New Link

I received a very nice email today, and have added a new link to the links page.

http://www.lessoncorner.com/Science/Biology/Evolution

At LessonCorner our goal is not only to create the best collection of worksheets and lesson plans on the web, but also to make it free. Our freemium business model allows all users to access many of the site's features. In addition, users can receive a free 1 year premium membership by sharing their lessons and worksheets with the community.

I encourage anyone who is an educator to give this site a look.  As we all know, many states are systematically limiting teacher's access to good material on teaching evolution.

Grades of 50 states and the District of Columbia evaluated on the inclusion of evolution in state science standards. The darker the state is shaded, the worse grade it received. Graphic courtesy of the National Center for Science Education.

Although, I must express my surprise at the grade Kansas got. Maybe because they have done so much dumbtardery in the past, they realize they are under scrutiny?

Vaccine Times: Japan panel finds no link to vaccines, deaths

Vaccine Times found this, which seems to go along with everything that has been said.  Yet another study to add to the pile that already indicates that vaccines are much safer than the alternative.  It IS tragic that there were four (well seven when you add in the Netherlands cases) deaths that were in close proximity to receiving vaccines, and the age would make some sort of statistical anomaly flag go up.  However, as Lisa Simpson is fond of pointing out, correlation is not causation.  I sincerely hope that the anti-vax pro-disease nutters don't start to think this is some sort of conspiracy.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT MSNBC.COM

TOKYO — A panel of experts at Japan’s health ministry found no direct link between vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and Sanofi-Aventis SA and the deaths of children, but said further checks were needed, Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday.

Japan will keep its suspension on the use of the vaccines that prevent meningitis and pneumonia, a health ministry official said after the safety panel’s meeting, but declined to comment further.

The ministry halted the use of Pfizer’s Prevenar and Sanofi’s ActHIB vaccines in response to the deaths of four children shortly after receiving the vaccines.

U.S. health officials have said they were aware of the deaths in Japan but have not seen any such safety concerns in the United States.

In February last year health authorities in the Netherlands said no relation was found between Prevenar and the deaths of three infants who had received the vaccine.

Three of the children that died in Japan were administered Prevenar together with ActHIB. In addition, three of the children also received a mixed vaccine against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus on the same day they received the other vaccines.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT MSNBC.COM

Anti-Vaccine stance or a cost saving device?

I am deeply disappointed in you.

Children under five were not included in this year's flu vaccination programme because of medical and not cost grounds, the government says.

 The flu epidemic is particularly bad in children, and much as I loathe to say this. I am on the side of Labour with this one (I am a Lib Dem supporter for what it's worth. Sadly...). 


I am of the opinion that this is indeed a cost cutting measure that my government has sadly put together. The reduction in advertising for the vaccine seems to correlate with the additional influx of influenza sufferers. 


Not targetting children appears on paper to be a cost saving measure since children are (for want of a better description) little buggers who run around rubbing snot on each other for fun. I know I used to do that as a kid... The flu practically has ideal conditions for spread amongst children since they tend to sit around in large groups and wipe their noses on their sleeves (again... guilty!).


I wonder if someone will calculate the price of such a decision, however in the mean time the Anti Vaccine groups have leapt on this.


Vac Truth Article


- Avicenna

Andrew Wakefield: An Explanation from a Medical Standpoint

A doctor is inherently regarded as a trustworthy individual. The field provides legitimacy. It has real power. In a world where money rules everything the MBBS (or MD or MuDr or what ever combination of letters makes up your standard medical degree) still has a kind of immense power. People still assume we are rich (we are well paid and don’t want for much but the vast majority of doctors do not earn incredibly large salaries. We won’t starve but if we wanted to make money we would be lawyers. Or Homoeopaths)

So a doctor has legitimacy. But we are not infallible. History has repeatedly shown doctors being on both sides of the spectrum of good and bad. In order to give legitimacy to torture many Japanese and German concentration camps hired doctors to do the torture. A doctor gone wrong receives the same respect from the common man and hence is requested to such things

.

