By the Numbers: Vaccines Are Safe(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
By the Numbers: Vaccines Are Safe
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/health/you-should-get-vaccinated.html
5 comments
"Posts like this make me wonder who doesn't think they're safe so I did some light digging for anyone who's curious."
The MMR vaccine (a 3-in-1 vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella) has been dogged by claims that it is unsafe and causes autism. These claims have been proven false, but the damage persists.
I recommend anyone interested in this subject read this article:
'No link between MMR and autism,' major study finds
https://www.nhs.uk/news/medication/no-link-between-mmr-and-a...
The MMR vaccine (a 3-in-1 vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella) has been dogged by claims that it is unsafe and causes autism. These claims have been proven false, but the damage persists.
I recommend anyone interested in this subject read this article:
'No link between MMR and autism,' major study finds
https://www.nhs.uk/news/medication/no-link-between-mmr-and-a...
It's even worse: there are no reputable claims that vaccines are unsafe (in the sense anti-vaccination advocates mean, anyway).
The only semi-scientific paper was the one which sparked it all, by Andrew Wakefield [0], who is:
> "a discredited former British doctor who became an anti-vaccine activist. He was a gastroenterologist until he was struck off the UK medical register for unethical behaviour, misconduct, and dishonesty for authoring a fraudulent research paper that claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism and bowel disease"
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
The only semi-scientific paper was the one which sparked it all, by Andrew Wakefield [0], who is:
> "a discredited former British doctor who became an anti-vaccine activist. He was a gastroenterologist until he was struck off the UK medical register for unethical behaviour, misconduct, and dishonesty for authoring a fraudulent research paper that claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism and bowel disease"
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
Wakefield had a financial interest, as well.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2011/01/wakefield_t...
> In the new report, Deer describes a variety of efforts Wakefield undertook to make money from his work. For example, Wakefield and his associates predicted they could make more than $43 million a year from diagnostic kits alone for a condition he argued affected autistic children dubbed "austistic enterocolitis," according to one 35-page document.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2011/01/wakefield_t...
> In the new report, Deer describes a variety of efforts Wakefield undertook to make money from his work. For example, Wakefield and his associates predicted they could make more than $43 million a year from diagnostic kits alone for a condition he argued affected autistic children dubbed "austistic enterocolitis," according to one 35-page document.
If you look at other areas of the world, Philippines is interesting [0]:
> [I]n 2018, 32 percent of the surveyed 1,500 Filipinos trusted vaccines. In the 2015 iteration of the poll, 93 percent of the respondents said they trusted vaccines.
> Health Secretary Francisco Duque III attributes the lowered trust on the government's immunization drive due to the Dengvaxia controversy.
---
I also saw someone on Twitter questioning if that decline in trust was related to the Philippines' continued obsession with social media [1].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Philippines_measles_outbr...
[1]: https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/01/31/19/filipinos-still-worl...
> [I]n 2018, 32 percent of the surveyed 1,500 Filipinos trusted vaccines. In the 2015 iteration of the poll, 93 percent of the respondents said they trusted vaccines.
> Health Secretary Francisco Duque III attributes the lowered trust on the government's immunization drive due to the Dengvaxia controversy.
---
I also saw someone on Twitter questioning if that decline in trust was related to the Philippines' continued obsession with social media [1].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Philippines_measles_outbr...
[1]: https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/01/31/19/filipinos-still-worl...
[deleted]
> compared with just 4% of Americans over age 65
I.e. people who remember life without vaccines.
I.e. people who remember life without vaccines.
My great grandmother lived through the last smallpox outbreak in Canada, where their boarder caught it and she had to be quarantined.
My grandmother told us about how she come back to school after summer vacation and found out about friends that died from measles.
I had a vice principal who had polio as a child.
None of those are around now, although measles is making a run for it.
My grandmother told us about how she come back to school after summer vacation and found out about friends that died from measles.
I had a vice principal who had polio as a child.
None of those are around now, although measles is making a run for it.
There are still loads of men around that have decreased fertility or even infertilitt due to mumps. Without ever asking around I know at least three men that had fertility problems, probably due to severe orchitis after mumps.
In Sweden they included mumps in the vaccination programme 1975ish, which probably means the USA got it sometime during the 60s. That means you have probably all met someone that had testicle or pancreas inflammation due to mumps. Both of them very very painful.
In Sweden they included mumps in the vaccination programme 1975ish, which probably means the USA got it sometime during the 60s. That means you have probably all met someone that had testicle or pancreas inflammation due to mumps. Both of them very very painful.
More Democrats than Republicans? I find that surprising.
that's not the right breakdown; it's really far-left progressive democrats who associate with natural living.
I can see that. But are there more of them than there are Republicans who don't believe in science?
Take a look at the article the article links to (https://www.people-press.org/2015/02/09/83-percent-say-measl...) and you'll see it's more nuanced.
A nontrivial amount of opposition to vaccines comes from communities, both online and in person, that circulate accounts of atrocities committed by authorities. Naturally, accounts of mistreatment, whether or not its systemic nature is seeming or proven, will weaken trust in institutions. Good actors are always having to compensate for the activities of bad actors, even if those bad actors were in the distant past.
But it says a lot about our society and the quality of our institutions that the lack of trust isn't just among groups that have themselves been mistreated, but is also found in others who observe these issues of social justice from a position of relative privilege. Based on their observations, some of them have concluded that it's far from certain that malice, corruption, or lack of transparency don't factor into the mainstream stance on this issue today, likely because there is evidence that similar factors were at play in similar issues in the past, and the incentive structure of actors and organizations need not have meaningfully changed.
But it says a lot about our society and the quality of our institutions that the lack of trust isn't just among groups that have themselves been mistreated, but is also found in others who observe these issues of social justice from a position of relative privilege. Based on their observations, some of them have concluded that it's far from certain that malice, corruption, or lack of transparency don't factor into the mainstream stance on this issue today, likely because there is evidence that similar factors were at play in similar issues in the past, and the incentive structure of actors and organizations need not have meaningfully changed.
[deleted]
NikolaNovak(1)
The misinformation/lies surrounding vaccine safety is nauseating.
>Before the vaccine, measles infected more than 3 million Americans and killed more than 400 of them each year. One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized and one or two in 1,000 are likely to die
Anyone here gots math.. 400/3,000,000 is ~1/10,000. And note that this is the rate given 1950's medical care - I can't fathom the numbers would be like this today.
And the entire concept of proving vaccine safety by showing filing rates for the VICP are low is wrong. Many people are not aware of the VICP or they are told that the reactions are not related to the vaccines - why would they file?
I'm not arguing that you shouldn't vaccinate - but there needs to be more scientific and intellectual integrity in the process. The risks are whitewashed "Vaccines are safe".
Anyone interested in doing a little more research can look and play with the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) dataset at https://github.com/yehosef/vaers or the grafana dashboard I built at https://vizvax.com/
You can do a simple adhoc search for DIED=Y to see some interesting results. Remember that the only 1-10% of the events are reported (CDC numbers) so you can estimate the numbers to be 10-100 times greater.
feedback/suggestions appreciated.
>Before the vaccine, measles infected more than 3 million Americans and killed more than 400 of them each year. One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized and one or two in 1,000 are likely to die
Anyone here gots math.. 400/3,000,000 is ~1/10,000. And note that this is the rate given 1950's medical care - I can't fathom the numbers would be like this today.
And the entire concept of proving vaccine safety by showing filing rates for the VICP are low is wrong. Many people are not aware of the VICP or they are told that the reactions are not related to the vaccines - why would they file?
I'm not arguing that you shouldn't vaccinate - but there needs to be more scientific and intellectual integrity in the process. The risks are whitewashed "Vaccines are safe".
Anyone interested in doing a little more research can look and play with the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) dataset at https://github.com/yehosef/vaers or the grafana dashboard I built at https://vizvax.com/
You can do a simple adhoc search for DIED=Y to see some interesting results. Remember that the only 1-10% of the events are reported (CDC numbers) so you can estimate the numbers to be 10-100 times greater.
feedback/suggestions appreciated.
two things:
>> Before the vaccine, measles infected more than 3 million Americans and killed more than 400 of them each year. One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized and one or two in 1,000 are likely to die
> Anyone here gots math.. 400/3,000,000 is ~1/10,000. And note that this is the rate given 1950's medical care - I can't fathom the numbers would be like this today.
why'd you divide 400 by 3M? the article says, per your quote, that there were 400 american deaths per year. but 3M infected americans _total_. there is no per year qualifier on that part.
also you forgot to address the part about:
> One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized
i don't know about you, but i'll take a vaccination over a hospitalization in most realistic situations i can imagine.
also, while i can see how adverse events might be grossly underreported, i imagine the ones that _do_ get reported skew the data set towards the worst of the events. it seems to me that a really bad adverse event is much more likely to be reported than one that's mild.
>> Before the vaccine, measles infected more than 3 million Americans and killed more than 400 of them each year. One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized and one or two in 1,000 are likely to die
> Anyone here gots math.. 400/3,000,000 is ~1/10,000. And note that this is the rate given 1950's medical care - I can't fathom the numbers would be like this today.
why'd you divide 400 by 3M? the article says, per your quote, that there were 400 american deaths per year. but 3M infected americans _total_. there is no per year qualifier on that part.
also you forgot to address the part about:
> One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized
i don't know about you, but i'll take a vaccination over a hospitalization in most realistic situations i can imagine.
also, while i can see how adverse events might be grossly underreported, i imagine the ones that _do_ get reported skew the data set towards the worst of the events. it seems to me that a really bad adverse event is much more likely to be reported than one that's mild.
>why'd you divide 400 by 3M? the article says, per your quote, that there were 400 american deaths per year. but 3M infected americans _total_. there is no per year qualifier on that part.
Because it's a hack article. From https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html the numbers are annual. I remember seeing the 1/1000 number were of the reported case (ie, hospitals) - almost everyone use to get the measles before they were 15 and most cases were not reported.
> also you forgot to address the part about: >> One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized
Sorry - you're right. That's such a complete, outright lie - I guess my brain didn't even register it. As I mentioned - almost 100% of the people use to get measles (see CDC link). Clearly not 1/4 of them were hospitalized.
>i don't know about you, but i'll take a vaccination over a hospitalization in most realistic situations i can imagine.
Then you should learn about some of the stories of people that have been damaged. You can either read some of the reports from VAERS or watch some of the personal story videos from the VAXXED youtube channel.
Note - I'm not saying VAXXED is science.. I'm not saying their conclusions are right.. Yes - the stories are anecdotal - but these are real people with stories about how they had a healthy child and then after one or several vaccines, they didn't. You can listen to some and say.. "well.. that's a stretch to say the vaccines caused this". But you should listen to some of them.
It's a much messier story than the media, CDC or the pharmaceutical companies would have you to believe. My point is not that we should not vaccinate, but that should be informed and take the risks and benefits into consideration (Data-Driven/Led). The current approach overplays the benefits (by exaggerating the danger) and underplaying the risks.
Because it's a hack article. From https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html the numbers are annual. I remember seeing the 1/1000 number were of the reported case (ie, hospitals) - almost everyone use to get the measles before they were 15 and most cases were not reported.
> also you forgot to address the part about: >> One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized
Sorry - you're right. That's such a complete, outright lie - I guess my brain didn't even register it. As I mentioned - almost 100% of the people use to get measles (see CDC link). Clearly not 1/4 of them were hospitalized.
>i don't know about you, but i'll take a vaccination over a hospitalization in most realistic situations i can imagine.
Then you should learn about some of the stories of people that have been damaged. You can either read some of the reports from VAERS or watch some of the personal story videos from the VAXXED youtube channel.
Note - I'm not saying VAXXED is science.. I'm not saying their conclusions are right.. Yes - the stories are anecdotal - but these are real people with stories about how they had a healthy child and then after one or several vaccines, they didn't. You can listen to some and say.. "well.. that's a stretch to say the vaccines caused this". But you should listen to some of them.
It's a much messier story than the media, CDC or the pharmaceutical companies would have you to believe. My point is not that we should not vaccinate, but that should be informed and take the risks and benefits into consideration (Data-Driven/Led). The current approach overplays the benefits (by exaggerating the danger) and underplaying the risks.
a few things:
* you're trying to focus on being data-driven, but then you posit that i should watch a bunch of anecdotes collected in a non-scientific way to get perspective? would it be valid for me to ask you to talk to everyone who got a flu shot and then didn't catch the flu? because those two things seem about equally scientific to me, and i doubt you'd go for the latter from everything i've seen in this thread.
* if you're making a case for hard data analysis, i think you'll get people to listen more if you address everything systematically instead of falling back on "That's such a complete, outright lie - I guess my brain didn't even register it" for a point you didn't cover.
* under the benefits, have you considered the benefits of herd immunity? because there are some people who really can't vaccinate. and as many people as can should, to protect the ones who can't.
* you're trying to focus on being data-driven, but then you posit that i should watch a bunch of anecdotes collected in a non-scientific way to get perspective? would it be valid for me to ask you to talk to everyone who got a flu shot and then didn't catch the flu? because those two things seem about equally scientific to me, and i doubt you'd go for the latter from everything i've seen in this thread.
* if you're making a case for hard data analysis, i think you'll get people to listen more if you address everything systematically instead of falling back on "That's such a complete, outright lie - I guess my brain didn't even register it" for a point you didn't cover.
* under the benefits, have you considered the benefits of herd immunity? because there are some people who really can't vaccinate. and as many people as can should, to protect the ones who can't.
> if you're making a case for hard data analysis, i think you'll get people to listen more if you address everything systematically instead of falling back on "That's such a complete, outright lie - I guess my brain didn't even register it" for a point you didn't cover.
This is 100% correct - my bad. Thanks for the honesty check.
This is 100% correct - my bad. Thanks for the honesty check.
1) There's no contradiction to being data-driven and respecting anecdotal reports. The entire fleet of 747 Max airplanes was grounded because what? Two planes crashed? Big deal - those were flukes, no? How many plane-hours were there that didn't involve crashes. When it comes to safety claims and peoples' lives, even rare instances are significant.
2) Ok - I think I found the reference they are talking about: https://www.cdc.gov/measles/symptoms/complications.html What I was trying to point out is that before vaccinations when everyone got the measles, the hospitalization rate seems not to be 1/4 (1M people would have been hospitalized which would have been massive - I've seen no references to it - but I can't claim it didn't happen.)
Most data I saw to 1/4 were taken from the late 80s outbreaks see https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/189/Supplement_1/S4/823... - it's possible that people hospitalized out of fear of the disease since it had become less common. If you look in the chart in that article, there were many hospitalized, but the number that had the dangerous side-effects (encephalitis, etc ) where much smaller.
But - it's a valid point - I'm for data and truth, not for rhetoric.
3) The question is to what extent do I need to put myself at risk to save someone else from risk. The party line is that "vaccinations are safe" and therefore there is effectively no risk. If you hold there is a risk, then it's something you have to weigh.
Also - it's important to note that I don't know the research, if there is any, behind "herd-immunity". The problem is that measles in particular his highly contagious and fully immune people can be a carrier of the disease for several hours. Our social structures and interactions do not match those of "herds". Many of the outbreaks this year were in places that had the required level for "herd-immunity".
Additionally, the long-term effectiveness of the vaccine is a question to herd-immunity. Just last week I was speaking with someone in his 50s that was fully vaccinated and got the measles.
2) Ok - I think I found the reference they are talking about: https://www.cdc.gov/measles/symptoms/complications.html What I was trying to point out is that before vaccinations when everyone got the measles, the hospitalization rate seems not to be 1/4 (1M people would have been hospitalized which would have been massive - I've seen no references to it - but I can't claim it didn't happen.)
Most data I saw to 1/4 were taken from the late 80s outbreaks see https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/189/Supplement_1/S4/823... - it's possible that people hospitalized out of fear of the disease since it had become less common. If you look in the chart in that article, there were many hospitalized, but the number that had the dangerous side-effects (encephalitis, etc ) where much smaller.
But - it's a valid point - I'm for data and truth, not for rhetoric.
3) The question is to what extent do I need to put myself at risk to save someone else from risk. The party line is that "vaccinations are safe" and therefore there is effectively no risk. If you hold there is a risk, then it's something you have to weigh.
Also - it's important to note that I don't know the research, if there is any, behind "herd-immunity". The problem is that measles in particular his highly contagious and fully immune people can be a carrier of the disease for several hours. Our social structures and interactions do not match those of "herds". Many of the outbreaks this year were in places that had the required level for "herd-immunity".
Additionally, the long-term effectiveness of the vaccine is a question to herd-immunity. Just last week I was speaking with someone in his 50s that was fully vaccinated and got the measles.
>> "Before the vaccine, measles infected more than 3 million Americans and killed more than 400 of them each year. One in four people who get measles are likely to be hospitalized and one or two in 1,000 are likely to die, the C.D.C. reports."
So, after vaccines started, measles mortality grew an order of magnitude worse? (According to presumably conservative government's estimate). Am I the only one who thinks, that anti-vaxing has nothing to do with perceived safety of vaccines, and mostly reflects perceived safety of vaccine facilitators?
edit: after boeing 737 max troubles, we learnt, that boeing employees serve part time in capacity of government regulators, approving their own creation. Isn't it possible, that the same goes in the HRSA injury program?
So, after vaccines started, measles mortality grew an order of magnitude worse? (According to presumably conservative government's estimate). Am I the only one who thinks, that anti-vaxing has nothing to do with perceived safety of vaccines, and mostly reflects perceived safety of vaccine facilitators?
edit: after boeing 737 max troubles, we learnt, that boeing employees serve part time in capacity of government regulators, approving their own creation. Isn't it possible, that the same goes in the HRSA injury program?
> So, after vaccines started, measles mortality grew an order of magnitude worse? (According to presumably conservative government's estimate). Am I the only one who thinks, that anti-vaxing has nothing to do with perceived safety of vaccines, and mostly reflects perceived safety of vaccine facilitators?
You imply that vaccines cause that increase, but wouldn't a more plausible explanation be that people who contract measles despite being vaccinated are more likely to be people with subpar immune systems?
You imply that vaccines cause that increase, but wouldn't a more plausible explanation be that people who contract measles despite being vaccinated are more likely to be people with subpar immune systems?
No, I don't imply that vaccines caused the increase, however, the NYT writers make it seem that vaccination caused it. Also the article doesn't say what part of added mortality is amid the vaccinated people. If your reading was correct, and doctors killed 7-15 times as many as nature, because they vaxed kids unfit for vaccination, it would make the argument much worse; but the authors didn't say that.
It's just a mixup in numbers - the number of 1/2 per 1000 is often thrown around (perhaps that's global.. not sure) and the 400/3M are the US numbers from the 50's (pre-vaccination).
The measles hits people harder if they are weak/malnourished. A recent outbreak in Madagascar (https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/madagascar-measles-epidemic-1...) hit a 10/1000 rate (1200/115,000), which is x100 the US rate in the 50's.
The measles hits people harder if they are weak/malnourished. A recent outbreak in Madagascar (https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/madagascar-measles-epidemic-1...) hit a 10/1000 rate (1200/115,000), which is x100 the US rate in the 50's.
Thus the article in the NYT, by a Pulitzer prize winner no less, attempting to reconcile trust issues, ends up as a pile of randomly copy-pasted data.
I'd say this communication has started on a wrong foot. If a reporter of a huge newspaper can't be arsed to get it right, what kind of trust can we have in underpaid, anonymous government clerks, responsible for both scientific evaluation and logistic execution of vaccination?
Welcome to the wacky-zany world of vaccines misinformation.
Note - I don't claim anti-vaxxers don't have mistakes and misinformation - but it's coming for a different place. Anti-vaxxers are motivated by trying to save people from harm. Pro-vaxxers are motivated by trying to save people from harm and around $2000 per child (that complies with the vaccination schedule x3.5M children born in US each year.) The vaccine manufacturers make the money but there is "trickle-down-economics" where accomplices are duly rewarded (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-merck-gerberding/former-c...).
Note - I don't claim anti-vaxxers don't have mistakes and misinformation - but it's coming for a different place. Anti-vaxxers are motivated by trying to save people from harm. Pro-vaxxers are motivated by trying to save people from harm and around $2000 per child (that complies with the vaccination schedule x3.5M children born in US each year.) The vaccine manufacturers make the money but there is "trickle-down-economics" where accomplices are duly rewarded (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-merck-gerberding/former-c...).
so every dog gets vaccinated for certain diseases. If vaccines did cause anything, wouldn't people talk more about it in "that dog they knew" or "someone who knew someone with an authistic dog" ?
Rational arguments don't work. This is just a bug in the OS we're carrying in our heads, and it hits a lot of people unfortunately.
This would ignore any human-specific negative vaccine interactions so is not convincing.
loxs(1)
"Skepticism with vaccines crosses party and demographic lines, according to the Pew Research Center study released Monday, with about 5% of Republicans and 9% of Democrats saying vaccines are unsafe, and 11% of men and 8% of women saying the same.
Younger people, however, were significantly more likely to believe vaccines are unsafe, with 15% of Americans aged 18-29 saying vaccines aren’t safe, compared with just 4% of Americans over age 65."
https://time.com/3701543/measles-vaccines-poll-anti-vaxxers/