Talk:Vaccine hesitancy/Archive 2

message: This article is mostly poorly formed ad hominem attacks.  I propose it be deleted. Zbrock 17:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While it is rather poor quality and think it's all bull, doing that will not help Nil Einne 12:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

text: While I agree that quite a bit of it is rubbish, there are some factual concerns hiding away.  In any case, there is a significant controversy over widespread mandatory vaccination policies, and the controversy should be addressed.  I do suggest a total overhaul, however! Kitarra 07:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe it should be merged with Anti-vaccinationist (or visa versa) since one page is essentially pro and the other anti. Cilstr 17:00, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion Debate 

message: I'm sorry, but the political agenda of JPandS is relevant (as one of their major political issues is anti-vaccinationism). The journal has a clearly stated political agenda, and the piece in question was, in fact, authored by someone with a legal rather than scientific or medical background. Setting it up as if it "rebuts" the Cochrane Library report is a clear violation of WP:NPOV#Undue weight. As it claims to be a medical journal, the fact that it's not indexed in MEDLINE is relevant. MastCell Talk 03:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please don't keep reverting without discussing these issues on the talk page. MastCell Talk 16:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 

message: What on earth is that long list of vaccine supporters and critics doing on the page?  Shouldn't they be at least on their own list pages, like List of vaccine supporters and another for critics?  They take up an immense amount of space on the page, for nothing much I can see.  It's got to violate a couple WP:NOTs, like indiscriminate information, mere collection of internal links, directory, etc.  --WLU 20:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the lists for supporters and critics - I can't see any value to the page.  It just asks people to add their names to it as if it were a petition, and you could see this by the number of redlinks in each list.  WLU 13:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, also raises BLP issues as it's essentially unsourced. I agree with removing it. MastCell Talk 14:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supporters and critics 

message: Should the article Anti-vaccinationist be merged into this one? The two articles cover a lot of the same ground, and I do not see a reason why there should not be a single cohesive article on this subject, as opposed to two disorganised ones. -Severa  (!!!) 20:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that makes a lot of sense.  Anti-vaccinationist is a logical section here in vaccine controversy, in my opinion. Heathhunnicutt 05:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Anti-vaccinationists are a group of people against vaccines.  They oppose them because of a controversy.  Merging the two articles would be like merging Libertarianism with the Libertarian Party.  Sincerely, Sutjo.  Sutjo-18005 (talk) 22:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No they don't.  Not because of.  They seek to produce the appearance of controversy because they oppose vaccination.  And they claim not to be a group, around this article and in other places.  Midgley (talk) 23:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge? 

message: The MMR controversy takes up a disproportionate part of the article. It's longer than all of the separate Thiomersal controversy article.  The MMR controversy is somewhat complicated with all the media aspects etc and thus essential information would be dropped if it were significantly trimmed down. I think it would be reasonable to move the MMR controversy to a separate article. --Jkpjkp 06:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This one makes sense to me. It has been proposed before, though, no? Have you looked into the history to see why it didn't happen earlier? If not, please do so. Eubulides 00:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving the MMR controversy to it's own page 

message: It would seem reasonable to rename the article to "Vaccine controversies" as there are many separate controversies - thiomersal, MMR/autism, vaccination and religion, the debates over the role which vaccines had in the decline of different diseases, the debate over how common adverse effects are, the debate whether vaccines cause diabetes, the debate whether vaccines cause other autoimmune disease etc. --Jkpjkp 13:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds reasonable.  Andrew73 17:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I disagree. All other things being equal, it's (1) better to use a singular title than a plural one, and (2) better to stick with the name that has been long been used, rather than change it. Any major political, religious, or medical controversy is actually a collection of smaller controversies, and this one is no different. There is not a compelling reason to change the name, so let's leave the name alone. Eubulides 00:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Point (3) - I think there were more than a hundred links to "Vaccine controversy" and last I checked, there was no automatic way to fix them, and I tend to agree with your point (1) and I guess your point (2) makes sense as well.  I withdraw the proposal; I think we can work with the article named as it's now, and the controversies in separate sections (or separate articles where warranted). --Jkpjkp 00:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename article to "Vaccine controversies" (proposal withdrawn --[[User:Jkpjkp|Jkpjkp]] 10:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)) 

message: This article has been substantially rewritten by a single editor, and is now breathtakingly biased. Section title after section title present arguments against vaccination, without even a token effort to present the mainstream view. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a soapbox for minority opinion; it is supposed to prevent a fair summary of the consensus view. Eubulides 06:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the article has not been rewritten, but the issues have been rearranged so the subject is handled in a more analytic way.  The aim of the article is to describe the controversies, and section titles refer to the issues of controversy.  I agree that the article needs to have more referenced content for the viewpoint defending use of vaccines in each controversy.  The solution to this is simple - editors need to add that kind of content. --Jkpjkp 10:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes the version of 2007-08-18T00:07:58 UTC is a better version that can be reverted to. This is the version just before Jkpjkp started a large series of edits that introduced massive bias. The old version is superior to the current version in overall quality, and far superior in neutrality of point of view. (I'm not claiming the old version is great; just that the current version is quite bad.) There are a few improvements made in the new version; they can be folded into the old one as needed. This would be the simplest way to restore quality. Eubulides 13:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Apart from the MMR controversy section, the version of 2007-08-18T00:07:58 UTC has severe problems and fundamental bias - rather than telling what each side of the controversy is saying, it reads like an attempt to try and list people's concerns (in a very biased way, like "anti-vaccinationist assertions") about vaccines and refute them.  That is not what the article is supposed to be about; it's supposed to neutrally describe the vaccine controversies. --Jkpjkp 14:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, as I said, the old version of 2007-08-18T00:07:58 UTC had problems. But it is far superior to the current one in terms of avoiding bias. Here's just one example. The old version's lead gives four sentences to skeptics of vaccination, and two sentences to mainstream opinion. This is biased against the mainstream, which was bad enough, as Wikipedia guideline is to align with the mainstream (see WP:FRINGE). However, the two sentences were longer and were placed at the end, so it wasn't too bad. In contrast, the current version's lead gives four sentences to skeptics, and zero sentences to the mainstream. This is breathtakingly biased against the mainstream opinion. This is just one example of recently-introduced bias; there are many, many others. Eubulides 14:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text:  The simplest way to fix the problems is to revert to the old version and start bringing in the few recent improvements incrementally. I don't like doing things this way (I have never done it in the past) but the current situation is extraordinary in my experience. The recently-introduced massive bias has also affected MMR vaccine controversy; most likely it has affected other subpages too (I haven't checked). Eubulides 14:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted.  Honestly, when I encounter an article in such bad shape, I wonder if it's not time for a Request for Comment on the editor introducing so much deterioration.  It's hard to know where to start, but cleaning up the basic violations in WP:MSH, WP:MOS and WP:CITE/ES would make the article at least more readable.  It's truly hard to know where to start, so a return to an earlier version is in order.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The bias issues seem to have been cleaned up by reverting and subsequent editing, so I removed the POV tag. Also, the OR and weasel tags seem to be obsolete, so I removed them as well. The article still neads cleanup big-time, though. Eubulides (talk) 19:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: When I wrote the first draft, the intention was an article about anti-vaccinationists.  One of the anti-vaccinationist tactics is to disguise themselves as mere critics of some aspect or aspects of some vaccinations.  Midgley (talk) 12:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article is now breathtakingly biased 

message: I had added references to many of the unsourced statements - all of those were wiped out by User:SandyGeorgia who did a massive wipe of the recent edits after very little discussion but with lots of shouting and handwaving by User:SandyGeorgia. Now I'm wondering whether there's a point in re-adding the references, or will they have the same fate again.  Any guesses? --Jkpjkp 21:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good citations would be welcome. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Reliable sources for advice about what sort of sources to use, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) #Citing medical sources for more advice about good citations. Briefly, the best sources are systematic reviews in reputable medical journals, and widely recognized standard textbooks written by experts in a field. The source you relied on heavily, namely Halvorsen's new book () doesn't qualify as one of these high-quality sources. Eubulides 23:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Some of the controversies surrounding vaccines are not controversies inside the medical research community, and in those cases it's not rational to demands sources from the medical research literature.  For example, when a sentence in the article provides an example of a criticism of vaccines presented by a medical doctor like Dr Halvorsen, it's not rational to demand that the article provides a medical journal reference for what Halvorsen said.  Or, if the article describes a parents' organization's position on the thiomersal controversy, it's not rational to demand that a medican journal be provided to present what the parents' organization said. --Jkpjkp 19:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  If all it takes to make something a reliable source is to prepend "Joe Shmoe said" to a controversial claim, then there will be no end to the sort of junk one could put into the lead. If that is all it takes, we could no doubt source a claim that vaccines are an invention of the Devil. However, I don't think that would be a fair summary of the state of vaccine controversies. If a criticism of vaccines is on religious grounds, then a reliable source would be a generally recognized religious body like the Vatican. If the criticism is on scientific grounds, then the usual scientific rules apply. The Halvorsen book is unrefereed, it is put out by a political publisher, and it was written by a doctor whose main expertise, as far as I know, is general practice and acupuncture. Surely stronger sources exist on the skeptical side. The Cochrane Library is much better, for instance. Again, please see WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS for details about what constitutes a reliable source in the medical area. Eubulides 19:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The title of the article is not "Medical community's view on vaccines", but "Vaccine controversy" - the aim of the article is not to describe just what is the medical community's view.  The aim is to describe vaccine controversies, not to resolve the controversies one way or another, and not to describe just the "mainstream medical view" (or major medical views) on vaccines but to describe controversies and other views on vaccines.  Halvorsen's book does a good job of presenting recent concerns voiced by parents, researchers like the ones having written the Cochrane report, and thus is a perfectly reasonable reference to use in describing some of the controversies.  --Jkpjkp 20:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I did not say Halvorsen should not be cited, just that more-reliable sources are preferable. I agree with you that the article should describe the controversy fairly using the usual Wikipedia rules. However, Halvorsen's book does not summarize the controversy fairly, nor does it meet the high standards that Wikipedia strives for in sources, particularly in sources for medical articles; so citations to it must be taken with a grain of salt. Surely there are better sources for the skeptical side. Eubulides 20:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced statements and adding back references 

message: The following entry in the text:   
 * Secondary and long-term effects on the immune system from introducing immunogens and immunologic adjuvants directly into the body are not fully understood. Some autoimmune diseases, like acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, transverse myelitis and multiple sclerosis, are known, suspected, hypothesized, or claimed to be connected to vaccines.[23]
Refers to reference 23:
# ^ GlaxoSmithKline. Prescribing Information—Energix-B® [Hepatitis B Vaccine (Recombinant)]. Retrieved on 2007-07-25.
The referenced article does not validate any of the above claims. It could be that there is no citation, or that the incorrect citation is being used. If anyone knows and could correct, that would be good...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.84.25.115 (talk) 16:09, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for catching that. I replaced that reference with a request for an on-point source. Eubulides 16:55, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the phrase "known, suspected, hypothesized, or claimed." Many of those are, in fact, "hypothesized or claimed", but it makes it sound like they might just be "known" to be connected to vaccines. We should probably be more specific. A better source, I agree, would be the place to start. MastCell Talk 17:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference to entry 23 does not seem to be valid 

message: About Vaccination and Liberty -- does anyone actually argue that vaccination is an infringement of some sort of right, besides conspiracy theorists?  Do we allow baseless conspiracy theories to be repeated as legitimate on wikipedia?  Can I delete this section?
: Certainly the section could be improved, but the subject is not a conspiracy theory: there have been two U.S. Supreme Court cases on it. I added a couple of references to help clarify things a bit. Eubulides (talk) 05:14, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vaccination and liberty 

message: Removing for citation and interpretation according to medical sources, see WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS:
* Recent studies have linked prenatal exposure to maternal antibodies for influenza as a risk factor in the development of schizophrenia in children. Alan S. Brown, Melissa D. Begg, Stefan Gravenstein, Catherine A. Schaefer, Richard J. Wyatt, Michaeline Bresnahan, Vicki P. Babulas, and Ezra S. Susser
Serologic Evidence of Prenatal Influenza in the Etiology of Schizophrenia
Arch Gen Psychiatry, Aug 2004; 61: 774 - 780.  The vaccine for the flu causes the same antibody production, potentially elevating the risk of schizophrenia in children in the womb. Results are preliminary and scientist still recommend that pregnant woman receive the flu shot, since having the flu during pregnancy is hazardous both to the fetus and the mother.  
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I nominate MastCell :-)  If no one else gets to it, I'll give it a try, but it's over my head.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If drafted, I will not run... if nominated, I will not accept... :) I will try to get to this, though it will take some reading and time is a bit tight at the moment. Here's my first impression - there is a hypothesis that pre-natal viral infections may be a risk factor for schizophrenia or other mental illness, and this hypothesis is supported by at least some good evidence. However, we're talking not about viruses but about vaccines here. It's a major jump to say that vaccine-induced immunity will have the same (proposed) harmful effects as viral infection. Is there a reliable source directly linking vaccine-induced immune activation with schizophrenia? My first glance indicates that the sources above all discuss actual infection, not vaccination. Well, one source does discuss IL-6 as a mediator in rats, but I would think that IL-6 levels after vaccination are dramatically lower than after an actual influenza infection. MastCell Talk 05:17, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Eubulides had added a nice short blurb, but someone else deleted it.  Greek to me :-)  Shermanesque statements ... hmmm !!! I was thinking more in terms of how to reorganize the entire page.  I've been tackling some of the less medically-oriented parts of the autism garden, but this one is hard for me.   SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah. Yes, I would really like for Wikipedia to have a good, solid, balanced, readable article on this topic, because it's fairly relevant. The organization of the article is suboptimal, but it's so entrenched that it will be hard to reorganize. Let me think about it... Ideally, I'd like to move away from a point-counterpoint style to a more flowing narrative (this is what I tried to do on AIDS reappraisal), but it will be tricky. MastCell Talk 05:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree on getting rid of point-counterpoint, but it's nontrivial to do so. User:Jkpjkp tried to reorganize the article that way in August (you can see the results here) but inserted so much bias into the article that the whole thing had to be reverted. Organization-wise I thought it was better than point-counterpoint (you might want to take a look) but it still needed work. Eubulides (talk) 06:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

