American children are healthy

 

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For years now, I have seen antivaxers make the comment that 54% of American children are sick, therefore children are sicker than ever.  For example, in his most recent letter to Health and Human Services, (HHS), Del Bigtree states:

The stated purpose of vaccination is to improve the overall quality of health of Americans and reduce mortality. Yet, the increase in HHS’s childhood vaccine schedule over the last 30 years from 8 vaccine injections to 50 vaccine injections (plus 2 injections during pregnancy) has occurred in lockstep with the increase in the rate of autoimmune, developmental and neurological disorders in children from 12.8% to 54%. HHS has no explanation for why U.S. children today are plagued with a chronic disease and disability epidemic. 

People like Del believe all children’s health problems stem from vaccines and are vaccine injuries. Rising rates of autism, learning disabilities, special services, allergies, and you name it are all the fault of vaccines, to Del. This is irrational and there is no reason for HHS to take his complaints seriously.

I have long wondered where this comment originated and finally found it. This 54% claim comes from a study of referrals to insurance companies for services. This study was originally published on the Age of Autism blog in 2011 and has since become a huge part of the antivax rhetoric machine. You can read the full study here.

The aim of this study was to evaluate national and state prevalence of health problems and special health care needs in US children; to estimate health care quality related to adequacy and consistency of insurance coverage, access to specialist, mental health and preventive medical and dental caredevelopmental screening, and whether children meet criteria for having a medical home, including care coordination and family centeredness; and to assess differences in health and health care quality for children by insurance type, special health care needs status, race/ethnicity, and/or state of residence.

The gist is here in this figure.

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Most of the children in the study who required special services are obese. 43.2% as of May 2011 when this study was published.  That has nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines. Risk of developmental delay is likely linked to the number of premature babies surviving birth and the number of drug-addicted babies surviving birth, not vaccines. This study was conducted with children born before vaccines were recommended in pregnancy so there is no link there. Allergies and asthma have been shown not to be caused by vaccines.  Peanut allergies are more likely resulting from the late introduction of solid foods.  Pollution and lack of exposure to the microbiome are also thought to be causes of allergies and asthma.

When I was a child in the 1970s, there were definitely children who should have been treated for what we now call learning disabilities, ADD, ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, Asperger’s, PDD, and Tourette but they were ignored. There was no special education so there was no need to diagnose their behavior.  The first special education law was enacted in 1975 in USA and took decades and numerous lawsuits to get to where we are today. These things are not new. We are just only now defining, diagnosing, and treating them.  High school graduation rate in USA has gone up from 41% in 1960 to 89% in 2017 which proves to me that the more we diagnose and treat and define and TEACH children, the better they fare.

I have also blogged about how there is no autism epidemic, how the rate in autism has risen because of shifting diagnosis.  We used to diagnose 3% of American children mentally retarded but we no longer use that term. Those with low cognitive functioning are now diagnosed as intellectually disabled (ID) or some are on the autism spectrum (ASD).  Of course, most people on the autism spectrum are not low cognitive functioning, so when we look at special education statistics today and see that 1% of those receiving services are ID and 1.5% are ASD, we know that there are far FEWER children today with what we once called mental retardation. One major reason is that vaccines prevent the diseases which used to be one cause of mental retardation.  We used to have institutions with children who were injured by these diseases.

Infant mortality and SIDS rates are at all-time lows in USA. I blogged about that here and linked to the data. Child hospitalization rates are down.  Child cancer rate has not changed much since 1970 but the cancer survival rate is higher than ever.

Why don’t antivaxers pay attention to these statistics?  From the perspective of this mom, autism mom, special education teacher, and informed human, LIFE IS BETTER NOW THAN EVER.

But, again, antivaxers don’t pay attention to details and they never verify claims.  They just want to blame everything on vaccines because that sounds easy. They passionately want to believe that humans would be perfectly healthy if we all had clean water, flush toilets, some CBD oil, Plexus Pink drink, a small fortune in supplements, weekly chiropractic adjustments, and some magic crystals. (I am not kidding, that is the impression I get from them)

As of this writing, I am nearing my 53rd birthday. I got my first real job at 17 and that was as a teaching assistant in a Montessori school. I got my teaching certificate and Master’s in Education at 27 and have been a teacher ever since. I recently got my special education degree and now teach high school special education. I have never seen vast numbers of unhealthy children around me at any time in my career. I have known one student, in all these years, who had a severe peanut allergy. Otherwise, I have never had any child in any of my classes with any severe allergies. I am not denying they exist. I am merely saying they are not common.  I have students with asthma inhalers. It is routine, these days, to have at least one per class. I don’t see students missing school a lot because of chronic illness. I don’t see them coming down with chicken pox or gastro viruses en masse. I don’t see them coming down with respiratory infections en masse. I see attendance is high and children, at most, may have a minor cold during winter.  We have occasional outbreaks of flu or norovirus, in schools, but otherwise, kids are healthy and in attendance. From my perspective as a mom and teacher, children are healthier than ever. We no longer see them getting every vaccine-preventable disease and missing weeks or months of school. This is a very good thing.

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What troubles me the most about the claim that 54% of American children are sick is that this belief is ableist. By calling children with autism, learning disabilities, vision or hearing issues, developmental delays, speech issues, or behavior problems sick, antivaxers are denying the wide range of the human experience. They are assuming children would be like dolls, perfect in every way, without vaccines. This is deeply troubling to those of us who respect neurodiversity and value variety to the human experience. Instead of respecting the differences around us, antivaxers seem to despise their own children and those who do not meet their ideals of perfection.  To many of us, this is deeply troubling and the worst aspect of the antivax movement.

Update to add that Science-Based Medicine has also addressed this 54% claim and nicely linked to this post. Thanks Dr. G!

Always verify claims,

 

Kathy

Del Bigtree is stubborn

So, I took another one for the team. Happy reading.

Well, I got a bit famous this week as Del Bigtree not only seems to have read my blog but mentioned me, by name, and my blog on a recent show. The post he mentions is entitled Del Bigtree is not a scientist and is about how Del’s antivax organization, Informed Consent Action Network, wrote to the USA’s Health and Human Services department about vaccine safety concerns and the HHS reply was rather stunning.  My friend Dorit also wrote about it over at Skeptical Raptor.

 

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Now, Del has replied to HHS and, in his video about it, he mentions my blog and Dorit’s.  Kinda made me giggle to be so famous so I have watched the video and read his document. You can find a copy of Del’s letter to HHS here. This is his second letter to HHS.  If you get confused, links to all letters are at the end of this post.

First of all, he thinks he did not get answers to his original questions.

HHS’s letter begins with the incorrect claim that the safety of many pediatric vaccines was investigated in clinical trials that included a placebo, and falsely implies these trials are typically longer than mere days or weeks. (Section I below). It then fails to support the safety of injecting babies with the Hepatitis B vaccine (Section II) and reaffirms HHS’s refusal to: automate VAERS reporting (Section III); research the most commonly claimed vaccine-injury pairs (Section IV); identify which children will suffer a serious vaccine injury (Section V); pause claiming “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism” until it has the studies to support this claim (Section VI); conduct vaccinated versus unvaccinated studies (Section VII); purge itself of conflicts of interest (Section VIII); or use the Vaccine Safety Datalink and PRISM to actually improve vaccine safety (Section IX). 

Del’s first complaint is that many vaccines were tested without a placebo. What he means is that not all vaccines were tested with saline placebo. For example, the Boostrix vaccine for tetanus, pertussis, and diphtheria, a tetanus-diphtheria vaccine was used as the placebo. He goes on to list other vaccines which use an older vaccine or an adjuvant as placebo instead of saline. This is a common source of concern amongst antivaxers who don’t realize or don’t understand how placebos can be other than saline and be a valid placebo. The World Health Organization has a great document detailing the ethical framework for use of placebos in vaccine trials.

Placebo use in vaccine trials is clearly acceptable when (a) no efficacious and safe vaccine exists and (b) the vaccine under consideration is intended to benefit the population in which the vaccine is to be tested. In this situation, a placebo-controlled trial addresses the locally relevant question regarding the extent to which the new vaccine is better than nothing, and participants in the placebo arm of the trial are not deprived of the clinical benefits of an existing efficacious vaccine.

Placebo use in vaccine trials is clearly unacceptable when (a) a highly efficacious and safe vaccine exists and is currently accessible in the public health system of the country in which the trial is planned and (b) the risks to participants of delaying or foregoing the available vaccine cannot be adequately minimized or mitigated (e.g. by providing counselling and education on behavioural disease prevention strategies, or ensuring adequate treatment for the condition under study to prevent serious harm). In this situation, a placebo-controlled trial would not address a question that is relevant in the local context, namely how the new vaccine compares to the one that is currently in use, and participants would be exposed to unacceptable levels of risk from delaying or foregoing a safe and effective vaccine that is accessible through the public health system.

The World Health Organization clearly considers that saline placebos are not required or even ethical in most vaccine trials. The original response to Del from HHS mentioned that inert placebos are not required. Del is not learning.

At this point, I am able to skip over the next 17 pages of Del’s document as his argument about saline placebos is not valid.

His next concern is that hepatitis b vaccine trials were only 4-5 days long. As I pointed in my post, Hepatitis B Vaccine is safe and necessary, 

Del is concerned that the Hep B vaccine was only tested for 4 days during the pre-licensing phase. This comes from the insert, of course, and it is actually stated that children in the clinical trial were monitored for 5 days after the vaccine. Of course, we know the limitations of vaccine inserts.  Del, however, seems to be unaware of the safety and efficacy testing that is done after the insert was written. Let me give you a little research hint. If you want to find studies related to a vaccine, go to the CDC’s page for that vaccine and click on the information for providers and healthcare professionals. This is where they list the safety and efficacy studies.  The parent information section is written much more simply.  In the provider section, you can find a lot of research information, including the link to the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization (ACIP)’s document on Hepatitis B virus and vaccination. This document has a long list of safety and efficacy data, including data analysis from the vaccine safety datalink (VSD) and the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). A great deal of safety study has been done AFTER the clinical trial.

This is exactly what the first HHS letter told Del. Del just doesn’t believe in facts. But, Del, I have to tell that you just because you don’t like the answers does not make them wrong. It makes you stubborn.

Del’s next concern is that because saline placebos are not used he feels HHS has abandoned this duty by not requiring long-term placebo-controlled clinical trials. Without such trials, the actual safety profile of each pediatric vaccine, or any combination thereof, cannot be determined before they are – pursuant to HHS’s childhood vaccine schedule – injected into millions of American children. Once that happens, HHS becomes utterly conflicted from funding or conducting research that may find that a vaccine HHS previously licensed and recommended does, in fact, cause significant harm to more than a few children.

This is again an example of Del not liking the answers he gets. But, that does not make him right. Vaccines go through a minimum of 10-15 years of testing at many levels, but Del focuses only on the clinical trial phase.  There is a great deal more to vaccine safety study, including post-licensure monitoring of vaccines. You can read more about all the stages here. 

Del’s next questions are about VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. (note that Del calls it the “report” system, misspelling it.)  In the original response to Del, he was told the recent improvements HHS had made to VAERS. HHS tells Del that they are studying and exploring options to link VAERS with health centers around the country. Del implies, in his second letter, that HHS refused to cooperate with a health system called Harvard Pilgrim. Del feels vaccine safety efforts should be moved forward swiftly but connecting a government database to medical center databases around the country seems like such a huge job to me that I can see why HHS is moving slowly.

Again, Del is criticizing the answers he is getting. That does not make the answers wrong.

A good bulk of the next part of letter 2 is about more criticisms of vaccine safety. Del believes vaccines have not been studied enough and HHS disagrees.

The next section of Del’s letter is about HHS not funding enough research to determine who is at risk for vaccine injury. HHS gave him two links to read but he is not satisfied with them and he finds pharmaceutical funding linked to one of the scientists involved thus, in his mind, tainting the findings. Del’s concern is that Between 2015 and 2017, HHS spent over $14 billion purchasing and promoting the universal use of HHS recommended vaccines. 281 During this same time period, HHS certainly could and should have funded more than two studies seeking to identify which children should be excluded from receiving one or more vaccines in order to prevent a serious vaccine injury.282 This research should also not be conducted by individuals who receive funding from the pharmaceutical company whose vaccine product is being reviewed. 

