Medication time.

[bks]

c2w? wrote:
And those people would be: The ones who run the anti-vaccine movement.

I'm wondering who you think these people are, c2w? My own research on this subject has brought me to the view that there isn't an "anti-vaccine movement" per se, but an assortment of loosely-associated vaccine critical narratives that circulate, the majority of which are not hostile to science or even all vaccines, but are against the regime of forced compliance and, often, rigid adherence to a vaccination schedule that has been crafted for reasons other than maximum individual safety (which is not to say there aren't good reasons for it). I see vaccine criticism as part of a broader-based resistance to the medicalization of all aspects of life and the enlargement of the concept of "sickness" to cover everyone. By sick is meant: potentially unhealthy, which is just fine from the perspective of mass health, since if you're even potentially unhealthy that's cause for treatment. And treatment is the goal.

Myself, I wouldn't necessarily pick vaccines as the place to make a critical stand, given their extraordinary record. They are undeniably a huge public health success, perhaps the biggest of the 20th century. But the vaccine critical narratives of today differ in character from historical ones - at least, in my limited research, that's what I've found. They're sometimes painted as identical to previous vaccine opposition, but they're not.

I think "anti-vaccine movement" is a term of war, created by communication apparatuses associated with the medical establishment. Do you see it differently?

[compared2what?]

c2w? wrote:
And those people would be: The ones who run the anti-vaccine movement.

I'm wondering who you think these people are, c2w? My own research on this subject has brought me to the view that there isn't an "anti-vaccine movement" per se,

If you're happy with that vista, stick with it.

This one's beyond my tolerance level to discuss calmly, which is my failing. I should just opt out.

[bks]

You know me: I'm fine with opting out if a calm discussion can't be had. If it makes the conversation easier to have: I'll emphasize that I'm not against vaccination and think it is an exceedingly valuable thing. Can I be more unequivocal than that? My issue is with the phrase "anti-vaccine movement." I once accepted the term uncritically (which I am not saying is the case with you), but was convinced otherwise from my own limited research.

[slimmouse]

Yes, I would have to add that Im not completely against vaccination myself , per say. If I got bitten by a wild animal for example, I dont think you could get me to a doctor fast enough.

I just dont like either the latest direction that its taking or the general efficacy of many of the latest BS claims about not only vaccines, but well.....fill in the list.

[compared2what?]

You know me: I'm fine with opting out if a calm discussion can't be had. If it makes the conversation easier to have: I'll emphasize that I'm not against vaccination and think it is an exceedingly valuable thing. Can I be more unequivocal than that? My issue is with the phrase "anti-vaccine movement." I once accepted the term uncritically (which I am not saying is the case with you), but was convinced otherwise from my own limited research.

Honestly, I wasn't saying: "I can't tolerate your views, which I presume to be XYZ!" I'm sorry to have come across that way, if I did. And nobody has to equivocally or unequivocally say, show or prove anything to me. Or should feel like they do. It's just something I too easily get very upset about.

WRT the existence or non- of an "anti-vaccine movement":

There's a very well-organized, well-funded and vocal international network of lobbying groups (US National Vaccine Information Center, SafeMinds, Australian Vaccination Network/Vaccination Awareness Network, etc.) that coordinate their activities and campaigns with one another, mount educational, promotional and legislative initiatives, recruit, solicit, and...You know. All that stuff. There are also formally designated spokespeople; recognized leadership; dedicated conferences and publications; officially approved/recommended treatments; and -- in fact -- treatment provider networks. And vendors. The whole nine.

So I'd say there was a movement. By my definition, there is.

[Wombaticus Rex]

So I'd say there was a movement. By my definition, there is.

Yes - when this recently came up on the best indepedent local news site in Vermont, due to an ongoing political argument re: mandatory vacs, I was struck by the massive outpouring of angry and coordinated comments, none of which were from Vermonters.

The label is surely frustrating for those who are less strident and more thoughtful, but the label does refer to an actual real-world phenomenon.

[compared2what?]

So I'd say there was a movement. By my definition, there is.

Yes - when this recently came up on the best indepedent local news site in Vermont, due to an ongoing political argument re: mandatory vacs, I was struck by the massive outpouring of angry and coordinated comments, none of which were from Vermonters.

The label is surely frustrating for those who are less strident and more thoughtful, but the label does refer to an actual real-world phenomenon.

Mandatory how? (Meaning: For school admission/attendance? For all citizens? Enforced by? Any waivers? Etc.)

I can understand that it is frustrating. But (as you say) it's not an empty phrase. I mean, think about it this way:

Andrew Wakefield was paid $800,000 -- specifically and over and above compensation for his job -- to do the work that ended up being the retracted Lancet study.

Nobody who did any of the research or investigation that led to the retraction got paid a dime more or less for doing it than they would have if it had yielded the opposite result, even though a lot of the funding for the research does come from pharma companies and/or government sources. (It's not specifically organized and designed to advance a pro-vax agenda, IOW.) Despite which, some of the protocols/studies ARE biased that way. And you sure as hell can't take it for granted that they're not.

So. Frustrating as it might be, assuming that knowing whether or not information comes from a partisan source is a meaningful factor to anyone, the existence of the movement has to be acknowledged. They pay for virtually all of the stuff they base their claims on, in one way or another.

That's not necessarily a deal-breaker by itself. But if it's a factor on one side, it has also to be on the other.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Mandatory for school admission. While I do not dispute the science of vaccination, I also don't dispute the corruption (and negligence) of the pharma industry and I am troubled by the grim absurdity of demanding total vaccination based on a theory of "herd immunity."

I think individual parents abstaining is potentially harmful to their own kids, but demonstrably harmless to the larger population.

[bks]

There's a movement, yes, but not an anti-vaccine movement. In their own words, the NVIC is a "vaccine safety and informed consent" movement :

As an independent clearinghouse for information on diseases and vaccines, NVIC does not promote the use of vaccines and does not advise against the use of vaccines. We do not offer medical advice and support the availability of all preventive health care options, including vaccination, and the right of consumers to make educated, voluntary health care choices. (http://www.nvic.org/Vaccines-and-Diseases.aspx)

Elsewhere:

NVIC encourages you to become fully informed about the risks and complications of diseases and vaccines and speak with one or more trusted health care professionals before making a vaccination decision . . .

If you choose to vaccinate, always keep a written record of exactly which shots/vaccines you or your child have received, including the manufacturer’s name and vaccine lot number . . .

Not all symptoms that occur following vaccination are caused by the vaccine(s) recently received, but it cannot be automatically concluded that symptoms which do occur are NOT related to the vaccine.

http://www.nvic.org/Ask-Eight-Questions.aspx

That's not straightforwardly anti-vaccine. But calling them anti-vaccine helps to paint them as dangerous, irrational, pre-modern extremists, which for all I know some of them may be. But that's not how the NVIC presents itself.

On the pertussis vaccine:

Most of America’s medical community believes that the risk of serious injury or death from pertussis is greater than the risk of injury or death which can be caused by pertussis vaccine. However, recognition of and concern about the risks of pertussis disease does not diminish our need and responsibility to acknowledge the need to minimize pertussis vaccine risks.

http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseas ... Cough.aspx

If "most" can be an understatement, then's that's an understatement for sure. But again, this isn't the language of out-and-out zealotry. It's a backdoor acknowledgement that vaccines work. Elsewhere, it's true, they clearly minimize the value of vaccines in reducing the frequency of whooping cough outbreaks. There's no denying that. I think it's dishonest, frankly. But they're not the only ones being dishonest in this discourse.

WRex wrote:
The label is surely frustrating for those who are less strident and more thoughtful, but the label does refer to an actual real-world phenomenon.

