From: tarl@sw.stratus.com (Tarl Neustaedter)
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vaccinations?
Date: 13 Jan 1993 02:37:19 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: coyoacan.sw.stratus.com

In article <1993Jan10.062148.5266@netcom.com>, kaminski@netcom.com (Peter Kaminski) writes:
me> usually two forms of adverse reaction to vaccines; [disease] and [allergy]

> I'll add some more:
> 
> = Reaction to preservatives in the vaccine -- I'm thinking specifically
>   of thimerosal

Similar to allergy to the culture medium. Can be quantized in the same way.

> = Atypical forms of the diseases, both as reactions to the vaccine, and
>   later in those immunized.  These may not always be diagnosed properly
>   because they present with atypical symptoms.

A form of the original disease. Unless you are claiming that atypical forms
of the diseases are more common among vaccinated individuals than among
non-vaccinated? I'd be really surprised, and I'd like to see some references.

> = Other possible long-term effects which have been poorly examined,

Any particular reason to presume that these exist? Most of the population
of the U.S. has been vaccinated against some disease, and I haven't seen
any massive increase in the diseases you mention (unless you claim AIDS
is a result of vaccinations).

> It appears that studies investigating vaccine reactions are short-term
> (two days to a week), and generally use a control group which has been
> previously vaccinated.  Therefore, delayed reactions and long-term
> effects are not properly studied.

Any particular reason you think there are long-term effects? The ability
to perform long-term control trials of vaccines is limited; In the case
of measles and mumps, it would be criminal to keep a control group
unvaccinated for longer than 10 years (measles and mumps are rare enough
in the U.S. now that unvaccinated individuals stand a really good chance
of getting the disease as adults - and I don't think anyone is stupid enough
to say that having the disease as an adult is better than being vaccinated).

What you can do for a control group is compare people who lived before
the vaccines were available against those who have been vaccinated since. 
I haven't seen any enormous changes (Indeed, current youngster morbidity
is mostly violence and car accidents, which puts an upper limit on major
effects from vaccines).

For other vaccines (e.g., DPT), it would be criminal to keep a control
group after having determined that immediate morbidity drops with application
of the vaccine.

> >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)
> 
> I'd say hard figures are difficult to come by, and of course depend on what
> you mean by "complications".  If we include long-term effects which haven't
> been studied, who knows?

Hard figures definitley exist for some vaccines. There was a fairly big
controversy about two years ago over some pharmaceutical manufacturers who
were going to withdraw from the vaccine business due to lawsuits. The upshot
was that hard data was published on the rates of severe effects (the ones
which would generate lawsuits, which I recall included brain damage), and
a fund was set up to compensate victims of these complications. As I recall,
(it's been a couple of years), laws were passed to limit awards to victims
to certain amounts, to prevent a single well-funded lawsuit from breaking
the bank. There may have been some laws passed to ensure this - and the
vaccine in question was probably DPT.

I also recall that more than half the cost of the vaccine went straight into
this fund - on the order of $7 out of $12 total. The justification behind
this method is that the diseases being defended against would cause greater
complications than the vaccine, but in a lawsuit only the specific case before
the court is considered and the vaccine can be directly blamed. I remember some
of this being published in Science, but I don't keep back issues so I can't
quote line and verse.

> >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:
> 
> How about an intermediate course?  Instead of dumping viruses or other
> antigenic materials directly into the bloodstream, how about
> administering them as mucosal vaccinations?

You still have to grow the vaccines somewhere. You still have to add chemicals
as stabilizers and preservatives. You still have to provide the disease - and
now rather than providing a weakend or defunct virus, you're going to produce
a live virus that is going to induce a real disease. Your quality control
problems go up - since you can't weaken or kill the virus, the probability
rises that other unrelated pathogens will be supplied in the end media.

> Natural immunity is postulated to be largely mucosal

Could you provide some substantiation for this? My understanding of immunity
to these diseases involved blood antibodies... A mucosal immunity would imply
that you can still get these diseases through cuts and scratches even after
you are immunized. I haven't seen references to such occurrences.

> Yet Another Can o' Worms: homeopaths claim to be able to reduce the
> incidence of complications in many of these viral diseases.

That's straying from the issue of vaccinations to what therapy is best
for various diseases. I won't get into that flame-war, other than to
comment that Homeopaths make many claims which are not substantiated.
-- 
         Tarl Neustaedter	tarl@sw.stratus.com
         Marlboro, Mass.	Stratus Computer
Disclaimer: My employer is not responsible for my opinions.
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative