[p2p-research] Inflamed passions -- Why do vaccines trigger such passionate debate?

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Ryan Lanham wrote:
> If a parent makes a decision for a child against strong social norms--and I
> think it is fair to say there are strong social norms in favor of
> vaccination, and the child dies of a preventable disease, do you think
> societies act appropriately to put such a parent under criminal
> investigation and, potentially, punishment?  I would think most humans would
> answer that affirmatively.  One's answer to that social question, I suspect,
> has a great deal to do with one's opinion on vaccines, in general.

You summarize a vast number of issues with a simplistic argument.

It is the accepted norm in several societies to engage in what we in the 
West call "female genital mutilation" with the supposed intent of making 
women less promiscuous (among other reasons). In theory, this would protect 
women against AIDS, if it worked to destroy their libido. From:
   http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
"FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of 
girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and 
constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly 
always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. 
The practice also violates a person's rights to health, security and 
physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or 
degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death."

By the reasoning you outline, in those societies where FGM is the social 
norm, the parents who do not mutilate their female children, and so are 
going against social norms, should be punished, right? Especially if their 
daughter later gets AIDS?

One can point to many cases where vaccines have caused harm. Maybe only a 
small percent, but certainly there are cases. Sometimes death. Sometimes 
lifelong disabilities.

Even the CDC admits to huge problems in the past with contamination (though 
they disclaim it causing problems):
   http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/Cancer/default.htm
"SV40 is a virus found in some species of monkey. Soon after its discovery 
in 1960, SV40 was found in polio vaccine. Over 98 million Americans received 
one or more doses of polio vaccine during the period (1955-1963) when some 
of the vaccine was contaminated with SV40. SV40 has been found in certain 
types of human cancers, but it has not been determined that SV40 causes 
these cancers. The majority of evidence suggests there is no causal 
relationship between receipt of SV40-contaminated vaccine and cancer; 
however, some research results are conflicting and more studies are needed."

How lucky do you feel with a vaccine like for Swine Flu that has been rushed 
out the door? How long have we really understood, say, prions?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

An injection bypasses all the bodies normal defenses, to lodge material 
perhaps permanently in your body. You essentially can't take it back out 
after the fact.

So, this is not such a clear case as you try to paint. Is injecting a 
perfectly healthy infant at birth with, say, Hep B vaccine, which apparently 
has killed infants, and which seems to have little scientific justification 
statistically for babies of non-HepB-positive mothers, not a violation of 
physical integrity of the infant? Do you suggest it should be done just 
because people in white coats say it is a good idea? Where does that lead 
us? See:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Do you actually know anything about vaccines? Have you studied them? Do you 
know anything about ecology and evolution? Have you looked into the 
rationale for Hep B at birth to see if it is flawed? Have you thought 
through how many decisions parents need to make about their children, each 
one potentially life-and-death, like allowing them to climb trees or ride a 
bicycle? Maybe you have? But, if you have not, you're ready to lock up 
parents over things you've never looked at in depth. Why?

Here is one book that is somewhat balanced:
"Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent's Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible 
Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives"
http://www.amazon.com/Vaccinations-Thoughtful-Sensible-Decisions-Alternatives/dp/0892819316

Or a more mainstream one:
"The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child" by Robert Sears
http://www.amazon.com/Vaccine-Book-Decision-Parenting-Library/dp/0316017507
"This is just a synopsis of 2 chapters, there are 17 others, most of them 
with loads of good information. There are several vaccines that he does not 
think are necessary and he provides detailed insight into why. I do 
recommend you read this book, but don't just blindly follow his advice. Look 
at the facts yourself before you decide if the risk is worth it. "

A link from there in the comments to this, and one of the comments on it:
"Vaccines: What CDC Documents and Science Reveal"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007QQW5O
"""
I want to qualify my comments by stating that I have a degree in 
Microbiology and I did vaccine research as an undergraduate student. That 
said, I believed, as did Dr. Tenpenny, the common "truths" about vaccine 
efficacy. There are 3 points that shake the pillars of common beliefs about 
vaccines: (1) many of the diseases that vaccines were produced to eliminate 
were already dying out before the vaccine was widely used; therefore, the 
diseases were eradicated by something other than the vaccines. That 
something was quarantine. (2) The emergence of diseases among a vaccinated 
population; the very thing the vaccine is designed to prevent. (3) Virus 
reproduction occur only inside of cells. In order for an antibody to destroy 
or prevent a virus from reproducing, it must be able to "get" inside a cell. 
The method used to introduce the infectious agent, known as an antigen, into 
a living body is not the way the natural infection enters a body. The nature 
of the antibody response is dependent upon the portal of entry: the body 
will respond differently to an infectious agent injected into a muscle, the 
usual method of vaccination, than it will when it enters through the nose or 
bronchial tubes, the method flu and respiratory infections use.
This theoretical discussion pales next to this final point. The 
preservatives used by vaccine production are worse than the disease they are 
designed to treat. I would not allow my child to receive any vaccine that 
contained mercury at any level. With the media hysteria over Bird Flu and 
smallpox a while back, I would strongly suggest no one rely on advise from 
any source that stands to gain financially or politically from it's 
acceptance. Educate yourself on the facts. Make your decision based on 
science, not fear.
"""

It's a social norm in the USA to watch a lot of TV. It's a social norm to 
eat a lot of junk food with empty calories and sugar. It's a social norm 
*not* to fast as an adult. It's a social norm to spend a lot of time 
indoors. It's a social norm to go to compulsory school. It's a social norm 
not to breastfeed infants, or just to do it for a few of months. It's a 
social norm to eat a lot of meat. I can point you to science that says just 
about everyone of those social norms is terrible for your health (physical 
or mental) for most people. And all of those social norms connect back to 
profits and industrialization.

Should we punish parents who follow APA advice on TV (none for the first two 
years), WHO guidelines or nursing (two years or more), current research 
saying vitamin-D helps prevent cancer, who feed their kids broccoli instead 
of McNuggets, who homeschool, and who are vegetarian when their kid gets 
cancer for whatever reason? That's what your analysis suggests.

Maybe you meant social norms where the scientists and most in society agree? 
Well, that's a better position. But still, then you have things like the 
fluoride controversy:
   "Fluoride: Wonder drug or super poison?"
   http://www.naturalchoice.net/articles/flouride.htm

Or, all the people in white coats saying leaded gasoline was a good thing 
for *decades*:
   http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000320/kitman

Is it possible vaccines are the next "leaded gas"? Claimed to be safe for 
decades, and then suddenly people start to accept they are not?

Anyway, why do parents who weaken their children's health by bottle feeding 
and then spread diseases by sending their kids to day care possibly get a 
free pass from you on their kids getting lots of ear infections and 
spreading flu germs, just because that's now the social norm (due to 
economics and the "two income" trap)?
     http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap

OK, let's have a level playing field, at least. :-) You want parents of kids 
who are not vaccinated but get a related fatal or severe disease to be 
locked up, fine. :-) But, then let's do the other side, too. Kids who spread 
germs at school should have their parents locked up. Bottle fed kids who get 
sick, lock up the parents. Kids who watch TV or eat junk food where almost 
all will be more sickly, lock up the parents. Parents whose kids get hurt 
falling out of a tree or on a bicycle, lock 'em up. Who's going to be left 
to raise kids? Who would want to be a parent?

And, why give the industries that promote junk food or TV a free pass? Even 
for parents who don't vaccinate kids, maybe one should lock up the sources 
of the infections? As in the item linked in another email of the flight 
attendend whose child died from the flu, should we lock up her and the CEO 
of her airline too? Where do you draw the line here?

Anyway, until you start lobbying to make infant formula "prescription only", 
I just have a tough time believing you really are looking at the big picture 
of children and health. Seriously, if you care about children and health, 
why are you dwelling on this one issue of vaccination? Is it a centralized 
media affect? Let's have the talk about controversy stuff like vaccines 
*after* every family tosses out their TV and every family nurses their kids 
to WHO guidelines. But, of course, those cheap things for promoting good 
health are impractical, right? Coincidental? Interesting, isn't it?

