[News] MMR, Vaccinate or not.

[Billy the Fish]

Yes, at the time, but vaccinations have dropped in the last five years. Social media is playing a part in that by still spreading fake news.

Ahhhh, I see. There's absolutely no excuse for not having it these days.

Not if you know how the Lancet does peer review. I met Richard Horton at an editor's meeting some years ago. He told me they have a 'hanging committee' that meets each Friday (probably after a pleasant lunch) where papers are discussed. A decision is taken normally to reject or to publish. This is based primarily on interest.

FFS. This assumes tacit expertise. This is the biggest error in peer review. The questions to ask are 90% about hypothesis and experimental design. Even proper science journals (Lancet is medicine) are poor at interrogating design and analysis. Blinded, randomized, well-powered, proper use of ANOVA and due consideration of multiple comparisons.....

This paper stank to high heaven and the conclusions were absurd, and borderline criminal in their implication.

Happy to chat further PM, but not on here.

Wowzers! Thanks for explaining. As a total layman I'd just assumed that there was a minimum standard required to get research published, i.e the raw data is available and it's been peer reviewed.

 

[Notters]

That was ecstacy (and cannabis). These are not medicinces (although one may be classified as one soon). Ignoring Nutt has nothing to do with the MMR debacle. The process was pretty much unavoidable after the horse bolted (the paper published).

I wasn't really talking about medicines, to be honest, it was just an example of the government ignoring professional advice - there are many others.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/...ee/news-parliament-2017/correspondence-17-19/

By the way, I've found your insight into clinical trials and the workings of journals very interesting, thank you.

 

[DumLum]

In My Opinion people who refuse to vaccinate their kids are idiots.

They probably don't let them drink tap water either.

 

[GT49er]

It would have been useful if The Lancet had done that in 1998 before publishing the paper.

Not half it would have! Not only would it have prevented thousands of children not getting the MMR jab, and many parents a lot of anguish and heart searching, but also it would have saved a lot of the 'let's judge past events by what happens today' criticism aimed at parents back then. As in:

In My Opinion people who refuse to vaccinate their kids are idiots.

Pretty much spot on.

Yes, now the reports of MMR jabs being dangerous has been totally disproved and discredited, people who refuse to vaccinate their kids are idiots. But back then, they weren't. We were in the same position as others on this board, and we considered very carefully all the evidence then available, and with much heart-searching; we eventually had the jab, but I would not for one second blame anyone who didn't - it was a marginal decision, touch and go either way.
We'd long ago given up daily papers back then - and never the Daily Mail anyway, so all the worries weren't 'Daily Mail scare stories'. Neither did the internet play a huge part in it -we didn't have the internet at home back then, and neither did a lot of families. Nor mobile phones - and even if we had, although modern top of the range phones probably do more - and faster - than the average PC did 20 years ago, back then mobile phones were pretty much just that - phones to make phone calls on and precious little else. So all of us doubters weren't Twitter tw@ts or Snapchat luvvies either.
Our source of information was the news - not fake news, but real news, accurately reported on the BBC and ITV, that a respected and credible expert had published findings that MMR jabs were dangerous. It was published in The Lancet too; these were [B[facts[/B] - those warnings about the vaccine really had been made. We know now that the respected and credible expert was talking bollox, and that The Lancet shouldn't have given him further credibility - but that information wasn't available back then.

In retrospect, in view of the possible risks of a measles epidemic as a result of thousands of unvaccinated kids, perhaps it would have been a good idea for the government to have allowed, at least temporarily, single jabs on the NHS, but hey-ho, that's hindsight, isn't it. Just like it's hindsight to criticise parents who back in the 90s considered the evidence available then and decided not to vaccinate.

 

[father_and_son]

My son, now 15, had single jabs. We paid for them under the principle that he needed to be vaccinated but I do have issues that overloading a child's system with too much carries an inherent risk (*NOT* Autism!) however small that risk is.

Am I right? Probably not. Not a scientist, but it seems a reasonable level of caution, if you can do them separately (it wasn't cheap), to do so.

If it was a choice between all-at-once or none-at-all, then of course it would be all-at-once without a doubt.

 

[London Irish]

Thread from the Middle Ages

 

[The Clamp]

Even Trump has publicly urged people to get their jabs.

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

But until MMR came along single vacccines were given ..... we're not talking about extract of badger preventing TB as a theory - the valid single jabs existed, had been in use and worked.

One of the reasons MMR was introduced was to increase take up. It reduced the possibility that one or more of the vaccinations would be missed/not taken. The logistics and cost would have been a nightmare.
My son was born 1999 and so vaccinated around 2003 when the whole Wakefield crap was flying around. I searched the lancet website and read the executive summaries of various reports. From memory the lancet had a function that allowed limited access. The main one was of a ten year study in Scandinavia which actually showed the control group had very slightly higher levels of autism than the vaccinated group. There was plenty of peer reviewed data available on the net if people took the time to look for it. At the time I was completing my masters and so was in the grove of reading plenty of tedious papers which made life easier.

Then as now there is plenty of information available to make an informed decision. It’s a no brainer.

Many antivaxxers are happy to take medical advice on all manner of issues but when it comes to vaccines the medical profession are apparently money grabbing, lying scum!

On a separate tangent. Mobile phones can only work if the Earth is round therefore flatearthers should have all mobile devices confiscated.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[darkwolf666]

Thread from the Middle Ages

Why so?

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

My son, now 15, had single jabs. We paid for them under the principle that he needed to be vaccinated but I do have issues that overloading a child's system with too much carries an inherent risk (*NOT* Autism!) however small that risk is.

Am I right? Probably not. Not a scientist, but it seems a reasonable level of caution, if you can do them separately (it wasn't cheap), to do so.

If it was a choice between all-at-once or none-at-all, then of course it would be all-at-once without a doubt.

So basically you’ve made your decision on gut feel with no facts to back it up ....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk is that not a Light touch view of an anti Vaxxer?

 

[father_and_son]

So basically you’ve made your decision on gut feel with no facts to back it up ....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk is that not a Light touch view of an anti Vaxxer?

Not at all... He had his vaccinations, just in 3 jabs, a few months apart rather than all in one. Absolutely not anti-vaccination, just chose to be cautious.

 

[marlowe]

Our daughter suffers from an hereditary degenerative neurological disorder which affects the myelin sheath and peripheral nervous system. Her condition was further compromised when as a child she contracted Guillain Barre syndrome an auto immune disorder which coincidentally also attacked her myelin sheath causing paralysis of her legs for four months. As a consequence of her condition and other illness we have been very wary of anything that might trigger an adverse reaction. We sought medical advice and her neurologist advised after consultation with her colleagues against taking the mmr vaccine.

 

[GT49er]

So basically you’ve made your decision on gut feel with no facts to back it up ....

Not at all. Based on facts - you are not taking into account that there were conflicting facts available to parents at that time, so every parent's decision was based on weighing up the conflicting facts and then deciding which of the evidence they felt was the most convincing. The fact that we now know that some of those 'facts' weren't facts at all has no relevance to decisions made before that came to light.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

My son, now 15, had single jabs. We paid for them under the principle that he needed to be vaccinated but I do have issues that overloading a child's system with too much carries an inherent risk (*NOT* Autism!) however small that risk is.

Am I right? Probably not. Not a scientist, but it seems a reasonable level of caution, if you can do them separately (it wasn't cheap), to do so.

If it was a choice between all-at-once or none-at-all, then of course it would be all-at-once without a doubt.

I hope he never joins the armed forces. The amount of stuff that gets stuffed into one jab is no joke. The TABT (typhoid and tetanus) was a killer. I was learning to touch type, with a swollen left arm, swollen arm pit, which wasn't helped by matelots who knew we were baby wrens coming up to us, putting their arms around us, and patting us on the left arm, and saying 'How're you doing Jenny'. Then laughing like drains when we screamed.
Oh what fun we had.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I wasn't really talking about medicines, to be honest, it was just an example of the government ignoring professional advice - there are many others.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/...ee/news-parliament-2017/correspondence-17-19/

By the way, I've found your insight into clinical trials and the workings of journals very interesting, thank you.

Cheers!

 

[CliveWalkerWingWizard]

And it's exactly that type of attitude that has got us to where we are today with MMR. At the time my kids got the single jabs the government was in full flow denial mode that there was any risk with the MMR but the original report hadn't been proven wrong - that came later. Lots of parents wanted the single jabs but couldn't afford them so those kids went unvaccinated thus creating a huge risk. Now I'm all for debunking false statements but surely in this case the most important issue is how to get kids vaccinated rather than the politics of 'MMR jabs are a risk', 'Oh no they're not' ?

No, there was no scientific evidence to back up Wakefield’s claims. It was one paper that should have never been published, unfortunately the popular press picked up on this and the ‘fake news’ spread. Wakefield only ever had his own interests at heart,he made a mint being an expert witness. To suggest that the nhs should have spent millions on offering single jabs rather than the mmr to appease uninformed parents, is as I said complete and utter twaddle.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kremlin-spreads-lies-about-mmr-jab-32t3tfcq9

 

[GT49er]

No, there was no scientific evidence to back up Wakefield’s claims.

That was the scientific evidence at the time; or at least one side of the scientific argument. :Facepalm:

Yes, we know it has been proved wrong now. Oh, the smugness of hindsight!

 

[father_and_son]

That was the scientific evidence at the time; or at least one side of the scientific argument. :Facepalm:

Yes, we know it has been proved wrong now. Oh, the smugness of hindsight!

Anyone who actually bother to look at his evidence rather than read about it in the Daily Mail would have seen it was deeply flawed. The data sample was tiny, the cause and effect completely spurious and the conclusions downright ridiculous.
This is was not the "scientific evidence" at the time, this was utter tosh hyped up by the press (who *never* understand science).

 

[Thunder Bolt]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kremlin-spreads-lies-about-mmr-jab-32t3tfcq9

I posted this link from today's Times to show why social media is playing a part in spreading the lies.

The first paragraphs read.

Kremlin-sponsored social media accounts have promoted discredited theories about the MMR jab as part of an effort to sow doubt in the West over the safety of vaccines.

Russian government “trolls” voiced support for a film made by Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who was struck off after falsely claiming that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism.

One of the accounts posted a false story claiming that vaccinations had left three quarters of the children of a Mexican village dead or in hospital.