Disney parks now requiring immunization record for admittance?

[Magic Band Defender]

I am supportive of vaccinations. Both of my children are vaccinated, as required by our state. We initially never questioned not vaccinating. My parents warned me, of our families history. I felt with my 1st child going to day care, not vaccinating was more of a risk. We had many issues after 1 set of shots. We delayed some vaccinations because of her extreme reaction. My ped witnessed and agreed we should hold off.
Many in our family have had issues related to viruses, and/or vaccinations. I could list all but I really don't want to take up your time to do that.
For this reason we chose to wait with our second child. I will never know if my choice to vaccinate my daughter is what caused her health conditions. I can't disprove it either.
I have a brother that is mildly mentally disabled after recieving vaccinations,that did cause his brain to swell. (That is what my parents were told many years ago. ) it was a known side effect. He was not old enough to speak and just slept a lot,and was cranky they had no idea. There are others but these are the closest to me.
I have a doctor who understands. We waited until my son was walking and talking. We spaced them out. Health care is always personal. I live in America. I have freedom to choose what is best for us. It was a really difficult choice. It was so stressful thinking either way you could be making a wrong choice for your child.There is a lot of twisted facts on both sides. Hope this adds a little perspective.

My family also has a history of severe reactions to vaccines (Guillain-Barre after flu shot, for example). I wish we would've spaced out my son's vaccinations. For the rest of my life I will wonder if I caused his issues by blindly following our current aggressive vaccine schedule.

 

[7series]

I apologize for my earlier sparking of debate and then disappearing. My father had a pretty serious ischemic stroke and I have been, and still am, very busy assiting in his affairs and helping my mother.

There was a time when “everybody” knew that the earth was flat and the center of the universe. More recently, and more relevant to this discussion, “everybody” and “every doctor” “knew” that eating foods high in cholesterol was terrible for you. As many people stated all along, they were wrong, and the government and medical communities recently recanted their warning about it. The same thing happened with eating fats. Not only was “everybody” wrong there, but they now admit that cutting fat out of the diet is actually harmful. Then we have “everybody” and “every doctor” for decades touting the need for a grain-heavy diet (as prescribed by the government long ago to help support the struggling grain industry). We now know that the grains are the most fattening and harmful part of the American diet, with direct links to obesity and deterioration of the brain. So, let’s take a look the similar subject of vaccines.

First we have the claim that vaccines eradicated some of the more dangerous diseases. The numbers from the CDC (recently scrubbed from their website but still available from the Royal Society of Medicine library) reveal the truth. Mortality numbers (not estimates or averages, the actual numbers) for measles by decade: 1900-11,956, 1910-7,615, 1920-4,919, 1930-2,957, 1940-1,013, 1950-268, 1960-162. Why are these numbers significant? Because the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, after a more than 98% reduction in deaths. The disease had already been all but eradicated and the introduction of the vaccine had no effect on the rate of decline. Diptheria? 1900-48,839, 1910-20,350, 1920-12,267, 1930-4,388, 1940-1,135, 1950-125, 1960-22. No matter which disease you look at, polio, smallpox, whichever, all of them show the exact same trend over the exact same time period. Eradication by nearly or over 90% during the period from 1920 – 1950, prior to the introduction of modern vaccines. In fact, earlier efforts at inoculation using more primitive toxoids almost universally caused increases in both new cases and mortality. The first legal requirement for smallpox vaccination was followed over the following ten years by two of the most lethal outbreaks, now universally blamed on the inoculations. The only modern vaccine that did have a marked effect was the polio vaccine, which caused an initial increase in cases and deaths. The two major figures in the development of the polio vaccine, Dr. Jonus Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin, both testified before Congress. Salk noted that most of the outbreaks of polio after 1961 were caused by the vaccine and Sabin went to far as to say that data indicated that large scale vaccination had failed to obtain any significant improvement in the diseases they were supposed to prevent. A story in the Examiner from 2009 went on for pages listing quotes from researchers, doctors, and immunology professionals listing the failure, and in some cases damage, resulting from vaccine use. It’s far too large to even try to post here.

Why is the time period significant and what really did eradicate disease? Over those decades, the advances in public sanitation and living conditions were immense. Giving a population a clean, warm environment to live in allowed natural immunity to do its job. This has recently been observed in deprived nations, where improvements in sanitation and housing have achieved far more effective results in combatting disease than any vaccination program has.

Unfortunately, doctors have knowingly advocated injecting harmful substances into our children. Case in point: Thimerosal. This vaccine ingredient contained mercury, one of the most toxic known substances. Long after it was banned across Europe because of vast clinical proof of its harm, it was finally banned here. But, large campaign donations insured a caveat that the existing stock need not be destroyed. They could go right on injecting this poison into children until their stock ran out, and there was no oversight to ensure that additional stock was not being produced while an alternative was sought. Yes, doctors went right on recommending the use of a known harmful, toxic product after it was banned. To this day, any child receiving the full recommended schedule of vaccines will also have over 200 times the published maximum safe level of aluminum in their bloodstream. And doctors go right on recommending it.
The five top vaccine manufacturers take in an average of $25 billion in revenue per year on their vaccines alone. Vaccines are big business and very powerful forces depend on their sale.

And as far as vaccines causing harm, and specifically autism, it doesn’t matter how many vaccine lobby-funded studies deny it, nations across Europe have acknowledged for years that vaccines can and do cause autism and other serious side effects. A recent case in Italy awarded damages to the family of a child who developed autism because of vaccines. Entered into evidence in that trail was an internal document from the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, regarding their vaccine clinical trials. This 1,271 page document cites numerous serious side effects, including autism, by name, as being observed in the clinical trials. The manufacturer knew this. So does anyone else who looks at the research instead of the media stories.

Vaccine use, like any other medical decision, should be a cost/benefit decision based on discussion with your doctor and on all available information, not on blind acceptance of the government’s word with no research. Our doctor, thankfully, is one of those who does not blindly recommend anything. He knew about Thimerosal. He knew about aluminum. He knew that the likelihood of being exposed to any of these diseases is very small. He also knew that most of the people who contracted measles during every outbreak in the second half of the 20th century had been vaccinated. He did not tell us to vaccinate or not to vaccinate. He gave us all the information he had and allowed us to decide. That is the way it should be.

 

[7series]

My family also has a history of severe reactions to vaccines (Guillain-Barre after flu shot, for example). I wish we would've spaced out my son's vaccinations. For the rest of my life I will wonder if I caused his issues by blindly following our current aggressive vaccine schedule.

We let our first child get her initial vaccination after birth. She had a violent reaction and screamed in pain through almost all of her first night of life. It was horrible. When my parents came to see her and heard about it, they said I had a similar reaction.

 

[7series]

I am supportive of vaccinations. Both of my children are vaccinated, as required by our state. We initially never questioned not vaccinating. My parents warned me, of our families history. I felt with my 1st child going to day care, not vaccinating was more of a risk. We had many issues after 1 set of shots. We delayed some vaccinations because of her extreme reaction. My ped witnessed and agreed we should hold off.
Many in our family have had issues related to viruses, and/or vaccinations. I could list all but I really don't want to take up your time to do that.
For this reason we chose to wait with our second child. I will never know if my choice to vaccinate my daughter is what caused her health conditions. I can't disprove it either.
I have a brother that is mildly mentally disabled after recieving vaccinations,that did cause his brain to swell. (That is what my parents were told many years ago. ) it was a known side effect. He was not old enough to speak and just slept a lot,and was cranky they had no idea. There are others but these are the closest to me.
I have a doctor who understands. We waited until my son was walking and talking. We spaced them out. Health care is always personal. I live in America. I have freedom to choose what is best for us. It was a really difficult choice. It was so stressful thinking either way you could be making a wrong choice for your child.There is a lot of twisted facts on both sides. Hope this adds a little perspective.

The internal GlaxoSmithKline document entered into evidence in the trial in Italy listed not only autism, but cerebral edema, as observed side effects in their clinical trials. You are correct about it being a known side effect.

 

[owlhooter]

He knew that the likelihood of being exposed to any of these diseases is very small.

Since most of this has already been refuted with actual numbers I just wanted to address this quote. The likelihood of being exposed to any of the diseases is very small because most people are vaccinated causing most of the disease to be eliminated in the US. You quoted mortality numbers earlier which, yes, better public health and health services in general helped decrease deaths due to the diseases, but the numbers also still show the cases of measles prior to the vaccine were NOT decreasing and were moving up and down as normal for years prior to the release of the vaccine. When the vaccine was released there was a marked decrease in the cases of measles each year following.

 

[ThurlFan]

To this day, any child receiving the full recommended schedule of vaccines will also have over 200 times the published maximum safe level of aluminum in their bloodstream.

This is intriguing, what's the source?

 

[DDLand]

I am supportive of vaccinations. Both of my children are vaccinated, as required by our state. We initially never questioned not vaccinating. My parents warned me, of our families history. I felt with my 1st child going to day care, not vaccinating was more of a risk. We had many issues after 1 set of shots. We delayed some vaccinations because of her extreme reaction. My ped witnessed and agreed we should hold off.
Many in our family have had issues related to viruses, and/or vaccinations. I could list all but I really don't want to take up your time to do that.
For this reason we chose to wait with our second child. I will never know if my choice to vaccinate my daughter is what caused her health conditions. I can't disprove it either.
I have a brother that is mildly mentally disabled after recieving vaccinations,that did cause his brain to swell. (That is what my parents were told many years ago. ) it was a known side effect. He was not old enough to speak and just slept a lot,and was cranky they had no idea. There are others but these are the closest to me.
I have a doctor who understands. We waited until my son was walking and talking. We spaced them out. Health care is always personal. I live in America. I have freedom to choose what is best for us. It was a really difficult choice. It was so stressful thinking either way you could be making a wrong choice for your child.There is a lot of twisted facts on both sides. Hope this adds a little perspective.

I don't think (or I hope) no one is saying there are not rare cases such as your family in which individuals are genetically predisposed to reject vaccines. That's just another reason why everyone who can must get vaccines.

Those who can't for a real medical reasons (as well as infants) are denied safety because there's a segment of the population who wants to be free riders. Not due to any scientific reasoning or evidence other then weird claims on the Internet. That strikes me as wrong. Your second child deserves protection even without vaccine. That's why society as a whole must put the greater good above their speculations and get vaccinated. I get vaccinated partially to help those who can't.

I apologize for my earlier sparking of debate and then disappearing. My father had a pretty serious ischemic stroke and I have been, and still am, very busy assiting in his affairs and helping my mother.

There was a time when “everybody” knew that the earth was flat and the center of the universe. More recently, and more relevant to this discussion, “everybody” and “every doctor” “knew” that eating foods high in cholesterol was terrible for you. As many people stated all along, they were wrong, and the government and medical communities recently recanted their warning about it. The same thing happened with eating fats. Not only was “everybody” wrong there, but they now admit that cutting fat out of the diet is actually harmful. Then we have “everybody” and “every doctor” for decades touting the need for a grain-heavy diet (as prescribed by the government long ago to help support the struggling grain industry). We now know that the grains are the most fattening and harmful part of the American diet, with direct links to obesity and deterioration of the brain. So, let’s take a look the similar subject of vaccines.

First we have the claim that vaccines eradicated some of the more dangerous diseases. The numbers from the CDC (recently scrubbed from their website but still available from the Royal Society of Medicine library) reveal the truth. Mortality numbers (not estimates or averages, the actual numbers) for measles by decade: 1900-11,956, 1910-7,615, 1920-4,919, 1930-2,957, 1940-1,013, 1950-268, 1960-162. Why are these numbers significant? Because the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, after a more than 98% reduction in deaths. The disease had already been all but eradicated and the introduction of the vaccine had no effect on the rate of decline. Diptheria? 1900-48,839, 1910-20,350, 1920-12,267, 1930-4,388, 1940-1,135, 1950-125, 1960-22. No matter which disease you look at, polio, smallpox, whichever, all of them show the exact same trend over the exact same time period. Eradication by nearly or over 90% during the period from 1920 – 1950, prior to the introduction of modern vaccines. In fact, earlier efforts at inoculation using more primitive toxoids almost universally caused increases in both new cases and mortality. The first legal requirement for smallpox vaccination was followed over the following ten years by two of the most lethal outbreaks, now universally blamed on the inoculations. The only modern vaccine that did have a marked effect was the polio vaccine, which caused an initial increase in cases and deaths. The two major figures in the development of the polio vaccine, Dr. Jonus Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin, both testified before Congress. Salk noted that most of the outbreaks of polio after 1961 were caused by the vaccine and Sabin went to far as to say that data indicated that large scale vaccination had failed to obtain any significant improvement in the diseases they were supposed to prevent. A story in the Examiner from 2009 went on for pages listing quotes from researchers, doctors, and immunology professionals listing the failure, and in some cases damage, resulting from vaccine use. It’s far too large to even try to post here.