With this in mind we come to Mr Wakefield. No longer is a doctor but his legacy is entrenched in anti-vaccine culture. He is now the centre of a conspiracy theory his ardent defenders insisting that we have initiated a witch hunt.

http://www.naturalnews.com/031211_Andrew_Wakefield_BMJ.html

That we have altered his results in order to ostracise him and denounce him. We forget that he legitimised the anti vaccine movement. Normally powered by quacks, here was a real doctor to give them a leg to stand on. Unique amongst anti-vaccine movements this is the first one to gain an incredible amount of support from the western public. We normally consider anti-vaccine theories to be the hallmark of third world nations where the rumour is powered by a lack of education and the superstitions of people.

And again we forget what a tragedy this is. Autism is not a joke. These parents are angry because we don’t yet know the cause and the pathology of the disease. So we cannot venture cures. They need a scapegoat, a villain and vaccines provided a handy moustache twirling unnatural villain filled with god knows what.

Vaccinations provide that villain. It’s part of the whole idea that organic food is somehow superior to modern agriculture.

The sheer irony of the anti-vaccine movement is that it exists because of vaccines. Only in a society where there is no fear of such disease can people stand up and say that measles is not that dangerous.

Andrew Wakefield was struck off the medical register of the GMC. The trial was well publicised and a lot of weird things come into the light. As a medical point before we begin to deconstruct his research, autism is a real disorder and occurs either as a regressive disorder where the child simply degenerates socially or as a disorder that is expressed from a really young age where the child fails to develop. Another thing to worry about is that a lot of high grade fevers can cause this kind of behaviour in babies because the brain is still developing and the fever affects it quite spectacularly.  

These are the following reasons why the study is flawed and indeed incorrect. All of these are verifiable by a variety of sources. Even by the very same natural medicine advocates who parrot anti-vaccine information.

Altered Data

http://www.bmj.com/content/suppl/2011/01/05/bmj.c5347.DC1/deeb200710.ww1_default.pdf

• Andrew Wakefield’s study was from a cohort of 12 children. 12 children does not make a study. A hundred children would be more appropriate study case to declare something as ground breaking as this. This is due to chance.  

• There was no control, the individuals recruited were “people who thought their kids had mental issues after the administration of the MMR vaccine”. Normally you would see the stats of autism in a population that was being vaccinated and see if they increased or not.

• One cannot claim a disease was caused by MMR vaccines by recruiting people whose kids had autism and have had MMR. Correlation does not imply causation.

• Mr. Wakefield was working on a lawsuit. He was being paid a fair amount of money for his research and his role as a witness into suing MMR vaccine providers. The payments were surreptitious and heavily influenced his research as the bias was monetary and the amount worked out to nearly half a million pounds.

• Individuals in the study turned out to have autistic like behaviour prior to the injections. In one subject the child started regression a month prior to the vaccination. This strongly indicates that either the vaccine had no effect or the MMR vaccine is capable of time travel.

• Another child was regarded to have a behavioural anomaly in Mr. Wakefield’s paper. The secondary analysis showed that he had a chest infection as did the original hospital report

• It is true that some of these children were autistic and Mr. Wakefield took advantage of them to run incredibly pointless and invasive procedures as he attempted to link both the autism and the bowel disorders to the vaccine. These included spinal taps and colonoscopies.

• In many cases parents were not adequately interviewed. One mother claimed the child developed symptoms immediately. Under review, immediately turned out to mean 6 months. Many of the other parents indicated that their children had suspected developmental disorders prior to this but were unsure of them. Not all children develop at the same age and many children often miss developmental stages quite normally. This mother was already of the belief that vaccines caused her child’s autism and so was manipulated to provide a false testimony that came apart under more rigorous questioning. 

• Under heavy GMC scrutiny the patients were reviewed via looking through the primary diagnosis of various hospitals. Of the 12 strong cohort only one had regressional autism. The rest were not regressive autism but classical autism. 3 out of the 12 didn’t even have either regressional autism or bowel disease. The individual with regressional autism suffered it a full 6 months after the vaccine. There is therefore a severe misrepresentation of data.

• Two of the children were brothers who exhibited fits and bowel disorders (common in convulsions). The older was not thought to have autism, the younger was regarded to have Asperger’s syndrome. Brothers would have ruled them out in the study because it would have brought up a genetic element. In addition fits are not regarded to be a behavioural disorder as the child’s behaviour is often normal. A lot of these children’s behaviours can be attributed to the frustration and the pain brought on by the convulsions and bowel issues which were alleviated on defaecation only to return within a day.  

