My Virus
Writing Pharmageddon in 2008 – 4 years before it was published, I described the effects of a virus which is destroying medicine – a clinical immuno-deficiency virus.
In this domain there is another factor not found with tobacco or industrial chemicals that isolates doctors who attempt to bring the hazards of a drug to light. The problem is that the medical body has now been infected with a clinical immuno-deficiency virus (CIV). The infection enters in the drip feed of science. With industrial chemicals, the best studies systematically point to hazards where they exist, with a number of inferior, often company-sponsored “pseudo-studies” vigorously promoted to create doubt. But with pharmaceuticals, often the only studies are those of the drug companies themselves, and these studies, as one might expect, all seem to point to the benefits of an ongoing use of the very chemicals that may in fact be causing the problem.
If the free market worked properly, given the amount of chemicals being pumped into patients in medicine, doctors eager for their 15 minutes of fame should be hovering above their patients ready to write articles on any signs of problems stemming from treatment. But instead the literature on treatment-induced hazards is drying up, even though there are estimates that medical treatment is now one of the leading causes of death in hospitals. Instead there is a growing silence, and the censorship that brings about this silence is all but invisible.
Earlier in the book it had been made clear that pretty well the entire literature on current pharmaceuticals is ghostwritten and there is close to a total lack of access to trial data.
Her Virus
So I was very interested to find Emily Maitlis on BBC’s flagship news program Newsnight on September 19 talk about a healthcare virus.
Emily Maitlis: Hello good evening. It’s been 20 years since the discredited and mendacious doctor Andrew Wakefield published findings in the Lancet that sought to link the vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella with autism. The data had in fact been fabricated. The Lancet published a retraction. Wakefield himself had his licence to practice medicine in the UK revoked. The story should end there. But it doesn’t. The shadow he cast was long and dangerous.
An immediate drop in vaccinations did recover but now 2 decades on the take up of the MMR jab has fallen for the 4th year in a row. Experts say the impact is already playing out – 876 cases of measles confirmed in England this year, 3 times the number for the whole of last here. And an increasing scepticism towards vaccinations for other diseases that can be life changing or even fatal.
Tonight, we are not going to rehash the debate about autism and MMR, we are going to ask why the anti-vaxers as they are known across the pond seem to be regaining the upper hand in telling us when facts can simply be dismissed. Have we had enough of experts or do we genuinely believe science is now up for debate. Here’s David Grossman.
DG – David Grossman, BD – Brian Deer
DG: This is the story of a virus and how it spread round the world infecting countless millions. This is not though a biological virus but an idea that is now blamed by some doctors for the deaths and illness in children on every continent.
BD: You get these messages rippling through society, completely unmediated by the traditional gate keeper the TV producer or the newspaper journalist and these messages are now out of control.
(video clip- ‘Thousand cue for vaccination as a small outbreak of small pox hits Brighton.)
DG: Vaccines have been one of humanity’s success stories. Smallpox was wiped out after 2 centuries of diligent vaccination started by English doctor Edward Jenner.
Even in Jenner’s day there was huge resistance to his ideas. People were naturally repulsed with the thought of injecting themselves with a disease supposedly to inoculate them against something else. Our instinct to protect ourselves and our children is after all highly evolved and yet we’ve flattered ourselves as a species that we’ve overcome this irrational fear. The latest statistics though tell a different story.
Coverage for the MMR vaccine for children reaching their 2nd birthday fell to 91.2%, the 4th consecutive year that MMR coverage has decreased. The WHO recommends that coverage is at least 95%. But England wide MMR coverage for children reaching their 5th birthday has now fallen to 94.9%. It is another English doctor now former doctor Andrew Wakefield who is blamed for the fall. He was struck off the medical register for research that the GMC called dishonest in its methods. He falsely connected the MMR vaccine with autism in children. No matter that every study since has shown no such link the virus was released and spread. Journalist Brian Deer uncovered the Wakefield fraud but nothing it seems can kill off its impact.
BD: I think it’s down to individual identity of people for whom it’s important to believe they are smarter than doctors. So you see big clusters of unvaccinated children in Northern California close to San Francisco where you have immensely prosperous, highly educated community who simply believe they are cleverer. It is also an area where people are much more into new age thinking.
DG: So medical research becomes a matter of opinion. Everyone gets to have their own take.
American Woman: I did a lot of research and ultimately made the decision that the risk factors of getting the vaccination outweighed the risk factors of the measles outbreak.
DG: So what can governments do? Well given that people are going to search the internet for facts. Brian Deer says the authorities need to build easily discoverable websites where the truth can be found and shared.
BD: I think the government needs to play and public health generally needs to play a rather cleverer game than the one they’re playing at the moment – respecting parents to be capable to be doing their own research. If you talk to the public health doctors they are a bit of a one trick pony really. They do measles scare and after a while I think that constant sort of drum beat begins to wear off in itself.
DG: But this isn’t just a rich nation problem. In India vaccination rates are down. Video scare stories spread by WhatsApp have infected the population.
Indian Man: I am scared after seeing this video that if my children take this vaccine they won’t be able to reproduce when they grow up.
DG: It’s clear then that medical science doesn’t have to counter just one type of virus. There are those that affect our bodies and those that affect our minds.
Is Emily Infected?
Everyone seemingly agrees there is only a small pocket of people, around Silicon Valley mostly, affected with this horrific Anti-Vax virus – oh the schadenfreude if they all died of measles. Nearly 100% of the rest of the population still gets vaccinated.
But pretty well 100% of the medical population world-wide who use any pharmaceuticals brought on the market since 1990, whether on-patent or now off-patent have a CIV and actively give us Clinical Acquired Immune Deficiency Disorder every time we meet them.
Ironically – but not mentioned by Emily – one of the biggest factors in vaccine hesitancy has to be the stubborn refusal of these same medics to get their Flu shots. And come to think of it they are pretty slow to take many of the drugs they all but force on us from statins to the latest MAB.
But why do I think Emily has caught my virus? Well because the BBC are completely unwilling to go anywhere near addressing the role of CIV infections – even with life expectancy now falling in the UK, the US and other developed countries.
The Right leaning media (Mail-Fox) are more likely to run with details of CIV infections than middle ground (BBC-PBS) or Left leaning outlets (Guardian-New York Times). Why? They seem less likely to believe the global climate is changing dangerously but more likely to believe the healthcare climate is changing for the worse. As it stands, the changing healthcare climate is likely to kill more of us off sooner than global climate change.
To be continued with an example of how the BBC responds when the issue is raised…
The maintainance of health policy should not be based on abuse, and hate rhetoric.
In the recent responses to Fiona Godlee’s ‘A tale of two vaccines’ editorial in BMJ I made the following submission (which the journal published the same day, 22 October). It is entirely improper for BBC journalists to make defamatory statements of this kind. Godlee and the BMJ have baggage but they published the letter and no one contradicted me: not even Brian Deer who had previously had a comment on the topic published on the same thread – he did not contradict me in 2010 and he did not contradict me in 2018. Even if the claims made against Wakefield had the remotest truth it would not have any bearing on the shoddy evidence base of the vaccine programme – and yet the allegations are always dragged up (first thing). Newsnight should do their homework, Maitlis should do her homework, they are supposed to be professional journalists.
https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4152/rr-22
Re: A tale of two vaccines and the “spectre of Andrew Wakefield”
The “spectre of Andrew Wakefield” certainly should not be allowed to deflect from this important issue [1,2].
I wrote to this journal in February 2010 explaining why the GMC findings against Royal Free doctors were defective [3], and no one challenged me. The Wakefield Lancet paper had nothing to do with the Legal Aid Board commissioned protocol; investigations were carried out according to clinical need; the order of referral was a red-herring – all of which anticipated the views of the High Court judge, Sir John Mitting, when exonerating the senior clinician and senior author of the paper, Prof John Walker-Smith, two years later [4]. Mitting dismissed the central contention the of the GMC prosecution that the authors of the paper were executing the Legal Aid Board sponsored protocol (172/96):
“Its conclusion that Professor Walker-Smith was guilty of serious professional misconduct in relation to the Lancet children was in part founded upon its conclusion that the investigations into them were carried out pursuant to Project 172-96. The only explanation given for that conclusion is that it was reached ‘in the light of all the available evidence’. On any view, that was an inadequate explanation of the finding. As it may also have been reached upon the basis of two fundamental errors – that Professor Walker-Smith’s intention was irrelevant and that it was not necessary to determine whether he had lied to the Ethics Committee, it is a determination which cannot stand ….” [para 20]
The case that Walker-Smith was undertaking research was dismissed:
“..their case was that he was in fact undertaking research, which required Ethics Committee approval, without realising that he was doing so. This is an untenable proposition, as the analysis of the letter of 11th November 1996 above demonstrates. In consequence, not only was the panel invited by the GMC not to determine Professor Walker-Smith’s intention, it was also invited not to determine his truthfulness in his dealings with the Ethics Committee.” [Par. 18]
“It is in its findings on the clinical issues in the individual cases of the Lancet children that the most numerous and significant inadequacies and errors in the determination of the panel occur. In no individual case in which the panel made a finding adverse to Professor Walker-Smith did it address the expert evidence led for him, except to misstate it. The issues to which this evidence went were of fundamental importance to the case against him. Universal inadequacies and some errors in the panel’s determination accordingly go to the heart of the case. They are not curable. Unless the remainder of the panel’s findings justify its conclusion that Professor Walker-Smith was guilty of serious professional misconduct, its determination cannot stand.”
Mitting rejects the idea that there was any misrepresentation over referrals:
“This paper does not bear the meaning put upon it by the panel. The phrase “consecutively referred” means no more than that the children were referred successively, rather than as a single batch, to the Department of Paediatric Gastroenterology. The words did not imply routine referral.”[par. 157]
Finally, Mitting states:
“For the reasons given above, both on general issues and the Lancet paper and in relation to individual children, the panel’s overall conclusion that Professor Walker-Smith was guilty of serious professional misconduct was flawed, in two respects: inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion….The panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it. Miss Glynn, on the basis of sensible instructions, does not invite me to remit it to a fresh Fitness to Practice panel for redetermination. The end result is that the finding of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure are both quashed.” [para.186-7]
It remains concerning that the chairman (Surendra Kumar) of the fitness to practice panel in the case against the three Royal Free doctors sat on two MHRA committees and owned shares in GSK [5].
All this time Cochrane has been far from clear about MMR, finding safety studies in successive reviews (2003, 2005, 2012) to be “largely inadequate” [6]. Nor do we seem to be able to rely on the MHRA and the EMA to guard the public’s safety – either with sufficient rigour or with sufficient distance from the industry.
[1] Fiona Godlee, “A tale of two vaccines”, BMJ 2018; 363 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4152 (Published 04 October 2018)
[2] Philip Bryan, June Raine, Ian Hudson, ‘MHRA response to BMJ Editor’s Choice – ‘A tale of two vaccines’’, r 2018, 18, https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4152/rr-11
[3] John Stone, “The unexplained puzzle of the GMC verdict (and responses to Peter Flegg) 10 February 2010, https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/unexplained-puzzle-gmc-verdict-and-reponses-peter-flegg
[4] In the High Court between Prof Walker-Smith and and the General Medical Council, http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2012/503.html&query=Walker-Smith+and+GMC&method=boolean
[5] John Stone, ‘Re: Financial conflicts -shock horror’, 22 October 2008, https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/re-financial-conflicts-shock-horror
[6] John Stone, ‘Response to David Oliver II (Risks of Vaccines)’, 28 August 2018, https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3596/rr-11
American Man:
His Virus:
‘Know It Allism – Arrogance on the Part of the Consumer’
and
New Age Thinking..
Gives the impression that people concerned about taking vaccinations are cranks…hippies of yore, long hair, lots of beads, flowery clothes and bamboo sandals … floating around in seas of vapour and mist.
New age ‘hippies’ have Google and they have conversations and they do their research and they are concerned and they do not want to be hoodwinked.
They go around with their eyes open and they have seen serious damage from a whole range of pharmaceuticals from opioids to antidepressants to benzodiazepines to antipsychotics, so the consumer is no stranger to the endless possibilities that things can go very, very wrong.
And very wrong, is often permanent.
So, why should anyone be infected with Experts.
Experts have notoriously let down the Public at Large as they are spoon fed the ideologies of the Disease Free World.
Where are the ‘Experts’ on the other side of this ‘no pressure’ – clinical immuno-deficiency virus.
BBC News. A statement on vaccine policy.
http://safe-medicine.blogspot.com/2017/04/bbc-news-statement-on-vaccine-policy.html
Big Pharma policy is BBC policy!
When it comes to speaking about the potential harms of a drug or medical procedure, we have a huge problem with the self-identified “moderate” or “liberal” press. You’re definitely right about that. The worst virus they have caught is the one that labels all such doubts as Anti-Science, lumping them with climate-change denial.
But I’m convinced it would be a BIG mistake to see the “right-leaning” press as our friends on this issue. Especially the Daily Mail. I realize they are sometimes more willing to air allegations of antidepressant harm–especially those that appear sensational and thus are tempting click-bait.
But the most common type of Drug Story on the Daily Mail is of a very different type. It’s the one that breathlessly announces a Life-Saving New Drug now available in the USA, but not yet approved by the NHS. Then we’re introduced to the patient with the deadly disease, a wonderful Mum of Three or her adorable child. This drug could save her life, shrieks the Daily Mail – but the evil socialistic NHS says it’s too expensive. They want to turn her out to die!
Dig a little deeper, and you usually find a drug with limited or close-to-zero effectiveness and an unjustifiable, obscenely high price tag—which the Daily Mail never questions. Because the agenda they really care about is healthcare privatization. They want the totally market-driven system in the USA extended worldwide, and the drug companies are both their role models and their clients in this matter. The most blatant example was their campaign to force the NHS to approve high-priced anti-Alzheimer’s drugs like Aricept, despite the virtually nonexistent impact on sufferers’ actual abilities and the severe damage done to their health. The Daily Mail’s shrill advocacy for these “Life-Saving Drugs” would do NAMI or Mental Health America proud.
You think they would not do the same thing with an antidepressant, if the profits were sweet enough? Think again. Last month they proclaimed Janssen’s new maintenance ketamine inhaler product to be “ten times better” than any available drug.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6279889/Ketamine-licensed-treat-depression-18-months.html
In reality, the clinical trial results were truly underwhelming, and the potential harms of long-term maintenance use completely unexplored. But you can bet Janssen’s inhaler will retail for at least $1,000 a month. And if the NHS should hesitate to pony up, the Daily Mail is poised to scream bloody murder.
There’s a big difference between climate-change skepticism, and skepticism regarding the pharmaceutical industry and market based medicine. Climate-change skepticism is big, big business. It’s vital to the fortunes of powerful multi-national corporations. It will always have a big share of the press at its beck and call. “Pharma-skepticism” is almost the opposite: it is far more likely to get in the way of Rupert Murdoch and his fellow billionaires than to serve their ends.
So when they pretend to be your friends, keep your eyes open.
Johanna
No question that any organisation that comes under the general umbrella “mainstream media” is bought out or intimidated by the pharma. They’ve all been mopped up: now it’s time for global corporatists to close down the web – in recent months I have been trying to highlight for instance the EU web copyright reform directive, which if it works will make it almost impossible for anyone to air an opinion on the web without corporate sponsorship. No one even mentions this in mainstream media – no one tells people there most basic freedoms are under threat. Not Dame Emily, the Mail or anyone else.
I am sure you are quite right to see little hope in the Mail where all sorts of pharma riff-raff collect and fly their kites. I suppose if anything I prefer it to the BBC, Times, Guardian or Independent simply because it doesn’t pretend to be a place of particular principle.
James Moore
@jf_moore
The latest effort by @rcpsych @wendyburn to try and embarrass those of us harmed by psych drugs into silence. It’s psychiatry that should feel ashamed, not those who feel they need to rely on medications or those permanently damaged by them #MoreThan2Weeks (link:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-46212595/medication-for-mental-health-call-to-end-pill-shaming#) bbc.co.uk/news/av/health…
A big dose of stigma and one small anecdote..
Video
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-46212595/medication-for-mental-health-call-to-end-pill-shaming
‘End pill-shaming in mental health’
The Royal College of Psychiatrists says it’s worried some people are not getting the help they need.
20 November 2018
Laura Foster @misslfoster
Reporter @BBCNews focusing on health, science & the environment
If 1 in 6 in the UK are on antidepressants, like Seroxat, we can safely say stigma has expired and looking around, there is a strong case for negative anecdotes, far and wide …
Here you can see how most of the British media kept silent, failing to warn British parents of the danger to child health safety from our government’s and our Department of Health’s unsafe vaccines and vaccination practices.
http://whale.to/vaccine/miller1.html
MMR/AUTISM & THE TAMING OF THE BRITISH MEDIA
Clifford G Miller – April 2008
If The New York Times and other US news media can report the dangers posed to US kids, The Observer, and you in particular, refuse in the clearest of terms to report those same dangers when posed to British children. So that you can have no excuse for not writing about all of this, I provide for you a detailed summary and other details. Much more is available with documentary substantiation.
The British MMR child litigants claims are now being shown to be justified by events in the USA and other information obtained under Freedom of Information, but The Observer will not publish this. The Observer is in a unique position amongst the British media because it has been given privileged access to detailed information over many years.
If you want to ignore this, that is up to you. And with 1 in 116 British children on the autistic spectrum (*), you stated clearly in your email that you would not print correct balanced sourced and referenced information and you have ignored the news from the USA on the risks to British children. You instead prefer to take your information from the commerce and industry funded Science Media Centre, whose Director, Fiona Fox, is prepared to promote unusual perspectives: Genocide? What genocide? How historical revisionists became biotech apologists (5/4/2004). I also commend to you the further information appearing later in this letter.
The implications of your various remarks are considerable. From other comments you make and the singular lack of coverage elsewhere, it seems the position in other British media is the same as at The Observer. What it means is that regardless of how much harm is caused by the drug industry to British children or any other British citizen, if The Science Media Centre can find an industry friendly “expert” (and in this case anonymous ones), any story can be blocked, that harm will go unreported in The Observer and, it seems from what you say, in many other British media outlets, leaving the British public without any news of the dangers.
Flicked through the freebie Daily Mail in a coffee shop and read an article by a dr Martin Scurr who has several times been warned off raising concerns to the GMC. He is described as the mail’s expert GP. I am not aware of any of his other views.
‘General Medical Clowns’ – ‘it (the GMC) like so many quangos has become an expensive bloated talking shop.,,bogged down in buraucrative initiatives and vested interests. Last year it had 80million in reserves, spent 99million and had 1135 staff members. Seven of them ‘earn’ over £189,000.’
A report stated last year that – ‘the GMC had created a policy leadership group to provide a collective vision for GMC policy in the context of our corporate strategy’. And plans to establish a ‘strategy and policy directorate and a communications and engagement directorate to strengthen engagement with with all key interest groups’. They must have held a tiring away day somewhere to come up with such dross. Clowns to the left of us, clowns to the right of us…..
Heather wrote about Martin Scarr recently Susanne with regards to RoAccutane.
Well worth posting in full, well-spotted, Susanne ..
General Medical Clowns: They’re supposed to police our doctors but another scandal, expert DR MARTIN SCURR hits out at the GMC
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6408121/Dr-Martin-Scurr-hits-General-Medical-Council.html
A Professional Psychiatric Spokesperson, said
26.54
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00017r2
Is there something weird about psychiatry?
“I think people get very good at faking. It’s very difficult to detect fake patients…”
In response to reports of an unqualified “doctor” – apparently practising as a psychiatrist, and presumably prescribing, for so many years, I posted the following comment on a UK – G.P. website:
———————————————————
“Doctor who faked will of west Cumbrian widow led life of deception”.
Phil Coleman of the News and Star, 17th November 2018 —— wrote:
“More worryingly, she sanctioned the detention of psychiatric patients (against their will) for treatment, despite at the time not having authority do such work”
“For this she was given an official warning by The Medical Practitioners Tribunal”. ——
______________________________________________
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service web site informs us:
“We are a statutory committee of the GMC and are accountable to the GMC and the UK Parliament”.
When I checked the “psychiatrist’s” – (name identified in this report) – on the MPTS website yesterday,
I was only able to elicit a response by adding the prefix “Dr”.
Is the crime of fraud more serious than inappropriate “Commitment” in England?
The latter suggests to me, false imprisonment.
However, might not inappropriate detention, and enforced drugging for AKATHISIA misdiagnosed as “Severe Mental Illness” also constitute false imprisonment (and grievous bodily harm)?
As for the suggestion that a “psychiatrist” might lead “a life of deception”; is this not our routine experience of mainstream, drug-dependent psychiatry?
I, too, saw the Newsnight programme you mention and I was appalled at the way they dealt with the subject. I submitted an email through the complaints section on their website. With hindsight I should have sent the complaint by post because my original letter exceeded the number of words allowed and had to be reduced to fit the space.
My edited letter was this:
‘I am shocked at the level of poor research which failed the viewers with an interest in this topic. It appeared that Newsnight did not want to understand why parents hesitate or refuse vaccination, but wanted to embarrass and convince parents that their views and concerns are misguided. Newsnight did not challenge those with vested interests in promoting ever increasing vaccination programmes.
No questions about:
* The safety and efficacy of vaccines and the concentrated schedule.
* Parents’ concerns about the shortfalls of the pre-licensure trials and the post-licensure adverse event surveillance system and lack of detailed follow-up of reports of serious adverse reactions with the JCVI and the MHRA. Where is the safety data?
* The JCVI’s introduction of Hepatitis B vaccination into the childhood programme. Pregnant women were already routinely screened for this disease and if they were found to be carriers their new-born babies were targeted for treatment. Hepatitis B is a disease that can be transmitted through injecting drugs/sharing needles, sexual contact with an infected partner or working in an ‘at-risk’ profession.
* The growing amount of aluminum contained in vaccines which is probably contributing to the rising incidence of autoimmune and neurological disease leading to long term, chronic, debilitating conditions.
* If PHE has independent scientific research that demonstrates the safety of injecting increasing aluminum adjuvants into 8, 12 and 16 weeks old babies through the new hexavalent vaccine. The accepted “safety” limit for a two month old, 5kg baby is 25 micrograms a day. As aluminium is a known neurotoxin why is it considered acceptable to inject 44 times the “safe” level of aluminium in one day to a baby’s immature immune system?
Parents are not challenging science but the dishonesty as to how science is presented.
Newsnight is considered by many to be a flagship programme. Its viewers deserve better.’
This reply came on the 2nd November:
‘..Thank you for contacting us regarding Newsnight, which was broadcast on Wednesday 19th September. We appreciate that you felt a segment on the MMR vaccinations was poorly researched.
We have spoken to the programme team about your concerns. They have responded with the following:
“We don’t agree we failed viewers with an interest in this area or that we were trying to embarrass parents. Newsnight was simply looking at the reasons why vaccination rates for MMR are continuing to fall and what might be driving this trend both in the UK and abroad. In fact, the film shown specifically underlined parents’ role, saying that a family’s instinct is to protect its children; one contributor made the point that the authorities should make information about vaccines more easily discoverable, and show more respect for parents’ research capabilities. This was not an item about the risks or otherwise of particular vaccines but a discussion about the willingness of the public to believe expert scientific opinion.”
So, the programme makers are happy.
Contrary to Ms Maitlis’ claim at the beginning of the segment, the debate is not over.
Emily Maitlis, David Grossman and Brian Deer…who are these jumped up people? They have no expertise in the workings of the MMR vaccine as far as I’m aware and are not qualified to respond to citizens’ concerns about the MMR vaccine products.
Incessantly we have such know-nothing talking heads playing the ‘Andrew Wakefield’ card to shut down discussion relevant to vaccination policy.
Who exactly is driving this censorship of discussion, whose best interests are being served here?
Informed citizens have legitimate concerns about burgeoning vaccination schedules around the world, and we are demanding accountability.
For example, why is there no alarm about the shorter term measles maternal antibodies being passed onto babies by vaccinated mothers? What are the implications here for future generations and for other vaccine products?
In this regard, see below my rapid response published on The BMJ on 29 October 2018: https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3976/rr-3
QUOTE:
Measles vaccination – is anyone worried about shorter term maternally derived antibodies via vaccinated mothers?
In his rapid response JK Anand says “Of course I know that measles vaccine was effective.”
But are we absolutely sure of the long-term effectiveness of measles vaccination, i.e. over coming generations?
A few years ago I came across a paper in The Journal of Infectious Diseases[1,2] which summarises the results of a study comparing highly vaccinated general populations against unvaccinated orthodox Protestant communities in the Netherlands. The abstract concludes: “Children of mothers vaccinated against measles and, possibly, rubella, have lower concentrations of maternal antibodies and lose protection by maternal antibodies at an earlier age than children of mothers in communities that oppose vaccination. This increases the risk of disease transmission in highly vaccinated populations.”
The discussion part of the paper provides more detail: “Our observations suggest that mass vaccination with MMR shortens, in due time, the duration of protection by maternal antibodies against measles, mumps, and rubella. Our study was conducted 20 years after introduction of the MMR vaccine, in 1987, when about 25% of women of childbearing age were vaccinated with MMR vaccine when they were young. This proportion of women of childbearing age who have been vaccinated with MMR will increase rapidly in the coming years because the vaccination coverage of each age cohort is >90%. We expect that this will further shorten the duration of protection against measles and rubella by maternal antibodies in infants and that a decreasing duration of protection against mumps by maternal antibodies will become more detectable among infants in the near future.
From my layperson’s perspective, it seems that mothers naturally infected with measles will pass on maternally derived antibodies of longer duration than mothers who have been vaccinated with the MMR vaccine. It seems children of vaccinated mothers may become vulnerable to disease sooner. I find this very alarming. It seems nature provides protection for babies of naturally infected mothers until an age when they may be more likely able to fight the disease themselves. But artificial interference with vaccination could have repercussions over coming generations as the children of vaccinated mothers may become vulnerable to disease at a younger age, when they may be ill-equipped to deal with the disease, with possibly disastrous consequences.
I make no pretence to having any expertise in this area, but the implications of this paper are very concerning from a big picture, long-term view perspective re vaccination for future generations. Are any ‘authorities’ thinking about the big picture here?
References:
1. Sandra Waaijenborg et al. Waning of Maternal Antibodies Against Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Varicella in Communities With Contrasting Vaccination Coverage. The Journal of Infectious Diseases. First published online 8 May 2013: http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/04/29/infdis.jit143.long
2. Also see Editorial Commentary: Loss of Passively Acquired Maternal Antibodies in Highly Vaccinated Populations: An Emerging Need to Define the Ontogeny of Infant Immune Responses: http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/04/29/infdis.jit144.full.pdf
END OF QUOTE
Further to my previous comment about shorter term measles maternal antibodies of vaccinated mothers, this serious matter is going under the radar, or being hidden behind the ubiquitous ‘Andrew Wakefield’ smokescreen.
See my additional BMJ rapid response on this matter below: (11 November 2018 https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3976/rr-14 )
QUOTE:
Universal measles vaccination – “well worth the risk of reduced transplacental immunity and increased vulnerability in adults…”?
I’m astonished by Allan S. Cunningham’s comment “Universal measles vaccination has been lifesaving, and well worth the risk of reduced transplacental immunity and increased vulnerability in adults…”
I suggest reduced transplacental immunity is an extremely serious outcome of the measles vaccination intervention. We have no idea as yet what this means for future generations of children of vaccinated mothers, and the vulnerability of babies to disease at an earlier age.
In a measles outbreak in Australia in 2012 (168 notified cases) <1 year olds had the highest notification rate, with 10 cases aged <9 months. A paper discussing Australia's experience with declining measles antibodies states: "Continued close monitoring of cases occurring before 12 months of age (when MMR1 is due) will help to determine if vaccine schedule changes are required. This is particularly important in Australia as since July 2013 the second dose of MMR (given as MMR-Varicella) has been moved from 4 years to 18 months of age. As we have demonstrated that antibody levels begin to decline from 5 years of age (soon after children were due their MMR2 at 4 years), this change has the potential to lead to even lower antibody levels in young adults."[1]
The paper also states: "The clinical significance of declining anti-measles IgG antibody levels for protection against infection or disease is not clear…"
Do Allan S. Cunningham or others see anything to worry about here, including the reference to potential "vaccine schedule changes" and the ever-increasing load of vaccine products and revaccinations imposed upon babies and children?
This experience with measles vaccination also has implications for the implementation of other and new vaccine products and consequences for natural immunity. I suggest we have to think very carefully before implementing still experimental vaccine products, particularly for rare diseases such as invasive meningococcal B and others.
As I asked in my previous rapid response on this article, are any 'authorities' thinking about the big picture here?
Disclosure: I'm a 'measles survivor'. Born November 1959. Had measles around 18 months of age. Asked my mother about this event. She said doctor told her not to worry, they would just run their course (a rather more benign message than we receive nowadays…) My mother said the spots lasted about ten days and I did not seem to be too adversely affected. I had a serology test in 2012 – measles virus IgG antibody detected.
Reference:
1. Heather F. Gidding et al. Declining measles antibody in the era of elimination: Australia's experience. Vaccine 36 (2018) 507-513.
END OF QUOTE
The whole lot of them – ‘lot’ meaning media – are running scared and don’t have a sound backbone between them.
Last week, Shane and I, as part of the re-introduction of our ‘Prescribed medication Withdrawal’ group in Prestatyn, held an open meeting. I made arrangements for a local freelance journalist to be present. He spoke at length with Shane ( I was rushing around like a headless chicken!) and was explaining how he (the reporter) would have to take great care to word his report so that the daily paper would print. To date – nothing, although promised for Monday. The said reporter arranged for the local weekly paper to interview Shane, which took place. That report appeared online at the end of last week and is out in paper form today. The report is good – in fact very good, but covers only Shane’s hopes for his group. No mention of the open meeting; no mention of it being a WITHDRAWAL group – simply that it is a group which ‘hopes for better times after prescribed medication’.
Why was the word ‘withdrawal’ left out?
Why was there no mention whatsoever of the open meeting promoting the group?
Please share your suggestions as to why this happened.
local people ( who attended the open meeting) are gobsmacked when I explain my thoughts on the matter! One said, in total puzzlement “I thought we had free speech”!
Brian Deer suggests ‘the authorities need to build easily discovered websites where the truth can be found and shared’ Hear the hollow laughter B D? (ref D H. above) – don’t give ‘the authorities’ any more ideas Brian D. they’ve done more than enough damage already without channeling people into one website contaminated with CIV. The BBC is complicit in spreading the virus presently by pushing the message on TV that it is vital for people over 65 to have the flu vaccination asap or sooner before the dreaded Winter arrives..seems older people are not that impressed by the ‘authorities’ though – over 60% have not taken up ‘their’ flu jab. It’s a tricky decision for many when CIV attacks already frail people who don’t get told the truth when going to discuss it with a health worker. ‘Nurse to healthy 78 year old -come for your jab? well done that’s what we want – no mention that they have targets of course. You might feel a bit fluey for a few days just take paracetomol – any other side effects? – no nothing to worry about – rushing person out of the door as there’s a queque of people now been made anxious including by the simplistic flashy BBC adverts including of daring to upset their doctors by refusing the jab ,as so many healthworkers have themselves , in some places health workers have been threatened with losing their jobs if they refuse How many of the BBC teams have been vaccinated – is there a policy? come on the truth needs to be shared as BD says.
The Lancet
November 24, 2018
The State of Vaccine Confidence
Heidi J Larson
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32608-4/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email&code=lancet-site
‘Complex determinants of vaccination, such as alternative health beliefs, politics, histories, trust, relationships, and emotions, contribute to the overall stagnation of childhood and adult vaccine uptake globally. Vaccine anxieties are not new, but the viral spread of concerns, reinforced by a quagmire of online misinformation, is increasingly connected and global.
Although there are some positive initiatives to address vaccine hesitancy, the spread of misinformation is moving quickly and boldly, appealing to emotions and heightening anxieties. Building vaccine confidence goes beyond changing an individual’s mind. The dissenting voices have become highly connected networks, undermining one of the most effective disease prevention tools. We need globally and locally connected positive voices and interventions that are vigilant, listening, and have the resources and capacity to respond.’
Yes, the trouble for Heidi – whose services are incidentally retained by Merck and GSK – is that the critics are much more grounded in real data than she is. The lobby have never been able to do more than shout us down: on even playing playing field they would have had it long ago.
Rachel Schraer who reminds me uncannily of Ben Goldacre – reports on the BBC that the viruses in flu vaccines have been “de-activated or killed” and you cannot catch flu from them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-46280108/reality-check-how-effective-is-the-flu-jab
I pointed out the EMA data on Fuenz Tetra given to millions of schoolchildren:
“Vaccine recipients should be informed that Fluenz Tetra is an attenuated live virus vaccine and has the potential for transmission to immunocompromised contacts. Vaccine recipients should attempt to avoid, whenever possible, close association with severely immunocompromised individuals (e.g. bone marrow transplant recipients requiring isolation) for 1-2 weeks following vaccination. Peak incidence of vaccine virus recovery occurred 2-3 days post-vaccination in Fluenz clinical studies. In circumstances where contact with severely immunocompromised individuals is unavoidable, the potential risk of transmission of the influenza vaccine virus should be weighed against the risk of acquiring and transmitting wild-type influenza virus.”
https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/3296/smpc
But the BBC ploughs on regardless..
David Robert Grimes
@drg1985
As if we needed further proof
@DrWakefield
was a reprehensible scumbag, take a look at how much he profits from #antivax sentiment. Never forget that this man was exposed as lying about the MMR vaccine for his own financial gain. Nothing has changed.
Jonathan Irwin @JohnJoedotcom
#Gardasil . Just received my copy. “H.P.V. Vaccine on Trial”Truly scary.A” Must Read”for parents of young children,School Principals,G.P’s,Politicians,Senior Health exec’s.Minister Harris hammered for refusing to meet parents.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/HPV-Vaccine-Trial-Generation-Betrayed/dp/1510710809/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543089142&sr=8-1&keywords=hpv+vaccine+on+trial
“For most people, quarantine conjures up a set of procedures put in place to avoid people with the Plague or Ebola infecting the rest of us. In extreme cases, anyone escaping from the Hot Zone might be killed. It has a new meaning. Quarantine now means what Government and Business put in place to contain anyone who has been injured by a vaccine or a drug from infecting the rest of us, in extreme cases . . . Read this measured but compelling book from inside the Hot Zone and find out.”
—David Healy MD, author of Pharmageddon and Let Them Eat Prozac
Product description
Review …
“Information for head teachers and health care workers about the nasal flu vaccine and ‘viral shedding’” By Public Health England (1)
This document was published and circulated by PHE in response to reports of parents keeping their children off school on the day (and in some cases for days afterwards) when the LAIV or children’s flu vaccine nasal spray is being administered to school children.
As anticipated the document argues the safety of the nasal spray and that there is no need (unless children are “extremely severely immunocompromised”) for parents to keep their children off school.
However it is also conceded that ;
“A small number of respiratory illnesses (including wheeze) were reported in the contacts of vaccinated children. Most of these events were self-limiting and some of them may have been coincidental”
This does not categorically rule out horizontal transmission and as the mother of two daughters who both had childhood asthma I have to wonder what risk assessment was carried out in respect of vulnerable children already battling with a respiratory condition in exposing them to this unnecessary risk. Guesstimating that “most” events in third parties were self limiting and “some” may have been coincidental is not acceptable.
PHE seeks to downplay the risks by stating that the virus is less able to spread than that from the naturally occurring infection, and that the amount of virus shed by an individual is “normally” (but not exclusively) less than what is required to pass on the infection to others.
“Although vaccinated children are known to shed virus a few days after vaccination, the vaccine virus that is shed is less able to spread from person to person than the natural infection. The amount of virus shed is normally below the levels needed to pass on infection (transmit) to others and the virus does not survive for long outside of the body. This is in contrast to natural flu infection, which spreads easily during the flu season. In schools using vaccine, therefore, the overall risk of influenza transmission is massively reduced by having a large number of children vaccinated.”
The possibility of a child distributing flu virus immediately following administration of a nasal flu vaccine is not entirely ruled out either, as it is stated that “almost” all of the fluid is absorbed by the child’s nose.
“……almost all the fluid is immediately absorbed into the child’s nose (this explains why visible dripping from the nose is unusual)”.
Noticeably, PHE doesn’t provide a reassurance that unvaccinated contacts are not at risk of becoming unwell but only that they are not at risk of becoming “seriously ill with flu vaccine virus”.
“In summary, this vaccine has a good safety record and unvaccinated contacts are not at risk of becoming seriously ill with the flu vaccine virus, either through being in the same room where flu vaccine has been given or by being in contact with a recently vaccinated individual”
That should be a great relief to worried parents!
(1) PHE-factsheet-for-HCW-andheadteachers-on-LAIV-concerns-about-viral-shedding.pdf
Wendy
Yes, it is wonder that health officials who one minute stand on their hind legs talking about the protection of the herd, the immunocompromised etc can instantly change gear and promote this nuisance product – it certainly calls their sincerity into question.
Journalism hell:
Jo Macfarlane ‘How fake news is SERIOUSLY damaging our health’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6424819/How-fake-news-SERIOUSLY-damaging-health.html
Trust Me, I’m a Scientist
Tuesday 20.00
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001b1k
Richard Dawkins examines how the science community interacts with the public, politicians, commercial interests and their peers.
Show more
Presenting his first programme for Radio 4, the evolutionary biologist, author and former Professor for Public Understanding of Science, Richard Dawkins, investigates trust in science.
It’s an issue of concern for scientists as well as others. Despite our scientific and technological advances, many people still believe the Earth is flat and that vaccines cause autism. Even the President of the United States has called climate change a hoax.
Richard Dawkins considers what scientists are doing right and what they’re doing wrong, concentrating on the process of science, communication, education, and policy with experts in their field. These include Bad Science author and academic Ben Goldacre, physicists Dr Jess Wade and Prof Jim Al-Khalili, science policy fellow and podcast presenter Dr Maryam Zaringhalam, Virginia Tech’s Marc Edwards who exposed the Flint water crisis, Norman Lamb chair of the science and technology select committee, education consultant Tom Sherrington, head teacher Alan Grey and director of the Science Media Centre Fiona Fox.
The programme looks at an increasing divide between scientific evidence and public opinion and concerns that science communicators are simply preaching to the converted. Is there a need for greater openness and accountability to restore trust?
Producer: Sue Nelson
A Boffin Media production for BBC Radio 4
When they say more “openness and accountability” they always mean more censorship and bullying.
https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/re-proving-point
It is positively weird that vaccines not causing autism has become a cornerstone of modern scientific belief. Sadly, they are just denying brute reality – we are now drowning in neurological impairment among schoolchildren, and there is nothing remotely implausible in vaccines causing neurological harm – in fact it is well established that they can. Why are they talking garbage? What are they reall frightened of? Is it not just really a matter of who is in charge, not truth.
Are we allowed to question the truth?
For anything to be called ‘informed consent’, “the truth” must contain “the doubts”. There is no middle ground. As time passes, “the truth” should be able to erase “the doubts”, and if they don’t, doubt turns to truth.
Let each of us, as individuals or as parents, make up our minds on unbiased data. Do not exaggerate benefits, do not withold harms.
Ove2018
Dr Maryanne Demasi
@MaryanneDemasi
24 Nov
High profile Cochrane member Tom Jefferson, speaks out about how Gøtzsche was sacked partly due to the criticism of Cochrane’s HPV Vaccine Review. Now he says another critique of the Review is on its way & promises even greater scrutiny
@BMJ_EBM
(link: http://ijme.in/articles/cochrane-and-the-new-mccarthyism/?galley=html) ijme.in/articles/cochr…
@PGtzsche1
LETTER
Published online: November 24, 2018
Cochrane and the new McCarthyism
Extracts: HPV
Srivatsan’s powerful commentary in this journal (1) is an important reminder that we live in an era of new McCarthyism1.
The issue of the sacking of Peter Gøtzche from Cochrane is complex and has two linked aspects. The first is the fact of his dismissal and the second is our work on Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines.
This is why, after our experience with our Tamiflu Cochrane review (6), we decided to review the evidence based for HPV vaccines focussing only on regulatory data.
Regulatory data are still part of a commercial operation: getting your intervention to market. However, they are far more detailed and reliable than 10-page journal summaries. We started by asking the European regulator, the European Medicines Agency, for clinical study reports. We have documented the difficulties encountered and the correspondence (7). Despite the difficulties, we succeeded in creating an index of 206 prospective comparative studies of HPV vaccines (8). This unique achievement is aimed at addressing publication bias and minimising the effects of other types of reporting bias, effectively providing an alternative to journal-published articles and their databases (9).
A copy of the index was sent to the Cochrane editors and the review group finalising the HPV review on the day of publication: January 19, 2018. They took no notice of the index, its content and implications, and published a biased and factually wrong review (10). We responded publicly pointing out the list of problems (11). It now turns out that our list was rather conservative (12). The Cochrane editors responded with an urgent investigation which is nothing more than the rest: smoke to hide their dismissal of our Index and its implications. Shortly after, Peter Gøtzsche, the man who has done more than anyone else to open our eyes to the shortcomings of published trials was sacked.
http://ijme.in/articles/cochrane-and-the-new-mccarthyism/?galley=html
But do HPV vaccines cause serious harms? To that I can only answer that the trials were not designed to test harms fairly with their combination of idiosyncratic harms categorisation, reporting and the use of active comparators dubbed “placebo”.
Now the current Cochrane leadership wants to carry on as if the entire controversy was nothing serious.