Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

Forcing Nurses Out of Nursing to “Save Money”

There are laws being proposed, and some have passed, to limit the pay for nurses, because the legislators assume that nurses are overpaid. The problem is that healthcare is expensive and that nurses are not treated well by employers – most of whom do not seem to be capable of providing the care that nurses provide.

Who has created this problem? It isn’t the nurses, who are overworked, underpaid, and abused by some of their patients.

But a nurse makes more than a paramedic, so they shouldn’t complain! A nurse generally has more education and more responsibility than a paramedic, so why shouldn’t a nurse make more? Before the pandemic, I told people not to go into EMS, because there are few options in what you do for work and the standards are low.

A quick way of eliminating people, while claiming to be making things better, is to put a pay cap on the people actually doing the work. But which people do we lose with a pay cap?

With a pay cap, we lose the people who hit the pay cap, which means the highest paid people. If pay is supposed to have something to do with ability, we will lose the best employees first – and it is not likely to stop with just a few people, because this is a system that has been failing for a long time.

The increased demands of the pandemic and the attacks from the people who demand that doctors, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, … put up with abuse from the least educated, because of the “Freedom” of the least intelligent, there are not many reasons to stay. We keep telling the best nurses, that it is time to find some other way to make a living, because we don’t want competence – we only want compliance.

The way to make healthcare better is not to cap the pay of the people who do the work.

Why aren’t we limiting at the pay of the people who run things and did a lot to get us into this mess?

If we want to decrease the number of people in beds in the hospitals, we should promote vaccination, masking, and social distancing. The corruption of some politicians, partying without masks, is not a reason to avoid wearing masks, but a reason to enforce the rules without exceptions for the politically powerful.

COVID-19 has killed millions with the help of the anti-vaxers and the anti-maskers. We shouldn’t be part of the group sickening/killing our neighbors, our families, or ourselves.

Vaccines and masks are safe and effective and save lives, if we are smart enough to use them.

.

Why 90% vs. 62% for the Efficacy of the AstraZeneca Vaccine Candidate?

 

There was a press release from AstraZeneca at 7 AM today. It includes two different dosing methods with two dramatically different rates of efficacy. One group received half a dose, followed by a month later by a full dose. The other group received a full dose, followed by a month later by another full dose.

 

One dosing regimen (n=2,741) showed vaccine efficacy of 90% when AZD1222 was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart, and another dosing regimen (n=8,895) showed 62% efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart. The combined analysis from both dosing regimens (n=11,636) resulted in an average efficacy of 70%. All results were statistically significant (p<=0.0001). More data will continue to accumulate and additional analysis will be conducted, refining the efficacy reading and establishing the duration of protection.

 

Usually, the result of the differences in dosing is to use the lowest effective dose, in order to minimize any side effects, which are usually dose related. A higher dose is expected to be more effective, but also to have more side effects.

 

The part people are having a hard time explaining is that the 90% efficacy is in the smaller dose group. This does not seem to make medical sense, but this is what people who understand statistics expect.

 

Why?

 

Daniel Kahneman explains this in his excellent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. He uses the following example as an introduction:

 

A study of the incidence of kidney cancer in the 3,141 counties of the United States reveals a remarkable pattern. The counties in which the incidence of kidney cancer is lowest are mostly rural, sparsely populated, and located in traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, the South, and the West. What do you make of this?

 

This is known informally as the Law of Small Numbers. Intuitively, we can come up with many different explanations about a healthy rural lifestyle, or something else. Kahneman follows that with the statistics on counties with the highest incidence of kidney cancer, which are also mostly rural, sparsely populated, and located in traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, the South, and the West.

 

The important factor is not lifestyle, not politics, and not geography. The important factor is that these are all sparsely populated counties, which means that the number of cases of kidney cancer will be disproportionately affected by the addition/subtraction of a tiny number of cases.

 

The small sample size is the most likely explanation for the 90% efficacy in the half dose, then full dose group. When more cases of COVID-19 are diagnosed among those who have received the half dose, then the full dose, expect the estimate of benefit to drop closer to 70%. The 70% efficacy is also based on small numbers, but those numbers (including the 90% sample) are more than four times the size of the 90% sample. This is not certain. This is statistical probability. A reasonable person should feel comfortable in placing a wager on the results dropping to near 70%.