I will say that it could go further to appease antivaxers if HHS did conduct more than two studies in this area and if they helped to fund a study from a large health organization of vaccinated versus unvaccinated patients and health outcomes. I don’t agree with Del that the science is lacking nor do I think 10,000 studies would change his mind but a few more would be good. Vaccine injury is very rare but if we knew more about it antivaxers might feel better.

Del’s 9th concern is that the vaccine-autism connection has not been fully studied. He wants HHS to study the connection between DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine) and autism. He also feels the hepatitis b vaccine given at birth should be studied for a relationship to autism. His latter concern is based on a very badly done “study” which correlated hep b vaccine with autism. This is a very weak study that has been widely discredited. Apparently, Del missed that memo. Del did not specify why he wants DTaP studied but my guess is the aluminum adjuvant, which is widely touted by antivaxers as causing autoimmunity and autism. Of course, that has also been widely discredited. You can find info on that here and here and here.  Del also brings up the long-ago debunked “cdc whistleblower” nonsense. Seriously Del? We are all getting pretty tired of that dead horse. If you want more reading on that dead horse, you can go here and here.

I guess Del has a minor point here that saying vaccines do not cause autism isn’t 100% valid as not all vaccines have been studied. Perhaps we needed a better way to put it that vaccines have been extensively studied and enough evidence has been found that unvaccinated get autism and that MMR (measles mumps rubella vaccine) is not linked with autism that it is time to move on from the idea that vaccines cause autism. Antivaxers first thought mercury caused autism. When thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative was removed from pediatric vaccines, autism rate did not drop. They then moved on to blaming MMR because of the timing of the most notable symptoms of autism. That has been debunked so now they want to blame aluminum adjuvants. This comes from Claire Dwoskin whose Dwoskin Foundation funds the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI).  CMSRI is the funding agent behind most of the recent (shoddy) research linking aluminum to autism. You can read about that here here here and here.

Del is further concerned that HHS has supposedly ignored something from a Dr. Andrew Zimmerman about autism and vaccines. Del claims that Department of Justice lawyers misled Vaccine Court by presenting a report from Dr. Andrew Zimmerman in which he stated MMR and thimerosal-containing vaccines do not cause autism, even though Dr. Zimmerman has told them that there are exceptions in which vaccines may cause autism. However, as my friend Dorit explains here, there is no new evidence that vaccines cause autism so Dr. Zimmerman’s words mean nothing.

The rest of Del’s second letter is about how he feels HHS has bias and they should study children’s health issues with regard to vaccines more. This is all his opinion and it comes from a place of passionately believing children would be 100% healthy if we had no vaccines at all. People like Del believe all children’s health problems stem from vaccines and are vaccine injuries. Rising rates of autism, learning disabilities, special services, allergies, and you name it are all the fault of vaccines, to Del. This is irrational and there is no reason for HHS to take his complaints seriously.

The stated purpose of vaccination is to improve the overall quality of health of Americans and reduce mortality. Yet, the increase in HHS’s childhood vaccine schedule over the last 30 years from 8 vaccine injections to 50 vaccine injections (plus 2 injections during pregnancy) has occurred in lockstep with the increase in the rate of autoimmune, developmental and neurological disorders in children from 12.8% to 54%. HHS has no explanation for why U.S. children today are plagued with a chronic disease and disability epidemic. 

This 54% claim comes from a study of referrals to insurance companies for services. This study was originally published on the Age of Autism blog in 2011 and has since become a huge part of the antivax rhetoric machine. You can read the full study here.  Someday, I am going to write a blog post just about this study but the gist is here in this figure.