Why is the time period significant and what really did eradicate disease? Over those decades, the advances in public sanitation and living conditions were immense. Giving a population a clean, warm environment to live in allowed natural immunity to do its job. This has recently been observed in deprived nations, where improvements in sanitation and housing have achieved far more effective results in combatting disease than any vaccination program has.

Unfortunately, doctors have knowingly advocated injecting harmful substances into our children. Case in point: Thimerosal. This vaccine ingredient contained mercury, one of the most toxic known substances. Long after it was banned across Europe because of vast clinical proof of its harm, it was finally banned here. But, large campaign donations insured a caveat that the existing stock need not be destroyed. They could go right on injecting this poison into children until their stock ran out, and there was no oversight to ensure that additional stock was not being produced while an alternative was sought. Yes, doctors went right on recommending the use of a known harmful, toxic product after it was banned. To this day, any child receiving the full recommended schedule of vaccines will also have over 200 times the published maximum safe level of aluminum in their bloodstream. And doctors go right on recommending it.
The five top vaccine manufacturers take in an average of $25 billion in revenue per year on their vaccines alone. Vaccines are big business and very powerful forces depend on their sale.

And as far as vaccines causing harm, and specifically autism, it doesn’t matter how many vaccine lobby-funded studies deny it, nations across Europe have acknowledged for years that vaccines can and do cause autism and other serious side effects. A recent case in Italy awarded damages to the family of a child who developed autism because of vaccines. Entered into evidence in that trail was an internal document from the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, regarding their vaccine clinical trials. This 1,271 page document cites numerous serious side effects, including autism, by name, as being observed in the clinical trials. The manufacturer knew this. So does anyone else who looks at the research instead of the media stories.

Vaccine use, like any other medical decision, should be a cost/benefit decision based on discussion with your doctor and on all available information, not on blind acceptance of the government’s word with no research. Our doctor, thankfully, is one of those who does not blindly recommend anything. He knew about Thimerosal. He knew about aluminum. He knew that the likelihood of being exposed to any of these diseases is very small. He also knew that most of the people who contracted measles during every outbreak in the second half of the 20th century had been vaccinated. He did not tell us to vaccinate or not to vaccinate. He gave us all the information he had and allowed us to decide. That is the way it should be.

I had to jump in and say three points.

1) While doctors and scientists have continued to find new evidence discrediting old understandings, it's always best to heed their advice. Why? Because they're just as commonly right as they are wrong. In fact I'd argue they end up being right most of the time. If they find credible evidence that they are ineffective, I don't think doctors will stop for a minute to tell you otherwise. Until then we have to make the best choices with what science is telling us. It just so happens science tells us that they work. Ironically if you use your same logic that would also discredit the conclusion they just drew now. What makes today's conclusion better then tomorrow's if they can all be proven wrong? A slippery slope...

2) No one (or I hope no one) is saying there are no risks. That's simply a flat out lie. If anyone ever says that they're either wrong or stupid. We have a government apparatus that handles those cases independently. However as you correctly pointed out, there are cost benefit choices to be made. Is helping to keep yourself safe from disease worth the one in a ten thousand chance that something could go wrong? I'd say so. I'm sorry your daughter had a bad night, something went wrong. Now you know that you should consult with a doctor before taking vaccines. Same with the other two posters. These are real serious problems. You shouldn't be forced to take vaccines if you are genetically predisposed to rejecting them. I don't think anyone is saying that. Just because you can't doesn't mean you should spread fear. Ironically that's worst thing you can do. Everyone else is protecting those who don't get it (especially infants) by herd immunity. What you're advocating hurts those people and encourages free riders weakening herd immunity. Now what many here reject is the notion that the increase in autism or other blanket effects are attributable to vaccines. 0 evidence has come forward to support those bogus claims.
3) Oh my gosh those stupid pharmacy company conspiracy theories. I'm sure not one of the thousands of employees at those companies is a good enough person to come forward to back up your claims. They're all evil. Every single one. Here's food for thought. Who pays for the vaccines? Insurance companies and the government. As we all know neither of these players are underfunded. Tell me this, if vaccines don't work why hasn't either of these two groups come forward to try to save some of that 25 billion? It's not because they couldn't afford to debunk the research for sure. I think it has to do with them working...

I think you've gone off the track here. What started out as honest concern for your daughter has become a vendetta against pharmacy companies, science, and doctors. No one is trying to say concern for your daughter is invalid, but when you spread debunked information and it has results that's when things cross a line. Period.

 

[nbenson]

My family also has a history of severe reactions to vaccines (Guillain-Barre after flu shot, for example). I wish we would've spaced out my son's vaccinations. For the rest of my life I will wonder if I caused his issues by blindly following our current aggressive vaccine schedule.

My Grandfather had this also. He was put into an iron lung. I will always wonder that same thing.
I wish these cases were not dismissed so easily. I hope one day the scientific community can define what is causing the extreme reaction in some. Once defined, it could be as simple as an allergy or genetic testing. Simply acknowledging this would make all parents feel safer. Vaccinating would not be the debate it currently is.
Prayers for you and your family. As parents we will never be perfect. You did what you thought was best at the time.

 

[Magic Band Defender]

My Grandfather had this also. He was put into an iron lung. I will always wonder that same thing.
I wish these cases were not dismissed so easily. I hope one day the scientific community can define what is causing the extreme reaction in some. Once defined, it could be as simple as an allergy or genetic testing. Simply acknowledging this would make all parents feel safer. Vaccinating would not be the debate it currently is.
Prayers for you and your family. As parents we will never be perfect. You did what you thought was best at the time.

Thank you so much for that.

 

[gemini2727]

Honestly I don't even know where to start responding to some of these anti-vaccine posts so I'll just post my 3 favorite pro-vaccine reads:

http://www.upworthy.com/16-years-ag...tely-made-up-and-it-made-us-all-sicker?c=ufb4

http://www.xojane.com/issues/vaccin...ce=FBPAGE&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=Issues

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/...ifestyle_couldn_t_prevent_many_childhood.html

I could quote statistics all day from credible public health agencies all over the world but statistics don't seem to matter to those who think vaccines don't work, will make their kid sick, etc.

I think it's hopeless to get anti-vaxxers to use their common sense (which apparently is not so common after all.) The more you reason with them, they tighter they cling to their pseudoscience and paranoia. I wouldn't care at all, except that it affects ALL of us, so I have to care.

 

[gemini2727]

We let our first child get her initial vaccination after birth. She had a violent reaction and screamed in pain through almost all of her first night of life. It was horrible. When my parents came to see her and heard about it, they said I had a similar reaction.

How do you know that your baby was screaming in pain in reaction to her vaccine? I worked many years in a newborn nursery and babies unfortunately scream quite a lot for many reasons, most usually hunger. I'm assuming you're blaming the Hep B vaccine that is now given at birth? You couldn't have had the same reaction because the Hep B vaccine is relatively new and has only been given routinely since 1991, unless you are very young yourself?
Even if your child reacted as you say, that wouldn't stop me from vaccinating against a possibly deadly disease. A day or two of fussiness is common after a vaccine, well worth the trouble for the immunity it confers.

 

[BugsDaddy]

7series, I don't know where to begin. Your whole post is one big word salad of nonsense. Baseless assertions with nothing to back it up.



http://vec.chop.edu/service/vaccine...cine-safety/vaccine-ingredients/aluminum.html

This is a load of BS - citation please or its just you blowing smoke out your...
Aluminum is third most common element on earth, its completely unavoidable. Its in the food we eat, air we breath and water we drink. A breastfeeding 6month old will get nearly 2x the amount of aluminum from breast milk then he/she will from immunizations at that time. But I doubt any of the crank pseudoscience websites you got your misinformation from will tell you that.


What harmful substances? Please elaborate. Citations needed or else its just you blowing more smoke.


No it has not. If you have evidence to support that statement then please provide the citation.


8 glasses of water a day is not dangerous, 80 will kill you, yes it can be dangerous.


Sounds like you need a new doctor. And yes you are grossly misinterpreting the numbers, which I will go into detail a little further down. And yes I can tell you got those interpretations from "sketchy websites" because the antivax cranks love to use mortality data as proof that vaccines had no effect. Antivax cranks don't like to use morbidity because that show how wrong their entire fearmongering campaign is.


Here is the actual number of cases per year. Do you now see how you are completely wrong. I'm sure you will still think you are correct and try some hand waving and smoke blowing and blather on about mortality. But as you can plainly see that measles was not eradicated prior to 1963. Contrary to your completely false assertion, the vaccine had huge effect on its decline. You are correct about reduction in deaths but hat was due to better medical care. Again this is something your favorite antivax quack will not tell you. This is why trusting these fools only makes you look ignorant when you parrot their misinterpreted and incorrect data.

You have got be kidding me, You're doctor told you this? What school did he go to? He might want to ask for his money back. Ask that brilliant doctor of yours, or you favorite antivax loon, exactly how measles spreads. Then ask him exactly what possible effect public sanitation and clean water had on preventing the spread of measles. (hint - it had no effect. Anyone who says different is an idiot)

"Giving a population a clean, warm environment to live in allowed natural immunity to do its job" This statement is ridiculous. So if a population has a clean warm environment then they will never get sick?


"Doctors have knowingly advocated injecting harmful substances into our children - no they have not. Just because you say it doesn't make it true. You really need to find a better source of information. Your ignorance is now becoming laughable. Ask that quack doctor of yours exactly what type of mercury was in thimerisol. (hint - it starts with an e. And yes there is a huge difference. Kind of like there is a big difference between ethyl-alcohol and methyl-alcohol)


No matter how many times you repeat it it just isn't true.


It doesnt matter how many times you may deny it - Vaccines don't cause autism. Go read any of the dozens of studies that say there is no link and then post here and tell us why it's flawed. Saying "vaccine lobby funded studies" will not cut it is just more hand waving from you. But usually when you have nothing but baseless assertions then hand waving and smoke screens are your only defense. "Nations across Europe have acknowledged for years that vaccines can and do cause autism and other serious side effects" No they haven't. Again, citations please. Regarding the Italy case - So now we are going to trust medical decisions here in the USA to judges in Italy?


As I already showed you your doctor doesn't know anything about aluminum or thimerisol. Seriously might want to consider a new doctor.

Great post....I am not even sure that anything more needs to be said. What could possibly be a good response to this? They may come back with "I know you are but what am I?"

 

[Geoff_M]

Ok, I am biting.
I started researching vaccines in great depth with the birth of my first daughter 8 years ago. There is so much wrong when it comes to the subject of vaccines, it is hard to know where to start. Here are some (very well-researched) facts for you:

All I can say is "Dunning-Kruger Effect"

1) The current US vaccine schedule has never been tested for safety. Vaccines are "tested" only individually, not in combination with others.

Horse Hockey!

(And when these safety tests are conducted, the "placebo" is usually an aluminum adjuvant--a potent neurotoxin. Also, the period of reporting is limited to a few days, maybe a couple of weeks at most.) So, when your doctor tells you it is perfectly safe to give your 2-month old infant 6 vaccines at once, he/she is misleading you. We simply do not know if it is safe because that study hasn't been done. And there have been no long-term safety studies on vaccines at all. Why not?

Again, there have been plenty of studies. Also your "aluminum" rant also ignores basic bio chemistry. Elemental aluminum is not the same, biologically, as an aluminum-based salt. If I follow your logic, table salt would also be a "deadly toxin" as it contains a dangerous metal (Sodium) that reacts with water to form a caustic lye and a poisonous gas (Chlorine) that is considered a chemical weapon. Claiming that an aluminum-based salt is a "a potent neurotoxin" because it contains aluminum is like saying that salting your mashed potatoes is the equal to pouring Drano and Clorox bleach on them.

2) Vaccines absolutely CAN cause autism, and the federal vaccine court has been quietly awarding monetary damages to families so affected since the 1990's. As an attorney, I find it fascinating that these cases exist, and yet public health officials can say with a straight face on the evening news that vaccines absolutely do not cause autism. Also, what happened to journalistic integrity? These stories amount to nothing more than propaganda, and an attempt to sway public opinion. (As a side note, everyone should go online and read some personal accounts of families dealing with regressive autism as the result of vaccination--there are tens of thousands of such stories. This is the only way to achieve real informed consent, because most doctors will never admit to the possible negative effects of vaccines.)

No, there have not been any "secret" payments from the US "Vaccine Court" to pay for cases of vaccine-induced autism. You are twisting the cases of individuals like Hannah Poling. Poling was not diagnosed as being Autisic. The court found that the vaccine triggered a severe reaction due to her underlying rare mitochondrial disorder. But, because some of the symptoms of the neurological harm she suffered are "autism-like", the anti-vaxxers (Poling's father included) have trumpeted the award as "proof" that the court has "secretly" accepted the fact that vaccines cause autism. The problem is that "autism-like" doesn't mean "autism", no more than having "flu-like" symptoms (such as a fever and body aches) doesn't mean that root cause of those symptoms is indeed influenza.

Additionally, as a self-proclaimed lawyer, you'll appreciate the fact that the US "Vaccine Court" explicitly considered an "omnibus" case to consider adding "Autism" to the list of conditions on the "vaccine injury" schedule, and that claim was resoundingly rejected. Here's the docket from the omnibus proceedings, if you care to read it.

3) The impressive decline in disease mortality over the first half of the past century was the result of improved living conditions (clean drinking water and food, modern sewer systems). There are some excellent CDC graphs depicting the decline in disease mortality well before the introduction of vaccines, and no, you do not need to be a doctor to understand them. This is the reason poor populations in third world countries are still dying in great numbers from these diseases. They don't need more shots--they need clean drinking water and better nutrition.

Let's talk real numbers here. In the year before the US measles vaccines was licensed in 1963, there was approximately 200,000 reported cases of measles in this country. The problem is that anti-vaxxers love to fixate on the mortality rate and whistle past the fact that the number of lives lost is a function of the number of cases TIMES the mortality rate. In 1962, that means that it was reported that 408 people died of measles in the US. The recognized morality rate in 1962 was 0.2%, which ironically the same as it is today, after 50 years of medical advances.

Anti-vaxxers also wish to pretend that "death" is the only concern that one should have with the disease, but as the CDC "Pink Book" link in the above paragraph points out, it's only one long-term "complication". In addition to the less common complication of "acute encephalitis" (0.1%), the CDC notes: "Some form of residual neurologic damage occurs in as many as 25% of cases." A common form of this damage is hearing loss. One of my Grandfathers lost a large percentage of his hearing to childhood measles.

4) Herd immunity is a term that applies to populations with natural immunity to disease. Vaccines are a poor substitute for natural immunity, and the press has thrown this term around so much that people are confused and think it applies to vaccines. It doesn't, and vaccines have never been scientifically proven to work that way.

Horse Hockey, again! You need to look no further than the fraudulent Wakefield-induced hysteria in the UK to see evidence of vaccine-based herd immunity at work. "Vaccination rates in Britain plunged to 85 percent and measles cases rose: 1,000 cases 2011, 1,900 in 2012 and again in 2013. A mumps epidemic made more than 56,000 Britons sick in 2004-2005. Now vaccination rates are back up to 95 percent and just 137 cases were reported in Britain in 2014. Measles cases were mostly among children aged 10 to 19 who missed the normal vaccination schedule during the vaccine scare years."

5) There has never been a study comparing the health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. You should be asking why.

I'll tell you why, because in the world of clinical trial design, it is considered unethical to, as part of a study, to withhold something from a control group when there already exists reasonable evidence that the withholding would cause harm to the group. Like it or not, the overwhelming evidence is that the measles vaccines "works", and to conduct the type of study you propose that would intentionally send out a group of unprotected children to see what happens to them medically when they encounter the disease "in the wild", would be immoral. However, there are plenty of retrospective studies that have looked at the outcomes of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated and they overwhelmingly show: 1) Vaccines work, 2) They don't cause autism.

6) The media frenzy over a few measles cases defies common sense. Yes, measles is highly contagious, but no, it is not highly dangerous to the US population. Not so long ago, it was a very common childhood illness that wasn't cause for concern. Even for babies. Why don't we focus on the 20,000+ deaths each year from hospital acquired infections? 100 cases of non-fatal measles is not news. But you should be asking why it is.

If there was something as simple as a vaccine that would prevent 20,000 deaths due to hospital acquired infections each year, and it wasn't being utilized, I'd equally be up in arms. We're well past "100 cases"... the concern, rightly so, can be seen in this graph:

The concern isn't just the 100+ cases that can be traced to DL, it's the trend that appears to be developing and the concern about what the bars will look like for 2015, 2016, etc.

7) Parents--you simply cannot rely on a doctor's beliefs to make up your mind on this issue. Doctors spend very little time in medical school learning about vaccinations. And most of what they learn is limited to conclusions like: Vaccines saved the world, and no one suffers reactions to them. You need to recognize that there have been many instances in the not-too-far past when the medical establishment was wrong about the safety and effectiveness of common treatments. Example: It used to be that pregnant women had x-rays of their babies in utero (1950's). We now know how dangerous this is. Another example: Some common morning sickness medications used in the same timeframe caused horrific and well-documented birth defects, as those medications were not adequately tested before widespread use. Bottom line, you NEED to research these issues yourselves. You do not need to be an MD to be able to read, to reason, and to come to your own conclusions. You just need to be curious enough to look into it for yourself. Believe me, it is a fascinating and terrible read.

All I can say is "Dunning-Kruger Effect" It's also ironic that in the cases you cite science proved its ability to be "self-correcting" when new information has been found that changes our understanding of matters. When something is investigated and scientific evidence is found to prove that a challenge to our understanding is correct, it adapts. But in the case of vaccines, the anti-vaxxers will not yield to such logic, because they "just know" that they are right.... the evidence be damned. All they have is "argument by anomaly."

8) For those of you calling for mandatory vaccinations: When you no longer have the deciding vote about whether a foreign substance is injected into your body (whatever it may be), that would be the point when you are no longer free. Period.

To my knowledge, people in the black government vans haven't been chasing down "vaccine refusers" and forceably vaccinating them. If you don't want to vaccinate your kid against common childhood illnesses, fine... then you have the "choice" to home-school them. If you don't want to get an annual seasonal flu-shot, fine... you then have the "choice" to do work somewhere else than in a healthcare facility. It's your call. You don't want "choice", you want "choice without any consequences."

 

[Deb in IA]

Facebook should shut down anti-vaxxers:

http://time.com/3714990/zuckerberg-vaccines-facebook/#3714990/zuckerberg-vaccines-facebook/



Facebook Must Shut Down the Anti-Vaxxers
Jeffrey Kluger@jeffreykluger
Feb. 19, 2015
Mark Zuckerberg should unfriend the crazies before more people get hurt
Mark Zuckerberg has never been famous for his reading choices. No one knows or cares if the founder of Facebook got around to Moby **** when he was at Harvard. But in January, Zuckerberg launched an online book club, offering reading recommendations to members every two weeks. Earlier suggestions included such important works as Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature and Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day.
But Zuckerberg dropped something of a small bombshell with his most recent—and most excellent—choice, On Immunityby Eula Biss. It’s a thoughtful exploration of what’s behind the irrational fear and suspicion in the anti-vaccine community, as well as a full-throated call for parents to heed medical wisdom and get their kids vaccinated. “The science is completely clear,” Zuckerberg writes, “vaccinations work and are important for the health of everyone in our community.”
So kudos to Zuckerberg for getting the truth out and challenging the lies.
And shame on Zuckerberg for enabling those lies, too.
Social media sites can do an exceedingly good job of keeping people connected and, more important, spreading the word about important social issues. (Think the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge would have raised the $100 million it did for research into Lou Gehrig’s disease if people couldn’t post the videos of themselves being heroically doused?) But it’s long been clear the sites can be used perniciously too.
Want to spend some time in the birther swamp, trading conspiracy theories with people who absolutely, positively can tell you the Kenyan hospital in which President Obama was born? You can find them online. Ditto the climate-denying cranks and the 9/11 truthers.
But the anti-vaxxers have a particular power. People who buy the nonsense on a birther or truther page can’t do much more than join that loony community and howl nonsense into the online wind. Climate change denial is a little more dangerous because every person who comes to believe that global warming is a massive hoax makes it a tiny, incremental bit harder to enact sensible climate policy.
Anti-vaxxers, however, do their work at the grass-roots, retail, one-on-one level. Convince Mother A of the fake dangers of vaccines and you increase the odds that she won’t vaccinate Child B—and perhaps Children C, D or E either. And every unvaccinated child in her brood increases the risk to the neighborhood, the school, the community—the entire herd, as the epidemiologists put it. The multi-state measles outbreak that began in Disneyland, along with the epidemics of mumps and whooping cough in Columbus, Ohio and throughout California, have all been fueled by falling vaccine rates.
One thing that would help—something Zuckerberg could do with little more than a flick of the switch, as could Twitter CEO **** Costolo and the other bosses of other sites—is simply shut the anti-vaxxers down. Really. Pull their pages, block their posts, twist the spigot of misinformation before more people get hurt
The very idea of muzzling any information—even misinformation—will surely send libertarians to their fainting couches. Similarly, people who believe they understand the Constitution but actually don’t will immediately invoke the First Amendment. But of course they’re misguided. Is Facebook a government agency? No, it’s not. Is Zuckerberg a government official? No, he’s not. Then this is not a First Amendment issue. Read your Constitution.
It’s not as if the folks at Facebook aren’t clear about the kinds of things they will and won’t allow on the site, providing a brief listing and a detailed description of what are considered no-go areas. “You may not credibly threaten others, or organize acts of real-world violence,” is one rule, so nobody would get away with posting instructions for, say, how to build a pressure cooker bomb. There is nothing in the regulations that specifically prohibits trafficking in bogus medical information, but the first section of the policy statement begins, “Safety is Facebook’s top priority,” and then goes on to say “We remove content and may escalate to law enforcement when we perceive a genuine risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety.” (Emphasis added.)
It’s worth wondering if Facebook would consider a page arguing that HIV does not cause AIDS and that therefore condoms are not necessary a threat to public safety. What about one that told teens that bogus research shows it’s OK to drive drunk if you’ve had no more than, say, three beers? If the site managers didn’t block these pages and a multi-car crack-up or a cluster of HIV infections occurred as a result, would they wish they they’d made a different decision? It’s hard to know. (As of publication time, Facebook had not responded to TIME’s request for a comment on, or further statement about, its policies.)
Facebook is equal parts town square, medium of communication and commercial bazaar—complete with ads. And it does all of those jobs well. What the site shouldn’t be is a vector for lies—especially lies that can harm children. Free speech is not in play here. This should be an easy call.

 

[DisneyBabies]

I am supportive of vaccinations. Both of my children are vaccinated, as required by our state. We initially never questioned not vaccinating. My parents warned me, of our families history. I felt with my 1st child going to day care, not vaccinating was more of a risk. We had many issues after 1 set of shots. We delayed some vaccinations because of her extreme reaction. My ped witnessed and agreed we should hold off.
Many in our family have had issues related to viruses, and/or vaccinations. I could list all but I really don't want to take up your time to do that.
For this reason we chose to wait with our second child. I will never know if my choice to vaccinate my daughter is what caused her health conditions. I can't disprove it either.
I have a brother that is mildly mentally disabled after recieving vaccinations,that did cause his brain to swell. (That is what my parents were told many years ago. ) it was a known side effect. He was not old enough to speak and just slept a lot,and was cranky they had no idea. There are others but these are the closest to me.
I have a doctor who understands. We waited until my son was walking and talking. We spaced them out. Health care is always personal. I live in America. I have freedom to choose what is best for us. It was a really difficult choice. It was so stressful thinking either way you could be making a wrong choice for your child.There is a lot of twisted facts on both sides. Hope this adds a little perspective.

My family also has a history of severe reactions to vaccines (Guillain-Barre after flu shot, for example). I wish we would've spaced out my son's vaccinations. For the rest of my life I will wonder if I caused his issues by blindly following our current aggressive vaccine schedule.

We let our first child get her initial vaccination after birth. She had a violent reaction and screamed in pain through almost all of her first night of life. It was horrible. When my parents came to see her and heard about it, they said I had a similar reaction.