 

In other words, the news is worse than expected, although still good news. There is another vaccine candidate that, based on the preliminary numbers, meets the approval criteria of better than 50% efficacy.

 

.

 

What Do the Moderna Vaccine Candidate Press Releases Tell Us?


 

I had thought that the vaccine studies would only be recruiting people up to 55 years old, which was the age limit on the phase 1 studies, but there is significant representation of people over 65 and people with serious comorbidities. This is excellent news.

 

According to one press release from Moderna:

The COVE study includes more than 7,000 Americans over the age of 65. It also includes more than 5,000 Americans who are under the age of 65 but have high-risk chronic diseases that put them at increased risk of severe COVID-19, such as diabetes, severe obesity and cardiac disease.

 

The other important concern I had was the need to store the vaccine at around -80 degrees C, which would limit access for a lot of people, even in America. From another press release, dated 4 minutes earlier, Moderna:

today announced new data showing that mRNA-1273, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, remains stable at 2° to 8°C (36° to 46°F), the temperature of a standard home or medical refrigerator, for 30 days. Stability testing supports this extension from an earlier estimate of 7 days. mRNA-1273 remains stable at -20° C (-4°F) for up to six months, at refrigerated conditions for up to 30 days and at room temperature for up to 12 hours.

 

There is an excellent analysis of the press release on preliminary efficacy results at STAT News, which has been ahead of the rest of the media in recognizing the serious nature of this pandemic.

 

It is important to remember that a press release, even about something this serious, is a commercial, intended to promote the company’s product. The information provided by Moderna in the press releases has not been peer reviewed. The numbers may change as mistakes are caught and conclusions are examined. That is OK, because there will be thorough analysis of the results before any vaccine candidate is approved for use outside of these experiments.

 

How will we know when a vaccine is safe and effective? I provided my criteria in August, when I wrote about a vaccine approved by President Putin, based on inadequate research:

I want to see recommendation of a vaccine by the people who know the most about vaccines – Paul Offit, Michael Osterholm, Peter Hotez, and Anthony Fauci. They need to be able to see all of the evidence. The only reasonable conclusion about a refusal to share the evidence with any of them is that there is something bad being hidden. These are not politicians. None of these medical experts have shown signs of being influenced by political pressure.

 

.

Mask vs. Vaccine – Which is More Effective?

Currently, mask vs. vaccine is an easy answer. Masks are 100% more effective than something that is not available. Eventually, mask plus vaccine may be the best answer.

According to the evidence, the the masks decrease the amount of virus that is able to be detected on the other side of the mask, regardless of whether the mask is being worn by an infectious person trying to avoid infecting others or the mask is being worn by a healthy person trying to avoid becoming infected.

The dose of virus does seem to matter in transmission of disease.

This does not mean that vaccines will not help, assuming that a safe and effective vaccine is eventually available. The stated cut off level to be applied for approval of a vaccine is currently at least 50% effective. Masks are already more than 50% effective.

“I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because the immunogenicity may be 70%,” Redfield said in testimony before a Senate appropriations committee. “And if I don’t get an immune response, the vaccine is not going to protect me. This face mask will.”[1]

That statement was later contradicted by President Trump, but that statement was not contradicted by any credible scientist and was not contradicted by any credible physician. Oddly, the article title suggests that Dr. Redfield walked back his statement, although the article never states that. This may be because the headline is often not written by the person writing the article, but by an editor, looking to get more clicks.

Masks work.

Vaccines are not available and probably will not be available until sometime next year.

If we want the economy to recover, we need to be aggressive about wearing masks to protect others and to protect ourselves.

This is from a paper written in 2009 about influenza, which is transmitted the same way SARS-CoV 2 is transmitted. These were people with influenza, wearing masks, and coughing. The results with an N95 mask and a surgical mask show that both decreased the amount of virus, that would be spread by a cough, to the undetectable level.[2]

Masks do not protect your eyes, so you should consider wearing eye protection. Masks also do not protect your hands, so wash your hands. Typhoid Mary might not have killed anyone if she had washed her hands.

**********************

.

Footnotes:

.

[1] CDC Chief Walks Back Masks v. Vaccine Comments
By Ralph Ellis
WebMD
Article

.

[2] A Quantitative Assessment of the Efficacy of Surgical and N95 Masks to Filter Influenza Virus in Patients with Acute Influenza Infection
D. F. Johnson, J. D. Druce, C. Birch, M. L. Grayson
Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 49, Issue 2, 15 July 2009, Pages 275–277, 
https://doi.org/10.1086/600041 Published: 15 July 2009

.

