jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

oh great

Do you think any vaccine deniers will see this and think, "Wait, that hideous bozo who ran for president on the birther ticket agrees that vaccines cause autism? Maybe I should rethink my stance…"

Because I bet they won't do that.

they will think "even an idiot like Donald Trump can see that vaccines cause autism"

Confirmation bias and motivated reasoning, the story of this thread. And over-media-saturated modernity, come to think of it.

http://jennymccarthybodycount.com

whoa

http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html

― Event Horizon (Nicole), Wednesday, 8 April 2009 13:16 (3 years ago) Bookmark

oh.

Number of parents who have cured their child's autism: 1

w/r/t staggered immunization schedules

so this:

This is the schedule:
2 months: DTaP, Rotavirus
3 months*: Pc, HIB
4 months: DTaP, Rotavirus
5 months*: Pc, HIB
6 months: DTaP, Rotavirus
7 months*: Pc, HIB
9 months: Polio (IPV)
12 months: Mumps, Polio (IPV) (See 3rd UPDATE)
15 months: Pc, HIB
18 months: DTaP, Chickenpox
2 years: Rubella, Polio (IPV) (See 3rd UPDATE)
2 1/2 years*: Hep B, Hep A (start Hep B at birth if any close relatives or caregivers have Hep B)
3 years: Hep B, Measles (See 3rd UPDATE)
3 1/2 years*: Hep B, Hep A
4 years: DTaP, Polio (IPV)
5 years: MMR
6 years: Chickenpox
12 years: Tdap, HPV
12 years, 2 months*: HPV
13 years: HPV, Meningococcal (once Meningococcal vaccine is approved for age 2, Dr. Sears will move it there and delay Hep B by 6 months)

if i can blithely simplify the arguments for and against, then i'll just take the next two bits of commentary

*t: They are split up and spaced out to lessen adverse reactions and if there is one you have a better idea of which vaccine caused it.

asf: B-b-but that is the Sears schedule! The same schedule that doesn't result in HepB vac until 2.5 and the first measles shots until 3?!?

(BLOVIATING BELOW, BE WARNED)

*t:

spacing out vaccines really shouldn't lessen adverse reactions. "adverse reactions" are often thought to be the product of Too Much Stuff In The Kid's Body, but they're really not. as kate pointed out, any given babe's antigenic load (ie - all the stuff they eat and inhale and put in their stupid lil mouths and rubs in their cute lil eyes and w/e) is enormous when compared to the trifling amount of antigen introduced by one, or several, vaccines.

i'll gloss the difference between live/killed (nb no one ever says "dead," prob because ppl would get even more skeeved by vaccines).

which is to say, you're not more likely to spike a fever or get a rash or, god forbid, get truly ill from six vaccines than you are from one. the immunological processes that make vaccines work are operating independently from one another (as far as we know); there are no good guys and bad guys, there are simply guys that aren't supposed to be here in the blood. rotavirus is not conspiring with varicella, and the cops tracking them down work for different agencies.

i am exposed to horrible viruses all day e'ryday, popping the remains of one into my arm isn't ~necessarily~ going to throw the ecosystem out of whack. and real-deal trials have shown this to be true: adverse reactions to vaccine happen, sometimes, and most (like MOST) of the time they are pretty benign. kid gets a fever and a decorative rash, cries a lot, you don't sleep, but the world still spins on its axis.

all of which is to say (and i hope i was not condescending or anything): a bunch of vaccines at the same time really isn't, in any real-deal clinical sense, more likely to give a life- or function-threatening reaction than a vaccine given in isolation.

what an extended series of vaccines will, guaranteed, result in, is a) more trips to the doctor, and b) more pokes in a kiddo. which they hate.

as for isolating which vaccine caused the reaction. i get that a parent would want to know the name and address of the offender that made their kid upset and uncomfortable for a few days, but to science and the world at large, it straight up doesn't matter in the least. no vaccine gets introduced to the schedule without going through controlled trials (ie - it gets vetted in isolation), so uncovering the fact that it was the _____ that gave yr baby problems isn't all that useful. most of all to you. "well i guess i'll never give my baby that vaccination again!" don't worry, you won't have to, it's a vaccine. even if it happens to be a vaccine that's in a series, a mild episode of discomfort is small potatoes. ESP when the kid's older. a 5mo old with a bad cold can be heartbreaking; a 5yo with a cold is a kid with a cold. "but what if my kid gets a truly awful reaction, i need to know what did it!" in that case, the problem is larger than, and in many respects has nothing to do with, the identity of the vaccine in question.

