• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Antivaxers do it again

Deetee

Illuminator
Deetee
Joined
Jul 8, 2003
Messages
3,789
What would a parent think if they read the following statement:
The Journal of Infectious Diseases published Prevention of Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) meningitis and emergence of serotype replacement with type a strains after introduction of Hib immunization in Brazil in January 2003 which had findings of:
The incidence of Hib meningitis decreased 69% during the 1-year period after initiation of Hib immunization (from 2.62 to 0.81 cases/100,000 person-years; P<.001). In contrast, the incidence for H. influenzae type a meningitis increased 8-fold.​
Therefore, Hib immunization contributed to an increased risk for H. influenzae type a meningitis through selection of circulating H. influenzae type a clones.​
Click to expand...
I imagine any reasonable and reasoning person would think "Wow, immunisation against Hib is not a good thing to have, if it increases the incidence of the the disease!"​
The argument is based on serotype replacement - something we have discussed here before in connection with Prevenar/pneumococcal vaccine.​
I discovered this claim while perusing a new website called "Inside Vaccines" - a forum for parents from parents (Yup, we all know where this one is headed...)​
I post the info here because I am increasingly annoyed at just how far the antivaccine lobby is prepared to go in order to counter the use of vaccines. In this case they have deliberately made it seem that vaccine is harmful. In the medical world, this would be not only morally reprehensible, but medico-legally criminal behaviour.​
The article abstract in full says the following:
Surveillance for Haemophilus influenzae meningitis cases was performed in Salvador, Brazil, before and after introduction of H. influenzae type b (Hib) immunization. The incidence of Hib meningitis decreased 69% during the 1-year period after initiation of Hib immunization (from 2.62 to 0.81 cases/100,000 person-years; P<.001). In contrast, the incidence for H. influenzae type a meningitis increased 8-fold (from 0.02 to 0.16 cases/100,000 person-years; P=.008).
Pulsed-field gel electrophoretic analysis demonstrated that H. influenzae type a isolates belonged to 2 clonally related groups, both of which were found before Hib immunization commenced. Therefore, Hib immunization contributed to an increased risk for H. influenzae type a meningitis through selection of circulating H. influenzae type a clones. The risk attributable to serotype replacement is small in comparison to the large reduction in Hib meningitis due to immunization. However, these findings highlight the need to maintain surveillance as the use of conjugate vaccines expands worldwide.
Click to expand...

The selective removal of vital information (highlighted by me in red) by the "Inside Vaccines" team distorts the entire findings of the paper, and is designed to fool readers into thinking the opposite of what the article actually concludes.​
I haven't had time to look at much else on this new anti-vaccine site, but I fear the worst. I am all for parents geting information - knowledge is vital and informed parents are the best kind. But it is so sad to see the depths to which the antivaxers will sink in order to push their agenda.​
 
Last edited:
I only found out about the Hib vaccine last week. I really wish it had been around when I was little, since it also prevents one of the major causes of middle ear infection, which I had a big problem with.
 
As a junior doctor I saw lots of HiB meningitis. Nothing now. It was nasty stuff.

If someone wants to expose a vaccine scandal/conspiracy, then they could do worse than look into the reasons behind the delay in introducing infant HiB vaccination in the UK. There was a perfectly good vaccine available, being widely used in Europe and Scandinavia. It reduced HiB deaths to almost zero in those countries.

Did the UK introduce it?
No.
The Dept of Health delayed for a couple of years in order to get their own vaccine production on-line and to run their own tests (like they were going to show anything different?)

In that time, dozens of kids died from HiB.
Bloody disgraceful.
 
Last edited:
Don't bet on it! My mother and I recently changed medical practices because we moved house. She was due her flu jag. When the new practice heard we were living together they said they wanted to do me too. So there we were, in the surgery, and the nurse had all the records.

According to the records, Mum had never had the pneumococcus vaccine. She had had it, she remembered, and I remembered her telling me about it at the time (about two years previously). Her records were wrong.

The nurse obviously wanted to do someone, so she did me for pneumococcus just because I was there!

Rolfe.
 
Deetee said:
As a junior doctor I saw lots of HiB meningitis. Nothing now. It was nasty stuff.

If someone wants to expose a vaccine scandal/conspiracy, then they could do worse than look into the reasons behind the delay in introducing infant HiB vaccination in the UK. There was a perfectly good vaccine available, being widely used in Europe and Scandinavia. It reduced HiB deaths to almost zero in those countries.

Did the UK introduce it?
No.
The Dept of Health delayed for a couple of years in order to get their own vaccine production on-line and to run their own tests (like they were going to show anything different?)

In that time, dozens of kids died from HiB.
Bloody disgraceful.
Click to expand...


Better not let Jerome da Gnome see that. It will be one more slogan with which to decry SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Which is about as bad as bubonic plague in his sad little world.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Better not let Jerome da Gnome see that. It will be one more slogan with which to decry SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Which is about as bad as bubonic plague in his sad little world.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...
Who's he?
 
Last edited:
Deetee, this is the usual problem of relative versus absolute risk. Not only that, but yesterday I read an excellent article about odds ratios and now know how these are misinterpreted. For example, Avandia (rosiglitazone) has had its sales decimated by reports of an odds ratio of 1.43 in favour of increased cardiovascular events. Although this obviously doesn't mean there is a 43% chance of getting a heart attack from taking Avandia (although no doubt some of the media expressed it like that), it doesn't even mean that the relative risk is 43% higher either. In fact the increase in absolute risk ranges from 0.07% in one trial to 0.41% in another. This is for a drug which greatly reduces the risk of diabetic complications by controlling diabetes far better than sulfonylureas or metformin.

The problem is that most people (like me!) have difficulty with numbers and are ripe for exploitation. If most people really did understand risk, lotteries would be impossible to run.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
So is Inside Vaccines just like JABS, or does it have fewer paranoid conspiracy theory rants?
Click to expand...

Also, do the antivax posters get their "facts" from whale.to and do the mods consider advice like "talk to your doctor" to be disruptive Big Pharma trolling?
 
Last edited:
robinson said:
http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?PAGENO=1&PERPAGE=10&SORTING=NONE&VAX=HPV4&DIED=Yes

Yes, but the same can be said for both sides.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but I really can't see your point. All that we know from these 12 reports (of which one has no data whatsoever and concerns 2 anecdotal cases) is that the patients had HPV4 vaccine and died from a wide range of apparent causes (and in one case no apparent cause). Are you saying that someone is manipulating these data?
 
Asolepius said:
Sorry, but I really can't see your point. All that we know from these 12 reports (of which one has no data whatsoever and concerns 2 anecdotal cases) is that the patients had HPV4 vaccine and died from a wide range of apparent causes (and in one case no apparent cause). Are you saying that someone is manipulating these data?
Click to expand...
In fact one case did not have gardasil, but meningovax.
Causes of death seem varied. Commonest is blood clot/pulmonary embolism, not unusual in young women, particulary with other comorbidities. I think it has been established that the deaths are not higher than the anticipated background.
 
Asolepius said:
Deetee, this is the usual problem of relative versus absolute risk. Not only that, but yesterday I read an excellent article about odds ratios and now know how these are misinterpreted. For example, Avandia (rosiglitazone) has had its sales decimated by reports of an odds ratio of 1.43 in favour of increased cardiovascular events. Although this obviously doesn't mean there is a 43% chance of getting a heart attack from taking Avandia (although no doubt some of the media expressed it like that), it doesn't even mean that the relative risk is 43% higher either. In fact the increase in absolute risk ranges from 0.07% in one trial to 0.41% in another. This is for a drug which greatly reduces the risk of diabetic complications by controlling diabetes far better than sulfonylureas or metformin.

The problem is that most people (like me!) have difficulty with numbers and are ripe for exploitation. If most people really did understand risk, lotteries would be impossible to run.
Click to expand...
Quite agree.

I would like to see a further analysis of "vioxx" data, actually. Upper GI bleeding from nonsteroidals are one of the commonest causes of drug related death. I wonder how many people who switched away from coxibs like vioxx went on to have a significant/fatal GI bleed, because they took NSAIDS instead? It's a trade off of one side effect versus another.

Also rather like many of the OCP scares, where women stopped the pill suddenly, only to get pregnant (which not only was undesired, but runs a massively higher risk of events like blood clots compared to the pill itself).
 
Last edited:
Deetee said:
In fact one case did not have gardasil, but meningovax.
Causes of death seem varied. Commonest is blood clot/pulmonary embolism, not unusual in young women, particulary with other comorbidities. I think it has been established that the deaths are not higher than the anticipated background.
Click to expand...
Yes, exactly my assessment. Maybe I misunderstood your post. I thought you were implying that the pro-vaxers were sinking to the same depths as the antis.

ETA: Sorry Deetee, just realised I am replying to you not to robinson (Friday night and I have some very nice Courvoisier in front of me).
 
Last edited:
Cuddles said:
I only found out about the Hib vaccine last week. I really wish it had been around when I was little, since it also prevents one of the major causes of middle ear infection, which I had a big problem with.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure without looking it up but I'm pretty sure if you had H-flu otitis media it would have been a single occurrence. Multiple ear infections would likely represent different strains of pneumococcal infections. However, we have a vaccine that now decreases those infections as well.

With the introduction of H-flu vaccine, cases of H-flu meningitis almost stopped completely. What a shame people looking for information that supports their beliefs rather than looking at what the research shows can distort the information on the H-flu study.

We had a discussion on the forum as well over an increase in one strain of pneumococcal infections when the vaccine was introduced. Yes, eliminate the competition and non-covered strains can emerge. But that can be managed with simply increasing the strains covered in the vaccine. And in any case, even emerging non-vaccine covered strains are rarely going to rise to causing the level of invasive disease of the vaccines strains initially covered.

In the case of antibiotic resistance, you are treating an actively multiplying colony. There is a greater chance of resistance emerging. With vaccines, you are preventing the colony from beginning in the first place. There is less chance of resistance emerging. For this reason it's preferable to use vaccinations, not to mention you prevent illness before it happens rather than treating an infection after it begins.

Drug resistance developing from vaccinations is by far less of a problem than not vaccinating and trading for antibiotic or antiviral drug resistance instead. The only reason one would see vaccine resistant strains emerging is because you eliminated known pathogenic strains. In the case of H-flu and pneumococcal infections, antibiotics can be used to manage emerging vaccine resistant strains until they can be covered with revised vaccine formulations.
 
Asolepius said:
Sorry, but I really can't see your point. All that we know from these 12 reports (of which one has no data whatsoever and concerns 2 anecdotal cases) is that the patients had HPV4 vaccine and died from a wide range of apparent causes (and in one case no apparent cause). Are you saying that someone is manipulating these data?
Click to expand...

I'm getting ready to point out lot more than that. There is woo woo afoot, and I am about to the bottom of the mess.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
So is Inside Vaccines just like JABS, or does it have fewer paranoid conspiracy theory rants?
Click to expand...
:confused:
I went and checked it out. No paranoid conspiracy theory rants. They do say this: http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/?page_id=71
We want to hear from you!
We welcome comments about our content and will be delighted to correct any errors that you point out. Just share your sources and explain where we went wrong. If we disagree with your conclusion we’ll be happy to share our sources and explain where you went wrong.
Click to expand...

They've been publishing for over a month now and nobody seems to be trying to straighten them out.

Latest article is here: http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/?p=86

a little skit with expectant parents asking a doctor questions about the vaccine schedule.
 
Deetee said:
What would a parent think if they read the following statement:
I imagine any reasonable and reasoning person would think "Wow, immunisation against Hib is not a good thing to have, if it increases the incidence of the the disease!"​
The argument is based on serotype replacement - something we have discussed here before in connection with Prevenar/pneumococcal vaccine.​
I discovered this claim while perusing a new website called "Inside Vaccines" - a forum for parents from parents (Yup, we all know where this one is headed...)​
I post the info here because I am increasingly annoyed at just how far the antivaccine lobby is prepared to go in order to counter the use of vaccines. In this case they have deliberately made it seem that vaccine is harmful. In the medical world, this would be not only morally reprehensible, but medico-legally criminal behaviour.​
The article abstract in full says the following:

The selective removal of vital information (highlighted by me in red) by the "Inside Vaccines" team distorts the entire findings of the paper, and is designed to fool readers into thinking the opposite of what the article actually concludes.​
I haven't had time to look at much else on this new anti-vaccine site, but I fear the worst. I am all for parents geting information - knowledge is vital and informed parents are the best kind. But it is so sad to see the depths to which the antivaxers will sink in order to push their agenda.​
Click to expand...


Ah. Interesting. Conclusions aren't actually data, you know.

You left out another abstract which is quoted in full on insidevaccines and which says:
In addition to the proportional increase in cases of nontype b Haemophilus influenzae disease in the post H. influenzae type b vaccine era, the incidence of invasive H. influenzae disease was found to be approaching the rates of H. influenzae type b disease that were documented in the prevaccine period. Fifty-six percent of invasive disease now occurs in individuals aged >10 years.
Click to expand...

If you just look at Hib vs. HiA and ignore the fact that there are other Hi types that also fill in the gap then everything will be hunkydory. But there are those other types...and everything is not hunkydory.​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom