and what can we ever expect of the vaccines?

The WHO Global Influenza Programme(GIP) with its backbone Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System(GISRS) is a complex network of 143 national reference centres and specialist laboratories in 113 states carrying out surveillance of circulating influenza viruses. GISRS was devised and developed to guide annual influenza vaccine production, and the emphasis is mainly on influenza viruses, their variants, and emerging strains.

However there is no reliable system to monitor and quantify the epidemiology and impact of ILI, the syndrome that presents clinically. Few states produce reliable data on the number of physician contacts or hospitalised cases due to ILI, and none tie these data to the proportion of ILI caused by influenza. We do not know for certain what the impact of ILI is, nor the impact of the proportion of ILI caused by influenza. Prospective studies apportioning positivity to the scores of viruses probably causing ILI are rare, as interest is focused on influenza. The standard quoted figure of 36,000 yearly deaths in the US is based on the “respiratory and circulatory deaths” category including all types of pneumonia, including secondary to meconium ingestion or bacterial causes. More recently, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have proposed estimates of impact ranging between 3,000 and 49,000 yearly deaths. When actual death certificates are tallied, influenza deaths on average are little more than 1,000 yearly. So, the actual threat is unknown (but likely to be small) and so is the estimation of the impact of vaccination.

The uncertainty over the aetiology of ILI, its capricious nature and the weak correlation between immunity and protection, point to possible causal or concurrent factors in the genesis of both ILI and influenza. In other words, virus positivity may only be one of the factors necessary for a case of influenza or ILI to manifest itself.

We await to see whether anyone has the interest or the courage to develop effective ways to control upper respiratory viral syndromes. Meanwhile our reviews will remain as a testimonial to the scientific failure of industry and governments to address the most important clinical outcomes for patients.

Tom Jefferson
Senior Associate Tutor
University of Oxford and Centre for Evidence Based Medicine
Oxford OX2 6GG

Tom Jefferson is Senior Associate Tutor at the University of Oxford and Centre for Evidence Based Medicine. He and his co-authors are long-time Cochrane authors and contributors. In this post they have shared their personal interpretation of the findings and relevance of three recently updated Cochrane Reviews on the effectiveness of influenza vaccines on various populations.

https://community.cochrane.org/news/why ... stabilised


The mendacity and incompetence Drlee has repeatedly demonstrated throughout this thread is typical of what you find within the public health establishment, that explains why all the pronouncements of all these medical associations are so at odds with the actual science. Babbittry can never stand up to scrutiny, it's always just blatant bullshit.

[Godstud]

Anti-Vaxxers are among the stupidest people around.

QFT. The really stupid ones use words like "babbit" to explain away any opposition to their blatant idiocy.

[Pants-of-dog]

@Sivad

You seem to think that US problems in terms of data collection mean that vaccines are unsafe for eceryone in the world.

[Drlee]

The mendacity and incompetence Drlee has repeatedly demonstrated throughout this thread is typical of what you find within the public health establishment, that explains why all the pronouncements of all these medical associations are so at odds with the actual science.

What science? You certainly have presented none. All you do is like a child, stand on the sidelines and throw stones. But then this is not your field. You have no training nor education in this field. You are an amateur besotted with conspiracy theories and propaganda. In other words. You do not have a clue about this stuff. But that is OK. Neither do any of the other anti-vaxxers.

[Sivad]

@Sivad

You seem to think that US problems in terms of data collection mean that vaccines are unsafe for eceryone in the world.

What I think is exactly what I have been saying throughout this thread: vaccines are not proven safe and effective and anyone claiming otherwise is either a fucking idiot or a fucking liar.

[Sivad]

But then this is not your field. You have no training nor education in this field. You are an amateur besotted with conspiracy theories and propaganda. In other words. You do not have a clue about this stuff.

Says the guy that just tried to rebut a systematic review with a single study. I think maybe you read a book on epidemiology once a few decades back and now you fancy yourself an expert but I seriously doubt you're an epidemiologist. If I'm wrong then God help us.

[Pants-of-dog]

What I think is exactly what I have been saying throughout this thread: vaccines are not proven safe and effective and anyone claiming otherwise is either a fucking idiot or a fucking liar.

Yes, you have been saying that they are not safe and effective.

And then you present evidence that the data collected by US government bodies is not enough to determine certain things.

And I am pointing out that the latter does not provide evidence for the former.

Or you present the opinion of some person with credentials. That is also not evidence, thought they sometimes allude to such evidence in the quotes you choose.