What Does the Approval of a Russian Vaccine Mean?



Today, after testing on a grand total of 76 people, President Putin announced the approval of a vaccine in Russia, Sputnik-V, to prevent COVID-19.

We knew another pandemic was coming, because we understand evolution. We should have been prepared. We were prepared under the Bush administration. We were prepared under the Obama administration. The current administration chose to stop wasting money on being prepared.

There are three human phases of testing generally required before the approval of a vaccine or drug, after testing in other animals. Phase I is testing in humans for common adverse effects, dosing ranges, and to generally learn how the body reacts. For the most discussed vaccine trial, Moderna had 45 people (three groups of 15 people each receiving different doses of vaccine) in their Phase I trial.

Phase II expands the use to people who are not as healthy as the people in Phase I and to a more people. Phase III is refining this, based on the results of the earlier trials. Phase I and II are being combined in some vaccine trials. Phase II and II are being combined in others.

The Moderna Phase III trial of mRNA-1273 (mRNA is messenger RiboNucleic Acid – the stock ticker for Moderna, Inc. is also MRNA) is expected to enroll 30,000 people who have no evidence of previous COVID-19 infection.[1] Half will get mRNA-1273 and half will get a meningitis vaccine as a placeboish control. While a placebo often means inert, a saline solution injection would not produce the temporary fever, soreness, and/or redness to the site at the same rate as an actual vaccine. This is expected to keep the volunteers from being able to tell which they have received and it provides a benefit to those in the placebo group.

Russia has enrolled 76 people in Phase I and President Putin has announced that Phase III will happen at the same time as the mass vaccination of the people most likely to be exposed to infection. This is Phase IV – post approval study.

Russia has not announced any challenge testing, which might have been a more ethical approach than skipping Phase III. Challenge testing has not being announced anywhere for COVID-19 vaccine testing, because of the ethical concerns. With an expected 1/2% to 1% fatality rate, a much higher rate of serious complications, and an unknown rate of long term complications that appear to be related to COVID-19, it is difficult to justify intentionally exposing people to infection with a vaccine of unknown ability to protect the people being exposed. Thousands of people dying each day, thousands more developing serious complications each day, and thousands more developing long term complications each day. Where is the line drawn between approving challenge testing and not approving it? Where is the line drawn between challenge testing and skipping Phase III trials?

When will the Russian vaccine be given to people? Some time in October.

What could go wrong?

Meanwhile the Moscow-based Association of Clinical Trials Organizations (Acto), which represents the world’s top drug companies in Russia, urged the health ministry to postpone approval until after phase-three trials.

Acto executive director Svetlana Zavidova told the Russian MedPortal site that a decision on mass vaccination had been carried out after a combined first- and second-phase tests on 76 people, and that it was impossible to confirm the efficacy of a drug on this basis.[2]

Will this be just another political intervention, like hydroxychloroquine? Only time will tell.

What would indicate that the United States has a safe and effective vaccine?

I want to see recommendation of a vaccine by the people who know the most about vaccines – Paul Offit, Michael Osterholm, Peter Hotez, and Anthony Fauci. They need to be able to see all of the evidence. The only reasonable conclusion about a refusal to share the evidence with any of them is that there is something bad being hidden. These are not politicians. None of these medical experts have shown signs of being influenced by political pressure.

The pandemic was not at all a surprise. The conspiracy theorists will misrepresent this video, because of their lack of understanding of what they are hearing. If it doesn’t support their prejudices, they don’t seem to hear anything at all, as if they have been programmed to ignore valid evidence and logic.

Pandemic Preparedness in the Next Administration: Keynote Address by Anthony S. Fauci – Feb. 14, 2017 – Almost 3 years before COVID-19, but the medically competent audience understood that this was a reasonable prediction to make in 2017. If you don’t understand that, watch the whole video.



Every reasonable person should have known there would be another pandemic, but we have media that discourage understanding, especially about science.


Late addition – 10:55 – 8/12/2020 – For further information, Carl Zimmer has an article in The New York Times going into more detail. A couple of important quotes from the article are below.

