Monday 1 August 2016

Gish gallop Part 2

WARNING: This is Part 2 of a multi-part response to yet another anti-vaccine crackpot, so proceed at your own risk.  

When we left off at the end of Part 1, I had decided to skip down a bit on page 1 of Kelly's already-ridiculous 16 page "document" a bit.  It had taken me hours to slog through just the first half of the first page that was supposed to educate and awaken me on the dangers of vaccines.  By the end of part 1, I had learned a lot, but the vast majority was about the mindset of these antivaccine lunatics.

With that lovely and stimulating preface which is sure to make you want to read on, we're moving on.

The utterly preposterous "Vaccines didn't save us" bit from the ironically titled "Child Health Safety blog" predictably shows up.  This has been roundly destroyed by Dr. David Gorski far better than I ever could, so I will leave that steaming pile of bullshit alone and refer you to Dr. Gorski for full details.  The TL;DR version: it's total bullshit.  There is then a link to a story about why Japan banned the MMR (due to increased reported side effects) and switched to separate vaccines.  That sure sounds damning, right?  What Kelly and her colleagues don't tell you (cherry picking, anyone?) is that even after Japan completely eliminated MMR in 1993, their rate of autism continued to rise just as fast as it was before.  The only thing that tells me is that MMR doesn't cause autism.  I wonder what Kelly and her friends think it means.  We don't know, because they gloss over this little nugget.

Skipping down a bit more, there is a link to the ridiculously named "National Vaccine Information Center", which is, according to their mission statement, "dedicated to the prevention of vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to defending the informed consent ethic in medicine".  In reality, they are 100% antivaccine, and their president, Barbara Loe Fisher, is #131 in the Encyclopedia of American Loons.  There is no other information on the link, just the link.  So the reader is left to wonder the significance.

Next are multiple links to Age of Autism, followed by multiple links to Natural News (which incidentally has now become my go-to source for comedy).  Natural News is a hive of pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and outright bullshit (but heck, they do have a store!)  I can therefore skip these with aplomb and panache without any reservation whatsoever.

One of the next sources is a link to the Sierra Leone Times.  Hm . . . curious.  Upon clicking it, it refers to a Natural News article (ugh, of course) about the varicella vaccine being ineffective in South Korea.  I had to search for the paper, and upon reading it I discovered that Kelly actually had a point - the 2014 study found that the chicken pox vaccine was only found to be 54% effective with a high breakthrough rate and little amelioration of disease.  The authors' conclusion, however, was not "THIS VACCINE SUCKS!", but rather "This vaccine sucks and we need a better one".  Indeed, looking at the statistics in other countries (for example in the US where a different and much more effective vaccine is used) reveals a startling difference:
But Kelly didn't list this site in her sources, now did she.  The fact is that vaccine wasn't great, but there are better ones available that are quite effective and very safe.  Kelly doesn't want you to know this, however.

After more sanevax and healthimpactnews links (more head-crushing antivax comedy masquerading as information), I skipped forward to the next page where I was dismayed to find a bunch of Facebook links.  Now last time I checked (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), Facebook is not exactly a bastion of peer-reviewed science.  In fact, I'm not aware of any peer-reviewed science having been published on Facebook.  I have no idea what Kelly thought Facebook posts were supposed to prove, so I skipped them without a second thought.  If there is any useful information in any of the links, I have to assume it will be contained in the rest of Kelly's expansive document.

There's also a link to a story about an outbreak of mumps where 8 university students were infected despite being fully vaccinated.  However, again what Kelly's friends don't tell you is that the mumps portion of MMR is 88% effective (less than both the rubella and measles portion), and the infection is typically milder among those vaccinated compared to the disease that unvaccinated people get.  And let's again remind ourselves of the protection rate of not being vaccinated: That's right, 0%.  And since most people are vaccinated, it is likely that a majority of the patients in any outbreak will be vaccinated.  That's just simple statistics, folks.

You'll now have to pardon me as I slogged through (read: skipped) more Facebook links, YouTube videos, Huffington Post posts, Natural News bullshit, Vaxtruth balderdash, Vaccine Impact poppycock, No Vaccine hooey, and Health Impact News codswallop.  Bullshit bullshit bullshit, more bullshit, and AAAH, here we go.  A Pubmed article.  Finally!  Now we have some literature.  Ok let's see . . . it's uh, wait, an article from 1950 about the similarity of the mousepox virus to the cowpox virus, and variola to vaccinia?  I don't, uh, yeah, um . . . hm.

There's also a horrible piece of hypothetical pseudoscience from Theresa Deisher who holds a PhD in Molecular Cellular Physiology and should be capable of some good science, but nay.  She purports that foetal DNA fragments in vaccines may combine with our DNA and do bad things.  My oh my.  I can't even begin to touch on this as well as Dr. Gorski did here.  This is nothing but fear mongering.  Know what else contains DNA?  MEAT AND  VEGETABLES.  Ever heard of mutant chicken-people laying eggs and pecking people's eyes out?  (Listen up, Hollywood - that's a great fucking idea for a movie.  Call me.)  The likelihood of tiny bits of foreign DNA recombining with ours is thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to 0, and the likelihood of that tiny bit of DNA being useful AND recombining with native DNA in a way that would be functional is approximately the likelihood of James Cameron making my Chicken People movie AND me winning the lottery every week for the next 1.93 million years.

Approximately.

As I scrolled down to page 3 (yes, after all that we're still only on page 3 out of 16), a very prominent name nearly popped off the page: Johns Hopkins.  And it's actually a link to a story the Hopkins website!  Huzzah!  Something credible!  But alas, it's a study about brain inflammation in autism, which is one of antivaxxers' latest obsessions, it seems.  The hypothesis seems to go a little like this: autistic brains have more inflammation, and vaccines induce the immune system, and yada yada yada AUTISM!  But Kelly and her friends missed one little detail: THE VERY FIRST LINE: "While many different combinations of genetic traits can cause autism . . . ".  But no, they ignore that little tidbit to make the giant leap to a false conclusion.  I have no problem with the hypothesis that microglial cells are activated in brains of autistic people, but there is no evidence that vaccines induce this.

Right after Hopkins was another name I recognised: CHOP (Children's Hospital Philadelphia).  The link goes to the aluminum information page.  Aluminum is another favourite target of antivaxxers because they don't understand it.  At least, that's the only reason I can think of.  Anyway, CHOP very clearly details how much aluminum is in each vaccine dose versus how much is ingested in the diet (about 26 times as much in the diet if a baby is fed soy-based formula), though I will acknowledge that proportionally more aluminum is taken up and enters the circulation when it is injected than when it is ingested.  No, it is NOT injected directly into the bloodstream.  Dr. Paul Offitt explains this very nicely in a video ON THAT PAGE.  This seems to be another self-destructive link for Kelly (though her ilk are not very big fans of Dr. Offitt).

Towards the bottom of page 3 (YES, STILL ONLY PAGE 3) there is an article from the journal Vaccine (which also published the excellent Taylor meta-analysis) entitled "Annual influenza vaccination affects the development of heterosubtypic immunity".  Hm, good title, good article - this should be good!  It states that getting a flu vaccine (ie against the H3N2 subtype) may inhibit immunity against other subtypes of the flu virus (ie H5N1) and which "highlight(s) the importance of the development of vaccines that provide protection against influenza A viruses of all subtypes".  The underlying message of the article is that the flu vaccine is probably the least effective vaccine we have, so we need to a better one.  Kelly's annotation here says "(of course the answer is MORE and BETTER vaccines)"  Well no Kelly, not necessarily more, just better.  But isn't that what we should want?  Better vaccines?  It doesn't say it's unsafe, it doesn't say it has massive severe side effects, just that it isn't that protective.  So I don't remotely understand the controversy here.

Moving on to page 4.

The first article discusses how maternal antibodies from mothers vaccinated with MMR protect newborns from measles, mumps, and rubella for 3.3, 2.7, and 3.9 months respectively, and 3.4 months for varicella.  Babies of unvaccinated mothers had about 2 months additional protection.  However, MMR and varicella vaccines are not recommended until 12 months, meaning that ALL children are unprotected for at least 6 months, relying instead on herd immunity to protect them.  Even Kelly must admit that lower vaccination rates would lead to higher infection rates, especially in highly susceptible infants, and even Kelly must admit that's bad, right?  RIGHT?

The next citation is a review of the chicken pox vaccination program in the US, published in the Vaccine journal in 2013.  While they state the program is effective (with chicken pox reports dropping 72% from 1995 to 2000), it was not found to be cost effective due to increased morbidity.  The authors also state that the vaccine doesn't offer long-term protection.  This is no surprise to anyone who understands how these vaccines are supposed to work.  They certainly weren't a surprise to Marin et al who conducted a meta-analysis of varicella vaccine effectiveness (published in March 2016).  They found an overall effectiveness of one dose of the vaccine was 81% and a 98% effectiveness against moderate/severe varicella.  In other words, one dose of the vaccine is pretty damned good at preventing chicken pox, but REALLY DAMNED GOOD at preventing severe chicken pox (a booster has now been recommended).  Is it cost effective?  Perhaps not, but that shouldn't matter nearly as much.  It should be expected that preventing disease will not be free.

Next up we have an article from the CDC.  Now I'd just like to point out that to many antivaxxers, the CDC is a completely evil, vile, and thoroughly fraudulent organisation that must not be trusted for any reason.  Unless the CDC reports something potentially bad about vaccines, because then whatever the CDC says is gospel.  Anyway, this article details how the pertussis vaccine may select for Bordetella pertussis bacteria which carry a particularly nasty promoter which makes them more virulent.  Note that this article does not say the vaccine doesn't work (though the acellular version is well-known to be less effective than the whole cell version), nor does it say that the vaccine is dangerous.  Is this nasty strain of B. pertussis a good thing?  Of course not.  But using an article like this in an attempt to invalidate vaccination is ridiculous.  Articles like these are useful for researchers to learn about how these bugs work so they can stop them.

The next article is a bit of hand-waving and cherry picking about Haemophilus influenzae, a bacteria which can cause numerous infections, notably meningitis.  The vaccine protects against H flu type b, not a.  During the 1-year period after Hib vaccination started, Hib meningitis dropped by 69% (HUZZAH!) but H flu type a meningitis increased by a whopping 800%.  Now before you go all crazy let's look at the actual numbers.  The incidence of Hib meningitis was 2.62/100,000 person-years before vaccination and 0.81 after.  The incidence of H flu type a meningitis was 0.02/100,000 person years, or 131 times lower than Hib, and it went up to 0.16, which is still 5 times lower than the incidence of Hib after vaccination.  Want some proof of cherry picking?  Kelly uses these two quotes directly from the article's abstract: "Hib immunization contributed to an increased risk for H. influenzae type a meningitis through selection of circulating H. influenzae type a clones" and "the incidence for H. influenzae type A meningitis increased 8-fold".   But the VERY NEXT SENTENCE in the abstract is this: "The risk attributable to serotype replacement is small in comparison to the large reduction in Hib meningitis due to immunization."  In other words, the vaccine led to an increase in a very unusual subtype, but that increase was FAR less than the DECREASE in the more common type.

Cherry picked indeed.

And there was yet more cherry picking ahead.

Next up is an article showing that the rotavirus vaccine effectiveness in Nicaragua was only 58% due to vaccine-type virus genes recombining with wild-type viruses.  But not only did Kelly fail to mention the very first line of the abstract (where it happens to mention an effectiveness rate of 90% in developed countries), she also conveniently forgot about (or doesn't know about) a study from Finland entitled "No evidence for selection pressure by universal mass vaccination with RotaTeq® vaccine."   A similar study from Brazil found the same thing, and a systematic review from South Korea found it to be safe, effective, and cost-effective.

We're still not even 25% through Kelly's list, and I'm fucking exhausted.  I can't imagine how the three of you who got this far actually feel.

I think I'll pause there, because this long stupid article is too long, too stupid, and too something-else-I-can't-think-of-right-now.  There will be more in part 3, and I'll probably end it all there.

The article, that is.  Not me.  I'm not committing suicide over this bullshit.

61 comments:

  1. Ahh if it were all so simple. There is a much wider argument about the risks of vaccines and the way the industry conducts itself. One of those things if you do your research on you find some uncomfortable truths. Why has America paid millions in compensation whilst not recognizing the risks? Why are health care professionals and vaccine companies in America not legally obliged to inform you of vaccine risks and why can they not be sued if you suffer in some way from a vaccine? In short they know the risks are more significant than they are willing to tell you for risk of declining vaccine uptake and uptake in litigation. A bit of transparency would be appreciated. Again, you may think that I'm anti-vaccine, but reality says I'm NOT. For me, it’s a logical approach. It makes common sense to me that giving fewer vaccines at a time should create fewer reactions, but we haven’t researched that to prove whether or not that’s true. I think it’s an approach that parents feel safer about, and I would like to see the CDC do some safety research that compares a staggered, spread-out vaccine schedule and compares the rates of reactions and severe side effects to the current CDC schedule. Thank you.

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    1. Do not equate legal process with peer review science. There may be a law review article or dozen about this, but there won't be a peer reviewed scientific article because this is a matter of business and law, not science.

      Here's how it goes: Little Johnny slips climbing a tree and breaks his arm. Most of us think, "accident, Johnny needs to be more careful". Some people go, "Johnny's never done that before. He's always been surefooted! What's changed? Oh, he had a booster shot recently. That must be the cause. Law suit!"

      Vaccine manufacturers distribute their vaccines to everybody, whether litigious or not. They also know that they are going to be sued more than a few times for things like Johnny's broken arm. The manufacturer (not the scientist creating the vaccine, but the people who manufacture, bottle, and distribute the stuff) knows this and Johnny's broken arm is built into the costs. These costs are Anticipated Law Suits, or nuisance suits.

      It costs the vaccine company $$ to defend these suits. They could take the suits to trial, verdict, and risk a jury judgement of millions by a jury of people who probably have a background in biology that ends in high school, or they could offer the Plaintiff a bunch of money, somewhere less than the cost of litigation in lawyers fees alone. So, Johnny's family gets offered $50K or so, depending on the type of fracture. Since Johnny's parents now know that while the lawyers fees are not going to be recovered until there's a payment, but costs must be paid up front and damn, those experts are expensive! And they've also done the math - the lawyer takes 25% now, 40% if the case goes to verdict, and $50K would be oh, so helpful now, they settle.

      less than half a percentage of civil cases go to trial because litigation is expensive and takes years and years to get to the point that a trial is scheduled. By that time, Little Johnny is an adult taking his own sure footed kid to the ER to have her own fracture set.

      You want to know one of the reasons medicine is so expensive? Litigation. We're talking everything from Johnny's broken arm to carpal tunnel from opening the bottles to just about everything asinine you can come up with. The costs of addressing those complaints is built into the costs of the drug.

      Same goes for just about everything else subject to manufacture, including the psychological problems of some people resulting from viewing Doc Bastard's Chicken People film.

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    2. It's the same corporation that now uses your birth certificate, filed as a registered security with the United States Department of Commerce as collateral to secure credit from the world bank; England's private bank, thus making you liable for the national debt. They must be enjoying their immunity.

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    3. Doctors DO give you a run down of the risks when vaccinating your children. I always get a little information sheet when vaccinating my kid with a list of what's normal and when you need to head over to the ER.

      You can't sue because... they DO warn you of those (very minimal) risks and you CONSENT to getting an important vaccine despite those low level risks.

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    4. http://imgur.com/gallery/Xt79d9p

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    5. http://imgur.com/a/Gh0Na

      These children are conforming too. They even have matching crutches. How cute is that?

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    6. Anon -

      You've successfully listed several typical antivax "arguments", not the least of which is "But I am NOT antivaccine". Please allow me to educate you:

      1) "Do your research"
      I think it should be glaringly obvious to even the feeblest of intellects that I've researched this topic thoroughly.

      2) If vaccines are so safe, why has America has paid millions in the Vaccine Court?
      There are risks to vaccines, and these are readily acknowledged by doctors and researchers. The Vaccine Court exists to expedite these cases, and the burden of proof is indeed LOWER in the Vaccine Court than in regular courts. The fact that the Vaccine Court exists does not make vaccines any more or less safe than they are.

      3) "Whilst not recognizing the risks"
      Another trope antivaxxers like to use is that doctors and advocates somehow hide vaccines risks. This is a lie that must sound good to you but is still a lie. The risks are fully acknowledged.

      4) "they know the risks are more significant than they are willing to tell you for risk of declining vaccine uptake and uptake in litigation"
      False. The risks of serious adverse events is just around 1 per 1 million doses. This is well-establishes and easily verifiable.

      5) "It makes common sense to me that giving fewer vaccines at a time should create fewer reactions"
      Common sense has little place in science. What you think should be true does not make it true. The fact is that humans' immune system handles uncountable millions of antigens daily, and the added antigens of vaccines in no way overload it. This is what Paul Offitt was referring to in his oft-misinterpreted "10,000 vaccines" quote.

      6) "we haven’t researched that to prove whether or not that’s true."
      Of course "we" have. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/research/iomreports/index.html

      7) "compares a staggered, spread-out vaccine schedule and compares the rates of reactions and severe side effects to the current CDC schedule."
      The only thing that would do is increase the likelihood that an undervaccinated child would contract one of these diseases against which the vaccines are supposed to protect them. The schedule has been tested and it is safe, despite what Dr. Sears has taught you.

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    7. here's how it works.
      [im]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2e/f0/1c/2ef01ce83beb9e10b5303e9b483b67f6.jpg[/im]

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  2. I never comment but I had to give this to the big Bastard... You deserve it.

    https://imgur.com/gallery/SNruj

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  3. I will only say this. I was one of those kids that had a chicken pox party before the vaccines were ever a thing. My family rounded up all the cousins for a sleep over when one of us got it and we all had to suffer together in the hot summer while school was out.

    We all had varying degrees of severity. Most of us had a typical reaction. But one of the toddlers in our group got it really bad. Poor guy had chicken pox all down his throat and wasn't able to eat.

    If I even had a 54% chance of preventing my child that miserable itchy puss filled hell, I'd take it. She copes with vaccines pretty well. She cries, but she knows there's a trip to the Frozen Yogurt bar afterwards.

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    1. She's one of the lucky ones and I agree. What about the safety of the CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule that was never affirmed in clinical studies? They've been administering vaccines to millions of infants every year, yet health authorities have no scientific data from synergistic toxicity studies on all combinations of vaccines that infants are likely to receive. Where are those studies?

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    2. From the armed forces. Of course it's adults I'm speaking about but still, the current evidence is that they can cope without any problems for the most part with a bunch more vaccines administered in a single sitting without problems for the most part. That includes vaccines which are not given to the general population.

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    3. Excuse the repeat, I'm tired after a ~34 hours long day. Woof.

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    4. https://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2013/Childhood-Immunization-Schedule/ChildhoodImmunizationScheduleandSafety_RB.pdf

      Studies and research are how they formed the schedule in the first place. The present day medical community doesn't just fly in blind and hope for the best.

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    5. Read my question again.

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    6. Anon - Read. Learn. And then stop asking the same stupid questions which have no doubt been answered for you repeatedly.

      http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/research/iomreports/index.html

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    7. We are sorry, the page you are looking for was not found.

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    8. Funny, it works perfectly for me. Just verified again.

      Must be a conspiracy or something.

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    9. Worked just fine for me. I had all my vaccinations in the 1950's and I still got measles & chicken pox. I'm still here, hale and hearty.

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    10. besides, we went over this with you last week.

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    11. reminds me the tetanus gestapo caught up with me again this year. good news was they also ran a blood test for my hepB vaccine, and it is still in effect.

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  4. you have to admit, what they post on fakebook is reviewed by THEIR peers; though of course, that is not a peer reviewed journal is defined as.

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    1. So my paper on snorting puppy urine solving all the world's problems Isn't official?
      Dang it.
      Connor

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    2. Sure it is. I tried it and am doing great. just 1 question, when my wife rubs my belly my leg starts twitching uncontrollably. Is that normal?

      Jason

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  5. Here are some of the most common post mortem autopsy findings in children after DTaP. Laboratory Test Findings: Serum phosphate level - Hypophosphatemia. Inversely correlated with proinflammatory cytokine levels.
    C-reactive protein (CRP) level Elevated - Acute-phase response. Procalcitonin level Elevated - Differentiates infectious SIRS from noninfectious SIRS.

