I don't believe that you (or the writer of the article) ever said it either. I certainly never said that you (or the writer of the article) said it. By your statement that you don't believe that you (or the writer of the article) ever said it, does that mean you are accusing me of stating that you (or the writer of the article) said it? I didn't, ya know. (Not marginalizing, just watercoloring.).
Agreed. However, the conduct of the companies is irrelevant to me when it comes time to roll the dice on taking a chance on getting flu, or taking a chance with the vaccine. Either I want to take a chance with the virus, or I want to take chance with the vaccine. If people are dropping like flies because of the flu, and the vaccine is working and preventing others from getting sick or dying, and it would likely prevent me from getting the flu and getting sick or dying, how evil the company is that produced the vaccine really doesn't matter. I'd rather not contract the flu just to make a point.
The inaccuracies in the article really aren't that big a deal to me, but the fact that I would question them seems to be to you, so OK, sure. The article states there is to be an enforced vaccination of the world's population. Not true. There is no world authority which can impose such a mandate, and it would be impossible to accomplish even if they tried.
He states the novel N1H1 is not a swine flu, but instead a simple H1N1 (to imply that it's no big deal, virus as usual, nothing to see, move along now). The virus is commonly called the swine flu, since it is of swine origin, so it is not incorrect to do so. This virus is far from simple, in that it is a completely new, never before seen strain of "Influenza A virus subtype H1N1" (which is why it is a novel virus) and is a reassortment (recombination, including mutations of combination) of four distinct known strains of Influenza A virus, one endemic in humans, one endemic in birds, and two endemic in pigs.
He also states that the FDA has not approved the virus as being safe for humans. Also incorrect, and based on dates, something that he should have known, but clearly didn't even bother to do any cursory research on, which calls his entire article and motives into question.
The FDA Approves Vaccines for 2009 H1N1 Influenza Virus was announced three weeks earlier, in a statement that included efficacy and warnings.
He stated that the pharmaceutical companies were not using stringent conditions to manufacture the vaccines. According to the FDA, that is also incorrect. They are manufacturing this vaccine under the same stringent conditions that previous flu vaccines have been manufactured under. From the FDA statment:
"The vaccines are made by CSL Limited, MedImmune LLC, Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Limited, and sanofi pasteur Inc. All four firms manufacture the H1N1 vaccines using the same processes, which have a long record of producing safe seasonal influenza vaccines."
He stated in the article that pharmaceutical companies could not be slammed with innumerable lawsuits if they screwed up, because of the PREP Act. He states that the PREP Act
"legislation gave drug companies immunity from harm caused by any misconduct on their part, or negative consequences resulting from their vaccines." That's wrong. It gives them immunity against negative consequences from their vaccines, but it absolutely does
not absolve them of "any misconduct." They can be held responsible if they screw up due to negligence or willful conduct. He does at least later on down in the article mention that the misconduct must be proven to be willful, which is true, but he asserts that's the only condition in which they can be held liable, which is not true. The PREP Act also does not absolve them from legal actions in other countries.
People can get all bent out of shape, and rightly so, over the immunity that drug companies and others have with the PREP Act. But without that protection of immunity, those same companies would be utterly stupid to manufacture and distribute a flu vaccine. The very nature of the time sensitivity of flu vaccines make it impossible to carry out the necessary extended clinical trials. In the meantime people would be getting sick and dying and they would be screaming for the vaccine.
He states that the pharmaceutical lobby is the largest lobby in Washington. While not necessarily inaccurate under certain conditions, the blanket statement without qualification is inaccurate and misleading. The pharmaceutical lobby is the largest, but only if you combine it with the entire health care services and products industry. If you separate them out, the insurance industry comes in on top, with energy companies second, and pharmaceuticals and the rest of the health industry third and fourth (
OpenSecrets.org).
There are other inaccuracies in the article, but quite frankly I'm too tired to mess with them.
Exactly. But you have to roll the dice one way or the other. If you don't roll on the vaccine, you're simply rolling them on the chance that you - or you child - is one of the ones that the virus is going to harm .... or even kill.
A virus is a scary thing, and so are pharmaceutical companies. Both can be fatal, both can be benign. Both are equally ruthless. I think it's safe to say that over the years, viruses have killed more people via infection than drug companies have via vaccines. If, in a given situation such as this one with the H1N1 flu, it's really hard to let an emotional bias against a pharmaceutical company dictate my actions if I would likely fare worse taking my chances with the virus.
Well, if I'm not mistaken, I clearly acknowledged that there is a lot of evidence showing problems with vaccines, that they can also be quite unsafe and ineffective. There is evidence and a history of both good and bad things about them. I merely choose to accept the good with the bad, rather than dismissing the good in favor of the bad, especially since the history and evidence for good far outweighs the bad.
In any case, I said there is a long list of
unambiguous beneficial vaccines, not a long list of
100% perfect vaccines. If you dismiss the good that vaccines have done, and focus solely or primarily on the bad that vaccines have done, then I come off looking like a regular Picasso in the first paragraph. LOL
Autism is the exception rather than the rule in these cases. Would you condemn tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people to suffer from polio, in order to prevent a statistically insignificant number of severe side effects from the vaccine?
Don't think that by the use of the phrase "statistically insignificant" that I'm am lessening the significance of anyone. I'm not. But it's as simple as the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, to steal a line from Spok.
The current rate of side effects, of any kind, from the H1N1 virus is 1-in-39,000. So far, all the side effects reported have been very mild, the same side effects that are experienced with every year's round of flu shots, and at the same rate. But 1-in-39,000 is about 25-in-a million. Let's say you vaccinate one million people. OK, first of all, that's a million people who are extremely unlikely to spread the virus. It can still be spread, but at a significantly reduced rate. Pick a number of the people who will not be infected because those one million people didn't spread the virus. Two million? Five? Ten? I dunno, but it's a lot.
According the WHO and the CDC, out of every 1000 people who contract H1N1, 40 people require hospitalization (4%) and 1 dies (.1%). Keeping it to just the one million who get vaccinated and dismissing those who would not be infected because of them, then out of those one million, 40,000 would
not require hospitalization because of the flu, and 1000 people will still be alive. The 25 people who suffered side effects is a really small number comparatively speaking, and while not really statistically
insignificant, when you add in the numbers of people who were
not infected because the spread was reduced, the numbers of prevented hospitalizations and the number of deaths make those 25 people a pretty insignificant number in the overall realm. Not 100% safe and effective, but pretty darn close.
In the week between September 27 and October 3, nineteen more children died in the US from the flu. That brings the total number of children who have died from H1N1 in the US to 76. About 3/4 of the children who have died from the flu also had underlying conditions. A flu vaccine might have killed some of those children, particularly the ones with the more severe underlying conditions. But it also may have saved most of them. If flu shots had been given to all 76 of those children, and 75 of them were still alive today, would the pharmaceutical companies be evil for killing that one? I'm gonna go with no.
A medical doctor? A member of the evil health care industry? Really?
....yeah ....
suspicion and conjecture ... take it to the bank.
Until his suspicions are validated with compelling evidence, empirical or anecdotal, they are just that, suspicions, regardless of how many people share those suspicions. Truth does not change whether it is or is not believed by a majority of the people, to quote a favorite. Something isn't true just because someone believes it is. His comments are from 1984, and to date there is no known cause of SIDS.
But let's assume his assumptions are golden. 10,000 deaths per year from SIDS directly related to vaccines, and of those 10,000, not one would have died of SIDS from any other cause. How many babies are given vaccinations each year? A little over 4 million were born in 2008. More importantly, if we suddenly stopped vaccinating all babies in order to save 10,000 SIDS deaths in the short term, how many people will contract severe disease or die in the long term? Are the vaccines actually killing more people than if they were not administered? The rates of incidence and mortality rates of the various illnesses the vaccines are given to prevent say no, that more people will develop serious illness and death if it were not for the vaccines, than those who die from the vaccines. The mortality rate for pertussis alone (whooping cough) is 3%, and it's incredibly contagious. One baby can spread it to an entire maternity ward of a hospital, and because the vaccine only last a few years, adults can get it, and spread it, like wildfire, with large numbers of people suffering in various degrees. Older folks often get it, because they are no longer immunized, and pertussis usually leads to pneumonia, which isn't good for anyone, especially seniors.
Incidentally, the incidence of SIDS is 1.4 deaths per 1000 live births, even in 1984. That's 5600 a year. Taking into account unreported, underreported and misreported, the estimates on the high end is 7000, not 10,000.
I agree completely. But, likewise, there is literally tons of info out there on the benefits of vaccines, some of it is even presented with the problems. But you have to be willing to actually look at the data with an open mind, and not give into the propaganda of the Anti-Medical Mafia. The Medical Mafia may very well be pure evil, but that doesn't necessarily mean their vaccines are.
(I'll skip over the part about the evil Medieval pharmaceutical conglomerates)
Well, duh. I'm not talking about a lack of evidence or a lack of reporting, I'm talking about actual evidence in the real world. Like, for example, the results of tuberculosis or small pox before and after their vaccines were developed and administered. But let's go with that and say there is a plethora of unreported and misidentified information regarding the horrors of the small pox vaccine. Which killed more people, the hushed up side effects, or small pox? Which is more beneficial, administering the vaccine to save millions of lives, or
not administering it because an extremely small number of people will have adverse reactions because of it? The drug companies and their evilness have nothing to do with that question. Either the vaccine works, does what it's supposed to do, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, or it doesn't.
Does the vaccine work for the majority of the people, or doesn't it? Do the large scale benefits of taking it outweigh the small scale risks? That's what matters to an individual about to make a decision as to whether or not to be vaccinated.
Yeah, reduces bleeding. What Bayer did with the FDA is unconscionable, I agree. I also think it's unconscionable that the FDA budget is largely (if not completely, I'd have to look it up) funded by the very industry they are supposed to be watching. It's sickening. It certainly makes it impossible to trust any new drug that comes on the market, because you can't trust the clinical trials as put forth by the drug companies. FDA approval anymore consists of basically, "Yeah, sure." You need (or at least I do) to wait a long while and see what happens with the real-world pseudo clinical trials of real life where the participants are by and large unwilling participants in a study. That's sickening, too.
Please keep in mind that I never said
all vaccines, much less all drugs, are always safe and effective. In the case of Trasylol, it was effective, but not safe.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but does that make Bayer Aspirin evil if it cures my headache?
It's a good example of having to wait a while for other studies and real-world "trials" on unwitting participants to get at the real risks and information. Turns out, there were no clinical situations on the operating table that Trasylol was worth the risk. If the FDA wasn't on the payroll, literally, of the drug companies, that might not have happened.
Yup.
Pharmaceutical companies don't take the Oath, tho. Perhaps they should.
Your description of Bayer is a pretty good characterization of a vaccination fiend, at all costs, a.k.a., the flip-side of being anti-vaccine, at all costs. Most if not all drug companies, and some people, push vaccines and other medications, at all costs, without regard to safety, sometimes whether they are effective or not, or without knowing for sure what the possible benefit/risk ratio is. They have their reasons, and they aren't necessarily for the good of the patient. Being anti-vaccine, at all costs, is the flip side of that.
Too funny. But the flip side would be someone sitting there proudly and semi-stoically suffering through the lockjaw of Tetanus (mortality rate - 30%) because they wouldn't accept a vaccine due to the fact that drug companies are evil.