‘This Is All Beyond Stupid.’ Experts Worry About Russia’s Rushed Vaccine
August 11, 2020
by Carl Zimmer. Andrew Kramer and Katherine J. Wu contributed reporting.
The New York Times
Article

“This is all beyond stupid,” said John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. “Putin doesn’t have a vaccine, he’s just making a political statement.”

Dr. Nicole Lurie, a former assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and currently an adviser at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, said the lesson that the U.S. government should draw from Mr. Putin’s announcement is clear.

“This is exactly the situation that Americans expect our government to avoid,” she said.

Footnotes:

[1] Phase 3 clinical trial of investigational vaccine for COVID-19 begins – Multi-site trial to test candidate developed by Moderna and NIH.
Monday, July 27, 2020
NIH (National Institutes of Health)
News Release

[2] Coronavirus: Putin says vaccine has been approved for use
Analysis by Fergus Walsh, Medical correspondent
BBC
Article

.

Vaccines are probably the safest and most effective medical intervention available, so why do anti-vaxers lie about them

 

Why does anyone lie?

Anti-vaxers lie for the same reason as other people – for personal benefit.

Many anti-vaxers claim that there is an international conspiracy of doctors and researchers, as if all of the doctors and researchers, or even the pediatric doctors and researchers, in the world could agree on much of anything. When you realize how ridiculously large this conspiracy would be, how much a doctor or researcher would gain from providing valid information to expose such a conspiracy, and how aggressively law enforcement would punish those behind such a conspiracy, you understand the use of ridiculous is appropriate as a description of the conspiracy theory.

This is just another example of some people thinking they know more than everyone else, based on a lack of understanding. This feeds the over-inflated egos of anti-vaxers.

The smallpox vaccine has saved hundreds of millions of lives. Anti-vaxers opposed the smallpox vaccine and delayed the eradication of smallpox. Anti-vaxers helped smallpox kill people..

Our children are no longer vaccinated against smallpox, because smallpox has been wiped out by vaccines. Millions of children’s lives, and adult lives, are saved every year by the smallpox vaccine, without even giving it to children, because enough people rejected the lies of anti-vaxers.

Vaccines continue to save millions of lives every year, in spite of opposition by anti-vaxers.

There is plenty of research showing that vaccines are effective and safe, but to give the single clearest example of the benefit of vaccines, look at the following paper from JAMA. The Journal of the American Medical Association is one of the most respected medical publications in the world. Use any search engine to find a list of the most respected medical journals and you will find JAMA near the top.

Look at the decrease in the rates of illness and the rates of death for each vaccine-preventable illness after the introduction of the vaccine for that illness. Click on the image for a larger, easier to read version.
 


 

Table 1. Historical Comparison of Morbidity and Mortality for Vaccine-Preventable Diseases With Vaccines Licensed or Recommended Before 1980: Diphtheria, Measles, Mumps, Pertussis, Poliomyelitis, Rubella, Smallpox, Tetanusa [1]

 

This information has been simplified for those not comfortable with scientific research (I do not know the source of the image, it was not part of the paper in JAMA):
 


 

As you can see, these diseases are almost never a problem in America, where vaccination rates are still pretty high, although anti-vaxers are causing more and more outbreaks of diseases we had not seen in decades.

Some anti-vaxers will claim that the vaccines didn’t get rid of these diseases. These anti-vaxers claim that improved sanitation, improved hygiene, and improved diet got rid of these diseases. While these improvements are helpful, here is why that is just another anti-vax lie.

We have outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses in America, when the rate of vaccination drops, even though sanitation, hygiene, and diet did not deteriorate. Yes, many of our diets are getting worse, but that is not what is causing outbreaks of whooping cough, measles, and other vaccine-preventable illnesses.

The rates of illness and death only have a dramatic change for each of the vaccine-preventable illnesses after the introduction of each vaccine. If sanitation, hygiene, and diet were the reasons, the illnesses would all start to go away at the same time, although not necessarily at the same rate. If that were the case, the decreases in these diseases could easily be shown to be due to improvements in sanitation, hygiene, and diet, but that is not the case.

Anti-vaxers cannot explain that, but anti-vaxers are not reasonable.
 

Why has the polio vaccine been so effective in India, when India has widespread problems with sanitation, hygiene, and diet?

