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H1N1 - To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate


PMatt

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Come on!

Why don't these people spend their $10k and provide trusted, scientific evidence proving that any of the FDA-approved H1N1 vaccines being offered to Americans right now are both [color:red]NOT safe and [color:red]NOT effective.

That is precisely what I was thinking when I read that, KK.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not H1N1-related, but vaccine-related:

Lancet retracts study linking vaccine to autism

Lancet retracts study linking vaccine to autism

02/02/2010 10:01:13 PM

CTV.ca News Staff

The prestigious medical journal, The Lancet medical journal has formally retracted a flawed paper that drew a link between autism and the childhood vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella.

The decision Tuesday comes 12 years after British doctor Andrew Wakefield suggested in the sensational study that the combined vaccine, dubbed MMR, appeared linked to autism and bowel disease.

The finding has since been widely discredited, and last week, the General Medical Council, the body that licenses doctors in the U.K., ruled that Wakefield and two researchers acted unethically in conducting their study.

The Lancet said Tuesday in its short statement that, in light of the GMC ruling: "It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al are incorrect... Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record."

After Wakefield's study appeared, many in the medical community criticized the research, noting that the study looked at only 12 children, a sample size too small to assess statistical significance. They also worried about "selection bias" and noted the study did not include a control group.

But the paper caused a huge sensation and led to thousands of parents refusing to give the vaccine to their children. That has been followed in recent years by a worrying rise in measles cases and childhood vaccine refusal rates in the United Kingdom.

Doctors say the study damaged parents' faith in vaccines.

"This has damaged the culture of vaccination for children, which is one of the greatest health advances in the last century," Dr. Evdokia Anagnostou of Bloorview Kids Rehab told CTV News.

While health experts say 95 per cent of children need to receive the MMR vaccine to confer "herd immunity," take-up rates in the UK stand have not budged past 82 per cent in recent years. In 2006, a 13-year-old boy who had not had the vaccine, died from measles, the first measles death in the U.K. in 14 years.

The Lancet issued a partial retraction of the paper in 2004, accusing Wakefield of a "fatal conflict of interest." The journal said it didn't know at the time of publication that Wakefield was being paid as a consultant to lawyers who wanted evidence to sue MMR vaccine manufacturers on behalf of the parents of children with autism.

Wakefield was reportedly working with lawyers on the lawsuit two years before journal published his paper.

Around the same time, 10 of the study's 13 authors renounced its conclusions and dissociated themselves from the paper.

Tuesday's full retraction from The Lancet goes further, noting that the research was fundamentally flawed. It noted there was a lack of ethical approval and fundamental problems with the way the children's illnesses were presented.

The General Medical Council launched an investigation into Wakefield's study practices in 2007. Last week, in a 143-page ruling, it decided that Wakefield had broken research rules and acted unethically in his study method.

It noted Wakefield and his team had subjected some of the children to invasive tests such as lumbar punctures and colonoscopies that they did not need, without ethical approval. The disciplinary panel ruled Wakefield's team had shown a "callous disregard" for the suffering of children and had brought the medical profession "into disrepute."

Wakefield, a gastroenterologist who has lived and worked in the U.S. since 2001, and two of his former colleagues – Prof. John Walker-Smith and Prof. Simon Murch – now face being stripped of their right to practise medicine in Britain.

Wakefield continues to defend his work and now works at Thoughtful House, a treatment centre for children with developmental disorders, in Austin, Texas.

"The allegations against me and against my colleagues are both unfounded and unjust, and I invite anyone to examine the contents of these proceedings and come to their own conclusion," Wakefield said in a statement provided by Thoughtful House.

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One small needle, a world of trouble

Downstairs in the rehab wing of Markham Stouffville hospital, in a private room with a sunny window, lies Donna Hartlen, a young mother who is now partially paralyzed.

The Whitby woman can’t stand without leaning on a walker and her legs are too numb to allow her to walk for more than a few steps. The right side of her face is paralyzed, she can’t properly chew solid food and her right eye is bandaged because she can no longer blink to protect it.

Until five weeks ago, she was a perfectly healthy woman spending Christmas with her family in Nova Scotia. And then on Dec. 29 she was rushed to an emergency room in Halifax, suddenly unable to stand on feet.

The doctors diagnosed her with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological condition characterized by sudden weakness or paralysis. And while no one seems willing to discuss the likely cause, the 39-year-old knows exactly where the fault lies.

She blames the H1N1 flu shot she received on Dec. 13 - two weeks before her symptoms suddenly appeared.

Of course, there is no way to know for certain. But Hartlen has only grown more convinced since chatting by chance in the hall with the older gentleman from the hospital room next door.

Don Gibson has GBS as well, with legs so numb now that he is confined to a wheelchair. It turns out that not only was he also vaccinated against H1N1, but he got the shot just two days before Hartlen, in the very same Markham doctors’ office.

“It’s way too coincidental,†insists the slight mom, her words slurred because the right side of her face will not move. “It’s either a bad batch or a lot more people are getting this than they are talking about.â€

Her 80-year-old neighbour is equally convinced that the H1N1 vaccine to blame. “It must have been a bad batch,†Gibson believes. “But nobody is saying anything. I know I signed a piece of paper and there’s no liability but it’s pretty scary.â€

They are now comrades in arms, an unlikely duo who share a rare illness and a similar vaccination history that no one wants to acknowledge.

According to the Public Health Agency, there are about 600-700 new GBS cases a year in Canada, caused usually by food-borne bacteria, respiratory infections or surgery.

“The risk of getting GBS after any flu vaccine is about one case for every million doses distributed,†the website says. “The benefit of the vaccine outweighs this theoretical risk.â€

So far, the agency says they haven’t had any unusual spike in GBS - there’s been 22 cases following the H1N1 vaccination - or .87 per million doses distributed. But Hartlen questions how many GBS patients are actually being reported; she says she was the one who finally called her local public health department because no medical professional seemed interested in the possible connection.

“Not a single doctor we’ve talked with will even remotely discuss that it’s the H1N1 shot,†marvels Hartlen. “They almost pretend they don’t hear you. They don’t want to alarm the public and they don’t want you to stir up trouble.â€

So GBS patients like Hartlen and Gibson are on their own.

Right now, Quebec is the only province with a no-fault vaccine injury compensation program in place.

“It’s a horror story of how little Ontario will do to help patients that come down with this after the government promotes it so much,†complains her husband, Wayne Burke.

They have two little girls at home, just 4 and 2. He works full-time at Telus; she was a self-employed business systems analyst. With no family in Whitby, they flew in her parents from Nova Scotia, but the elderly couple can’t look after the kids indefinitely.

Meanwhile, Hartlen has been told it can take months - and up to a year - before she completely regains all movement. So how is the partially-paralyzed mom supposed to take care of two young children until then?

“If my kids were 10 and 12 it would be different. But a four and two-year-old need 100% attention and I can’t give it to them,†she worries.

So she’s hardly unreasonable in expecting some kind of government support. But after countless phone conversations with every level of bureaucrat, she’s learned there will be no such thing.

“They’re the ones who push this vaccine. They promote it every five minutes on TV. So I do what they say and I get GBS and they’re not going to help me?

“I need help for my kids - I’m not looking for anything extravagant. I’m not an ambulance chaser. I don’t want to sue anybody. I just want to get my kids looked after while their father is at work.â€

Instead, there is only a shameful silence.

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If there had been a "bad batch" of flu shot delivered to this Markham doctor's office, wouldn't there be an awful lot more cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome cropping up in the Markham area?

Not that I don't feel bad for these individuals, but two people from one office is nothing more than a coincidence.

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Don't wake up every day! You've got infinitely higher chances of tragic/catastrophic/damaging things happening to you just stepping outside your door into the real world than you do in possibly getting GBS from a shot.

I agree with this 100%

Thanks badams. Media hype generates so much fear without having rational discussions and reality-checks.

Next people are going to tell you it's the cell phone company's fault that you got hit by the car while you were crossing the street talking/txting at the same time!!!

Thinning the herd people ... i can see natural selection outside my window at work every day.

FUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK

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Don't wake up every day! You've got infinitely higher chances of tragic/catastrophic/damaging things happening to you just stepping outside your door into the real world than you do in possibly getting GBS from a shot.

I agree with this 100%

Thanks badams. Media hype generates so much fear without having rational discussions and reality-checks.

Next people are going to tell you it's the cell phone company's fault that you got hit by the car while you were crossing the street talking/txting at the same time!!!

Thinning the herd people ... i can see natural selection outside my window at work every day.

FUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK

Once again I agree 100%. I love to watch people in action at my place of work. A story or fact that is told in the morning to 10 different people has about 25 different versions by the end of the day as it filters around the office.

I hear people combining facts from different issues into one issue. Others go in to full panic mode. Some are so sure of themselves because they saw it on TV that they attack everyone around them.

It can really create chaos and at times is very humurous to watch, other times it it sad or even scary. It's like a mob mentality.

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Don't wake up every day!

you may be on to something here' date=' kev. but can i wake up and just stay in bed and watch kelly lee and regis?? [/quote']

[color:red]hey we need to get this important stuff correct:

looks like you are mixing up Kelly Rippa and Kathy Lee Gifford. the latter was the co-host until about 8 years ago. The show is much more watchable now with Kelly.

signed,

a Regis and Kelly fan (mostly Regis)

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I went skiing yesterday and didn't die...

I wouldn't expect you to die while skiing. Skiing itself doesn't cause death, it functions as a trigger for some thought-to-exist underlying condition; death from this triggered condition occurs later. Think about it: a significant number of people who die in a given 12-month period had also gone skiing in the same 12 months.

Aloha,

Brad

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[

“Not a single doctor we’ve talked with will even remotely discuss that it’s the H1N1 shot,†marvels Hartlen. ...

“I need help for my kids - I’m not looking for anything extravagant. I’m not an ambulance chaser. I don’t want to sue anybody. I just want to get my kids looked after while their father is at work.â€

Instead, there is only a shameful silence.

I am in agreement with most of the opinions that have been expressed on this page of this thread (re: weighted risks, etc). Nevertheless, this woman seems to be responding very reasonably to a terrible predicament. Perhaps Quebec's no-fault vaccine injury compensation program should be implemented nationally.

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