text: No, to be honest I started reading from the PubMed ID's and didn't read the Washington Post piece until you mentioned it again just now. It sounds like Patterson is the leading exponent of the hypothesis that flu shots might also be a risk factor. As you say, there does not appear to be any experimental evidence to support the idea, though Patterson hopes to see such research in the future per the article. Perhaps we can work this in as pure speculation (albeit speculation by a researcher in the field), but without supporting scientific data it's hard to gauge its notability (especially as the Washington Post piece just came out, so it's hard to guess how much traction this will pick up in the popular press). Thanks for re-directing me to the Post article - I'd skipped over it. MastCell Talk 06:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I read the articles and they don't even slightly support the supposition that vaccinations cause anything but, let's hold our breath here, an immune response.  I'm shocked.  Just shocked!  Anyways, everything I'm reading is that there is no evidence.  The danger of these PMID articles is that they are only abstracts (unless you have access to the whole article, which some of us have).  Most of the abstracts are written with very broad language.  Some of them (not here) might say something like, "further study is required", meaning they haven't found crap, but sure go ahead and try.  Anyways, this Schizophrenia and immunization theory is exactly the definition of fringe theory.  I'm with MastCell.  Speculation, at best.  OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I should clarify that speculation by an expert in the field, published by major newspapers, may be worthy of inclusion here. I'm on the fence about that. I'm just not sure whether we should put it in now, making clear the level of uncertainty involved, or wait to see how much popular traction the idea gets. If it leads to pregnant women declining flu shots en masse, then regardless of the level of medical evidence it will be notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia. MastCell Talk 06:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems prudent, my main concern is that people will draw the wrong conclusion from the news paper story and forgo vaccinations, this is a unique situation and its still safer not to get the flu while pregnant.  I believe Orangmarlin is being to hasty in dismissing the issue though. A good number of leading researches seems to think it is plausible and the animal study illustrated in the story was very interesting. A formal paper would be more interesting to read thought.  Hardyplants (talk) 06:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Perhaps OrangeMarlin hasn't encountered your editing before or hasn't separated your editing from those he usually reverts. It's certainly ... interesting ... to see your edits being associated with "fringe theories".    The danger of these PMID articles is that they are only abstracts (unless you have access to the whole article, which some of us have). Most of the abstracts are written with very broad language. OrangeMarlin, Eubulides reads the research, and not just single studies; he seeks out reviews.  He is not in the habit of 1) basing his edits on PubMed abstracts or 2) basing his edits on the popular press.  Please discuss, and try not to use words like "original research" in your edit summaries about serious Wiki editors who have authored multiple featured articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Again, this is an active research area, but it does appear that prenatal immune events do affect the adult nervous system and can contribute to schizophrenia. Plausible mechanisms have been proposed. See, for example, Romero et al. 2006 (), Lencz et al. 2007 (), Waddington et al. 2007 (), Edwards 2007 (). However, we don't know which (if any) model is correct. Most likely none of them are; the actual mechanism, whatever it is, is likely to be complex. We lack epidemiological data that would indicate either cause for concern or cause for unconcern about flu vaccination in pregnant women helping to cause schizophrenia in children. All that being said, the CDC recommends that pregnant women get flu shots, and we should definitely mention that. Eubulides 18:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree completely with your summary of the matter. MastCell Talk 19:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks, I added stuff about the CDC's recommendations and re-added the section. A few points. First, this time I put it under "Arguments against widespread vaccination" since that seems a bit more logical place for it in the current (poor) organization. Second, the CDC's 2007 recommendations (which are not yet in Pubmed; that's too bad, as they've been out since July) have a lot more on pregnant women and flu vaccines than the 2006 recommendations did. This topic is clearly of some concern to the CDC, and rightly so. Eubulides 20:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm on my way to leave a note for OrangeMarlin.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks. Orangemarlin's comment in the change log was "Read the citations. One citation is a great reason to get vaccinated, since rubella exposure might lead to lowered IQ." For the record, I had read the citations. (:-) Obviously rubella exposure is bad news for the fetus; nobody is disputing that. But the section in question is primarily about flu vaccine, not rubella, because that's where most of the professional and public concern is. In writing the section I attempted to give plenty of space to the mainstream position that flu shots are recommended for pregnant women, without giving undue weight to the theory that there might conceivably be a schizophrenia-related problem. No doubt the section could be improved, but I think that the article will be stronger if it addresses this topic. Eubulides 20:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, you just can't invent what I say or mean.  I read the article, and it clearly makes no mention of your claim.  "Conceivably" is a weak word.  I can conceive of lots of stuff in medicine, but that doesn't mean it actually happens.  And I disagree that added this topic strengthens the article.  Why do we encourage crap science on Wikipedia?  The very last thing we want is someone who types "Vaccine" into google, and finds this article, making an insanely bad decision on vaccination.  I run a medical products company (and am a physician with a strong science and medical research background), and I hate urban myths.  I'm not opposed to inclusion, but it's got be one sentence, and it's got to be iterate that it is speculative.  I can see some shyster with the 1-800-SUETHEM, putting an ad on late night TV with this kind of stuff.  It's bad news.  OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 21:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Which article does "I read the article, and it clearly makes no mention of your claim."  refer to? And which claim? Currently "conceivably" is used in Vaccine controversy in the phrase "the potential risk of vaccine-induced antibodies that could conceivably contribute to schizophrenia". Is that the claim you are referring to? But this phrase is taken nearly directly from the cited source (Arehart-Treichel 2007), which quotes Brown as saying "One needs to weigh the benefit of protecting the woman and fetus from influenza against the potential risk of a vaccine-induced antibody elevation that could conceivably predispose to schizophrenia." Eubulides 04:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I disagree with the "one sentence" limit; that's too strict, and it would eviscerate the purpose of this article, which is to describe vaccine controversies. Other sections (e.g., Vaccine controversy #MMR vaccine) do not conform to the "one sentence" limit. But even if there was such a limit, the "conceivably" phrase quoted above is part of the only sentence that casts doubt on the safety of flu vaccines, so the new section is already conforming to the "one sentence" limit. Eubulides 04:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

text: In my experience with accurately citing medical articles, the best defense is a good offense.  Putting out accurate info now will forestall problems later.  The information is already in the mainstream media; why should we ignore it rather than address it reliably?  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Valid point Sandy, but I would hate crossing the line from being accurate to encouraging it.  My problem remains that just because someone is whining about it publicly doesn't make it real.  MastCell pointed me to Duesberg hypothesis which is one guy pushing a bad theory.  Anyways, can we write it in a way that states that it is far from causal?  OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 22:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Eubulides is usually able to accomodate discussion and dig up sources that help; I'm confident he can work out the text in a way that everyone can end up happy; the reason I pulled the text out of the article to begin with is I was counting on him to investigate thoroughly as he usually does :-)  I'm trying to figure out if I got the football analogy backwards, since I'm really a Lowell/Beckett person.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vaccination and schizophrenia 

message: User:Hardyplants reverted the new section on the grounds that it "was a misunderstanding of the issue, Its the mothers imulogical response that is harmful to the baby, not the virus its self." I'm afraid this is based on a misreading of the new section. The new section does not say that the virus harms the baby. It says there is evidence that exposure to infection helps cause schizophrenia. This closely mimicks the cited source (Brown 2006), which says "Accumulating evidence suggests that prenatal exposure to infection contributes to the etiology of schizophrenia." I see nothing incorrect about the new section, as far as it went; it was deliberately vague about exactly how an infection might cause schizophrenia. But I sense that Hardyplants also wants the article to contain something about a possible link from flu vaccine via maternal immune response and schizophrenia. Here the scientific case is much more speculative, but I made a further change to try to address that point. Eubulides (talk) 06:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps OrangeMarlin hasn't encountered your editing before or hasn't separated your editing from those he usually reverts. It's certainly ... interesting ... to see your edits being associated with "fringe theories".    The danger of these PMID articles is that they are only abstracts (unless you have access to the whole article, which some of us have). Most of the abstracts are written with very broad language. OrangeMarlin, Eubulides reads the research, and not just single studies; he seeks out reviews.  He is not in the habit of 1) basing his edits on PubMed abstracts or 2) basing his edits on the popular press.  Please discuss, and try not to use words like "original research" in your edit summaries about serious Wiki editors who have authored multiple featured articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Again, this is an active research area, but it does appear that prenatal immune events do affect the adult nervous system and can contribute to schizophrenia. Plausible mechanisms have been proposed. See, for example, Romero et al. 2006 (), Lencz et al. 2007 (), Waddington et al. 2007 (), Edwards 2007 (). However, we don't know which (if any) model is correct. Most likely none of them are; the actual mechanism, whatever it is, is likely to be complex. We lack epidemiological data that would indicate either cause for concern or cause for unconcern about flu vaccination in pregnant women helping to cause schizophrenia in children. All that being said, the CDC recommends that pregnant women get flu shots, and we should definitely mention that. Eubulides 18:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree completely with your summary of the matter. MastCell Talk 19:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks, I added stuff about the CDC's recommendations and re-added the section. A few points. First, this time I put it under "Arguments against widespread vaccination" since that seems a bit more logical place for it in the current (poor) organization. Second, the CDC's 2007 recommendations (which are not yet in Pubmed; that's too bad, as they've been out since July) have a lot more on pregnant women and flu vaccines than the 2006 recommendations did. This topic is clearly of some concern to the CDC, and rightly so. Eubulides 20:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm on my way to leave a note for OrangeMarlin.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks. Orangemarlin's comment in the change log was "Read the citations. One citation is a great reason to get vaccinated, since rubella exposure might lead to lowered IQ." For the record, I had read the citations. (:-) Obviously rubella exposure is bad news for the fetus; nobody is disputing that. But the section in question is primarily about flu vaccine, not rubella, because that's where most of the professional and public concern is. In writing the section I attempted to give plenty of space to the mainstream position that flu shots are recommended for pregnant women, without giving undue weight to the theory that there might conceivably be a schizophrenia-related problem. No doubt the section could be improved, but I think that the article will be stronger if it addresses this topic. Eubulides 20:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, you just can't invent what I say or mean.  I read the article, and it clearly makes no mention of your claim.  "Conceivably" is a weak word.  I can conceive of lots of stuff in medicine, but that doesn't mean it actually happens.  And I disagree that added this topic strengthens the article.  Why do we encourage crap science on Wikipedia?  The very last thing we want is someone who types "Vaccine" into google, and finds this article, making an insanely bad decision on vaccination.  I run a medical products company (and am a physician with a strong science and medical research background), and I hate urban myths.  I'm not opposed to inclusion, but it's got be one sentence, and it's got to be iterate that it is speculative.  I can see some shyster with the 1-800-SUETHEM, putting an ad on late night TV with this kind of stuff.  It's bad news.  OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 21:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Which article does "I read the article, and it clearly makes no mention of your claim."  refer to? And which claim? Currently "conceivably" is used in Vaccine controversy in the phrase "the potential risk of vaccine-induced antibodies that could conceivably contribute to schizophrenia". Is that the claim you are referring to? But this phrase is taken nearly directly from the cited source (Arehart-Treichel 2007), which quotes Brown as saying "One needs to weigh the benefit of protecting the woman and fetus from influenza against the potential risk of a vaccine-induced antibody elevation that could conceivably predispose to schizophrenia." Eubulides 04:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I disagree with the "one sentence" limit; that's too strict, and it would eviscerate the purpose of this article, which is to describe vaccine controversies. Other sections (e.g., Vaccine controversy #MMR vaccine) do not conform to the "one sentence" limit. But even if there was such a limit, the "conceivably" phrase quoted above is part of the only sentence that casts doubt on the safety of flu vaccines, so the new section is already conforming to the "one sentence" limit. Eubulides 04:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

text: In my experience with accurately citing medical articles, the best defense is a good offense.  Putting out accurate info now will forestall problems later.  The information is already in the mainstream media; why should we ignore it rather than address it reliably?  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Valid point Sandy, but I would hate crossing the line from being accurate to encouraging it.  My problem remains that just because someone is whining about it publicly doesn't make it real.  MastCell pointed me to Duesberg hypothesis which is one guy pushing a bad theory.  Anyways, can we write it in a way that states that it is far from causal?  OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 22:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Eubulides is usually able to accomodate discussion and dig up sources that help; I'm confident he can work out the text in a way that everyone can end up happy; the reason I pulled the text out of the article to begin with is I was counting on him to investigate thoroughly as he usually does :-)  I'm trying to figure out if I got the football analogy backwards, since I'm really a Lowell/Beckett person.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Prenatal infection

message: thumb|150px|right|August Hirt dissecting a corpse.
There are several aspects not adequately covered.  Not all vaccine critics are hysterical pseudo-scientists.  For example:
*Some critics are opposed to just one vaccine or another (e.g., Chicken Pox, which does not directly kill infected children, although it may end in death due to complications such as Staph infection or end in death due to a suppressed imune system.)  This vaccine may be dangerous to children who are not vaccinated because it may delay the onset of chicken pox infections until a later age, when it may cause sterility and other problems.  I personally hold the view that Chicken Pox vaccine causes more harm than good, unless or until it is shown as a safe and effective prevention of shingles.  (Currently, there are rumors that this is likely the case, but no FDA submitted studies that I know about).  
*Some critics are opposed to mandatory vaccination (e.g., against diseases that are sexually transmitted) on civil rights grounds.
*Some critics are opposed to mandatory vaccination on religious grounds (E.g., Amish, mennonites, Jehovah witness).
*Some critics are opposed to certain vaccines on fruit of the poisonious tree grounds, e.g., because they were developed using aborted fetuses.  This would be akin to Asian medical school students refusing to benefit from NAZI dissections of unwilling Asian and other subjects. 
*Macro benefit versus micro benefit:  as the percentage of a society that is vaccinated increases, the marginal risk of getting vaccinated is essentially constant while the marginal benefit of getting vacinated decreases.  That is, at the micro-level, the risk/reward ratio increases as vaccination rates approach +90%.  In this case, it may be rational at the micro level to not get vaccinated, while at the same time it is rational at the macro level to suppress the affect on the risk/reward ratio, in that it may lead to lower vaccination rates.  (Hence, the need for propaganda on the part of government organizations).
*The uncompensated paperwork involved in reporting adverse reactions leads to under reporting.
*And, of course, the nuts who think vaccines are a communist plot to pollute their precious bodily fluids.
That's all for now.  CM (talk) 21:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Many of these points are already covered by the article. Some of the topics are so large that they have subarticles (e.g., Vaccination and religion); in such cases the usual Wikipedia policy is to have a short section in this article, and refer to the subarticle for the bulk of the discussion. Specific suggestions for improvement are welcome, of course. Eubulides (talk) 02:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this seems to be censoring (via marginalization) information.  CM (talk) 18:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The practice of using subarticles to handle large topics is widespread on Wikipedia and is hardly "marginalization". Vaccine controversy gives more space to anti-vaccination arguments than to  pro-vaccination. Adding lots more detail about relatively minor arguments against vaccination (such as disputes over paperwork or filing fees) is out of place here; if included its sheer volume would make for a POV that is out of place in Wikipedia. That sort of detail belongs in the subarticles. When there is a subarticle, only its top-level big ideas belong here. Eubulides (talk) 20:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Column inches is one measure.  The placement of the column inches is another.  This article might be better organized in a pro/con section by section, instead of pro (multiple sections) con (multiple sections) remedies (one of the smallest and latest sections).  CM (talk) 20:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree with you on the organization issue. It'd be a lot of work, though. It's been tried during the past year, but that effort failed; please see #Vaccination and schizophrenia above and search for "point-counterpoint". Eubulides (talk) 20:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, good.  Maybe we can collaborate later.  CM (talk) 20:59, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems 

