From: tarl@coyoacan.sw.stratus.com (Tarl Neustaedter)
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vaccinations?
Date: 8 Jan 1993 06:59:59 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Software Engineering
NNTP-Posting-Host: coyoacan.sw.stratus.com

In article <1993Jan7.215514.11826@netcom.com> kaminski@netcom.com (Peter Kaminski) writes:
>In <1993Jan7.175708.24046@netcom.com> I gave this attribution:
>>From Neustaedter's _Immunization Decision_:
>
>On re-reading, I may have shortened this a bit much -- I'd like to
>make it clear that I'm referring to Randall Neustaedter OMD, CA, and
>his book _The Immunization Decision: A Guide For Parents_.

Mr. Kaminski was too polite to say it, so I guess I will. There is another
Neustaedter, a flamer who posts to this newsgroup. One who holds diametrically
opposed opinions. As far as I know, I'm no relation to Randall.

In any case, some comments on vaccination as a danger or as a benefit. If you
already *believe* that vaccinations are *bad*, hit "n" now.

First, some comments about vaccines in general. There are usually two forms
of adverse reaction to vaccines; symptoms of the disease being vaccinated
against, and allergy to the growth medium. The former can be quantified - how
often do these symptoms appear, and how severe are they compared to the disease
they are designed to defend against. There are means of dealing with the
second - I experienced this in person; in being inocculated against rabies,
I was allergic to the first variant (I believe grown in duck eggs), and was
switched to a second variant (I believe extracted from horse blood) for the
last 13 shots.

Second, some comment about childhood diseases. Specifically, Mumps, Measles,
and Rubella [German Measles]. a) These diseases are bloody painful. You may
not remember having had Mumps, but I do. It sux. b) While they are usually
benign in pre-pubescent children, *NOT ALWAYS*. Complications do occur.
c) Not everyone in an untreated population gets these diseases as children.
Sheer luck will cause some individuals to not be exposed until they are
adults - when complications become severe.

So your options with such diseases are:
1) Pretend they aren't a problem and hope they go away. Ostrich approach.
2) Innoculate your population with vaccines, even if they occasionally show
   complications (on the order of 1e-06? That may be the rate for DPT, though)
3) Forcibly induce the disease in all pre-pubescent children. Damned if I know
   how you are going to do this without using injections of virus grown in
   the same medium as evil vaccines. Potential problems:
   a) Parents protecting their innocent children from a painful and dangerous
      experience (wait until s/he's older!).
   b) Complications from the diseases. Betcha the rate is higher than 1e-06.
   c) Complications from the medium used to induce the disease. Same as with
      vaccinations.

U.S. public health policy is based on (2). People who consider not vaccinating
their children because they are afraid of the vaccinations are considering (1).
Option (3) does not currently exist. I suspect that if you look at actual
numbers of complications (which I do not have readily available), you will
reject (3) out of hand.

About the comment that around 12-20% of women being vaccinated against Rubella
will show symptoms of arthritis. Be very careful of such statistics when not
given with a reference. Randall Neustaedter has an agenda, and he is likely
playing games with numbers. That number (if accurate) is probably something
like "12-20% of adult women never exposed to rubella". If my guess is correct,
that would not be terribly surprising - arthritic symptoms are one of the
characteristics of adult exposure to rubella. Since a vaccine exposes a person
to a weakened or defunct virus of the disease, it's not unusual to
have some form of the disease symptoms show up - usually a mild form.

For diseases as contagious as these (where >99% of an unprotected population
will eventually contract the disease), the key is whether the complication
rate from the vaccine is higher than the complication rate from the disease.
Note that companies offering warnings about their complications are *NOT*
saying these complications are more likely or worse than ones from the disease;
they are merely warning that these are *known* to happen to some degree.

Our current legal environment makes supplying medicine (including vaccines)
a tort-laden experience. Any complications are automatically deemed legally
actionable, even when the overall effect (measured on a population basis)
is beneficial. In other words, if you supply medicine which prevents 1000
deaths but does cause one death, you will have your shorts sued off for that
one death. The fact that you saved 1000 lives is no excuse. The fact that
you could do no better is also no excuse.

Pharmaceutical companies understand it, and simply count it as a cost of doing
business in the U.S. - and they limit their criminal liability by warning users
of all the possible complications, no matter how unlikely. In summary, do not
take warnings of complications for a medicine as prima facie evidence that the
medicine should not be taken - It means you have to weigh the relative dangers.
(I wonder how many people worrying about these warnings also smoke cigarettes?)

For those of you who read this far, thanks for bearing with me. If you send
me email, I won't be able to answer until tuesday - I'm heading out to help
my grandfather celebrate his 90th birthday. He's an M.D. who hates homeopaths
as frauds, but is spending his retirement playing golf twice a week. For a
testimonial to the efficacy of conventional medicine (anecdotal evidence, which
seems much in vogue), he is about as good as you get.
	Tarl
-- 
         Tarl Neustaedter	tarl@sw.stratus.com
         Marlboro, Mass.	Stratus Computer
Disclaimer: My employer is not responsible for my opinions.
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative