Jenny McCarthy, Vaccinations, and Autism

[JEDIYoda]

There are way too many folks here that seem perfectly willing to let anyone in a white coat jab them and their children with just about anything. I'm not saying vaccines definitely cause autism or anything else, I don't know. But neither does nearly anyone responding to this thread, yet you all are so sure they don't. Why will people so often label flagrant economic incentive a nutjob conspiracy? People, companies, government, they all follow their incentives. And if that incentive is to deny the potential harm of an unsafe product to avoid legal and financial liability, they will do so, and from the attitudes I see here likely get away with it. There's an ever increasing myriad of shit in the world that is making us physically sick, all in the name of lining someone's pockets. We really need to be vigilant about verifying what's safe and what's not.

So all your freaking talk could be condensed down to a few words-- You Believe what Jenny McCarthy has to say...sad....

 

[Cogman]

...

I will disprove your entire long winded post with this statement.

Correlation is not causation. A study that looks at total population vaccinated and total population with autism could be PERFECTLY lock step and it would STILL not prove a thing. Without doing an actual study where some are vaccinated and others are given placebos, you can't conclude anything.

Which would you rather have for your child, the disproved, 21 times over, statement that autism is caused by vaccines or the proved, several times over, statement that vaccines prevent many life threatening illnesses.

An autistic child can still function, give love, and receive love. A dead child, can't.

Oh, and here a correlation for you, world wide, the average age that people have been having kids has been steady increasing. There has been PROVEN studies that have linked older parents with many birth defects, is it not possible that autism might be one of those? (no, I'm not saying this is the case, I'm saying that it holds just as much merit as the vaccine claim, if not more)

 

[cubby1223]

So all your freaking talk could be condensed down to a few words-- You Believe what Jenny McCarthy has to say...sad....

amazing counter-argument!

But let's put an intellectual progressive twist on your logic, you could say he believes what Bill Maher said.

Or, we can be realistic and say that they just happen to independently share the same thought.

Or better yet, we can go find some dumb blond who supports vaccinations and I can poke fun of you for believing what she has to say...

 

[darrontrask]

measles, mumps, chicken pox?! I guess 100 years ago they were deadly. Really, if you take the time to study vaccines and then what they wiped out, most diseases were on the decline when a vaccine was developed.

Vaccines are useful, this I will not dispute but the abundance that we inject our kids with to defend against non fatal diseases is insane.

Really, I personally don't give two shits if you want to inject your kids or not. It is your decision.

Whether they cause autism or not; it has been proven many times over that there is a subset of children that have an adverse reation to vaccines that have caused disabilty and death. These facts are indisputable. As a matter of fact there has a been a payout to a little girls family that was proven that a vaccine did in fact cause autism symptoms.

Everyone, do some homework before we all just assume that, folks like me are crazy. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people that have anecdotal evidence of the damage vaccines can do.

I know "correlation does not equal causation", but really that is the fucking lamest reasoning I have ever heard in any arguement. That is just a bullshit statement which really has no more basis than the reverse arguement

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

As a matter of fact there has a been a payout to a little girls family that was proven that a vaccine did in fact cause autism symptoms.

Would you show the science that proves your statement in this particular case? I don't mean in general.

The problem is that there isn't any that proves your claim.

"The lawyer got them to pay and therefore that is proof that she developed autism as a result" doesn't count as science, but you really do know that, right?

If your argument is that a vaccine could kill someone, I'd say so could taking any medicine. If you wish to go that route, by all means, however don't expect to get many converts.

 

[Zebo]

I think there are whole religious sects that don't get vaccinations for their children. I'm a freedom kinda guy as say let them but I draw the line when child's life's in danger and they refuse to see doctors (massive compound fracture, serious flu or something)

 

[Zebo]

There is definitely something causing the huge increase in autism among boys. It definitely isn't mercury, nor any other single component in vaccines. If it is linked to vaccines at all, it would be in the sheer number given today, an immune response to the sheer number of the immunoresponsive substances with which we inflict children. A more likely scenario from what I've read is that a little-known and mostly harmless virus is becoming widespread and causes an immune system response in utero, perhaps because sons are more foreign to the mother's body than are daughters. Since viruses are blindingly hard to detect and observe directly, a virus without much difference in effect from a cold (or with no apparent effect) would be almost undetectable. But no one really knows at this point. Not everyone even agrees there is an increase; some think the expanded definitions of autism explain the perceived increase.

I don't think there are enough unvaccinated babies to really do a proper study on autism, although perhaps among the Mennonites and/or Amish? But there are certainly enough different vaccines world-wide to rule out any particular vaccine or vaccine component as the cause.

It's called lack of ass whoppins.

 

[darrontrask]

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ine-controversy.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

wow first article on google. YEs is was a pre existing condition combined with the vaccines but maybe, just maybe, that is the cause.

There are no claims to prove conclusively otherwise either. Kind of a chicken or the egg thing.


This is a very controversial argument either way. And as I have always stated, there are people such as yourself who can conclusively, without a doubt tell me what can't or doesn't cause autism, but no one has yet to determine what does cause it. AGAIN, SCIENCE TELLS US WHAT DOESN'T CAUSE IT BUT HASN'T A FUCKING CLUE WHAT DOES. I am no scientist but I am a first hand witness to the damage.

Please, inject your children with substances that .gov says will keep your children safe. Big Pharma says it's ok. They are all safe. That is why the Pharmaceutical industry has no interest in government legislation and 0 lobbyists. Besides, with herd immunity theory, as long as you are taking the risks with your children, mine should be safe. I am whole heartedly willing to risk your childrens health.

By the way, my daughters pediatrician advised against vaccinating her when we discussed the adverse effects her brother encountered. She has nothing more than a few head colds in the 5 years she has been alive and we live in a very large Amish community that doesn't vaccinate.

Would you show the science that proves your statement in this particular case? I don't mean in general.

The problem is that there isn't any that proves your claim.

"The lawyer got them to pay and therefore that is proof that she developed autism as a result" doesn't count as science, but you really do know that, right?

If your argument is that a vaccine could kill someone, I'd say so could taking any medicine. If you wish to go that route, by all means, however don't expect to get many converts.

 

[ahenkel]

there's a good article on vaccines and autism in the Nov 09 wired

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/

 

[Born2bwire]

I think there are whole religious sects that don't get vaccinations for their children. I'm a freedom kinda guy as say let them but I draw the line when child's life's in danger and they refuse to see doctors (massive compound fracture, serious flu or something)

The biggest problem is that not every vaccination is successful. Part of the effectiveness relies on almost everybody in a population to be vaccinated. This way, even though some vaccinations fail, enough people will be successfully vaccinated that the disease cannot become endemic in the society and reach those at risk. But the current levels of vaccinations have fallen below the necessary levels to ensure herd immunity. This has led to outbreaks in communities (usually when a child travel outside the country and brings back th disease) and there are recent reports that state measles has now become endemic in the United Kingdom.

So even if you vaccinate your children, other families that do not vaccinate their children are putting the community at large at risk and this has been shown to have had significant impact in recent years.

 

[werepossum]

measles, mumps, chicken pox?! I guess 100 years ago they were deadly. Really, if you take the time to study vaccines and then what they wiped out, most diseases were on the decline when a vaccine was developed.

Vaccines are useful, this I will not dispute but the abundance that we inject our kids with to defend against non fatal diseases is insane.

Really, I personally don't give two shits if you want to inject your kids or not. It is your decision.

Whether they cause autism or not; it has been proven many times over that there is a subset of children that have an adverse reation to vaccines that have caused disabilty and death. These facts are indisputable. As a matter of fact there has a been a payout to a little girls family that was proven that a vaccine did in fact cause autism symptoms.

Everyone, do some homework before we all just assume that, folks like me are crazy. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people that have anecdotal evidence of the damage vaccines can do.

I know "correlation does not equal causation", but really that is the fucking lamest reasoning I have ever heard in any arguement. That is just a bullshit statement which really has no more basis than the reverse arguement

Michael Dunn Centers are filled with children who have suffered severe mental and/or physical damage from vaccinations - or more properly from adverse reactions to vaccinations. My sister-in-law used to work there and it will absolutely break your heart to see children who were bright, healthy, normal children before reactions to vaccines crippled them physically and mentally. This shows that we need a thorough review of our vaccination requirements, but also that we need better and more aggressive ways of treating very high fever in children as in many (probably most) of these cases the damage is not from the vaccine per se, but rather from the extremely high fever in reaction to it. I agree that we probably vaccinate too much, although severe consequences (including death) can also occur from things like measles and mumps too, and are perhaps still more likely than from the vaccination reactions.

Two things though. First, our children today don't have the immunity to many diseases that children a generation or three had. We are more urban and our children are exposed to less dirt and minor pathogens which help build a healthy immune system. In an Amish community though this probably isn't valid.

Second, this thread was specifically about autism. While vaccines can certainly cause severe damage or death, they have not been shown to cause autism or even to be significantly correlated with autism. (I'm assuming here that the child in your linked article, who is specifically detailed as having a pre-existing condition caused by a genetic mutation and who suffered brain damage that mimics some of the symptoms of autism, is atypical for autism diagnoses in general, which may or may not be a valid assumption.)

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

So all your freaking talk could be condensed down to a few words-- You Believe what Jenny McCarthy has to say...sad....

No I don't believe her, I've stated several times I'm agnostic on the matter. Hell, I stated it in the post you quoted. Learn to read.

 

[DealMonkey]

no she won't get in trouble. stupidity is not against the law.

Given how many willfully ignorant morons live in this country, it NEEDS to be.

 

[Cogman]

I know "correlation does not equal causation", but really that is the fucking lamest reasoning I have ever heard in any arguement. That is just a bullshit statement which really has no more basis than the reverse arguement

Your a moron that failed at stats then. If you pointing to a specific correlation and assuming it must A cause B is retarded on many levels, look up the Ice cream homicide studies (there is a strong correlation to the number of ice cream sales and the number of homicides). Are you honestly willing to make the leap that homicide is caused by ice-cream?

Your entire post was based on the fact that there is a correlation to the number autistic kids and the number of kids that have autism. That is the weakest and lamest argument out there.

As for the negative side effects of vaccines, as was pointed out, that is a pure straw man. We are talking about the vaccine causing autism, not the other potential risks of vaccines (which, btw, are still in the order of 1/1million).

 

[Theb]

Your a moron that failed at stats then. If you pointing to a specific correlation and assuming it must A cause B is retarded on many levels, look up the Ice cream homicide studies (there is a strong correlation to the number of ice cream sales and the number of homicides). Are you honestly willing to make the leap that homicide is caused by ice-cream?

Your entire post was based on the fact that there is a correlation to the number autistic kids and the number of kids that have autism. That is the weakest and lamest argument out there.

As for the negative side effects of vaccines, as was pointed out, that is a pure straw man. We are talking about the vaccine causing autism, not the other potential risks of vaccines (which, btw, are still in the order of 1/1million).

The numbers do not lie. Jenny McCarthy is a genius and that's probably why she gave birth to an Indigo child

 

[MotF Bane]

The numbers do not lie. Jenny McCarthy is a genius and that's probably why she gave birth to an Indigo child

LOL nice graph.

 

[werepossum]

The numbers do not lie. Jenny McCarthy is a genius and that's probably why she gave birth to an Indigo child

You now officially rule. Congratulations!

Also, we now know why global warming has stopped - it's because of the rise in Somali piracy! And here we are killing them when they are saving cuddly polar bears . . .

 

[thraashman]

You now officially rule. Congratulations!

Also, we now know why global warming has stopped - it's because of the rise in Somali piracy! And here we are killing them when they are saving cuddly polar bears . . .

Normally I don't like you and disagree with a huge majority of what you say. This, however, is an issue I stand with you on and agree in the need to save piracy and stop global warming!

All hail the FSM!

 

[werepossum]

Normally I don't like you and disagree with a huge majority of what you say. This, however, is an issue I stand with you on and agree in the need to save piracy and stop global warming!

All hail the FSM!

LOL Ah, unity!

 

[Zebo]

The biggest problem is that not every vaccination is successful. Part of the effectiveness relies on almost everybody in a population to be vaccinated. This way, even though some vaccinations fail, enough people will be successfully vaccinated that the disease cannot become endemic in the society and reach those at risk. But the current levels of vaccinations have fallen below the necessary levels to ensure herd immunity. This has led to outbreaks in communities (usually when a child travel outside the country and brings back th disease) and there are recent reports that state measles has now become endemic in the United Kingdom.

So even if you vaccinate your children, other families that do not vaccinate their children are putting the community at large at risk and this has been shown to have had significant impact in recent years.

If you're vaccinated how can you catch the disease from a carrier?

 

[Brainonska511]

If you're vaccinated how can you catch the disease from a carrier?

Viruses can mutate and suddenly become pathogenic to those that were vaccinated against the original virus. Some vaccines are also known to wear-off after x number of years (requiring boosters) and some people don't gain complete immunity from the vaccine, etc....

 

[sandorski]

I was going to bump a H1N1 thread, but this thread will suffice.

Remember this Chick?

lol

 

[GoPackGo]

Its thinking like this that will bring back Polio

 

[werepossum]

Its thinking like this that will bring back Polio

My boss is big in the Rotary Club, and eradicating polio is one of their major projects. Polio is still a problem in many countries, most of whom export immigrants legally or otherwise, and without vaccinations polio could well stage a comeback. This isn't to say there aren't dangers with vaccines - they are, of course - but the things that spurred creation of vaccines are pretty nasty too.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

My boss is big in the Rotary Club, and eradicating polio is one of their major projects. Polio is still a problem in many countries, most of whom export immigrants legally or otherwise, and without vaccinations polio could well stage a comeback. This isn't to say there aren't dangers with vaccines - they are, of course - but the things that spurred creation of vaccines are pretty nasty too.

There are at least three fundamental principles of medicine.

1) First do no harm.

2) When doing nothing causes harm, and the therapy may do so as well, one needs to evaluate the risk vs. benefit of a treatment.

3) If it ain't broke don't fix it.


Doing nothing has the very real potential of reintroducing past horrors to a world that has all but forgotten them.

That being the case, it's hard to make an argument against vaccination (excepting special circumstances of course). Yes, there are potential problems, but if you were to travel to other nations where disease still runs rampant, you'd understand the reason why the medical profession wants to avoid the old diseases.

Vaccination works, there's no good alternative, and it ain't broke.