Why doesn't every parent get a copy of this at the birth of each child and 
the time and money and social support to follow it?
"Superimmunity for Kids : What to Feed Your Children to Keep Them Healthy 
Now, and Prevent Disease in Their Future "
http://www.amazon.com/Superimmunity-Kids-Children-Healthy-Prevent/dp/0440506794

This one might help, too:
"How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor" By Robert S. Mendelsohn
http://www.amazon.com/Raise-Healthy-Child-Spite-Doctor/dp/0345342763
http://books.google.com/books?id=yWATg4JNQKEC&dq=healthy+child+despite+your+doctor&source=gbs_navlinks_s
"Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, renowned pediatrician and author advises parents on 
home treatment and diagnosis of colds and flus, childhood illnesses, vision 
and hearing problems, allergies, and more. PLUS, a complete section on 
picking the right doctor for your child, step-by-step instructions for 
knowing when to call a doctor, and much more."

Seriously, if even doctors are writing books like that, why should one 
uncritically accept what some random doctor says?

The fact is, there are many tens of thousands of diseases humans can get. 
There are vaccinations for only a couple hundred or so (and only maybe a 
dozen or so given routinely). Which makes more sense -- vaccinating for a 
few diseases (perhaps compromising a person's immune system in various ways 
by injecting mercury and aluminum and lots of other stuff, like SV40 in the 
past), or figuring out some general way to boost a child's immune system 
with good nutrition and other good wellness things to handle any disease as 
best as possible? We many not have to choose one or the other, but clearly, 
the medical system emphasizes and funds one but not the other. One is 
profitable, the other is not.

> I am perfectly at ease with people violating social norms, so long as they
> are at ease with accepting society's punishments.  

P2P is evil, according to the US Congress:
"Congress: P2P networks harm national security"
http://news.cnet.com/Congress-P2P-networks-harm-national-security/2100-1029_3-6198585.html

And soon that may even be a "social norm" given all the money being spent on 
that issue, showing how social norms can come to reflect those with money 
and power, as with this example:
"RIAA's Elementary School Copyright Curriculum"
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/09/18/1338249/RIAAs-Elementary-School-Copyright-Curriculum

You obvious use a p2p tool -- email.

Terrorists use email too.

So, let's lock you up for doing an evil thing that terrorists do. :-)

Good thing Gitmo is still open for evil sorts of people: :-)
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp

Oh, wait a minute, that was promised to be closed. Oh, well it will be 
closed in a year. Now, well, it will take longer than a year. Well, what do 
promises mean by people in charge?

Wait, who promised vaccines were safe again?

If vaccines were so safe and effective, why make them mandatory? Is "herd 
immunity" in an age of fast p2p online social networks that can quickly 
quarantine even that important? Is "herd immunity" given p2p alternatives 
like quarantine more important than civil liberties?

If health and civil liberties are so important, why not spend more money on 
anti-viral R&D or immune-boosting research?

We make choices as a society. Why put so much money into what sound more and 
more like undemocratic approach to medical technologies (creating things 
everyone needs to be forced to use)? Why not put our R&D in different 
directions, like prevention (via nutrition and general immune boosting), 
diagnosis, and treatment of illness?

Why poor so much money into an industrial approach to health via assembly 
line vaccinations everyone needs to get in order for them to supposedly work 
well?

Still, if vaccines in the USA were not so often mandatory (like for school), 
then vaccines could advance on their own merits. Or if profit was not 
involved in their production, or if they did not drive doctors visits for 
young children. But, because they are made for profit, and they drive 
business to pediatricians, and they are mandatory in many states, there are 
a lot of questions to ask. But you suggest asking the questions is wrong?

 > No one, not even the most
> pronounced human rights advocates that I know of has ever suggested parents
> have the right to raise children as they wish regardless of the rights of
> the child.  Most would say the child has, if feasibly available, the right
> to life.

Well, everything is a balance to some degree. And, one has to start from 
*intent*. What is the intent of the parents? Then one has to look at whether 
the parent is doing, or not doing, something, and what is the reason? 
Application of a medical procedure which physicians will not guarantee is 
risk free (none will), where it may never be needed (most cases), is not the 
same as the case of a parent doing something obviously hurting a child, or 
failing to provide something that a child will obviously likely need. The 
harm (both medical and psychological)  to a child of a vaccination is 
certain (even if one can argue about the degree) whereas the benefits are 
uncertain (again, one can argue about the probability).

It's an interesting society you propose that, if built on our own, would 
give parents little help raising children (beyond taxing everyone to pay for 
child-prison so parents can work at jobs they often don't like) and then 
would hold them accountable for any problem related to any decision they 
make by imprisoning them (who raises the kids then?). How much time does the 
average parent even have to study this vaccination issue, along with many 
other issues?

It does take a healthy village to raise a child well. You tell me where the 
really healthy villages are in the USA, and I will move there. :-)

Tell me the ones where:
* every child in nursed for two+ years according to WHO guidelines;
* no child watches TV before age two (APA), and afterwards hardly ever;
* the public schools are more like public libraries (open to all on demand);
* the parents don't have to work much when kids are young;
* there is both community and wilderness in close proximity;
* there are no industrial pollutants in the vicinity;
* the kids play together supervised by parents and neighbors;
* everybody has access to cheap organic food;
* there are lots of walking trails and biking trails;
* there is not a toxic girl culture or a toxic boy culture pushed by 
advertisers and toy makers;
* there is quality medical care delivered to all by people without big 
financial conflicts of interest;
* the whole place is not at risk of nuclear war and plague every second.

Tell me where in the USA to find such a place, and I'll move my family there 
in a heartbeat. :-)

Maybe some places in the Netherlands do well on many of those points?
"Why are Dutch children so happy? "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6360517.stm

Certainly the USA does badly on many counts:
"Britain, U.S. worst places for children: UNICEF report"
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=94df00c3-6920-49cd-a230-6b02c50ce351&k=0

So, maybe we should lock up all parents in the USA for being irresponsible 
for living in such a country? You know, there might be something there. :-(

Seriously, by the standards you have outlined, all parents of young children 
in the USA are terribly irresponsible for not emigrating to the Netherlands, 
or at least, Canada. Actually, I might feel like agreeing with that 
sometimes. :-)

Anyway, it is very easy to have double standards about all these issues, to 
focus on some moralistic position on one point or one technology, but to 
lose the bigger picture, especially in the context of making decisions under 
uncertainty.

> Likewise, we would need to ask whether the family of one who can prove they
> have been injured by a vaccine has the right to secure damages.  I would say
> they would within some plausible constraints.

As an analogy, how would you prove you were damaged by something you ate ten 
years ago? Seriously. How would you prove it? It's almost impossible. Try to 
work through that. Say, you get "Mad Cow" brain disease, and you think it 
might have been prions in some burger you ate ten years ago. Prove the 
connection. How would you hold the burger vendor accountable?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt%E2%80%93Jakob_disease

But, now look at the previous SV40 contamination problem, as above. It's a 
fact admited by the CDC that things can go wrong with vaccinations in ways 
that effect a hundre million people. That makes vaccination a "single point 
of failure" in our society. That's a bad design for an intrinsically secure 
society.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Point_of_Failure
"A Single Point of Failure, (SPOF), is a part of a system which, if it 
fails, will stop the entire system from working. They are undesirable in any 
system whose goal is high availability, be it a network, software 
application or other industrial system."

Or, consider the possible spread of AIDS in Africa from reusing needles for 
vaccination. What do you think of this?
"Botched vaccinations blamed for Aids in Africa: An international team of 
scientists says only 30 per cent of HIV cases were sexually transmitted
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article884626.ece

Sure, WHO says it is only 5% who got AIDS in Africa that way. But even that 
is bad, right? Maybe millions of people in Africa given AIDS? Whoops. :-( 
Nobody we know; good thing they are not US Americans, so we can just ignore 
the problem. :-(

So, these things can go wrong in a variety of ways, and then there can be 
controversies about how bad they went wrong a decade later. With denials 
probably likely all the way.

Have you ever gone to a car repair place and come out with a car with a 
problem it did not have going in? How often can you get the car repair place 
to admit liability? Sure, some will. But many won't. Why should doctors in 
the USA be any different, especially with so much more on the line if they 
did cause a problem?

> The simple insurance truth is that wearing a seatbelt can kill you.  That
> risk is a minor fraction of the benefit gained.  So is a person acting
> prudently to avoid wearing seatbelts?  Should they not seatbelt their
> children?  When would the decisions change?
> 
> Ryan

You're right about seatbelts and risk. But, generalizing too far from that 
to medical issues leads to problems. You simply ignore the variety of issues 
with vaccines including all the uncertainties.

The statistics and mechanics of car crashes and seatbelts are fairly easy to 
understand at this point. And one can do scientific tests fairly easily on 
those issues. The whole thing happens at a macroscale that is easy to film 
and study.
   http://www.iihs.org/
   http://www.metacafe.com/watch/394573/volvo_crash_test_center/

The human immune system involves things going on at a microscopic scale 
inside a complex body. It's not so easy to draw those conclusions. Another 
part of the whole problem is you can't ethically do most scientific "crash" 
tests on human subjects, like vaccinate half the subjects, and expose half 
of each group to polio, and see what happens, with various other controls 
and looking at a wide variety of factors over time. And, the immune system 
is a very complex, poorly understood thing, with ties to the mind, another 
complexity. Also, diseases evolve. All of these issues make the decision 
making much more complex then you outline.

Also, you can make a decision differently each day about a seatbelt, or you 
can buy a better car over time. Once you get a vaccine injected, you are 
probably stuck with any adverse consequences for life. Note also, for some 
things like Gardasil, you are putting your child at risk now by an injection 
for something that they likely would not have for twenty years (cancer) and 
may be curable directly by then. That's like saying that wearing a seatbelt 
today might protect you from a car crash in twenty years. It's a much harder 
logical proposition to follow, given cars may be better in twenty years.

But, despite the obvious differences between seat belts and vaccines, you're 
ready to lock people up when they don't agree with some people in white 
coats getting the big bucks for talking about tiny 
invisible-to-the-naked-eye things? Why the readiness to use state violence 
to enforce health policies built on debatable science about half-understood 
things?

I'm not saying all scientists are wrong about all things.
But are you saying all scientists are right about all things?
It in the nature of science to be iterative.

But these issues go way back with vaccination. From:
"The History Of Vaccines And Immunization: Familiar Patterns, New 
Challenges" (mainly pro-vaccination)
  http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/24/3/611
"""
Until quite recently, historical studies frequently depicted all 
antivaccinationists as irrational and antiscientific. This characterization 
was misguided. If we interpret antivaccinationists on their own terms and by 
applying historical context, we can see that many behaved as rational actors 
who were weighing the pros and cons of inoculation. While nineteenth-century 
fears of vaccination might have been based on anecdotal horror stories of 
other infections, the statistical risks of vaccine-induced infection from 
that era would not be medically acceptable today.
   ... Although antivaccinationists are still often portrayed as an annoying 
thorn in the side of medical progress, their concerns for safety and 
willingness to perform the duty of civic oversight has had some positive 
effects, especially in terms of popular health education.
   As this paper has shown, there are important continuities in the history 
of vaccines and immunization. There have been shifts as well; unfortunately, 
one of the most pronounced has been the divestment of public agencies in 
vaccine research and production. If we could match the enormous scientific 
strides of the twentieth century with the political and economic investments 
of the nineteenth century, the world’s citizens might be much healthier.
"""

That last point also relates to the controversy -- private companies 
involved deeply in public health.

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/


> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Paul D. Fernhout <
> pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
> 
>> Ryan wrote:
>>
>>>  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: Inflamed passions via BBC News
>>> | Science & Environment | World Edition on 10/6/09
>>> Why do vaccines trigger such passionate debate?
>>>
>> Ryan-
>>
>>  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8293149.stm
>>
>> From there: "But it is estimated that within the 53 countries of the WHO
>> European region, more than 500,000 do not receive full immunisation and
>> 32,000 die each year from vaccine preventable diseases."
>>
>>
>>
>