NOW: no one should feel like an asshole or a bad parent or bad citizen or bad whatever for staggering, at least imho, but i'll get to that

Hated needles so much as a kid. That schedule would have given me a nervous breakdown.

from a link that asf posted:

Children whose parents choose this schedule will not be receiving the influenza vaccine until 5 years of age (which is unfortunate, given that tens of thousands of children <4 years of age are hospitalized with complications resulting from influenza every year), will not be receiving the hepatitis B vaccine until 2.5 years of age, will not be receiving measles vaccine until 3 years of age, and, to space out vaccines so that children do not receive >2 shots at 1 visit, will be visiting the doctor for vaccines at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24 months and 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 5, and 6 years of age. Increasing the number of vaccines, the number of office visits, and the ages at which vaccines are administered will likely decrease immunization rates. In addition to the logistic problem of requiring so many office visits, Sears' recommendation might have another negative consequence; recent outbreaks of measles showed that several children acquired the disease while waiting in their pediatricians' offices.7

this is mostly otm. not having a hepB vaccine is, for real, not a big deal. hepB is transmitted overwhelmingly by sexual intercourse and needles. do babies get it sometimes? sure. would vaccines have prevented those transmissions? not likely.

most of the problems that the AAP raises have less to do with, like, biology, and more to do with the social acceptance of vaccination, and in that regard they are basically right (nb i skimmed).

anyway

asf:

At the heart of the problem with Sears' schedules is the fact that, at the very least, they will increase the time during which children are susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases. If more parents insist on Sears' vaccine schedules, then fewer children will be protected, with the inevitable consequence of continued or worsening outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. In an effort to protect children from harm, Sears' book will likely put more in harm's way.

"increase the time during which children are susceptible..." This is the crux. Most of the vaccines given earliest in life are the most savage. Other stuff, way at the end of the spectrum, like HPV, are only relevant once you're introduced into that particular microbes milieu---would it be wise to vaccinate against HPV at a very young age? Maybe. Would it have a significant impact on the rates of cervical cancer. No. Not at this point at least. cf Hep B---most people get Hep B from sex and drug use. this is actually true. again, will early vaccination, widespread, make a dent in the incidence of hep B? Probs, in the long run. Is not getting your hep b vaccine until 3yo or, in my case 27yo, putting you at an increased risk of getting hep b? no, not really.

it's all about risk windows: most people won't get the diseases we vaccinate against anyway. thanks, largely, to vaccination and herd immunity. does that mean they should not get vaccinated? of course not. does that mean they should vaccinate early and aggressively? yeah, for those illnesses that are more furious in the young. nb some vaccines actually improve ~lifelong~ immunity more significantly when given later. so, you have to weigh the risks of "will my kid get this soon, or now" and "will they get it later?"

anyway, tl;dr. dr sears' schedule does nothing to improve the lives of babies, does little to ACTUALLY harm the health of said babies and the babydom at large, and does much to undermine vaccination as a practice and line the pockets of people like dr sears.