Here is what the authors wrote:
 

India, a vastly diverse country with a 27 million birth cohort, undertook the largest vaccination drive against WPV (Wild Polio Virus) in the world. With high population density, poor civic infrastructure, poor sanitation, an almost nonexistent public health system, rampant malnutrition and diarrhea, difficult-to-reach locales, high population mobility, and extremely high force of WPV transmission in few states,3 the interruption of WPV transmission was extremely difficult and demanding. The interplay of these challenging factors provided a perfect milieu for the WPV to circulate, and the prospect of achieving zero-polio status seemed insurmountable.[2]

 

India completed a full 5 years as a “polio-free nation” on January 13, 2016.1 It was a remarkable feat considering the odds against achieving this status. [2]

Anti-vaxers will make excuses, but this clearly exposes the anti-vax lie that disease elimination being due to improved sanitation, hygiene, and diet, rather than due to vaccines.
 

The reason smallpox vaccine is no longer given to children, is the worldwide eradication of smallpox by vaccination.

Anti-vaers delayed the worldwide eradication of smallpox.

Anti-vaxers have prevented the worldwide eradication of polio.

Anti-vaxers continue to try to protect polio from eradication.

Children would no longer need polio vaccination, if it weren’t for anti-vaxers.

If you don’t like giving the polio vaccine to your child, blame the anti-vaxers.

Footnotes:

[1] Historical comparisons of morbidity and mortality for vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States.
Roush SW, Murphy TV; Vaccine-Preventable Disease Table Working Group.
JAMA. 2007 Nov 14;298(18):2155-63.
PMID: 18000199

You can also read the full text of the article for free at JAMA at the link below, if you want to understand more of the details that the anti-vaxers don’t want you to understand.

Historical Comparisons of Morbidity and Mortality for Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States

[2] Polio Eradication in India: The Lessons Learned.
Thacker N, Vashishtha VM, Thacker D.
Pediatrics. 2016 Oct;138(4). pii: e20160461. Epub 2016 Sep 2. Review. No abstract available.
PMID: 27590898

You can also read the full text of the article for free at Pediatrics at the link below, if you want to understand more of the details that the anti-vaxers don’t want you to understand. Pediatrics is one of the most respected pediatric medical publications in the world. Use any search engine to find what pediatric medical journals are the most respected and you will find Pediatrics near the top.

Polio Eradication in India: The Lessons Learned

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Anti-Vax Doctors Lack Competence and Ethics

 
 

Effective July 27, 2018, the latest anti-vax doctor to have his license revoked will be Dr. Bob Sears. Yes, he promotes his image as Dr. Bob.

Who are the dangerous doctors Bob Sears will be joining?

Andrew Wakefield‘s fraudulent research, unnecessarily painful research on children, lack of ethical approval for research, and other corruption, convinced the British General Medical Council to revoke his license. Wakefield was also trying to sell a vaccine of his own, to compete with the MMR (polyvalent Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine. Wakefield’s attempts to discredit the MMR vaccine would have helped him to sell his own competing vaccine.
 

the lawyers responsible for the MMR lawsuit had paid Wakefield personally more than £400,000, which he had not previously disclosed.[67] [1]

 

Andrew Wakefield claims that he is not a fraud and sues a lot of people.

All of the cases have been thrown out by the courts or have been withdrawn by Wakefield.[2]

Do those who claim to be trying to protect their children, by avoiding vaccines, based on a trust of this fraudulent doctor, know what Wakefield has done?

The kiddie castrators – David Geier and Mark Geier.

David Geier was never a doctor, but has been caught faking it.[3] In the make believe world of anti-vaxers, why let reality get in the way of pretending to have credibility?

Mark Geier was a doctor, but had his license revoked in every state where he had a license (Maryland, Washington, Virginia, California, Missouri, Illinois, and Hawaii). Why do the Geiers castrate children? Chemical castration is an approved treatment for some rare conditions. Mastectomy is an approved treatment for some breast cancers, but that does not mean that it is at all ethical, or competent, to recommend mastectomy as treatment for other medical conditions. The Geiers claim to believe that castration cures autism. There is no valid evidence to support their hunch.

Consider this. You have an autistic child and someone tells you there is a cure. The person says that they know their expensive chemicals work. The person may even say, I’ve seen it work.[4] All you have to do is give permission for this doctor (before his license was revoked), and his son the fake doctor, to use chemicals to castrate your child.

Do you ask for evidence?

Their is no valid evidence. You just have to trust the castrators and their excuses for the absence of evidence.

