Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Listening to those Opposed to AB 2109: Intro

I have been keeping an eye on what the opposition has been saying.  A twitter user named CaliVaxChoice live-tweeted last week's Health Committee Hearing.  Here they are in order, with my comments interspersed.

I imagine the strictness had to do with the conduct of the anti-AB2109 contingent at previous hearings on this bill, not following the instructions, going overtime, and so forth.


Say CaliVaxChoice, herd immunity not just a claim; measles outbreaks not a fiction.

 I'm not sure what "claims internet is misguided" is about, unless referring to outright misinformation, distortions, and fear-mongering at sites such as NVIC, VaxChoice etc.

I have to come up with a name for the "It's Always About the Money".  The elided claim here is that pediatricians are supporting AB 2109 because they will all make much, much more money if this bill passes.

 Well that is an ugly little comment.  I need to look up the death rate from pneumococcal disease before the advent of the vaccine.  
It's not a "claim" it's a fact that children unvaccinated against pneumococcal disease are X times more likely to catch the disease.  Golly, how hard is that to understand?

9 comments:

  1. "Well that is an ugly little comment. I need to look up the death rate from pneumococcal disease before the advent of the vaccine. "

    That's easy Liz before the introduction of the 5 in one 5 died. After official FDA data tell us that the vaccine killed 23!

    And you still want to push this crap to mandate?
    Whose sucking your flaps!

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  2. Anonymous seems ill-informed. I suppose A has "done his research" but didn't come up with accurate or factual results. A also seems to be unable to site sources.

    First of all, the pneumococcal vaccine isn't required for daycare or school entry in California (1).

    A makes the following claims


    before the introduction of the 5 in one 5 died. After official FDA data tell us that the vaccine killed 23!


    I am not sure what A means by "5 in one" -- the pneumococcal vaccine introduced in 2000 protected against 7 serotypes; the newer vaccine protects against 13 serotypes, and was recommended in 2010.(2)

    Death rate from pneumococcal disease in infants prior to 2000 is harder to come by directly, as it is not evidently a reportable vaccine-preventable disease (3). The best I can do is this summary (4)


    Before the routine use of a vaccine for children in the United States, pneumococcal disease was a significant problem in children younger than age five years. Each year it was responsible for causing 700 cases of meningitis, 13,000 blood infections, five million ear infections, and 200 deaths. Following the introduction of a pneumococcal vaccine for children in 2000, the incidence of pneumococcal disease dropped significantly.


    Since the pneumococcal vaccine was introduced in 2000, The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has seen the following claims (5),

    Pneumococcal Conjugate (the type given to children (6)):
    Total vaccine injury claims filed: 34
    Vaccine injury claims of death: 4
    Vaccine injury claims, non-fatal: 30

    Compensated: 7
    Dismissed: 20
    In process or withdrawn (34-27=7)

    As to A's claim of "official FDA data tell us that the vaccine killed 23" -- that sounds like raw data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). Let me remind readers what VAERS can and cannot do (7)


    Guide to Interpreting VAERS Case Report Information
    When evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established. Reports of all possible associations between vaccines and adverse events (possible side effects) are filed in VAERS. Therefore, VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event.


    It should be obvious to readers that Anonymous has made claims that are counter-factual. This is the kind of misinformation that parents worried about vaccine safety are being fed. The need to counter this misinformation and falsehoods is the reason I support the passage of AB2109.

    Sources

    1. http://www.immunize.org/laws/pneuconj.asp
    2. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pneumo/default.htm#vacc
    3. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/G/cases&deaths.pdf
    4. http://www.vaccineinformation.org/pneumchild/qandadis.asp
    5. http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/statisticsreports.html#Claims
    6. http://www.vaccineinformation.org/pneumchild/qandavax.asp.
    7. http://vaers.hhs.gov/data/index.