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    1. and how many children would that be, exactly?

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    2. still waiting. I found that since the introduction of the vaccine, whooping cough deaths have dropped from 8000 a year to 20 a year. but a google search did not show how many children died from getting the shot.

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    3. Isn't that fascinating. And now you're going to tell me exactly what hypophosphatemia has to do with anything and how an elevated CRP kills children.

      Vaccines raise the CRP level. This is well known, and no surprise to anyone who understands how the immune system works. You obviously don't, so let me give you a tiny educational course: 1) Vaccines are designed stimulate the immune system, 2) CRP is a nonspecific indicator of inflammation (ie an immune response).
      You can read here for more information, though we both know you won't (or if you do, you won't understand what you're reading):
      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26268767
      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15530681
      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23358708

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    4. still waiting, by the way.
      can it be that the actual number dead is so small as to render the argument totally invalid?

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    5. And where exactly do you derive that information? Anti-vaxxers just aren't big on supporting their assertions with valid evidence.

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    6. Your post references "post mortem autopsy findings in children after DTaP." That tells us that some children died after receiving this common and generally-effective vaccine. But it doesn't tell us the basis for concluding that the vaccine *caused* the deaths.

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    7. considering it has been two days and still no number, I'm inclined to say the available evidence supports your assertion.

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    8. Wait--an elevated CRP kills? Dammitall, I must be standing in my grave! Mine has been elevated for years, and my doctors have done nothing about it except run another blood test! Big Lab must be extorting money out of the insurance company!


      Or some such nonsense.

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  6. Sorry doc, I couldn't read all the way through. It's too much bullshit and we already know that it doesn't accomplish anything - doesn't convince a single antivaxxer that they were wrong. What's the point...

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    1. Well, with that logic of yours. We can conclude that the pro-vaccine people hate science.

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    2. Anon you make 0 sense here
      Its just that after reading all the bullshit that foc has had to go through, our eyes get tired of rolling over and over and over.
      Neat its not to convince them persay, its to ensure that those who sit on the border are swayed the correct direction.
      Connor

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    3. You should change the letter"o" to zero. That way you'd make more sense trying to convince people on what you're trying to say.

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    4. no, pro vaccine people hate people who misquote, misapply, and misrepresent junk science; and think that somehow makes their false argument valid.

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    5. Anon look again.
      Thats clearly a zero. 0 not o as you so claim.
      And even if it was a single small mistake that doesnt affect someones argument you half wit
      Connor

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    6. Let's keep it civil here, Anon and Connor.

      NeatNit - I understand where you're coming from, but this post isn't designed for you as Connor said.

      And by the way Connor - create a damned google profile already so you don't have to sign your comments. Oh, and it's "per se", not "persay". Pet peeve.

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    7. I have tried over and over to get it to work doc. For whatever reason even after 2 dozen logins wordpress always thinks I am logged out. I have tried to get it to work for years and it never has. I have no idea why.and its not a 1 device issue it doesnt work on my laptop,desktop, ipad, android phonr or my ouija board.
      And that just shows how often I see people use per se in writing. Thanks for the correction.
      Connor

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    8. Try google rather than Wordpress.

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    9. That has been just as unsuccessful.
      The issue is it just doesn't register when I select as what I want to reply as. I have no idea why.
      Connor

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    10. Are you on a tablet device? I have a hard time logging into google from my phone.

      You can also just type your name instead of Anonymous by selecting the "name/url" on the "Reply as" tab. You don't need to actually need to put a URL. That's my fall back when I can't log in.

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  7. And ... yada yada yada <3
    I'm gonna integrated that into my daily use, thanks!

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  8. Hey Doc, where was that University with the Mumps outbreak? I think it was my Undergraduate institution and current Law School. We had a Mumps outbreak while I was there.

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    1. There have been several. Unfortunately the mumps portion of the MMR vaccine is the least effective, and mumps has a tendency to spread through close quarters (like dormitories).
      http://www.cdc.gov/mumps/outbreaks.html

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    2. Yeah, we had the Virginia outbreak listed under 2011-13 at the University of Richmond.

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  9. Truly, the comments are almost as good as the post itself. Of course, the antivaxxers here are complete twats like they are anywhere else.

