Vaccine pros/cons

Smartalex wrote:I do not consider myself an anti-vaxxer. But I do believe vaccines, and pharmaceuticals in general, must be proven safe and effective before they are given to the general population.

I have much the same attitude. To me, not only does it have to be proven to be safe and effective, it also has to make sense to me that it is necessary. I didn't get any of my 3 kids vaccinated with the usual childhood vaccinations. Almost all of us had measles and chicken pox as children. My kids also had them. Sure, they were sick, but not that sick, and they recovered in a week or less (when they all got chicken pox, with a 2 week gap between each having it, the youngest, who was about 3, never even seemed sick at all- she just had a few spots on her stomach and was otherwise playing out in the yard as normal).
Do I think no one should get vaccinated for measles or chicken pox? Not at all- children do die of measles in countries where there is poor sanitation, polluted water and lack of medical care. So in those places, I do think it's wonderful that a vaccine exists and can be given.
Whooping cough vaccine lead to some serious side effects and deaths when they used to give the cellular version, now they give a different type and it seems to not be that effective anyway- there's been many cases of whooping cough outbreaks among children who have been vaccinated.
Diptheria- there were a total of 13 cases in a decade in the US between 1996-2016.
Had there been a polio outbreak, I definitely would have gotten my kids vaccinated for that. But pumping them full of vaccines for things that aren't really a threat in first world countries just never seemed to me to make any sense.
I'm 70 years old, and have never had a flu shot. And haven't had the flu in 25 years.

What I'd actually like to see even more than a vaccine for COVID, maybe, is effective treatment if you do get it.

I remember when we had parties too expose our kids to checkenpox, measles, etc before they were school age so they would "get it over" before they started school. As far as I remember there were no problems with doing this. Mid 60s..maybe before

mudgirl wrote:I have much the same attitude. To me, not only does it have to be proven to be safe and effective, it also has to make sense to me that it is necessary. I didn't get any of my 3 kids vaccinated with the usual childhood vaccinations. Almost all of us had measles and chicken pox as children. My kids also had them. Sure, they were sick, but not that sick, and they recovered in a week or less (when they all got chicken pox, with a 2 week gap between each having it, the youngest, who was about 3, never even seemed sick at all- she just had a few spots on her stomach and was otherwise playing out in the yard as normal).
Do I think no one should get vaccinated for measles or chicken pox? Not at all- children do die of measles in countries where there is poor sanitation, polluted water and lack of medical care. So in those places, I do think it's wonderful that a vaccine exists and can be given.
Whooping cough vaccine lead to some serious side effects and deaths when they used to give the cellular version, now they give a different type and it seems to not be that effective anyway- there's been many cases of whooping cough outbreaks among children who have been vaccinated.
Diptheria- there were a total of 13 cases in a decade in the US between 1996-2016.
Had there been a polio outbreak, I definitely would have gotten my kids vaccinated for that. But pumping them full of vaccines for things that aren't really a threat in first world countries just never seemed to me to make any sense.
I'm 70 years old, and have never had a flu shot. And haven't had the flu in 25 years.

What I'd actually like to see even more than a vaccine for COVID, maybe, is effective treatment if you do get it.

I am mystified by the general distrust of vaccines, and the uninformed and superficial evaluation of the benefits of vaccines. It is obvious that Mudgirl (like so many others) has no medical training whatsoever and depends on anecdotes, personal experience and Google to make medical decisions on the benefits of vaccines or not. Unfortunately the general public is equally poorly informed and believe that anecdotes make for credible scientific evidence. Measles is not an innocuous childhood disease , and neither is Diptheria, Tetanus or Mumps. I quote "Measles, a serious and highly contagious childhood disease, was once common in Canada.

Before vaccinations, about 300,000 - 400,000 Canadians caught the measles every year. Some people recovered completely, but many did not. In 1926, almost 900 Canadians died because of the measles. Survivors risked living with lifelong complications like permanent brain damage or deafness.

In the 1960’s, the first measles vaccine was introduced to Canadians. Thanks to vaccines, measles cases have decreased by 99%."

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/measles/measles-in-canada.html

I have a close relative who is deaf because of measles.

Catoca wrote:

It is obvious that Mudgirl (like so many others) has no medical training whatsoever and depends on anecdotes, personal experience and Google to make medical decisions on the benefits of vaccines or not.  

"Obvious" to you perhaps, to jump to a snap judgement. I don't have medical training, that is quite true. But I don't rely on anecdotes, or something I happen to read on Google to make important decisions. I'm not someone who just looks for things that support my point of view so that I can then use it to justify what I believe. I actually do in depth research, using what I feel are reputable sources, for things like this. There are doctors who also question the value of some of these vaccines, and they aren't some quacks. It's not that I have distrust of the vaccines, as in they are necessarily dangerous, but I do have distrust of the pharmaceutical industry as far as what they try to convince people they need to take. For instance, there has never been a case of tetanus in anyone who ever had just one tetanus shot. Yet they tell you that you should have a tetanus booster every 10 years. Great for the pharmaceutical companies, but no evidence to back up that it's actually of any value.
There are plenty of people who have taken all sorts of medications on the advice of their doctors, only to have them not acheive the desired result, and finally turn to alternative medicines, supplements, etc, and end up beating whatever it was that ailed them, that all the medicines they were taking, that caused bad side effects, didn't cure.
I have a redneck biker friend, not the type to consider alternative medicine, who got quite ill- his whole body swelled up and he felt terrible. The doctors had all kinds of theories about what was wrong, put him on one medication after the next and nothing worked. Finally, out of desperation, he went to a naturopath who ran a bunch of tests and determined that he was allergic to alcohol, of all things. He quit drinking and started to get better right away.
Doctors used to send patients home with a prescription for antibiotics even if the issue wasn't a bacterial infection, or something the doctor knew there was no cure for-it would just have to run its course- the thinking was that it made the patient feel better to walk away with a prescription. Then they found that a lot of bacteria was becoming immune to antibiotics because it was so overprescribed. So doctors don't indiscriminately pass out antibiotic scripts like water anymore unless it is actually the indicated treatment for what ails the patient.
I have no issues with modern Western medicine- it has saved countless lives. But for some things, it isn't the be all and end all- there are other remedies that can also work and don't have unintended side effects. When my kids were young, one got impetigo, a staph infection, from infected gym mats at school. I treated it with poultices of antibacterial herbs and it was cured in two days. Another of my kids got the same thing two years later, the same treatment didn't work, so when it didn't show signs of improvement within 2 days, I took her to the doctor and she was put on antibiotics. I'm not some fanatic- I just don't take at face value everything that is common practice.

Well said Mudgirl. Western medicine is not at all perfect. Treating symptoms instead of what causes the symptoms is one of the failings. There is also an enormous empty hole in the education of Doctors called Nutrition.
One size does not fit all in the category of health. There is still an enormous amount to learn... by everyone.

Frankly, I have no doubt that you are a responsible person but setting up examples where we would all agree so as to shoot them down, are strawman arguments, the only point you have made regarding vaccines, is about the Tetanus vaccine and the question as to whether a booster shot is necessary. A booster Tetanus shot is so cheap, basically cents on the dollar and I cannot see how any pharmaceutical company could make much money from it. Nonetheless, I looked it up and this article supports your argument against a booster Tetanus shot and says that Tetanus vaccination in childhood lasts approximately 30 years.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200225075120.htm

I looked it up because I was interested, a fellow student at university at lunch developed weird lockjaw symptoms, and was diagnosed with Tetanus. Looking at the available evidence, Percy (his name) was probably never properly vaccinated in childhood, if at all.

I'll give you another one you can look up... the adjuvant used in a flu vaccine in Europe was different than the one used in the rest of the world. Otherwise the two were exactly the same. The one in Europe caused many cases of Narcolepsy with Cataplexy. That happened in the last twenty years.
Where a vaccine is made, how it is made and what it contains is ASSUMED to be effective in ALL people of different ages and ethnic origins. They don't always get it right. Same happens with prescription medicines which end up being recalled.
Neither Doctors nor the pharmaceutical companies are perfect.

Let's no forget about the disastrous swine flu vaccine of 1976...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-shadow-1976-swine-flu-vaccine-fiasco-180961994/

Or the years-long dispute over the safety of polio vaccines...

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-06-01-mn-5328-story.html

ferret wrote:I'll give you another one you can look up... the adjuvant used in a flu vaccine in Europe was different than the one used in the rest of the world. Otherwise the two were exactly the same. The one in Europe caused many cases of Narcolepsy with Cataplexy. That happened in the last twenty years.
Where a vaccine is made, how it is made and what it contains is ASSUMED to be effective in ALL people of different ages and ethnic origins. They don't always get it right. Same happens with prescription medicines which end up being recalled.
Neither Doctors nor the pharmaceutical companies are perfect.

An old Arabic proverb comes to mind "The dogs bark but the caravan goes on" . If you want me to take your post seriously, post a reference, and to a recognized scientific journal. I am not going to do your research for you.

Smartalex wrote:Let's no forget about the disastrous swine flu vaccine of 1976...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-shadow-1976-swine-flu-vaccine-fiasco-180961994/

Or the years-long dispute over the safety of polio vaccines...

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-06-01-mn-5328-story.html

From your reference (first one) it seems from the wikipedia entry that it was a poorly thought out immunization and partially driven by political motives with no real evidence that there was a Swine flu epidemic in process. There were cases of Guilliam-Barre associated with the vaccinated cases (4 times higher in vaccinated cases) a rare and distressing creeping paralysis which eventually involves the whole patient, most of the patients recover but recovery is long and protracted (6+ months) There is a good summary in Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak

With regard to your second reference, yes there were with the OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine) approximately 2.4 cases of VAPP (Vaccine Associated Polio Paralysis)/million doses of OPV in the USA (1980-1989)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2693609/

IPV (Inactivated Polio Vaccine) has been used in the USA since 2000 and this study done in China after the substitution of OPV with IPV in the period 2010 to 2016, no new cases of Vaccine Associated Polio Paralysis have been reported since 2014.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5730215/

Two thoughts, medicine is a rapidly developing field and any news older than 10 years is probably outdated and secondly I will respond to actual references. Please do not be so rude as to tell me to look something up, that's your work if you want to support a statement.

Too funny Catoca. Pandemrix was the name of the suspect vaccine and there were many studies done at the time. A simple search of "flu vaccine causing Narcolepsy with Cataplexy" would have netted you all of the studies done.
However, the world is a big place and the search has yielded more information over time. This article from 2018 is an interesting take on that... https://www.statnews.com/2018/07/05/flu-vaccine-2009-pandemic-narcolepsy/
Lots of variables in play unfortunately but one sentence really sticks out to me: " The combination of virus and vaccine might have actually created an enhanced immune response, Black explained."
So, under those circumstances, does anyone get tested to see if they have antibodies for whatever BEFORE they get a vaccine? Or is it just certain people to whom this happens?
Lots of questions and no easy answers. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
By the way, I was following all of the studies at the time but the article that I've quoted is a nice summary done in 2018. As always, SNAFU.

The article you linked to (good article by the way) discusses the Narcolepsy H1N1 correlation in great detail and comes to the conclusion that there are simply too many confounding factors (variables) to come to a definitive answer as to whether the vaccine was responsible for the increased incidence of Narcolepsy, and as always correlation is not the same as causation. The only thing that is definitely proven is the increase in Narcolepsy cases during the H1N1 epidemic and the concurrent vaccination.

As for antibody testing prior to vaccination, the only instances where I remember antibody testing routinely was in women who planned a pregnancy and were unsure whether they has been vaccinated in childhood against Rubella (German measles) and after vaccination against Hepatitis B to confirm that they has developed antibodies, if not they received a booster shot, and an interesting and entirely logical process where internationally adopted children were tested for antibodies to determine whether they had been vaccinated and against what.

We have kind of diverged from the original thread and are now discussing the benefits and dangers of vaccines and if a moderator deems it necessary, they can split this off from the original thread.

I split this off from the other thread as best as I could.

Thanks CBob.
@Catoca,
It's a segue but an important one considering the current situation with Covid-19.
I think I will get tested for antibodies to the Coronavirus before getting the vaccine when available. I'm certainly not going to worry about N with C because I already have that BUT it makes me very cautious about flu vaccines in general since I already have an immune system that has run amok before and destroyed all my hypocretin neurons.
Should that be the case with all people who have had their immune systems compromised? And/or should everyone get tested for whatever antibody any vaccine should have produced about a month after the fact? If your immune system is faulty and can't/doesn't/or overproduces the antibodies, wouldn't it be prudent to find out?
Opinion?

The dominant theory on Narcolepsy is that it is caused by an autoimmune response, which can be classified as an autoimmune disorder. There is an interesting article here about vaccination and immunocompromised people and people with immune disorders

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/acrsota/79087

and generally (Immunology is not my field of expertise) the recommendation is that people with Immune disorders who are often on immune suppressant therapy should still be vaccinated, but almost never with live vaccines and should stick with Inactivated vaccines, and (there is always an "and") their immune antibody response may not be adequate. The article goes on in detail into the different types of compromised immunity more specifically and immunization.
As to why everybody is not tested for immune response after immunization, like many things in the world, it is in my opinion a risk/benefit/cost thing (tiny risk, small benefit and large cost) and only immune compromised people would generally be tested after immunization.
Given your situation and experience, I can see no reason why you cannot be tested for antibodies to Covid-19 prior to deciding on immunization.

Thank you!
A very informative article as were the comments.
In the meantime, I will continue with my long term daily use of Vitamin D3 and Mg supplements.