From: traub@rtf.bt.co.uk (Michael Traub)
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vaccinations?
Date: 4 Jan 93 07:59:19 GMT
Organization: BT Customer Systems, Brighton, UK

In article <1993Jan2.192148.20043@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>In article <1993Jan2.144516.20037@rtf.bt.co.uk> traub@rtf.bt.co.uk (Michael Traub) writes:
>>When  I  was  a child my mother regularly took me to see other children who
>>had  measles,  mumps  and  chicken pox so that we could get the disease. In
>>those  days  no  immunization existed. My father (a physician) did not seem
>>at  all  concerned about complications. My sister and I managed a couple of
>>weeks  off  school  and  I  have  a  scar in the middle of my forehead from
>>ignoring  mum  and  scratching my chicken pox. Nowadays however measles and
>>mumps  have  turned into life threatening diseases and the whole population
>>requires immunization. Really???
>
>It is worth noticing Traub's sleight of hand here--he's conflating a mostly
>innocuous disease of childhood (chicken pox) which has no vaccine with two
>more dangerous diseases (mumps and measles) which do have vaccines.
>Plus, he's arguing from a sample size of his family.  It is indeed lucky
>that Traub's father's malpractice (exposing his children to measles)
>didn't result in blindness, deafness or other complications.  Measles
>is a very dangerous and contagious disease; it always has been.

Don't display your ignorance Dyer:

(1) Measles and mumps have always been innocuous diseases in the pre-pubescent.
(2) My father could hardly have been guilty of malpractice when the vaccines
    for measles and mumps were ***not even available*** in the 1950's.
(3) The measles complications you refer to are most prevalent in teenage
    children who have previously been immunized and have reached puberty. (*)

(*) New England Journal of Medicine March 1987
    The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal Newsletter, Spet 1987
    Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 6 June 1986


>>Proper nutrition is far more important than any immunization.
>
>This is nonsense.  A properly nourished child is quite capable of
>being infected and dying (or ending up permanently impaired) from
>measles or other childhood diseases.  This provide no protection,
>and parents should not be deceived into thinking it does.

Please explain the Los Angeles Health Dept reports linking measles
complications to socio-economic indicators among Mexican immigrants.

>>Another  point  to  bear  in  mind  is  the  level  of  protection  you are
>>providing  for  your child by vaccinating. I don't know the correct numbers
>>but  I  would  think  that your child is ten thousand times as likely to be
>>run  over  by  a car than to be struck down with any of these diseases. The
>>obvious   thing   to   do  then  is  to  ban  all  cars  and  forget  about
>>immunisation.  Unfortunately  cars  and  immunisations  make  money for big
>>companies.
>
>Traub is forgetting that the reason your child is unlikely to be infected
>is a direct result of widespread immunization.  Epidemics do not spread in
>populations where there is "herd immunity", as a result of vaccination.

I'm not forgetting anything.

>Once the incidence of vaccination falls below a threshold, the incidence
>of the disease increases, sometimes to the level of an epidemic.  This has
>been happening in the past 10 years due to such failures on the part of
>parents who have been deluded into thinking they're acting responsibly in
>their failure to immunize their children.

Dyer again displays his ignorance. The whole reason for the acceptance of
the Live Polio Vaccine was to increase the immunity among *unvaccinated*
members fo the population.

Anyone  reading  closely will also notice that the disingenious Mr Dyer has
edited  out  sections  of  my  original  reply, specifically those sections
concerned  with  the  simple  fact  that in many cases the immunizations do
not  work,  and  that  in  some  cases the immunization can give people the
disease (or worse still parents can catch polio from their child).


-- 
Michael Traub
BT Customer Systems, Brighton Systems Centre. traub@btcs.bt.co.uk
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative