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Whooping cough outbreak

Ian

Senior Member
Messages
282
There has been a lot of news and buzz recently about the whooping cough outbreak. The outbreak has been blamed by the news media on the anti-vaccination crowd.

ie

It’s not a coincidence that California is the center of the new pertussis epidemic. Vaccination rates among adults in California have been dropping in recent years, large due to the influence of anti-vaccination zealots such as Jenny McCarthy and groups such as Age of Autism. Anti-vaccination sentiments seem to strike a chord with relatively well-educated segments of the population – the same people who favor organic food and want to use “natural” products as much as possible. Anti-vaxers appeal to this group by arguing that vaccines are unnatural, and that the body’s own immune system can be “boosted” by various natural treatments. Appealing though this may sound, it has no basis in science.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/science...epidemic-blame-the-anti-vaccination-movement/

Now back to reality.

An investigation by California doctors has revealed that the state's latest outbreak of whooping cough centered around children who had already received the whooping cough vaccine, Reuters reports.

After examining the records of juvenile whooping cough patients over an 8-month period, the doctors discovered that 81 percent of patients had received the full series of whooping cough shots, and 11 percent had received only some of the shots. The remaining 8 percent had not received any immunizations for whooping cough.

Unfortunately, drug maker Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK), the manufacturer of the whooping cough vaccine, did not bother to perform long-term studies of its effectiveness.
http://digitaljournal.com/article/323187
 
Messages
15,786
As if adults were ever getting vaccinated for it anyhow, unless maybe they were in health care or education and working with small children.
 

WillowJ

คภภเє ɠรค๓թєl
Messages
4,940
Location
WA, USA
in the US, adults do get pertussis vaccine. they have started bundling it with tetanus and diphtheria booster.
 

Shell

Senior Member
Messages
477
Location
England
I had a mild to moderate dose of whooping cough when I was a kid - and I'd had the vaccine already.
I've often wondered whether it was the vaccine that caused it.
 

Sea

Senior Member
Messages
1,286
Location
NSW Australia
My daughter, several of her classmates and a handful more throughout her school all got whooping cough 3 years ago. All the ones I spoke to were fully immunised
 

natasa778

Senior Member
Messages
1,774
Unfortunately, drug maker Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK), the manufacturer of the whooping cough vaccine, did not bother to perform long-term studies of its effectiveness.

Same with mumps vaccine. Merck is currently being sued by health insurance companies for fraud - for misrepresenting effectiveness data of their MMR component mumps vaccine. This is following whistleblower report by 2 scientists who worked for Merck for years and apparently witnessed this twisting and hiding of data going on for years. This is baaad especially because mumps can cause infertility in boys if they are infected after adolescence. Which is when the mumps vaccine likely wears off, ie when they REALLY need that immunity.
 

currer

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Mumps is a mild disease if caught at the normal time, which is before puberty. A natural infection with mumps confers lifelong immunity.
Vaccination prevents mumps being caught young, but the vaccine wears off after a some years, - children catch mumps when they are older, at puberty, a dangerous time to catch mumps.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Mumps is a mild disease if caught at the normal time, which is before puberty. A natural infection with mumps confers lifelong immunity.
Vaccination prevents mumps being caught young, but the vaccine wears off after a some years, - children catch mumps when they are older, at puberty, a dangerous time to catch mumps.

Eight infants have died from the whooping cough in my state alone. It directly correlates to the decline of getting routine vaccines. Theses babies were too young to get the shot. What a tragedy for these families and babies that had to experience something that could"ve been easily prevented.

Vaccinations are not 100% effective. My grandchildren caught the chicken pox at preschool but fortunately a very mild case. If they hadn't been vaccinated they could have been very sick. My daughter got the chicken pox and was very sick to the point that she was almost put in the hospital. This was before shots were given for chicken pox.

That's why it's so important to get vaccinated. For herd immunity. If everyone gets vaccinated, then the chance of pcking up something, whether you have had the vaccination or not dramaticaly reduces the chance of gettng that disease to almost nil. That's why people don't get small pox vaccines anymore.


Routine smallpox vaccination among the American public stopped in 1972 after the disease was eradicated in the United States. Until recently, the U.S. government provided the vaccine only to a few hundred scientists and medical professionals working with smallpox and similar viruses in a research setting.

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/facts.asp

I was a very young child when the polio outbreak occured but I remember how scary it was. I have a friend who had polio and then got post polio syndrome.

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an infectious viral disease that can strike at any age and affects a person's nervous system. In the late 1940s to the early 1950s, polio crippled an average of over 35,000 people in the United States each year; it was one of the most feared diseases of the twentieth century. Thanks to the polio vaccine, dedicated health care professionals, and parents who vaccinate their children on schedule, polio has been eliminated in this country for over 30 years.
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/PolioFacts/

There are booster shot for measles and other diseases that are routinely given in the US.

Barb C.:>)
 

Sallysblooms

P.O.T.S. now SO MUCH BETTER!
Messages
1,768
Location
Southern USA
Yes, even more babies would have that horrible disease with no vaccines at all. Many of use know people with polio stories also. Horrible. I was substitute teaching at my son's school and got my booster for measles years ago.

You can overdo vaccines for sure, but the major diseases have to be kept under control. In countries with no vaccines, it is so sad. Just like with antibiotics that can cause terrible damage, you have to use them sometimes.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
It's not that simple

1) If you eliminate an orgnaism from an ecosystem, nearly always, something evovles to fit that niche'
and when delaing with pathogens a new one will usually be extremely nasty because it has not had time to adapt to the host

2) Smallpox was mega nasty, extreme mortality/communicability
It was NOT like polio, polio was mostly a public health issue as it basically spreads in contaminated water, ergo, clean place up and you do vastly more ot curb it than vaccines could ever do.
harm from polio infection was vastly lower than harm from smallpox (% chance)
yes, it put people in "Iron lungs" etc, but rememebr, more folk were getting torn into hamburger ont he road by a great deal. No one really gives a sh*t about road deaths as they are sacrifices ot the great Gods of Consumerism and Convenience.

Polio is NOT a "Plague"

3) Edward Henner never knew about things like Bovine Leukemia Virus
that is, vaccinatiosn have probably infected us with multiple pathogens which their creators didn't know about and couldn't detect.
odds are high that is how HIV really started.
Whether ME is caused BY a vaccine contaminant, or is merely triggered by any form of infection, the cluster outbreaks I'd bet are often linked to vaccinations

4) There are more Human beings....better media...better reporting...better research
So, more cases areproperly dientified rather than written off as "bug causes sickness" because no one knew
ie, today you get "over" reporting compared to the past

5) Packing more and more kids into bigger and oftne nastier maintained/built schools is ****** CRIMINALLY STUPID!!!
O M F G...schools are custom built germ labs, hence lice and other more obvious problems have sky rocketted.

6) Faster world travel
Air travel is behind huge amount of disease spread.
Joe B. escapes African civil war/poverty, comes to UK in forged papers, but is owned, controlled and slaved by scum Human traffickers
Joe B. has ebola...think the slavers will tell the rich pondslime he's working for peanuts for that he had Ebola?
Folks go on "adventure holidays" in rain forests, etc.

Normally such folk would recover or die off on ship voyages due to their long duration, but air travel is a recipe for disaster as it encloses folk together and is too short for vicitms to defeat the disease PLUS the slime air companies are breaking safety rules by using recirculated air, so, if Joe has some nasty bug YOU have the nasty bug

"bush meat" is traded across Europe despite the dangers of vast number of bugs and deaths that causes every year.
more obviously you have "Invasive" plant and other species causing havoc 'cause we Humans can't leave things the hell alone.

7) Said ages ago and indications are I was right, that virii play an important part in the evolution of higher organisms
This does not mean that slamming tons of virri AND vaccines into kids is a good idea, jeesh!!!
Every infection or injury has a risk of triggering very rare but catastrophic harm, and when you ge thit by many at the same time...the risks are nto merely simply additive.

8) We are designed to develope natural immunity, vaccines for many reasons do nor function liek natural infections/immune response, it's a gawd damn CON

Really, we're playing a huge game of "throw it all in the pot and stir and see what comes out!" :p
Vaccines should be *Banned*, except for those in high risk occupations and in specific cicumstances
for example, fertile females without contraception maybe wise to get rubella vaccination, especially if there's an outbreak.
A leatherworker who deals in foreign skins may seek anthrax shots
etc

You really wanna save lives, slam down hard on air travel, bush meat, human trafficking, slash school sizes/number in class rooms (ie set up massive building program so every kid has a school they can WALK to and no more than 250 kids in entire school)
ensure everyone has sufficent wage and encouragement to buy fresh food/fruit and live healthier lives.
Do more research, indepdendant research,into dangers form plastics and other environmental poisons, glass is in the end, safer than plastic bottles for kids ot drink out of (and we could make shatter proof glass too if we tried)

Sorry we're ALL going to DIE. Vaccines are a big boogieman to make you spend money and live in fear.
Kids will always suffer risk, they need ot unfortunately and paradoxically, to live healthy lives.
Dirt, injury and infection are natural and required for healthy life
More lives have been saved by public health and civil engineering than by vaccines, thing is, they do not make lots of money for the corporate bastards (and even then our scum governments have sold off water and other utilities, and see what that's done!).
Countries with crap or non existant water/sewer systems, public health programs etc wil lof course have sky high health issues.

Oen Is aw that highlighted the reality
in CHile iirc, they put in a big public water system, paid for by the IMF
know what? the IMF demaned that only those who could pay for the water should get it, the cost is 1/3rd the wage of the average lower clas person's annual income!
So there's all these big stopcocks, padlocked...
the wealthy fo course have water....and get diseases off the poor shmucks who drink polluted water even though they have fresh clean safe water right beside them...behind padlocks.

If you want ot look up other interesting things, note the number of youngsters who have died of horrible amoeba/fungal infections that get into the sinus/brain from swimming in water holes in US (in regard to polio)
number is small, death is horrific.
Do you make a vaccine for that, or ban/drain/clean the swimming hole?
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
Unfortunately, drug maker Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK), the manufacturer of the whooping cough vaccine, did not bother to perform long-term studies of its effectiveness.
I don't think any vaccine is effective really long-term. When vaccines were first used, the vaccinated people would be exposed to the disease from time to time which would boost their immunity. Now that many diseases are well-contained, vaccinated people may never encounter the disease organism. A body is generally not going to devote resources to making antibodies against a disease that it does not encounter over several decades.
 

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
Can anyone point me to the original science study?

Barb C.:>)

I always did find this one from the Lancet interesting. It's from 1998. Oh a quick note. The initial Forbes article referred to by Ian was published in 2010 and referred to children too young to be vaccinated, and herd immunity of course. The second article (cobbled together as it was - btw see that NYT link embedded in it - rather different views expressed) was from April 2012 if memory serves and relates to something different. Was the first article likely to 'irk' some of those in that particular 'movement'? Most definitely. But it was rather specific.

Anyway: Lancet 1998: Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story: http://ftp.fcs.uga.edu/cfd/cdl/docs/vaccines_exemptions.pdf
 

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
I remember the polio scares, and lining up with everybody else in town to get the vaccine. I'd like to believe the vaccines helped, but I'm very skeptical:

1. Since officials lie to us all the time, about almost everything, it's hard to believe they are being truthful about vaccines.

2. If vaccines are so safe and effective, why do drug companies have special immunity when patients are harmed?

3. How could it have ever been a good idea to put mercury in vaccines, whether or not it caused/causes autism? How long has industry known that mercury is poisonous? A hundred years?

There is also a whooping cough outbreak in Maine and Atlantic Canada. Last week the neuro's PA said I should get the vaccine. Apparently she hasn't read the literature that says only well people should be vaccinated...

I agree with Silverblade that schools are germ factories. The move to giant centralized schools is truly stupid, for so many reasons. I walked or biked to school for about 9 years. Junior high and high school were all the way across town, and it was uphill both ways!
 

Ian

Senior Member
Messages
282
3. How could it have ever been a good idea to put mercury in vaccines, whether or not it caused/causes autism? How long has industry known that mercury is poisonous? A hundred years?

Mercury is bad ? That's not what the TV says.

 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
We are designed to develope natural immunity, vaccines for many reasons do nor function liek natural infections/immune response, it's a gawd damn CON

If you follow that reasoning then I guess that death is the ultimate failure of natural immunity?

Barb C.:>)
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Polio was so common we used to have special hospitals just for polio. However, its death rate was not terribly high compared to smallpox. It did however cause a lot of disability.

Things do evolve to fit ecological niches, but its typically very slow. Its of more concern that by eliminating too many bugs with antiseptics our immune systems are not sufficiently strengthened to fight off serious infections. If we wipe out too many microbes that are similar to pathogens, we don't get cross reactive immunity.

Another issue with vaccines - they often do not prevent you from getting the disease just decrease the risk. However when you do get it the immune system should react faster and more powerfully, reducing the duration and severity of illness. Sometimes this might actually be a bad thing, as the immune response itself might do more damage.

Something that happens with us a lot is a complete loss of responsive antibodies. That means the B cells have died or become inactive. This fits with something the WPI noticed (but have not published, doh) - we have too many immature B cells.

Bye, Alex
 

Dainty

Senior Member
Messages
1,751
Location
Seattle
Polio was so common we used to have special hospitals just for polio. However, its death rate was not terribly high compared to smallpox. It did however cause a lot of disability.

There are a few things I'd like to mention about polio. According to the CDC it's actually quite rare for it to be problematic at all. Quoting from this page:

Approximately 95% of persons infected with polio will have no symptoms. About 4-8% of infected persons have minor symptoms, such as fever, fatigue, nausea, headache, flu-like symptoms, stiffness in the neck and back, and pain in the limbs, which often resolve completely. Fewer than 1% of polio cases result in permanent paralysis of the limbs (usually the legs).​

What makes paralysis with polio so rare, and why do people sometimes contract it from this otherwise quite harmless virus? That's the question doctors and scientists ought to investigate. One animal study indicated that low blood sugar may be to blame:

In 1938, the only laboratory animal that could contract polio by experimental inoculation was the monkey. All other laboratory animals were completely resistant to the polio virus. The rabbit is one of these resistant animals.

... The next step was to lower the blood sugar of the rabbit to subnormal values with insulin injections, and then inoculate the rabbit with polio virus. This was done and it was found that the rabbits became infected and developed the disease.

The details of these experiments were published in the American Journal of Pathology, January, 1941.

Even if the disease does progress to paralytic polio, it turns out back in the '40s a French doctor found successful treatment as patient after patient recovered completely after paralysis had set in. Dr. Nevue published his findings in a booklet titled Therapeutic Treatment of Infectious Diseases by Magnesium Chloride--Poliomyelitis which included his case reports of using magnesium chloride to cure even advanced stages of paralytic polio. Excerpts can be found here.

So although polio is often mentioned as a very frightening disease, after researching the matter I'm honestly not concerned about it at all. To sum up:
  • Most people who contract polio will never experience any symptoms
  • Most who experience symptoms won't identify it as polio because it will act/feel like the flu
  • According to one published scientific study a healthy blood sugar prevents polio from becoming paralytic
  • If it becomes paralytic, substantial anecdotal evidence indicates that a simple and safe over the counter supplement can completely reverse the effects if administered within the necessary time window.
So....what's this vaccine good for, again?
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Yes, paralytic polio was not terribly common, percentage wise. Yes, not that many died, percentage wise. Translate that to a whole population though. So many caught it it was like the whole population was playing Russian Roulette. At its height over 500,000 per year were claimed to be dying or paralyzed from polio. Thats a lot of people. Then of course there is post polio syndrome. Something very much like ME. I do not know the numbers. Does anyone know what percentage got post polio?

I had never heard of Dr. Nevue. Was his finding widely adopted? I have a feeling he was ignored. If it had really worked, and he had been listened to, then the peak death/disability numbers would not have been so high. So either it did not work or he was deliberately ignored (which wouldn't surprise me, we see that attitude from the medical profession even today).

When people did become disabled they spent years in physical therapy, and often walked with a limp or worse. People were afraid of polio. I wonder how much of that was because if it disabled you there were no benefits, nobody to look after you back then?

Did Dr Nevue ever find magnesium chloride treated post polio syndrome? Was he even aware of it? I wonder how much of the stigma of ME is a hangover from what people thought of post polio?

Based on what was happening in the 70s and 80s with vaccines and alternative medicine, it might be possible to find some evidence that eradicating polio was an issue drummed up by the media and spin machines. It would take a bit of work however. On the other hand such large numbers were dying or becoming disabled that I think they wouldn't need spin to get the public on board.

Bye, Alex