• When you write a prescription or a request for a test, you often specify what your conditional diagnosis is. For eg. If an individual arrived with drooping eyelids and facial weakness, I would write “Bell’s palsy?” or “Myasthenia Gravis?” Followed by what tests I would wish to run. Andrew Wakefield deleted the question marks turning conditional diagnosis into an actual one. Tampering with diagnosis files is a serious breach of trust.

• All the recruitment of his cohort was done via anti MMR campaigns with the promise of a class action lawsuit against MMR manufacturers.

And these are just issues of what he did wrong research wise notwithstanding the serious allegation that his so called control were children at his son’s birthday party.

So it’s not merely a case of “he is wrong because it’s nuts” but a case of him being wrong because his research is incredibly faulty or worse biased on purpose in order to make money at the cost of a pharmaceutical company. His research is incredibly flawed even without the onus of the money.

We blindly panicked. No one stopped to think for a second how the individual vaccines never caused this issue but the combined one did.

Lest we forget, even vaccines do have side effects. Almost all medication does. It’s a cost benefit analysis that we can save countless amounts of money and grief by taking a small risk now than a huge risk with the actual disease. Post publishing the UK’s inoculation rate dropped to around 75% and we started seeing outbreaks of Measles, Mumps and Rubella in the population.

Vaccination has always provided people with the cheapest and most effective way of controlling a disease. Mr. Wakefield is responsible for some of the deaths and permanent injuries due to his lackadaisical attitude to medicine and his greed as are the people who funded him

- Avicenna.

Costs of Treating Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

This is a page that I will be adding to the Vaccine Page as soon as I get permission from Todd W, and some more information is filled in.  This is still a work in progress.  I just want to give you all a taste:

Costs of Treating Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

Much is often made of the supposed profits made by pharmaceutical companies from vaccines.  Of course there is some profit from vaccines.  After all, pharmaceuticals are just like any other industry.  Without profit, the companies would either fold or fail to grow.  No profits, no research into how to improve products, to make them more effective or safer.  The pertinent question to ask, then, is whether these vaccines are a sufficient motivation for putting people at risk.  Part of this is another question: what are the profits made by treating the diseases that vaccines prevent?  As of October 2010, there are 15 diseases that are part of the recommended childhood immunization schedule from birth to 18 years.  Additions to this page will be slow.  The research takes a lot of time and this is primarily a side project of mine.  All prices listed are approximate.  Doses listed may differ slightly from what is normally prescribed, due to availability of price listings.  If you would like to help fill out any of the missing elements or can provide corrections (with source information), please contact Todd W..

A brief note before we get started.  The information provided here is for informational use only.  I am not a physician and am not providing this information as medical advice.  If you have serious questions about any of this or are in need of medical attention, please consult your doctor.

Now, let's take a look at the diseases and how they, and their complications, are treated.

---

Diphtheria

If someone is infected with Corynebacterium diphtheria, the bacterium that causes diphtheria, they will likely need to go to the hospital for treatment using diphtheria antitoxin and antibiotics. The antitoxin cancels out the toxin already circulating in the individual’s body. However, before the antitoxin is administered, it is important to do an allergy test to make sure the patient is not allergic to the antitoxin. If the patient is allergic, then the antitoxin will be administered starting at a very low dose and gradually increasing. It should be noted that the antitoxin is available only from the CDC and only in the U.S. There are very few producers of the antitoxin, and the CDC currently purchases all of its antitoxin from a company in Brazil (PDF link). As with all drugs, diphtheria antitoxin has a range of side effects associated with its use. These range from fever and a chilly sensation to difficulty breathing and swallowing, rash or hives, muscle aches, swelling and sudden, severe tiredness and weakness or serum sickness.

The antibiotics used to treat diphtheria, such as penicillin (4 oral doses per day or 300,000-600,000 units per day intramuscularly for 10 days) or erythromycin (2 IV doses per day or 4 oral doses per day for 14 days), kill the bacteria, reducing the amount of time that the individual is contagious. At the end of two weeks, a culture is taken to make sure that all of the bacteria have been killed. If not, then the course of antibiotics will likely be continued. Antibiotic prophylaxis is also recommended for close contacts. Like the antitoxin, penicillin and erythromycin have their own side effects. These range from the mild and common (e.g., diarrhea, nausea, vomiting) to the more severe and less common (e.g., allergic reaction, bloody stool, persistent diarrhea, seizures, etc.).

In addition to the sore throat and fever that are common with diphtheria, the toxin produced by the bacteria damages tissue in the area of immediate infection, resulting in a thick, gray membrane of dead cells and bacteria to form on the throat and nose. This membrane can obstruct breathing passages, necessitating its removal by a physician.

Should the infection spread via the bloodstream, diphtheria may cause damage to other organs, like the heart. If it damages the heart, it may cause what is called myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart. This can result in relatively minor symptoms, like fever, chest or joint pain or an unusually fast heart rate to more major problems like congestive heart failure and death. Myocarditis is treated with medications like dopamine, epinephrine, digoxin, furosemide, nitroprusside, warfarin, etc.

Diphtheria can also cause damage nerves, causing problems like difficulty swallowing to muscle weakness or paralysis. Potentially, this nerve damage can also cause paralysis of the muscles that control breathing, lead to circulatory collapse or urine retention. If a patient has difficulty breathing, either due to paralysis or obstruction of the breathing passages, intubation (inserting a tube hooked up to a ventilator down the patient’s throat) may be necessary. Peripheral neuropathy from diphtheria may also require pain medication, physical therapy, braces or splints and possibly installation of railings and other safety features to make the home safer for the individual.

It bears mentioning, again, that diphtheria can also result in death, usually due to obstruction of the breathing passages and/or heart failure.

How likely is it for these various complications to occur?
Hospitalization (avg. length of stay: 10 days) – 100% (1 per 1 cases)

Obstructed Airway/Membrane Formation – 42.3% to 50% (1 per 2.4 cases to 1 per 2 cases)

Myocarditis – 10% to 60% (1 per 10 cases to 1 per 1.7 cases)

Nerve Damage – 4.7% to 15% (1 per 21 cases to 1 per 6.7 cases)

Death – 5% to 20% (1 per 20 cases to 1 per 5 cases)

How much does treatment cost?

• Hospitalization (per day):
  
  •  Respiratory Failure...................................................................................$5,200-$5,800
  • Heart Failure w/o complications/comorbitities..........................................$3,800-$5,100
  • Heart Failure w/ CC..................................................................................$3,900-$5,000
  • Heart Failure w/ major CC........................................................................$4,200-$5,500
• Diphtheria Antitoxin (20K-100K units over 2-4 hrs)........................................$(Researching - Hopefully I'll find it soon)
• Antibiotics:
  
  • Penicillin G Benzathine (.6 MU/day for 10 days).......................................$31.40/dose, $314.00 total
  • Erythromycin Base (250mg, 4/day for 14 days).......................................$0.27/pill, $15.12 total
• Myocarditis:
  
  • Dopamine (50-100 mcg/min IV)................................................................Price not available
  • Epinephrine (1 mcg/min IV)......................................................................Price not available
  • Digoxin (166mcg, 3/day)..........................................................................$0.35/pill, total dependent on treatment length
  • Furosemide (10-20 mg, 2/day).................................................................$0.27/pill, total dependent on treatment length
  • Nitroprusside (5-10 mg/min IV)................................................................Price not available
  • Warfarin (.5-3.4 mg/day for 2-5 days).....................................................$0.33/pill, up to $1.65 total
• Peripheral Neuropathy:
  
  • Mechanical Ventilation..............................................................................See price for Respiratory Failure above
  • Vasopressors (3-10 days)........................................................................Price not available
  • Urethral Catheterization (5-14 days).......................................................Price not available, see Hospitalization above
• Death (casket, funeral, plot, etc.)..................................................................$6,000 - $10,000 and up

Cost of diphtheria vaccine, including tetanus and pertussis and, at the higher end, IPV and Hep B: $20.00 - $70.00 per dose (private sector).

---

Pertussis

Should someone become infected with Bordetella pertussis, the bacterium that causes pertussis, or whooping cough, the first line of treatment is antibiotics.  Antibiotics can help to reduce the chances of spreading pertussis, as well as possibly reducing the intensity and duration of symptoms.  Some of these may also prevent certain complications, such as secondary bacterial pneumonia.  The typical antibiotics used are erythromycin (4 doses per day for 14 days), azithromycin (1-2 doses per day for 5 days), clarithromycin (1-2 doses per day for 7 days, though not for infants under 1 month of age) or trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMZ) (twice a day for 14 days, though not for infants under 2 months of age).  Of these, erythromycin is one of the least expensive.  All, however, carry their own sets of risks and side effects, from the relatively benign (e.g., itching, nausea, abdominal cramps) to the serious (e.g., yeast infections or severe skin rashes) to the very serious and possibly life-threatening (e.g., allergic reaction or liver damage).  Some of these effects are dose-dependent, meaning they will be worse with larger doses.

If left untreated, pertussis may lead to secondary bacterial pneumonia, or pneumonia caused by another bacterium, different from the original infection.  In addition to all the normal effects of pertussis, pneumonia has its own effects.  These can be high fever to chest pain to poor oxygenation of the blood (cyanosis).  Pneumonia has a number of different treatment options, depending on the type of organism causing it.  Additionally, while most cases can be treated at home, it is recommended that infants under two months of age be hospitalized.

Pertussis may also cause seizures, asthma (potentially requiring daily medical treatment and lifestyle changes to treat or prevent flare-ups, though there is no cure), encephalopathy (which may need long-term care), dehydration (with its own complications), malnutrition (potentially requiring administration of parenteral nutrition), rib fractures and hearing loss.  It must also be mentioned that death is a rare, though real, possibility, as well. 

So, how likely are these complications to occur in infants?

Hospitalization (avg. length of stay: 4-6 days) – 69% (1 per 1.4 cases)

Pneumonia – 11.8% to 13% (1 per 8 cases)

Encephalitis – 5% (1 in 20 cases)
Seizures – 1.4% (1 per 71cases)

Encephalopathy – 0.2% (1 per 500 cases)

Death - .07% to .2% (1 per 1,500 cases to 1 per 500 cases)

How much does all of this cost (PDF link), though? 

• Hospitalization (per day, for pneumonia and pleurisy):
  
  • Without complications or comorbidities (CC)............................................$3,000 - $4,500
  • With CC....................................................................................................$3,600 - $4,800
  • With major CC..........................................................................................$4,300 - $5,500
• Antibiotics:
  
  • Azithromycin (100mg, 1/day for 5 days)...................................................$1.12/pill, $5.60 total
  • Clarithromycin (250mg, 1/day for 7 days).................................................$1.03/pill, $7.21 total
  • Erythromycin Base (250mg, 4/day for 14 days)........................................$0.27/pill, $15.12 total
  • TMP-SMZ (20mg/100mg, 2/day for 14 days).............................................$0.14/pill, $7.84 total
• Asthma Meds (corticosteroids for long-term management):
  
  • Ciclesonide (80 mcg, 2/day).....................................................................$211.68 for 320 doses
  • Beclomethasone (50mcg, 2/day)..............................................................$28.00 - $62.00 for 200 doses
  • Fluticasone (50mcg, 2/day)......................................................................$63.00 for 360 doses
• Encephalopathy.............................................................................................Price not available
• Death (casket, funeral, plot, etc.)..................................................................$6,000 - $10,000 and up

Cost of pertussis vaccine, including diphtheria and tetanus and, at the higher end, IPV and Hep B: $20.00 - $70.00 per dose (private sector).

Vaccine Times: US Supreme Court Uphold NCVIA

Another item that I have had on the Facts, not Fantasy page about vaccines is information on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.  Again, information that has been there for quite a while, but bears repeating since we all know that a lie goes around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.  And the anti-vax pro-disease nutters sure as heck lie a lot.

• Pro-disease anti-vaxers claim that Hannah Poling and Bailey Banks are examples of successful Vaccine Court cases where vaccines caused autism. This is wrong.
• Hannah Poling was found to have a mitochondrial disorder, and that the vaccine worsened her condition. The court did not rule that a vaccine caused autism. Note, mitochondrial disorder is not autism, though some in the anti-vax camp claim it is.
• Bailey Banks was found to have suffered acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). This disease occurs in approximately 1 or 2 per million vaccine recipients, compared with 1 per 1,000 individuals infected with measles and 1 per 500 rubella infections. The court ruled that this is a type of pervasive developmental disorder, but made clear that it is not autism. Like the Poling case, anti-vaxers try to distort the truth to make their case. In the case of ADEM, vaccination helps reduce the risk of contracting the disease by reducing the likelihood of natural infection.
• Despite the low standards of proof in the vaccine court (more likely than not, or 50% + a hair), no one has been able to establish a causal relationship between vaccines and autism.
• In three of the best cases put forth by the anti-vax movement, the court ruled in all three that vaccines did not cause the individuals' autism.
• Before VICP, the media fueled fears about vaccines, leading to increases in law suits and many manufacturers halting production of vaccines altogether. The VICP was proposed by a coalition of government, health organization, and industry representatives, as well as physicians and ordinary citizens as a means to ensure a suitable supply of vaccines while allowing legal recourse to those injured by vaccines.
• Individuals may still seek damages through the tort system, if they choose, though they must then prove not only that the vaccine caused the injury, but also that the manufacturer was at fault.

Pro-disease anti-vaxers want vaccines that are 100% safe. This is never going to happen, as all medicines carry some risk. However, the relative risk of injury from vaccines is significantly lower than the risk of injury from getting the disease naturally. For more information, see the CDC website.  This is so important, I'll say it again: The only people that insist vaccines are (or could be) 100% safe are the anti-vax pro-disease advocates.  Not that we shouldn't strive for 100% safe, but to actually achieve that would be in the same fantasy realm these nutter live in.

From Vaccine Times:

As reported earlier, the US Supreme Court has been hearing a case in which the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz were trying to sue the vaccine maker, Wyeth, for Hannah’s alleged vaccine related injury.  Back then, I took exception to the way the media was reporting on the case, implying that the Supreme Court was hearing a case about the side effects, when in reality what the Supreme Court was trying to decide was the right of individuals to sue a vaccine manufacturer outside of vaccine court.

The US Supreme Court has reached a decision and it has decided to uphold the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, thus upholding the original purpose of that law to ensure that children that suffer from vaccine injuries are compensated,  while at the same time eliminating frivolous suits against vaccine manufacturers, thus preserving our vaccine supply.

The full text of the ruling on the case can be read here. Below are some excerpts of importance.

We consider whether a preemption provision enacted in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA)1 bars state-law design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers.

The above quote goes to prove my initial assertion that what was at stake in this suit was the parent’s right to sue the vaccine manufacturers directly, and specifically for “design-defect claims”. My understanding is that “design-defect claims” means defects, a.k.a. side effects, that are inherent to the design, and does not mean improper production of the vaccine.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE POST.

Vaccine Times: Formaldehyde fears without merit

Over at Vaccine Times they have a story about this particular chemical...  Over at the Facts, not Fantasy main page on vaccines, I have had these two bullets about formaldehyde up for years:

• Vaccines contain formaldehyde. However, the chemical structure of the formaldehyde in vaccines is the same as that produced by our own bodies. It is used during the manufacturing process, but is diluted to remove it from the finished product, leaving only small or trace amounts. The total amount of formaldehyde in a finished product is far less than what is naturally found in the human body.
• As an aside; the total amount of Formaldehyde in vaccines from the vaccine schedule for a 6 year old child is 1.2016mg, BUT 1 (one) banana contains 16.3mg! Understandably, the method of introduction is different, but it's still the same chemicals, and still introduced into the body where it can be absorbed.

I think that the main issue at hand is that anti-vax pro-disease nutters just don't know chemistry...

Just a quick blurb from the Vaccine Times page:

Vaccine critics often cite specific ingredients in the vaccines as their chief concern. As Leart pointed out in an article here several days ago, sometimes these alleged dangerous ingredients aren’t even really in the vaccines.

Of course, more often than not, vaccine critics manage to at least point to ingredients that actually are in the vaccines. One such “toxic” ingredient popularly cited as a reason vaccines aren’t safe is formaldehyde.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY.

Vaccine Times: Can the immune system be boosted?

With all the bad terminology that people throw around in marketing, the press, and general conversation, I am sure a lot of people are confused about the immune system, and even what boosting is.  Normally I would only post part of this story, and then make you click over to Vaccine Times, but I think this is important enough that you not get interrupted in reading this.  And I hope that the Vaccines Times doesn't mind my emphasis on the last sentence in the article.  It should really apply to everything in life!

Can the immune system be boosted?

And,  if possible is that something one should try?

Now a days there are a multitude of products out there that claim to “boost your immune system”. Do they work? More importantly, can the immune system be “boosted” at all? Would such a “boost” be a desirable thing ?

In a recent episode of Skeptoid, Brian Dunning tackled this very issue. The podcast transcript can be read here. Brian points out one very important thing to keep in mind: it is wrong to think of the immune system as something that gets better the “stronger” it gets. The immune system can go haywire and start attacking our bodies, so when it comes to immunity you are looking for the right balance, not necessarily an increase in brute force. That is what vaccinations achieve, they strengthen the immune response to specific things. However, that is not the claim that these products that supposedly will “boost your immune system” make; they generally do not claim that the specific product will help increase the immune response to one specific disease; in fact, they can’t make those claims which is the reason for hiding behind the very vague and general boosting claim.

The immune system in a nutshell

So just what is the immune system? According to the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases :

The immune system is a network of cells, tissues, and organs that work together to defend the body against attacks by “foreign” invaders. These are primarily microbes—tiny organisms such as bacteria, parasites, and fungi that can cause infections. Viruses also cause infections, but are too primitive to be classified as living organisms. The human body provides an ideal environment for many microbes. It is the immune system’s job to keep them out or, failing that, to seek out and destroy them.

The immune system is not solely an internal thing; skin, mucus, saliva those are the first lines of defense and are part of what is know as the innate, or natural, immunity which we are born with. I am not sure if these products mean to boost the innate system or not,  however I’m not convinced that boosted skin or mucus production is a desirable outcome. 

Besides the innate immunity we also have adaptive and passive immunity. Adaptive (or active) immunity develops throughout our lives as people are exposed to diseases or immunized against diseases through vaccination. Passive immunity is “borrowed” from another source and it lasts for a short time ( for example the antibodies in a mother’s breast milk provide a baby with temporary immunity to diseases the mother has been exposed to).

Innate immunity is what it is, and there’s not much that can be done to “boost” that part; passive immunity is a temporary thing which by definition can’t last long, so “boosting” it doesn’t make much sense. That leaves us with adaptive immunity: all claims of “boosting” immunity must necessarily refer to the adaptive portion. So how can adaptive immunity be improved, or boosted? To understand that, we need to understand how it works.

Basically, the immune system classifies everything it comes into contact with as “self” and “non-self” or “foreign”;  its job is to ignore the self cells and to attack and destroy all foreign cells. Anything that can trigger this immune response is called an antigen. An antigen can be a microbe such as a virus, or a part of a microbe such as a molecule. Tissues or cells from another person (except an identical twin) also act as foreign antigens. This explains why tissue transplants may be rejected and why many recipients of transplanted organs have to take immunosuppressant drugs (drugs that suppress the immune response). These foreign cells are attacked, and hopefully destroyed, by white blood cells, called T cells and B cells. This site explains the functions of such cells in a very intuitive and easy to understand way:

B lymphocytes are like the body’s military intelligence system, seeking out their targets and sending defenses to lock onto them. T cells are like the soldiers, destroying the invaders that the intelligence system has identified.

In a nutshell when an antigen is introduced in the body, the B cells are “notified”; they produce antibodies which attach themselves to the antigen. The antibodies themselves do not destroy the antigen, they simply attach to it and act as beacons, or tags, which are in turn recognized by the T cells. The T cells either by themselves, or by invoking the help of other types of cells, attack the antigen, and hopefully destroy it. Any type of boosting of the immune system has to happen somewhere along this chain of events.

To boost or not to boost?

I guess, depending on how loose one wants to play with the definition of the word “boost”, all vaccinations can be said to boost the immune system, but not in the general way the over the counter potions claim. Vaccines introduce an antigen in the body, in a form that cannot, or is highly unlikely to, cause disease in order to train the immune system and “trick” it into forming the necessary antibodies so that next time the real antigen infects the body, the T cells will know how and where to attack. 

Similarly, becoming sick will also boost your immune system, in similar fashion to the vaccination process, but with much more pain, suffering and death involved. That is why we prefer boosting our immune system with vaccines as opposed to disease.

Any other claims of “boosting” the immune system are not based on science. Without introducing the antigen there is no way a drink or capsule can do anything to  boost the immune system. Next time someone makes this claim to you, just ask them which disease specifically does the potion work for? Measles? Mumps? Varicella? Whooping Cough? If they pick any, or say all, ask them about the scientific evidence supporting that claim. If they produce any, then all the better: we just found a new way to combat disease. However, more likely than not, they will not be pinned down on any specifics, will not provide any evidence, and will keep hiding behind meaningless phrases such as “promoting a healthy immune system.”