[/quote]

Then NVIC would seem to fall into the less strident, more thoughtful category? But that's part of the issue: from the perspective of the medical orthodoxy, there is no such thing as "thoughtful" opposition to vaccination. Vaccines are safe, and even so much as delaying for a few days the preferred childhood vaccination schedule (let alone skipping some shots altogether) is selfish, dangerous behavior. These are their own words. There are plenty of other examples. If you want to say that they're just being hyperbolic when they say that, then the other side deserves some of that same benefit.

[compared2what?]

Mandatory for school admission. While I do not dispute the science of vaccination, I also don't dispute the corruption (and negligence) of the pharma industry and I am troubled by the grim absurdity of demanding total vaccination based on a theory of "herd immunity."

I think individual parents abstaining is potentially harmful to their own kids, but demonstrably harmless to the larger population.

I defer to you on that one. I guess my stance is simply that some of the opposition is worse than what it's opposing. A lot of it, actually. Phyllis Schlafly, Co$, etc.

I mean....Not to risk alienating you or anything. But I'm also not too crazy about that Association of American Physicians and Surgeons group that Ron Paul belongs to, what with its insistence that abortion causes breast cancer and belief that malpractice suits prevent doctors from exercising their constitutional right to do whatever the hell they want to their patients. And they are, of course, anti-vaccination.

My strong feelings are mostly about what I said on the first page, though.
_____________________

I actually have my biggest no-win pharma-related conflict over psychotropics and associated issues. Because I have super-strong objections to both sides AND to the drugs.

I practically can't ever agree with anyone about any part of it, therefore.

Drag for them as well as me, I do realize.

[compared2what?]

There's a movement, yes, but not an anti-vaccine movement. In their own words, the NVIC is a "vaccine safety and informed consent" movement :

bks.

You should be able to see the problem with taking their own words as bond just by reading the rest of the quotes you supplied. Moreover, they do much, much more than run a website that has lots of display text couched in neutral language designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

I mean....When you can show me some instance of their, let's say, trumpeting one of their appearances before congress during which they testified that ANY vaccines were safe and effective -- or even showcasing and promoting a study showing that any one single specific type of previously feared vaccine-related injury/adverse reaction did not occur -- I'll believe that they're independent and impartial.
____________________

ON EDIT: I'm sorry. I come into it with my nerves frayed, and judgment suffers. That tone was not something you deserved. I'll count to ten and re-phrase. Okay?
____________________

(broke into two parts.).

[bks]

I'll believe that they're independent and impartial.

They're not! But of course, neither is the medical establishment! Both are deeply interested parties, are they not? The NVIC folks want every child to be kept safe (impossibly). The medical professionals within then mass health establishment undoubtedly want to see children protected from deadly, preventable diseases. I don't dispute that. But they're also enmeshed in a system not entirely of their own making, one that's designed primarily to win compliance with its dictates, not to make as many children as safe as possible. Rhetorically those dictates are defended as just the policies which will lead to maximum child safety. But in reality those dictates are attuned to interests that go well beyond mere child safety and, I would argue, child safety isn't their primary goal, though it is a crucially important one to them. To most of the doctors and others who implement the dictates, child safety is the primary goal.

[compared2what?]

All right. Sorry again.

Yes, they do say that. But look at what they don't say and do in light of the following:

Proponents of vaccination -- mainstream medicine, the government, pharma, etc. -- concede and long have conceded that vaccination-related injuries do occur and have been proven to, voluntarily and regularly.

They also maintain an enormous database of adverse-reaction reports that has absolutely no barriers or constraints that prevent some kinds of events from being reported, to which any researcher who is one has access.

They also compensate vaccine injuries via a special venue that has a lower burden/standard of proof than regular courts.

They've also done study after study after study looking into the possible correlation between vaccination and this, that or the other dreadful response. And since they're on the defensive and under scrutiny, most of those studies are NOT biased.

And they also took thimerosal out of the vaccines on a precautionary basis as soon as a semi-reasonable hypothetical fear of it took hold.

In short, they make any number of concessions to the other side over stuff that's both proven and unproven. There are acknowledgments, accommodations, etc.
____________________

When you can show me a single instance of the NVIC doing anything that's equivalent to that -- or even admitting that any of those things was a concession, acknowledgment or accommodation -- I'll believe they're independent and impartial.

Because they never do. It's more like: They say thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autism via mercury poisoning. Their complaints, though undemonstrated, are heard. Thimerosal is removed. And not a thing about their vaccine-safety informational policy changes. At all. They just come up with another reason to say that vaccines are every bit as potentially mercury-poisoned*** and autism-causing as they were before. They're agenda-driven.

__________________

***And/or toxic.

[compared2what?]

I'll believe that they're independent and impartial.

They're not! But of course, neither is the medical establishment!

YES. TRUE. But the mf'ing medical establishment mf'ing responds to the NVIC. It's not mf'ing reciprocal. And it makes no mf'ing difference when they do.

Both are deeply interested parties, are they not? The NVIC folks want every child to be kept safe (impossibly).

No. NO.

(Industrial-strength bleach enemas. I'd like to see them condemning both those AND their mf'ing friends/associates who promote their use, if that's what they care about.)

They want to promote the most negative and damaging view of vaccination possible. They never EVER acknowledge any study, information, action, or data that suggests vaccines are anything other than infinitely, amorphously, unknowably dangerous.

And not all of the information to that effect is tainted. Quite a bit of it isn't. Counts for NOTHING. Zero. It's ridiculous to pretend that they evaluate it impartially. If it supports fear, they embrace it. If it doesn't, they reject it. No exceptions.

What are the odds of that happening by chance if they're so dang independent?

I mean, come ON. The thing they say is the problem, thimerosal: Gone. Problem solved? No. Of course not. Some tiny amount of it remains in one vaccine, blah, blah, blah, end result: Still an ever-burgeoning and increasing epidemic that's somehow undiminished by the change. How much clearer than that could it get?

[compared2what?]

The NVIC folks want every child to be kept safe (impossibly).

No. NO.

(Industrial-strength bleach enemas. I'd like to see them condemning both those AND their mf'ing friends/associates who promote their use, if that's what they care about.)

And that's just one example. There are so many that it's more the rule than the exception, though they're not all that grotesque. However. To stick with the relatively well-known:

Andrew Wakefield performed invasive procedures on the kids in that study, purely for the research/litigation value. There was no treatment benefit. And no pretense to the contrary. It was flat-out free-lance human experimentation. One of them was injured for life by it:

£500,000 payout for autistic boy left fighting for life after being used as an MMR guinea pig

By RACHEL ELLIS

Last updated at 21:43 08 December 2007

An autistic boy has won a £500,000 payout after a hospital at the centre of an MMR scandal carried out an operation that was "not clinically justified".

Jack Piper, then five, was left battling for life after the procedure, which his parents claim was carried out to establish links between his condition and bowel problems.

His bowel was perforated in more than 12 places during surgery at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London.

At the time, the hospital was at the centre of a controversy after employee Dr Andrew Wakefield claimed that the triple measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab was linked to autism and bowel problems.

High Court papers alleged the colonoscopy procedure performed on Jack in 1998 was "not clinically indicated or justified".

They also claimed the "principal reason" for the surgery was to further research into links between autism and bowel conditions rather than Jack's clinical needs.

The documents also claimed that Jack's parents were not warned of the risks of the procedure or the "controversial and uncertain" link between autism and bowel conditions.

This meant the surgery was performed "without lawful consent" and was an "assault" on Jack.

More at LINK.

That happened in 1998. Wasn't a secret.

Was there any soul-searching from those lovers of universal child safety about whether to promote or criticize Wakefield? At any point? Then or now? Of course fucking not. They don't give a fuck about child safety. The examples are endless.

The parents do, obviously. But they're not in good hands.