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  10. "And now you're going to tell me exactly what hypophosphatemia has to do with anything and how an elevated CRP kills children." Hypophosphatemia affects the contraction of the diaphragm which impedes the release of oxygen from hemoglobin to tissues. If severe enough, this could lead to death from inner suffocation (SIDS). Also, a high serum CRP concentration is indicative of sepsis and can differentiate septic patients from non-infectious Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS).

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    1. Oh dear. Your copy-and-paste skills obviously outstrip your medical knowledge.

      You make it sound like low phosphate only affects the diaphragm. This is obviously not true by any stretch. Elevated CRP can be due to sepsis, but it is a non-specific indicator of inflammation. That's it. That's all it means. Any further hand waving from you won't change that.

      I would say "Nice try", but it really wasn't.

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    2. Ok, was gonna stay out of this 'cuz antivaxers make me stabby and I am trying to enjoy my day off with my kid, but the WTF induced by that paragraph was just too much.
      Your diaphragm (a muscle) and its function has nothing to do with the ability of hemoglobin ( a molecule) to release or bind oxygen.
      I have never in my career heard SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) referred to as inner suffocation. That term alone is nonsensical. Suffocation or asphyxia, is the depravation of oxygen to the whole body. This occurs in situations where breathing is hindered or made impossible such as airway obstruction, smoke inhalation, or drowning. It is not hypoxia (decreased oxygen at the cellular level), but it causes it.
      SIDS is not called inner suffocation because we still don't know what causes it. We know some ways to decrease its frequency, but no one has pinpointed the exact cause. It's diagnosis is one of exclusion, meaning that once all other causes are eliminated, it becomes the diagnosis.
      Finally the dreaded CRP. This is not an indication of sepsis. It is an indication of inflammation. It is very nonspecific. It cannot tell you why it is elevated simply by its elevation. It is not used to diagnose anything, but more to monitor treatment response or help determine the severity of an illness or infection.
      My sense here is that you are regurgitating terms and combining quotes that you do not fully understand. I get that, these are complex topics. But that is why it is so frustrating to have people without the necessary education and experience attempt to interpret data and studies that are complex and often investigating very specific variables. Just because the 3 nanosecond Google search tells you that CRP can be used in the evaluation of sepsis, does not mean you know everything about CRP and the nuances of its appropriate use and interpretation.
      To quote one of the best movies of all time...
      Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

      Delete
    3. To quote another line from that most excellent movie, "Well spoken, sir".

      Or madam, I suppose. Damned anonymous commenters *grumble grumble*

      Delete
    4. Oh fine. I'll sign in, but you are ruining my efforts to leave the smallest Internet footprint possible. And obviously, madam works best for me!

      Delete
  11. If severe enough, this could lead to death from inner suffocation (SIDS).

    SIDS is a diagnosis of exclusion. What you described is not.

    Also, a high serum CRP concentration is indicative of sepsis and can differentiate septic patients from non-infectious Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS).
    Again, not SIDS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Postmortem inflammatory markers found in SIDS are increased and this is an indication that infection and inflammation are a part of the etiology, either as a direct cause or the trigger of a lethal event. It might also be indicative of vulnerability in the immune response to an infectious trigger in infants, particularly with those having a certain genetic predisposition.

      Delete
    2. Many infants who die of SIDS (about 60%) are found to have viral infections which can (this should not surprise you) increase inflammatory markers.

      Perhaps you didn't know that vaccines LOWER the risk of SIDS, as this study from Hungary shows. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4547042/

      Read it. Learn it. And then stop spreading stupid misinformation.

      Delete
  12. Hey Doc have a great well deserved vacation! We will all be waiting for your next post when you get back. Take care and have FUN!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Paul Offit's website now recommend "cupping" as part of treatment for children injured by vaccine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure if this was meant to be funny, ironic, satirical, or sarcastic. It is none of those things.

      Delete
  14. My husband and a bunch of guys were in a bad place. The bunch of guys died, and my husband is still alive. My husband is still alive because he was vaccinated. The bunch of guys died because they were not vaccinated.

    ReplyDelete

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Not dead

I'll start this post by answering a few questions that may or may not be burning in your mind: No, I'm not dead.  No, I didn't g...