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Most of the children in the study who required special services are obese. 43.2% as of May 2011 when this study was published.  That has nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines. Risk of developmental delay is likely linked to the number of premature babies surviving birth and the number of drug-addicted babies surviving birth, not vaccines. This study was conducted with children born before vaccines were recommended in pregnancy so there is no link there. Allergies and asthma have been proven not to be caused by vaccines and are more likely resulting from the late introduction of solid foods, air pollution, and over cleaning (the hygiene hypothesis). When I was a child in the 1970s, there were definitely children who should have been treated for what we now call learning disabilities, ADD, ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, Asperger’s, PDD, and Tourette but they were ignored. There was no special education!  The first special education law was enacted in 1975 in USA and took decades and numerous lawsuits to get to where we are today. These things are not new. We are just only now defining, diagnosing, and treating them.  High school graduation rate in USA has gone up from 41% in 1960 to 89% in 2017.  Why don’t antivaxers pay attention to that statistic? Between 1980 and 2009, premature infant birth rate rose 36%, but again antivaxers don’t pay attention to details.  They just want to blame everything on vaccines because that sounds easy. They passionately want to believe that humans would be perfectly healthy if we had clean water, flush toilets, some CBD oil, some Plexus Pink drink, a small fortune in supplements, weekly chiropractic adjustments, and some magic crystals. (I am not kidding, that is the impression I get from them)

But infant mortality and SIDS rates are at all-time lows in USA. I blogged about that here and linked to the data. Child hospitalization rates are down.  Child cancer rate has not changed much since 1970 but the cancer survival rate is higher.

Why don’t antivaxers pay attention to these statistics?  From the perspective of this mom, autism mom, special education teacher, and informed human, LIFE IS BETTER NOW THAN EVER. (aside from Trump but that’s another topic)

 

Del’s final plea to HHS is that he wants an independent board to review vaccine safety. He does not agree that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) or the Institute of Medicine (IOM)  groups are good enough for the American people. He thinks the Vaccine Safety Datalink studies are not good enough because when a VSD study is conducted by HHS, in violation of basic scientific standards and process, the underlying raw data is almost never available for inspection by the public and other scientists.  Refusal to make this data available raises serious concerns regarding reproducibility and transparency. HHS regulations, in fact, provide severe penalties if researchers, using HHS funding, refuse to share data underlying their studies, but HHS does not apply this same standard to their own VSD studies. Third, the secret studies that HHS performs using the VSD with secret data are virtually all squarely aimed at increasing vaccine uptake, even for uses and in populations not approved by the FDA. This concern about Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) studies is interesting to me because he is basically asking our government to violate the privacy act, HIPAA.  The VSD members can study reports to VAERS made from their own patients because they can access the medical records. Del wants our government to allow independent researchers to access people’s medical records?  Sorry, Del, but that is not going to happen.

The other vaccine safety study database is called PRISM and Del is concerned about that, as well, saying Like the VSD, it is unlikely HHS will use PRISM to publish a study that confirms any serious widespread harm from vaccination. If it did, HHS would be developing the very science that would then be used against it in Vaccine Court, potentially resulting in crippling financial liability as well as loss of reputation. Thus, he is saying that the government is colluding with the pharmaceutical industry to hide vaccine injuries because the pharmaceutical industry would be crippled by the liability.  Del, if there was any hint that vaccine makers would be held liable for more claims, they would just stop making vaccines. That is what happened in the 1980s and why we have the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in the first place.

 

Furthermore, special needs children cost the US government a lot of money. They would save a lot of money if something as simple as not vaccinating could prevent special needs from existing. I think it is irrational to conclude that our government would collude with pharmaceutical companies so much that they get more money from pharma than special needs children cost. Just completely irrational.

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At this point, I am stunned that Del believes his own misinterpretations. I think ZdoggMD is right here, that antivaxers lack critical thinking skills and are stuck in the concrete stage of thinking.

I sincerely hope HHS ignores this letter Del sent them because he does not deserve a reply. He will never learn from them, no matter what they say. Del Bigtree has issues with vaccines because he is as stubborn as a mule and won’t learn he is wrong.

 

With one large sigh, I bid you adieu

 

Kathy

 

HHS reponse to Del’s First letter to HHS

Del’s Second letter to HHS

All letters to and from Del and HHS

 

PS By the way Del, one of your fans once contacted me on Twitter and asked me to debate you. I replied that if you ever want to come to Bellingham, WA, I will gladly sit down with you for coffee, off the record, not cameras or recording. Why? Because I am always up for a chat but I don’t want to risk having my image or words edited in a way that could be used against me.

 

Another antivax quiz

I love when antivaxers challenge us provaxers with quizzes. They are so easy to debunk. So, while I enjoy my holidays (I hope you are, too, if you celebrate) and while I work on a few other research project/blog posts, here’s the answers to this quiz.

 

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Original quiz from here. All original comments in black. My comments are in italicized deep purple.

Ask your pediatrician these vaccine questions. 

Why? Why would your pediatrician want to waste time with these dumb questions. Okay, I will answer them. 

1, What are 10 ingredients in vaccines other than the viruses themselves?
(Aborted fetal tissue, polysorbate 80, MSG, aluminum, formaldehyde, bovine cells, thimerasol, canine cells, lactose, Phenoxyethanol)

 

Well, the vaccine ingredient (excipient) list is easy to google. I don’t know why you think your doctor should have them memorized.  https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf

2, Which vaccine ingredient opens the blood brain barrier allowing toxins to enter the brain?
(Polysorbate 80)

 

Uh, none. There is nothing that small in vaccines. This was made popular in the video series, the Truth about vaccines, episode 2.   

As I wrote in my review

This is a new claim, for me. Toni Bark and Lawrence Pavelsky, both doctors who are against vaccines, claim that polysorbate 80, when used in conjunction with other drugs, opens the gut and blood brain barriers. Further, they claim, because everything with them also gets into the gut and brain, then nanoparticles of viruses, bacteria, and aluminum are also getting into these parts of our bodies. Larry says polysorbate 80 binds to the viruses and and aluminum and “walks into the brain the way a ghost can go through a wall.”  He concludes that this is what is causing vaccinated children to have autism and other neurodisabilities.

Now, first of all, we know vaccines are not causing autism. Secondly, aluminum salts in vaccines are microparticles, not nanoparticles. Polysorbate 80 is used with nanoparticles of certain drugs, like loperamide, to deliver them to the brain when necessary.  These drugs only cross the blood brain barrier  when loaded onto polybutylcyanoacrylate (PBCA)-nanoparticles and coated with polysorbate 80. But, aluminum salts are microparticles, not nanoparticles. There are experiments underway using aluminum salt nanoparticles but all existing vaccines use microparticles of aluminum salts and those are much too large to cross the blood brain barrier.  Aluminum salts are about 2 um or 2000 nanoparticles in size.

Links are all live in the blog post 

3, Which vaccines contain either human aborted fetal tissue, canine cells, monkey cells, chicken cells?

See #1.  Cells, not tissue, are used to grow viruses. They are not actually in vaccines. The viruses are removed and purified before being used in vaccines. This helpful website post will teach you more. 

4, Which vaccines contain neurotoxins such as aluminum or mercury?

None. As you can see in the excipient list, there is no elemental mercury nor elemental aluminum in any vaccine. Thimerosal is out of most vaccines. It is only in a few flu vaccines. Aluminum salts are in some vaccines but not elemental aluminum. 

5, Which vaccines contain carcinogenic ingredients?

None. Nothing causes cancer in all doses. For example, there is a naturally occurring formaldehyde in our own bodies and food but it can cause cancer if you inhale too much. The EPA IRIS database tells you more

6, Which vaccines have not been tested on pregnant women yet are recommended by doctors?
TDaP & Flu have both been tested on pregnant woman, though not in clinical trials because those are all done. Antivaxers don’t seem to get this point. Here are links where you can find the safety research. 

 

Flu vaccine pregnancy safety studies

TDaP pregnancy safety studies 

7, Which vaccines are known to cause either anxiety disorders, anorexia, developmental disorders, autism, seizure disorders, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, SIDS…per scientific peer reviewed studies?

None. 

 

Vaccines are proven to cut the risk of sids in half. 

Vaccines do not cause autism. 

Vaccines do not cause epilepsy 

I could go on. Vaccines don’t cause anything on this list. 

8, Who is Dr. William Thompson and what role does he play at the CDC?
(Senior Lead scientist at the CDC, turned whistleblower)

The William Thompson, “cdc whistleblower,” nonsense was proven false in August 2014.  My fellow blogger at Harpocrates Speaks has been keeping track. 

 

9, Which vaccines contain live viruses which infect the recipient and can shed to others?

There are no known cases of vaccine viruses causing outbreaks. My fellow blogger, Dr Vincent Ianelli, explains. 

10, Which country is having dozens of outbreaks in highly vaccinated communities?

Since the year 2000, all outbreaks in USA have been caused by unvaccinated and mostly affect unvaccinated.  Data here. 

 

11, Which vaccine is causing an outbreak by the tens of thousands in India and Africa?

There are no known outbreaks of vaccine-derived illness causing huge outbreaks. Antivaxers think that a one-year anecdote of 47,000 cases of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis were caused by polio vaccine but they fail to note that the cause was not polio. That is why it was called “non-polio.”  Again, Dr Ianelli explains. 

In reality, the near eradication of polio is one of the greatest achievements of humankind. This website has the latest data. polioeradication.org

12, Which vaccine is routinely given *after* an injury despite it being a preventative vaccine?

Tetanus vaccine is critically important

This explains wound management and why vaccines are given. 

13, What are the various cancer-causing ingredients in vaccines?

See #5. 

14, What is the 1986 vaccine Injury act?

The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 is an important law which does not remove all liability from vaccine makers but sets up a system and fund for compensating individuals who can prove, within the vaccine injury table guidelines, that they have been injured by a vaccine. 

15, How many billions of $$ has the United States vaccine injury court system paid out?

About $4 billion for 6000 compensation awards and 5 billion vaccines given. Thus, the vaccine injury rate is 0.0000011%.  Source

16, Does acquiring mild childhood illnesses such as measles and chickenpox have any long-term health benefits?

No, there is no valid evidence having a terrible infection is beneficial. 100% of international scientific consensus concludes vaccines have infinitely greater benefits than the diseases. There are no links here because there is no data. No one has ever proven this statement wrong in the nearly 1000 times I have made it. 

17, Which renowned Children’s Hospitals have notified recently vaccinated individuals to not visit patients with autoimmune disorders?

None. Here are policies for visitors to St  Jude’s and John’s Hopkins. Antivaxers like to use old policies to make points but that is not valid. 

18, Where is there proof of vaccine-induced herd immunity?

Herd immunity is a well-established scientific principle. Our fellow blogger at Thoughtscapism has more information.  

 

Also, we challenge antivaxers to prove to us how rubella could be eradicated from the entire Americas without herd immunity. 

19, Which virus in a vaccine is being manufactured into a cure for cancer?
It is true that measles has been used in a vaccine to cure one person of cancer. Very promising but not a reason to get measles. 

20, Why is it a horrible idea to give Tylenol before or after vaccines?

We agree with the American Academy of Pediatricians that giving Tylenol before a vaccine is unnecessary. 

21, How many milligrams of aluminum make up to 75 doses of vaccines given to children

Aluminum is a safe ingredient in vaccines. 

22, Which vaccine given the day of a child’s birth contains dangerous levels of aluminum?

None. Antivaxers worry about Hep B vaccine because they don’t understand the issues. I explain here

23, Which industrialized country has one of the highest, if not the highest, infant mortality rates as well as vaccine rates?

The USA has a higher infant mortality rate than countries with universal healthcare but we all have similar vax schedules and immunizations are proven to cut the risk of SIDS in half. I discuss here, here, here, and here

24, Which vaccine was given to 40 million Americans and was later revealed to contain a cancer-causing monkey virus?

None. Skeptical Raptor does an excellent job of explaining here. 

25, Which industrialized country has the fanciest hospitals, the highest rate of cancer in children, the highest rate of children with autoimmune disorders, and most profitable pharmaceutical industry in the world?

 

I am pretty sure there are “fancy” hospitals in all countries. Denmark has the highest cancer rate. Pfizer, based in USA, has the highest pharma company profits but Roche, based in Switzerland, is #2. So what? Does profit equal corruption?  No. Antivaxers just think it does. 

26, Which vaccine was involved in the recent CDC whistleblower scandal showing a link to autism and the CDC covered it up?

None. See #8

27, Which states in the US require children to maintain the CDC vaccine schedule in order to attend school?

All 50 states. 

28, What is wrong with natural immunity?

It comes with very high costs. See here

29, ….. Dr. So And So…
Do you have any idea how many children you are poisoning and lives you’re adversely affecting by your med school indoctrination, ignorance and denial???😠

Zero. Antivaxers are irrational.

 

Remember to always think for yourself!!!

Kathy