So, can the immune system be boosted? Absolutely, either via vaccines (the saffer option) or actual disease (the worst option). Be wary of any products claiming to either “boost the immune system” or to “promote a healthy immune system” or any similar wishy-washy claim. 

Don’t be fooled. Learn to distinguish scientific truth from sciency sounding advertising.

Vaccine Times: Measels kills 5 in Liberia

http://factsnotfantasy.com/vaccines.phpMore dead people from something that is totally and easily preventable.  Now, Liberia suffers from other problems, but Bill Gates is working on that.  The main point here is to show that yes, people do DIE from these diseases, no matter what the anti-vax pro-disease nutters are saying.  And they die just like they did before vaccines.  The simple answer here is that vaccines save lives (and DON'T cause autism).

A measles outbreak has sickened 100 and killed 5 children in the Nimba County in Liberia. A UNICEF supported immunization campaign is underway; eighty teams of health workers have spread out across Nimba County over the past week to immunize all children between six months and 16 years of age. The teams have also distributed vitamin A supplements, as well as de-worming tablets for children under five. According to UNICEF:

The emergency campaign is critical to stop a wider measles outbreak, because routine immunization coverage in the area is low – but also because of an influx of around 32,000 refugees who have fled political violence in Côte d’Ivoire since December. Many are children whose immunization status is unknown.

This is yet another painful reminder that contrary to what some anti-vaccine proponents say, people do indeed die from these diseases, and to the people seeing firsthand both the destruction and death such diseases bring, and the relief that vaccines bring, the anti-vaccine rhetoric would be as alien as a child dying from measles is to the anti-vaccine proponents themselves.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY. Make sure to click, there is an excellent UNICEF video.

Vaccine Times: There is no antifreeze in vaccines

You really have to click over to the Vaccine Times to get the whole story.  I am just amazed that ANYONE would take medical advice from someone who has absolutely zero medical training, and is probably more mistaken about basic biology and chemistry than she actually knows about it.  This is really all about the "say a lie often enough, and someone will believe you."  Well, this whopper is not going to get by me, or anyone else that reads the Vaccine Times.  Again, Jenny McCarthy is responsible for people DYING, just because she's lying.

How many times have you heard Jenny McCarthy demand that antifreeze be removed from vaccines?  J.B. Handley boldly claims that the flu shot contains antifreeze. I mean who can disagree with that: antifreeze is something you pour inside your car, in a special container under the hood, you don’t inject that into babies. What monster ever decided that it was a good idea to add it to vaccines? Turns out, the monster does not exists, because there is no antifreeze in vaccines.

How do we know that there is no antifreeze in vaccines? Well, let’s see, first, there is no chemical element called “antifreeze” which you can identify in a vaccine; antifreeze is a combination of chemicals whose purpose is to reduce the freezing point of the cooling mixture, in you car for example, below the lowest temperatures the car is expected to encounter. The combination is not unique, for example there is Organic Acid Technology antifreeze, ethylene glycol, and propylene glycol antifreeze, antifreeze made for cars and trucks, as well as for portable plumbing systems, HVAC chillers and solar water heaters. That is why just one manufacturer lists 14 different antifreeze products on its website.

Besides these base elements, antifreeze contains various additives. Common additives include: sodium silicate, disodium phosphate, sodium molybdate, sodium borate, dextrin (hydroxyethyl starch), and a green dye, disodium fluorescein etc. There is no one element called antifreeze and all various kinds of antifreeze differ from each other due to the different combinations of base elements and the additives used.

As such, the first question to ask McCarthy and other “green-our-vaccines” proponents who still use the antifreeze line is: which antifreeze?

Moving on, according to Wikipedia, the most common ingredients in antifreeze are methanol, ethylene glycol and propylene glycol. Are these compounds present in vaccines? Fortunately we can easily answer that question since we know what is in vaccines; you can search that list of excipients in vaccines for any word you like. Not only does the word “antifreeze” produce zero hits, but so do the words “methanol” and “glycol” (or any of the other names that are used to identify these compounds).

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY.