Vaccines 100% cause autism, right?

[Cytarabine]

Certainly, there are anti-vaxxers in developing countries. A section of the militarized north of Nigeria staged a boycott of vaccines for complicated reasons, some having to do with superstitious fears of a sterilization/AIDS spreading conspiracy, and more legitimately to do with concurrent deaths involving the testing of an unlicensed fluoroquinolone. Northern Nigerian militants have made the world news in more recent years with even more astounding acts of small mindedness.

In related news, the Taliban have taken a prominent role in the anti-vax world stage by murdering vaccination workers in Pakistan. This is for a combination of ideological and practical reasons (if your goal in life is to subvert the modern world into a medieval theocracy).

So yes, there are people in the developing world who are championing the cause of their religious exemption, if you will.

In the United States, the anti-vaccination movement is predominantly white, middle class, educated (though not in biological sciences), and largely sequestered from disease. By and large, it a population with the good health derived from adequate nutrition and a functioning public health system, combined with the disposable income to seek "alternative" therapies to indulge their ennui and treat their non-illnesses. With this, there is also the luxury of combining centuries abandoned hypotheses of vitalism with a foggy grasp of "new paradigm shifting sciences" such as epigenetics and nutrigenomics to create an appealing set of mantras and self reinforcing belief systems that have little to do do with objective reality.

What do these disparate groups have in common? Willful ignorance. It is called ignorance because it is ignorance.

Certainly, dismissing concerns as ignorant will alienate patients. I doubt most people here would do that to their patients, be they gum smacking 24 y/o yoga instructors bloviating about nutrition or impoverished Nigerian or Pakistani families. Being able to express dismay on an anonymous internet forum is a different thing.

However, when you make queries like "Heard of Pandemrix? Causes narcolepsy." expect an acerbic response. A blithe statement like that could have come straight from LivingWhole, VacTruth, or AgeofAutism. I am sure that you know that "associated with an increased risk of" is not the same as "causes", yet you said it anyway. Were you interested in discussing adverse neurological sequelae of vaccination? Not a productive way to initiate the conversation.

However, I too find the sociology of the anti-vax movement interesting. Most of my perspective comes from articles published in Pediatrics and Vaccine, as well as my own internet forays and personal observations from living in Woo-ville, along with an interest in global health. Feel free to PM me if you have any other interesting sources.

Salaam,

Brick

Strong vocabulary

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[Apoplexy__]

Certainly, there are anti-vaxxers in developing countries. A section of the militarized north of Nigeria staged a boycott of vaccines for complicated reasons, some having to do with superstitious fears of a sterilization/AIDS spreading conspiracy, and more legitimately to do with concurrent deaths involving the testing of an unlicensed fluoroquinolone. Northern Nigerian militants have made the world news in more recent years with even more astounding acts of small mindedness.

In related news, the Taliban have taken a prominent role in the anti-vax world stage by murdering vaccination workers in Pakistan. This is for a combination of ideological and practical reasons (if your goal in life is to subvert the modern world into a medieval theocracy).

So yes, there are people in the developing world who are championing the cause of their religious exemption, if you will.

In the United States, the anti-vaccination movement is predominantly white, middle class, educated (though not in biological sciences), and largely sequestered from disease. By and large, it a population with the good health derived from adequate nutrition and a functioning public health system, combined with the disposable income to seek "alternative" therapies to indulge their ennui and treat their non-illnesses. With this, there is also the luxury of combining centuries abandoned hypotheses of vitalism with a foggy grasp of "new paradigm shifting sciences" such as epigenetics and nutrigenomics to create an appealing set of mantras and self reinforcing belief systems that have little to do do with objective reality.

What do these disparate groups have in common? Willful ignorance. It is called ignorance because it is ignorance.

Certainly, dismissing concerns as ignorant will alienate patients. I doubt most people here would do that to their patients, be they gum smacking 24 y/o yoga instructors bloviating about nutrition or impoverished Nigerian or Pakistani families. Being able to express dismay on an anonymous internet forum is a different thing.

However, when you make queries like "Heard of Pandemrix? Causes narcolepsy." expect an acerbic response. A blithe statement like that could have come straight from LivingWhole, VacTruth, or AgeofAutism. I am sure that you know that "associated with an increased risk of" is not the same as "causes", yet you said it anyway. Were you interested in discussing adverse neurological sequelae of vaccination? Not a productive way to initiate the conversation.

However, I too find the sociology of the anti-vax movement interesting. Most of my perspective comes from articles published in Pediatrics and Vaccine, as well as my own internet forays and personal observations from living in Woo-ville, along with an interest in global health. Feel free to PM me if you have any other interesting sources.

Salaam,

Brick

kirbymiester is now following you

 

[colbgw02]

***But I still personally got them, anyway. Along with small pox, rabies, anthrax, jap encephalitis and a whole lot of other stuff most people don't need.

 

[Trek19]

 

[Bryan O’Blivion]

Thanks you guys. I was kind of astonished when some anti-vaccination meme came up on my FB feed a year or so ago, posted by people I liked and respected, and so I did some reading into it. The origin of some of the misconceptions and how they get perpetuated (and by whom), can be kind of interesting. Most of these notions make their way at some point to someone with a financial incentive, often a vitamin salesman. Others may get advertising from traffic to their website. Still others seem to thrive on the attention. It gets more bizarre the further down the rabbit hole you go.

Which is why, FutureSunnyDoc, I did not compare Trek19's statement to Natural News, or Whale. No need for name calling.

Trek: Yeah, mistrust of the intentions, knowledge, and abilities of medical professionals is central to the movement. This is actively cultivated by purveyors of alt med though: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org...-selling-sugar-pills-as-vaccine-alternatives/

and: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20364531

Although the motivations for these practitioners is abundantly clear, there is also room for introspection in "mainstream" medicine about the role we may play in perpetuating this.

As far as the mechanism in the pandemrix/narcolepsy connection, that is pretty interesting. It is posited that there was some cross reactivity between the epitopes of orexins and both the wild type flu virus and the vaccine, which is very interesting, but some of the better articles have been retracted. Definitely something to keep an eye out for, since it may have broad and meaningful implications. Or not. Regression to the mean, and all that.

Kirbymiester: thanks man! I check SDN pretty infrequently, since I seldom have much to say or a lot of time to say it. I like the Dr. J Strongbear Sweet avatar, BTW.