I have to say, as a kid of early 70s stock, the massive scale of immunsation schedules these days really is surprising, if nothing else. In my day you just copped a case of mumps or chickenpox on purpose to get over it, not that I'm saying thats at all a good approach though, heh.

gbx you said something else in passing that caught my eye:
"adverse reactions" are often thought to be the product of Too Much Stuff In The Kid's Body, but they're really not. as kate pointed out, any given babe's antigenic load (ie - all the stuff they eat and inhale and put in their stupid lil mouths and rubs in their cute lil eyes and w/e)

I cant help but wonder if these days a lot of helicopter parents DONT let their kids do any of that, keep them rigorously clean, swabbed in triclosan, out of the outdoors, paranoid about germs, not feeding them peanuts, etc etc, and this is making things worse? I mean IANAD so I dunno, but it does make me wonder.

i should qualify this:

"would it be wise to vaccinate against HPV at a very young age? Maybe. Would it have a significant impact on the rates of cervical cancer. No. Not at this point at least."

it really would be a great idea if everyone get an HPV vaccine. and it would have a significant impact, en masse, against the rate of cervical cancer. but am i going to lean real hard on the parent of like a 9yo who is uncomfortable with it, because they think that an HPV vaccine is a license for free love? nah. not worth it. buying the idea that vaccinating ~late~ is somehow equivalent to not vaccinating at all betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how disease spreads, and works.

xps

"I cant help but wonder if these days a lot of helicopter parents DONT let their kids do any of that, keep them rigorously clean, swabbed in triclosan, out of the outdoors, paranoid about germs, not feeding them peanuts, etc etc, and this is making things worse?"

google "hygiene hypothesis"

i still haven't gotten the hpv vaccine. when it came out i was like 23 i think and then i procrastinated w/ going to the dr and now i just feel like it's probably too late. am i gonna die/

ooh thanks gbx, some interesting reading there.

I cant help but wonder if these days a lot of helicopter parents DONT let their kids do any of that, keep them rigorously clean, swabbed in triclosan, out of the outdoors, paranoid about germs, not feeding them peanuts, etc etc, and this is making things worse? I mean IANAD so I dunno, but it does make me wonder.

That is one prevalent theory behind the rise of food allergies. Though there is also a rise of Celiacs and type 1 diabetes, and I'm not sure anyone has a theory behing that.

ask yr cervix what's up

nb another misconception about vaccines is that you WILL get the disease if you are not vaccinated. any lady that has unprotected sex (of the STD variety, not the baby-catching kind) has likely been exposed to HPV. and has maybe generated immunity all on her lonesome. see also most other vaccine-preventable diseases, for everyone.

the main thing is that these diseases are ~preventable~. you do not have to risk an exposure that is quantifiably more dangerous than vaccine, we have the technology. kids getting measles in the waiting room isn't galling "merely" because some kids got really sick, its because that simply does not need to happen anymore, it's not a fact of life.

cf chickenpox. at 31, i'm probably in the last or second to last cohort of people that had to get the chickenpox to be immune to the chickenpox, and, as a result, marginally increase my chances of shingles later in life. is chickenpox a scourge on children? no, not really. it sucks, but the number of kids with seriously adverse outcomes is low (iirc). are those outcomes devastating for the people that live with them? yeah. would it be wise to tamp out the possibility of not-just-itchy outcomes by vaccinating? sure, plus then i don't have to get shingles (nb - i need to check my work on that). are people that miss or actively avoid a chickenpox vaccine horrible scum? of course not, who cares.

polio is a different story. Hib is a different story. Measles, rubella, etc. (rubella, btw, is a pretty trivial infection in an actual child---it can be very serious for a fetus, though, so immunizing people doesn't protect children, it protects pregnant mothers)

Didn't they or haven't they determined that the chickenpox vaccine does not convey reliable immunity?

q: why don't guys get HPV vaccine?

there are std and baby-catching varieties of sex? idk i'm not that worried about it. we're all gonna get cancer and i don't like going to the dr sorry

w/r/t celiac and DM1 dxs

shooting from the hip here (as i have been), but i'd hazard that auto-immune disorders are on the rise largely from a diagnostic bias---as has been made abundantly clear itt and in the larger vax discourse, our understanding of the immune system is very much a work in progress. i'm not sure that people are getting rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or w/e more frequently, but i am certain that we are waaaaaay better at finding biochemical markers for those illnesses than we were even a few decades ago. i mean, auto-immune disorders, like celiacs and maybe DM1, are notoriously vague in the clinical sense (ok not diabetes). it's p much an old saw that SLE is "the great pretender," the differential is immense when one considers symptoms.

which, to me, is why vaccine was one of the most serendipitous discoveries ever made. we figured out that if you spent a lot of time around a bad thing, you were less susceptible to that bad thing. give other people a really smart bit of the bad thing, and maybe they won't get it full-strength as often. no one knew what a fucking antibody was.

My dad always said that the two greatest advents of modern medicine were vaccines and indoor plumbing.

Didn't they or haven't they determined that the chickenpox vaccine does not convey reliable immunity?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, June 28, 2012 9:06 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dunno---i'll look into it. the only people i've been giving zostavax have been olds, at risk of shingles (ie - never had chickenpox at an young age, if they get it now then its g-d shingles owwwwwww). which is another benefit of herd immunity: less kids get chickenpox, less old people that somehow bafflingly never had it end up with shingles.

remy: boys should get the HPV vaccine. p sure it hasn't been approved for boys yet (...clinical trials, ladies and gentlemen), but i likely will be. given that stupid boys are the actual vectors, vaccinating them would be more efficacious imo.

unsafe sex: u can catch a std in an otherwise 'safe-sex' setting at least as far as babies are concerned.

remy, they are starting to recommend the HPV vaccine for men.

ok yeah i guess that's what i meant by i thought it was too late. also i was making fun of you. didn't they want people to get the vaccine before any sex was had or something. i don't remember. like if you were above a certain age it was probable you had already been exposed?

Plus, they're rare, but the vaccine protects against two strains of wart-causing HPV. Warts.

harbl, there are enough diff strains that it was recommended up to age 25ish even if you're sexually active.

but i'm 27

idk, get it anyway if they'll give it? Even if you clear a strain in six months like many people, it'd stop you from passing it to someone who passes it to yet someone else who would get cancer

no i want to murder everyone! maybe when i eventually get around to having a doctor. i might be 35 by then time moves pretty fast.

yr dad otm xp

tho i'd strike "indoor" and just keep "plumbing." without the plumb-is-lead bit.

keeping shit water away from mouth water struck a blow to the heart of the microbial estate bent on invasion via that which we hold so dear

giving our bodies a pack of terrorist playing cards installed a ruthless security state that keeps our children, our futures, safe

hpv- they want ppl to get it before having sex, yeah, or else its not quite as effective (no one gets hpv the first time they have sex...OR DO THEY????). i say give it to everyone. ladies have to get paps all the dang time, so we have some idea of the prevalence (but not really, paps turn up FPs all the time). men don't get screened at all.

what is an FP? stop it with these abbrevs!

FP = false positive, I think?

yeah

mea culpa. i'm in too deep with the medical apparatus

in russia, medical apparatus is too deep in you

oh god i just googled speculum to find a funny image. DO NOT DO THAT.

i have a q about the chicken pox/shingles thing: so if you've had chickenpox, you won't get shingles, or are less likely to get it?

v someone that has never had chickenpox at all? more likely. the question is whether or not a chickenpox ~vaccine~ will lower your chances of shingles. afaik, its a live vaccine, attenuated, so presumably it potentiates the risk of reactivation when older. but only when considered against someone who has never been exposed to chickenpox, not when compared to someone that actually had a full-on case of it.

OK have not read all of thread yet, but my first reaction as someone actually trained in SCIENCE is wtf evidence is there for any benefit with this vaccine schedule?

Will read thread now assuming answer is in here. . .

it isn't beneficial, could be harmful, but not on an individual basis.

ok, thanks for the clarification, gbx. i was curious bc my little sister (who is type 1 diabetic) and my mum both had chickenpox as kids but both had shingles a few years ago.

shingles is deactivated chicken pox in most people, iirc. If you never had the latter, you're not going o get the former that way, in theory?

REactivated, that is

I mean I could go to PubMed and figure this out myself but I prefer to have gbx talk about it! BTW gbx, have you thought about the public health service? You would be great, although it would probably drive you bonkers.

oh whoops some xposts

OK again I could look this via NIH grant funding, but is anyone even looking, large scale, about the risks/benefits of this nutty vaccine schedule?

I gotta get back into infectious diseasees; this stuff gets me fired up.