These posts sound to me like there are genetic/chromosomal issues that, combined with the vaccines, cause health issues within some families. So it doesn't seem to be the vaccine that is the problem, but a "perfect storm" of things.

nbenson and Magic Band Defender, I'm so sorry to hear about the guilt you feel. As parents we will never be free of that emotion and we can only do what we feel is best for our children.

I have vaccinated all three of my children. We felt that the risk of serious complications from the vaccines were low and vaccinating was the best option for them. Our youngest has a different schedule than the two older ones did and she has had a couple of fevers after being vaccinated, but otherwise we had no problems.

I don't believe that vaccines cause autism; I believe that it is genetic and the vaccines may contribute to the symptoms being increased which leads to an early diagnosis. I know several families who have children on the spectrum and in every one of them, there is another in their family tree who were diagnosed with autism. One of the children had no vaccines because another family member had a child with autism and they believed the vaccine caused it; bottom line, vaccinated children are not the only ones who are diagnosed with autism.

However, for those that do believe the autism link, let me paraphrase something I read a few days ago:

Autism will not kill your child or mine . . . but that little rash and fever you have the potential to spread around just might.

 

[gmboy95]

vaccines causing autism is junk science....maybe we should spend less time worrying about those things , and more time worrying about the modified foods we put in our kids, and the crap they breath every day just walking out the door....those two things probably explain alot more about our inherent health risks then anything else in this world.....if you choose not to vaccinate your children, then IMO you have made the first bad choice of your children's life, and i pray you don't suffer the consequences

 

[mk200]

I think it's hopeless to get anti-vaxxers to use their common sense (which apparently is not so common after all.) The more you reason with them, they tighter they cling to their pseudoscience and paranoia. I wouldn't care at all, except that it affects ALL of us, so I have to care.

Your comment says a lot about you Gemini. Black and white right? No in between, no real discussion on this issue because "all the science is in, no question." The science is never in on anything, and anyone who says otherwise is lying or trying to sell you something. The only real thing you can say about science is that it is constantly changing and evolving as our knowledge increases. There is a massive cover up on this vaccination issue, and there is another side to this you clearly know nothing about. We who are prochoice are trying to warn you all, but I guess you will either have to suffer a vaccine injury in your own family, or have an authority figure tell you otherwise.

 

[mk200]

vaccines causing autism is junk science....maybe we should spend less time worrying about those things , and more time worrying about the modified foods we put in our kids, and the crap they breath every day just walking out the door....those two things probably explain alot more about our inherent health risks then anything else in this world.....if you choose not to vaccinate your children, then IMO you have made the first bad choice of your children's life, and i pray you don't suffer the consequences

It's not junk science because there is no science. That is the only reason they can say the studies don't support a connection because THERE ARE NO REAL STUDIES. If you think otherwise then link the studies, because many of us have looked for them and have come up empty handed. They won't touch it with a ten foot pole. Protect your own because they care nothing about your family. By the way, measles is not the black plague.

 

[mk200]

Facebook should shut down anti-vaxxers:

http://time.com/3714990/zuckerberg-vaccines-facebook/#3714990/zuckerberg-vaccines-facebook/



Facebook Must Shut Down the Anti-Vaxxers
Jeffrey Kluger@jeffreykluger
Feb. 19, 2015
Mark Zuckerberg should unfriend the crazies before more people get hurt
Mark Zuckerberg has never been famous for his reading choices. No one knows or cares if the founder of Facebook got around to Moby **** when he was at Harvard. But in January, Zuckerberg launched an online book club, offering reading recommendations to members every two weeks. Earlier suggestions included such important works as Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature and Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day.
But Zuckerberg dropped something of a small bombshell with his most recent—and most excellent—choice, On Immunityby Eula Biss. It’s a thoughtful exploration of what’s behind the irrational fear and suspicion in the anti-vaccine community, as well as a full-throated call for parents to heed medical wisdom and get their kids vaccinated. “The science is completely clear,” Zuckerberg writes, “vaccinations work and are important for the health of everyone in our community.”
So kudos to Zuckerberg for getting the truth out and challenging the lies.
And shame on Zuckerberg for enabling those lies, too.
Social media sites can do an exceedingly good job of keeping people connected and, more important, spreading the word about important social issues. (Think the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge would have raised the $100 million it did for research into Lou Gehrig’s disease if people couldn’t post the videos of themselves being heroically doused?) But it’s long been clear the sites can be used perniciously too.
Want to spend some time in the birther swamp, trading conspiracy theories with people who absolutely, positively can tell you the Kenyan hospital in which President Obama was born? You can find them online. Ditto the climate-denying cranks and the 9/11 truthers.
But the anti-vaxxers have a particular power. People who buy the nonsense on a birther or truther page can’t do much more than join that loony community and howl nonsense into the online wind. Climate change denial is a little more dangerous because every person who comes to believe that global warming is a massive hoax makes it a tiny, incremental bit harder to enact sensible climate policy.
Anti-vaxxers, however, do their work at the grass-roots, retail, one-on-one level. Convince Mother A of the fake dangers of vaccines and you increase the odds that she won’t vaccinate Child B—and perhaps Children C, D or E either. And every unvaccinated child in her brood increases the risk to the neighborhood, the school, the community—the entire herd, as the epidemiologists put it. The multi-state measles outbreak that began in Disneyland, along with the epidemics of mumps and whooping cough in Columbus, Ohio and throughout California, have all been fueled by falling vaccine rates.
One thing that would help—something Zuckerberg could do with little more than a flick of the switch, as could Twitter CEO **** Costolo and the other bosses of other sites—is simply shut the anti-vaxxers down. Really. Pull their pages, block their posts, twist the spigot of misinformation before more people get hurt
The very idea of muzzling any information—even misinformation—will surely send libertarians to their fainting couches. Similarly, people who believe they understand the Constitution but actually don’t will immediately invoke the First Amendment. But of course they’re misguided. Is Facebook a government agency? No, it’s not. Is Zuckerberg a government official? No, he’s not. Then this is not a First Amendment issue. Read your Constitution.
It’s not as if the folks at Facebook aren’t clear about the kinds of things they will and won’t allow on the site, providing a brief listing and a detailed description of what are considered no-go areas. “You may not credibly threaten others, or organize acts of real-world violence,” is one rule, so nobody would get away with posting instructions for, say, how to build a pressure cooker bomb. There is nothing in the regulations that specifically prohibits trafficking in bogus medical information, but the first section of the policy statement begins, “Safety is Facebook’s top priority,” and then goes on to say “We remove content and may escalate to law enforcement when we perceive a genuine risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety.” (Emphasis added.)
It’s worth wondering if Facebook would consider a page arguing that HIV does not cause AIDS and that therefore condoms are not necessary a threat to public safety. What about one that told teens that bogus research shows it’s OK to drive drunk if you’ve had no more than, say, three beers? If the site managers didn’t block these pages and a multi-car crack-up or a cluster of HIV infections occurred as a result, would they wish they they’d made a different decision? It’s hard to know. (As of publication time, Facebook had not responded to TIME’s request for a comment on, or further statement about, its policies.)
Facebook is equal parts town square, medium of communication and commercial bazaar—complete with ads. And it does all of those jobs well. What the site shouldn’t be is a vector for lies—especially lies that can harm children. Free speech is not in play here. This should be an easy call.

What happened to free speech? Only when people agree with you?

 

[mk200]

All I can say is "Dunning-Kruger Effect"
Horse Hockey!
Again, there have been plenty of studies. Also your "aluminum" rant also ignores basic bio chemistry. Elemental aluminum is not the same, biologically, as an aluminum-based salt. If I follow your logic, table salt would also be a "deadly toxin" as it contains a dangerous metal (Sodium) that reacts with water to form a caustic lye and a poisonous gas (Chlorine) that is considered a chemical weapon. Claiming that an aluminum-based salt is a "a potent neurotoxin" because it contains aluminum is like saying that salting your mashed potatoes is the equal to pouring Drano and Clorox bleach on them.
No, there have not been any "secret" payments from the US "Vaccine Court" to pay for cases of vaccine-induced autism. You are twisting the cases of individuals like Hannah Poling. Poling was not diagnosed as being Autisic. The court found that the vaccine triggered a severe reaction due to her underlying rare mitochondrial disorder. But, because some of the symptoms of the neurological harm she suffered are "autism-like", the anti-vaxxers (Poling's father included) have trumpeted the award as "proof" that the court has "secretly" accepted the fact that vaccines cause autism. The problem is that "autism-like" doesn't mean "autism", no more than having "flu-like" symptoms (such as a fever and body aches) doesn't mean that root cause of those symptoms is indeed influenza.

Additionally, as a self-proclaimed lawyer, you'll appreciate the fact that the US "Vaccine Court" explicitly considered an "omnibus" case to consider adding "Autism" to the list of conditions on the "vaccine injury" schedule, and that claim was resoundingly rejected. Here's the docket from the omnibus proceedings, if you care to read it.

Let's talk real numbers here. In the year before the US measles vaccines was licensed in 1963, there was approximately 200,000 reported cases of measles in this country. The problem is that anti-vaxxers love to fixate on the mortality rate and whistle past the fact that the number of lives lost is a function of the number of cases TIMES the mortality rate. In 1962, that means that it was reported that 408 people died of measles in the US. The recognized morality rate in 1962 was 0.2%, which ironically the same as it is today, after 50 years of medical advances.

Anti-vaxxers also wish to pretend that "death" is the only concern that one should have with the disease, but as the CDC "Pink Book" link in the above paragraph points out, it's only one long-term "complication". In addition to the less common complication of "acute encephalitis" (0.1%), the CDC notes: "Some form of residual neurologic damage occurs in as many as 25% of cases." A common form of this damage is hearing loss. One of my Grandfathers lost a large percentage of his hearing to childhood measles.

Horse Hockey, again! You need to look no further than the fraudulent Wakefield-induced hysteria in the UK to see evidence of vaccine-based herd immunity at work. "Vaccination rates in Britain plunged to 85 percent and measles cases rose: 1,000 cases 2011, 1,900 in 2012 and again in 2013. A mumps epidemic made more than 56,000 Britons sick in 2004-2005. Now vaccination rates are back up to 95 percent and just 137 cases were reported in Britain in 2014. Measles cases were mostly among children aged 10 to 19 who missed the normal vaccination schedule during the vaccine scare years."

I'll tell you why, because in the world of clinical trial design, it is considered unethical to, as part of a study, to withhold something from a control group when there already exists reasonable evidence that the withholding would cause harm to the group. Like it or not, the overwhelming evidence is that the measles vaccines "works", and to conduct the type of study you propose that would intentionally send out a group of unprotected children to see what happens to them medically when they encounter the disease "in the wild", would be immoral. However, there are plenty of retrospective studies that have looked at the outcomes of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated and they overwhelmingly show: 1) Vaccines work, 2) They don't cause autism.

If there was something as simple as a vaccine that would prevent 20,000 deaths due to hospital acquired infections each year, and it wasn't being utilized, I'd equally be up in arms. We're well past "100 cases"... the concern, rightly so, can be seen in this graph:

The concern isn't just the 100+ cases that can be traced to DL, it's the trend that appears to be developing and the concern about what the bars will look like for 2015, 2016, etc.

All I can say is "Dunning-Kruger Effect" It's also ironic that in the cases you cite science proved its ability to be "self-correcting" when new information has been found that changes our understanding of matters. When something is investigated and scientific evidence is found to prove that a challenge to our understanding is correct, it adapts. But in the case of vaccines, the anti-vaxxers will not yield to such logic, because they "just know" that they are right.... the evidence be damned. All they have is "argument by anomaly."

To my knowledge, people in the black government vans haven't been chasing down "vaccine refusers" and forceably vaccinating them. If you don't want to vaccinate your kid against common childhood illnesses, fine... then you have the "choice" to home-school them. If you don't want to get an annual seasonal flu-shot, fine... you then have the "choice" to do work somewhere else than in a healthcare facility. It's your call. You don't want "choice", you want "choice without any consequences."

Hey Geoff-- Your argument on aluminum made zero sense. By the way, the MORTALITY rate was plummeting for many years before the MMR vaccine. As far as forceable vaccination--it is coming to a neighborhood near you (see CA, OR, WA, and VT). You really don't want a say in whether you or your own gets this stuff? How many is too many to you? There are 100's in the development pipeline. Vaccine developer Paul Offit (profit?) says an infant can get 10,000 at once! So, let's be conservative then: you good with your kid getting say 100 in one visit? You won't have a say either way, soon.