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  3. "It should be obvious to readers that Anonymous has made claims that are factual. This is the kind of good quality information that parents worried about vaccine safety are being fed. The need to counter this information and facts is the reason I support the passage of AB2109 into the toilet. "

    The computer says no! Anypersons who attempt to even imply that vaccination is detelerious to health, not of use or downright dangerous shall have their argument ripped to pieces even though the facts are sound. Failing this the character shall become a target for dissing, in every case the 'doesn't have evidence published in our journals' shall be the get out clause entitling the..............

    So now we know that Liz is not Mrs Little America and that this site is a fishing site, I mean how many little people have the time and resources to quote site stat crap from medical databases and still pretend they are sitting watching tv and caring about Little kids and eating Hershey bars whilst catching a show?

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  4. Anonymous descends into the ad hominem fallacy. (1)

    An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument.



    I've been at the task of refuting anti-vaccination tropes and canards since about 1997 -- originally motivated by a loved one's health being threatened by vaccine-preventable disease. That's 15 years of seeing the same tired arguments trotted out. It's not hard to maintain a database of points refuting the articles.

    Earlier this year, a handy summary was published: Anti-vaccine activists, Web 2.0, and the postmodern paradigm – An overview of tactics and tropes used online by the anti-vaccination movement (2)

    Sources
    1. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html.
    2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22172504 (As it happens, I have the full text in PDF format.)

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  5. So are the panel that parents who object to vaccination going to be told that the cervical cancer vaccine puts the cervical cancer rate up in girls who already have HPV?

    Nice to see that more septic believers are swarming towards your site. If there were any quality medical peer reviewed journals to quote we'd all be doing it. Unfortunately due to publishing bias there are none so we are subjected to pandemic flu myths and the like.

    You are quite capable of looking up Polio vaccine failure in India, but of course your bible the holy pubmed is only capable of printing work that supports the lord not the facts.

    I still find it incredible that there are still some people who believe in medical peer review, the ex editors of the BMJ and NEJM both went on record last year pointing out that nothing can be believed in Medical peer reviewed rags due to funding bias! Bring on Bill!

    GSK have just been busted for data fraud in drug efficacy, how many have to go down to get a cohort of liars? I suppose you're a believer and that's fine, but my tax will be paying for your stupidity for years to come.

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  6. Poland was the only European country to officially reject the swine flu vaccine that the US was abusively forcing on everyone, the CDC vilified Poland for this.

    Post swine flu bullshit we find out there stats of illness showed nothing derogatory, I don't know anyone who had the vaccine and all those New York State health professionals who took court action to stop being forced to have it can't be wrong either.

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  7. "It's not a "claim" it's a fact that children unvaccinated against pneumococcal disease are X times more likely to catch the disease. Golly, how hard is that to understand?" Bullshit Liz should be your avatar, where on earth do you drag up this crap?

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    Replies
    1. That's easy, Anonymous.

      Decline in Invasive Pneumococcal Disease after the Introduction of Protein–Polysaccharide Conjugate Vaccine, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022823

      RESULTS
      The rate of invasive disease dropped from an average of 24.3 cases per 100,000 persons in 1998 and 1999 to 17.3 per 100,000 in 2001. The largest decline was in children under two years of age. In this group, the rate of disease was 69 percent lower in 2001 than the base-line rate (59.0 cases per 100,000 vs. 188.0 per 100,000, P<0.001); the rate of disease caused by vaccine and vaccine-related serotypes declined by 78 percent (P<0.001) and 50 percent (P<0.001), respectively


      There are more results; this is just the infant results. The paper is available in full text at the link above.

      Parental decline of pneumococcal vaccination and risk of pneumococcal related disease in children. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21145372

      RESULTS:
      Among 106 cases, there were 6 (6%) PCV7 vaccine decliners; among 401 controls, there were 4 (1%) vaccine decliners. Children of parents who declined PCV7 immunization were 6.5 times (OR=6.5; 95% CI=1.7, 24.5) more likely to be hospitalized for invasive pneumococcal disease or lobar pneumonia than vaccinated children.


      There are a lot more papers, Anonymous, on the reduction of pneumococcal disease in children following the introduction of the vaccine.

      Are you denying that the vaccine does nothing and hasn't changed the incidence of pneumonia in the target population?

      Delete
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    ReplyDelete