Before the US measles vaccination program began in 1963 – the disease caused untold human suffering. Up to 4 million Americans contracted it each year, of whom almost 50,000 were hospitalized and 500 died annually.
In a statement that the “FDA has warned about the use of products labeled as homeopathic because of concerns that they have not been shown to offer clinical benefits in treating serious and/or life-threatening medical conditions, and that they also may cause serious harm.” The FDA added: “It deeply concerns us when we see preventable diseases such as measles – a life-threatening infection we thought we had eliminated in the US in 2000 – now making a tragic comeback and threatening our communities, despite having a vaccine available that is safe and highly effective. A factor contributing to the measles outbreak is inaccurate and misleading information about vaccines rather than the reliance on accurate, scientific-based information.”
An unwillingness by parents to have their children vaccinated that was recently listed by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 threats to global health.
200 homeopaths in the US are practicing a controversial “therapy” known as Cease that falsely asserts that it has the power to treat and even cure autism. The acronym stands for Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression.
The “therapy” relies in part on administering high doses of vitamin C. Advocates falsely say it repairs the harm caused by vaccination – a double untruth as most vaccines are safe and there is no link between vaccines and autism, a condition for which there is no cure.
250 homeopaths, some of whom also practice Cease, are promoting “homeoprophylaxis” that advertises itself as an “immunological education program”. More than 2,000 American children have been put on the program which claims to build natural immunity against infectious diseases, though there is no scientific evidence that it works.
Parents who opt to follow Cease or homeoprophylaxis are exposing their children, as well as others around them, to life-threatening illness. The implicit message behind both therapies is that vaccines are harmful and should be avoided.
The spread of such ideas, amplified through the proliferation of anti-vaxxer theories on social media, has begun to have a profound impact on public health in the US. Last month the number of measles cases reached a 25-year peak. 1,001 individual cases of measles have been confirmed in more than 20 states this year alone.
“These measles outbreaks were both predicted and predictable as the anti-vaccine movement starts to affect public health in this country,” said Peter Hotez, professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. “This is just the beginning – it is a harbinger of a new normal in America.” Hotez, who has an autistic daughter and who has written a book debunking the false link between vaccines and autism, said of the claims propagated by homeoprophylaxis and Cease: “There are no alternatives to vaccination against measles and there is no cure to autism – so it’s all made up.”
The issue of vaccinations is contentious, but even if one accepts the mainstream argument that vaccines are ‘safe’ and ‘effective’ then the question is why do so many people - increasing numbers apparently - not believe this mainstream assertion. First of all it may be because they mistrust the constant bleating of disreputable organisations such as the Federal Drug Administration (and similar institutional capture in the UK) and the World Health Organisation about the problem of non-vaccination. This institutional apparatus is captured by big pharma and other corporate interests and their protestations may have more to do with protecting the profits of the corporate drug companies and vilifying the ‘alternative health sector’ in order to maintain the corporate stranglehold on health provision. Reeling out old statistics and trying to wrap them up in a scare story does not cut the mustard for me. 500 deaths from measles in 1963 doesn’t even get near the number of deaths from workplace injuries and diseases and other general death and destruction rained down upon the working class each year by our benevolent caring capitalist masters; the aggregate figure of which will be in the hundreds of thousands. There are probably more people being killed by the side effects of one big pharma drug than dying as a result of not being vaccinated. 3 million children die of starvation each year; lives that could be saved at a stroke by big pharma giving up a fraction of their annual profits. Every year in the UK over 1000 people die from falling down stairs, twice the number of deaths from measles in 1963 in the US! Big Pharma alone are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths through their despicable price fixing, rigorous patent enforcement and other nefarious activities which demonstrates a callous disregard for human life. And the public are expected to believe that they are concerned about the falling rate of vaccination killing a few hundred more people! The answer to the ‘vaccination problem’ is not to roll out endless scientific research papers - much of which ‘evidence’ is tainted by the well documented corporate capture -by way of bribes and intimidation - of scientists and academia. When I sit in front of a doctor in the UK, (and this applies to most doctors in the Western World) their utterances have less to do with any clinical appraisal and more to do with moneymaking and legalistic speak to safeguard them from litigation. The solution to people’s skepticism about vaccinations is to have a system of health care that is open and honest and is not based on profit; but instead, provided free to everyone according to need. Sounds a bit like socialism!
ReplyDeleteThere is a growth of distrust in all institutions and a few indeed are justified but there is also a sharp rise in irrational beliefs and the anti-vaxxers are part of junk science.
ReplyDeleteThe blog if you do a search has not defended the practices of Big Pharma. With every industry the profit motive is ingrained within it and SOYMB blog exposes it frequently.
But nor can it treat pseudo-science on par with serious research and any uncertain science is not revealed by anti-vaxxers but by other scientists (albeit sometimes after the horse has bolted), otherwise we go down the rabbit holes of all manner of false unverified claims.
The present campaign in favour of vaccination is to avoid the trend expanding and growing out of control and returning to be a part of everyday hazards. You may be presently talking about hundreds of fatalities but the permanent damage can be the tens of thousands and of course that is in the UK not in countries where health care is basic and fatalities at a higher rate. Plus the anti-MMR anti-vaxxers are involved in discouraging vaccinations for many more other diseases in addition to just measles.
Unlike the present Asia swine fever outbreak, we cannot cull people.
I am minded that if Big Pharma is in control of the vaccination programme, why indeed has it not included numerous other vaccinations which is possible as part of routine immunization. They don't possess the power accredited to it.
I'm of the generation that can still recall school mates with iron calipers something because of the polio programme is now very rare in the UK but having travelled I have also seen the polio beggars where such immunization was not implemented widespread.
Anecdotal criticism of GPs don't muster with me, Tim. Rather than money-making the problem is time...10 minutes a visit which only this week has calls of being raised to 15 minutes. We all have different experiences...my GP when my wife died, knocked on the door because she was doing a house-call nearby just to ask how I was coping. And neither myself or my late wife were particularly frequent patients of the GP. The problem really is primarily one of GP numbers, not that they have been got at by Big Pharma and the insurance companies.
"Every year in the UK over 1000 people die from falling down stairs" As an aside the building regulations in Scotland are different from England on the width of steps, the incline of them and the application of bannisters so to improve the safety of a flight of stairs. Perhaps England should address its cost-cutting rules.
https://www2.gov.scot/resource/buildingstandards/2013domestic/chunks/ch05s04.html