The “evidence” has been retracted, because the research is junk science. All human research has to be approved by an independent IRB (Institutional Review Board) to make sure that there are not any conflicts of interest or unnecessary risks to the children participating in the research. The members of the independent IRB were the Geiers, the Geier’s employees, and the Geier’s lawyer. That is not independent.

If chemical castration doesn’t work, the Geiers can sell you other expensive and dangerous treatments that do not work, such as chelation. Chelation is the use of chemicals to remove heavy metals from the body, based on the assumption that mercury causes autism. Chelation is harmful, so it is only indicated, when there is a good reason to believe the benefit will be greater than the harm. There is no valid evidence to support this hunch of the Geiers.

The motto of the company run by the Geiers is First do no harm. Are they completely unaware of the harm they cause, or so dishonest that they tell the boldest lies? Does it matter why they harm children?

What did Bob Sears do to get his license revoked? He claimed to assess patients, but did not keep records of what he claimed to do. His incompetence/negligence endangered patients.[5] ,[6]

For example, a mother frequently brought J.G., a 2 year old, to see Dr. Bob. One visit was for a head ache a couple of weeks after the child’s father hit the child on the head with a hammer. The only apparent concern of the mother and Dr. Bob was to prevent the child from receiving vaccines. There is no record of any neurological assessment, or referral to a competent doctor for a neurological assessment.

J.G. had visited Dr. Bob the previous month for constipation. Assessment and treatment plans were documented. Constipation can be very serious, but so can hitting a child on the head with a hammer. The reason for the difference in approaches was determined to be gross negligence. Another visit, following apparent resolution of otitis media following treatment with Omnicef (cefdinir), there was a diagnosis of a sudden onset of flu, with a prescription for Tamiflu (oseltamivir), so there is no apparent hesitation to use ineffective, or minimally effective, treatments. Is J.G.’s last name Munchausen, or is he just unlucky in his choice of parents?

Bob Sears does not appear to be hesitant to prescribe drugs based on hunches, but he does appear to recognize that being anti-vax can be very profitable. Sears has written 4 books, but still fails to document assessments.

Bob Sears will have to be monitored by another physician for 35 months, following this revocation, to be able to get his license reinstated. He must follow all laws, not be negligent, and not deviate from the standard of medical care. He cannot just take the 3 years off and write books, because he has to be monitored while working to get his license back.

It looks like Bob Sears will be vaccinating children, just as real doctors do.

Vaccines save millions of lives every year.

Vaccines are probably the safest and most effective medical intervention we have, and anti-vaxers hate that.

If some of us do not see the need for vaccines, it is because of the success of vaccines. Vaccines are an important part of the reason that the average life expectancy has doubled in a little over 100 years.

For a great review of the effect of vaccines on vaccine-preventable illnesses, there is a study in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), which shows how the rate of each illness, and deaths from each illness, declined after the introduction of each vaccine. There are anti-vaxers who claim that it wasn’t the vaccines, but sanitation that stopped these illnesses. Don’t fall for that.[7]

Sanitation is important at preventing the spread of illnesses, but sanitation does not wait for each different vaccine to be introduced for each different vaccine-preventable illness to change the illness and fatality rates.

Look at the evidence.

Historical comparisons of morbidity and mortality for vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States.
Roush SW, Murphy TV; Vaccine-Preventable Disease Table Working Group.
JAMA. 2007 Nov 14;298(18):2155-63.
PMID: 18000199

Free Full Text Article from JAMA.

Footnotes:

[1] Aftermath of initial controversy
Andrew Wakefield
Wikipedia
Article

The referenced article by Brian Deer is:

Huge sums paid to Andrew Wakefield
The Sunday Times
December 31 2006
Brian Deer
Article

Andrew Wakefield has repeatedly sued Brian Deer and lost or run away every time.

[2] Deer counter-response
Andrew Wakefield
Wikipedia
Article

[3] Medical licenses revoked
Mark Geier
Wikipedia
Article
 

In 2011, his son David Geier was charged by the Maryland State Board of Physicians with practicing as if a licensed physician when he only has a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology,[42] and was fined $10,000 in July 2012.[40]

 

Charges by the Maryland Medical Board
In the Matter of David A. Geier before the Maryland State Board of Physicians
Practicing without a license
PDF document of charges
 

The Respondent is not and never has been licensed to practice medicine or any other health profession in the State of Maryland or any other State.

 

[4] I’ve Seen It Work and Other Lies
Tue, 21 Jun 2011
Rogue Medic
Article

[5] Antivaccine pediatrician Dr. Bob Sears finally faces discipline from the Medical Board of California
Respectful Insolence
Orac
June 29, 2018
Article

[6] Stipulated Settlement and Disciplinary Order
Decision of the Medical Board of California
Department of Consumer Affairs
State of California
Case No. 800-2015-012268
OAH No. 2017100889
PDF of Decision

[7] “Vaccines didn’t save us” (a.k.a. “vaccines don’t work”): Intellectual dishonesty at its most naked
Science-Based Medicine
David Gorski
March 29, 2010
Article

.

Hundreds of Medical Groups Send a Vaccine Safety Letter to the President

autism-organic
Image credit
 

The rate of autism diagnosis has increased dramatically as people eat more organic food, but that does not mean that organic food causes autism. The way to find out is to study this.

Researchers have looked for any reason to believe that vaccines, or vaccine ingredients, cause autism. The results are the same, regardless of whether the study is in America, Europe, Asia, . . . , and regardless of whether the study is run by private organizations, governments, corporations, or universities.[1]

For example, does thimerosal cause autism? Here is just one study looking for causation. There isn’t even a correlation.
 

CONCLUSIONS:
The discontinuation of thimerosal-containing vaccines in Denmark in 1992 was followed by an increase in the incidence of autism. Our ecological data do not support a correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and the incidence of autism.
[2]

 

If thimerosal causes autism, why does the rate of diagnosis of autism continue to increase after the removal of thimerosal?
 

Hundreds of medical organizations sent a letter to President Trump in an attempt to get the president to look at the evidence, rather than listen to the scientifically naive activists promoting conspiracy theories.
 

On behalf of organizations representing families, providers, researchers, patients, and consumers, we write to express our unequivocal support for the safety of vaccines.[3]

 

Unequivocal support means that they are completely confident that vaccines are safe, not that vaccines are 100% safe, Nothing is 100% safe, so demanding for 100% safety is an argument against everything – even breathing isn’t 100% safe.
 

Globally, vaccines prevent the deaths of roughly 2.5 million children per year.1 And, data shows that just for children born in the United States in 2009, routine childhood immunizations will prevent approximately 42,000 early deaths and 20 million cases of disease with savings of more than $82 billion in societal costs.2 [3]

 

Scare stories discourage us from doing what is best for our children.
 

RESULTS:
A greater than 92% decline in cases and a 99% or greater decline in deaths due to diseases prevented by vaccines recommended before 1980 were shown for diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, and tetanus. Endemic transmission of poliovirus and measles and rubella viruses has been eliminated in the United States; smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. Declines were 80% or greater for cases and deaths of most vaccine-preventable diseases targeted since 1980 including hepatitis A, acute hepatitis B, Hib, and varicella. Declines in cases and deaths of invasive S pneumoniae were 34% and 25%, respectively.
[4]

 

Polio would have been eradicated by now, if it weren’t for the opposition of anti-vaxers.

Should we listen to those who, although they may mean well, do not understand what they are doing, or should we listen to doctors?

Doctors vaccinate themselves and their children because they understand that vaccines are safe and vaccines work.

Footnotes:

[1] 75 studies that show no link between vaccines and autism UPDATED to 107
Just the Vax
Friday, March 7, 2014
Edited to fix links and to add more studies for a new total of 107 on 11 March 2014
Guest blog, compiled by Allison Hagood, Luci Baldwin, Kathy McGrath and Nathan Boonstra and originally published on the “Your Baby’s Best Shot” Facebook page. I am grateful for the permission to repost!
List of studies

[2] Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism: negative ecological evidence from Danish population-based data.
Madsen KM, Lauritsen MB, Pedersen CB, Thorsen P, Plesner AM, Andersen PH, Mortensen PB.
Pediatrics. 2003 Sep;112(3 Pt 1):604-6.
PMID: 12949291

[3] Dear Mr. President:
February 7, 2017
AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics)
Letter in PDF format

[4] Historical comparisons of morbidity and mortality for vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States.
Roush SW, Murphy TV; Vaccine-Preventable Disease Table Working Group..
JAMA. 2007 Nov 14;298(18):2155-63.
PMID: 18000199

Free Full Text from JAMA

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