message: Shouldn't there be a graph that shows the decline of diseases before the vaccine's introduction to get an to put the decline of diseases in context? This is the basis for some of the controversy, and it should be addressed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.236.9.224 (talk) 20:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be nice, but graphs from reliable sources don't appear by magic; someone has to create them and contribute them to Wikipedia. Do you have one in mind? Eubulides (talk) 21:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graph 

message: In many cases, the "best" for each individual would be for everyone else to be vaccinated, since indeed there might be some risk from the vaccine.  This situation presents a basic tension between the individual and society.  The existence of the dilemma is not very controversial, and deserves to be clearly laid out in the article.
The same applies also to quarantines etc.
-69.87.203.171 (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree; that tension is a central issue in many disputes or discussions related to vaccination. The challenge is to cover it in a manner supported by reliable sources, rather than by arguing the positions ourselves. MastCell Talk 18:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I gave it a shot, with this brief change here, and this longer change in Vaccination policy. Eubulides (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 22:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  individual vs. group good 

message: This a a credible reference that can be integrated in the article: 
MaxPont (talk) 18:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That story is summarized in a subarticle, Thiomersal controversy #Court cases, and in more detail in a sub-subarticle, Vaccine court #Proceedings. It's not clear it's worth bringing up at the higher-level of abstraction here. Eubulides (talk) 18:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: More RS:   MaxPont (talk) 14:33, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, the subarticles are a better place for this single court case. The first source is not reliable. It claims that the government conceded that mercury causes autism, which isn't true for two reasons: first, the government did not concede that autism was caused; second, the government did not concede that mercury caused the symptoms in question. The second source is more reliable, although it's duplicative of the NPR and AP sources already cited in the subarticles. Eubulides (talk) 00:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliable secondary source about the autism link 

message: I have added a comment from a new Time article. The article probably contains other good information that can be used in this and other related articles. -- Fyslee / talk 03:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the bits of info there (the $10 billion figure) the article already mentions, supported by the original source for that figure (Zhou et al.). The TIME piece is merely citing Zhou et al., and there's little point in citing the middleman when you can cite the actual source for that figure. The other bits of info are relevant and I put them into the life-saving section (though this section is no longer strictly about saving lives, alas). Eubulides (talk) 06:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time article: "How Safe Are Vaccines?" 

message: The section titled Auto-immune disorders might be improved by adding a couple of items for perspective.
* Some researchers have hypothesized that recent increases in autoimmune disease might be due to decreased exposure to antigens/parasites.  (Askarisk for asthma, etc.)  I don't know how well supported that idea is, and whether it has been linked to vaccines, but if it has, it might be a nice counterpoint to the idea of "weakening" the immune system.
* Even though there are more vaccines on current schedules, many of the vaccines are much more refined with much less antigenic material.  So recipients of current vaccines  may not be getting more antigenic material than their parents/grandparents - it is just spread out in more individual doses.  (This was a comment one of the presenters made in a training on HPV vaccine.)
I don't have references off hand on either of these - but thought worth adding if we can come up with sources.  Thanks.  Zodon (talk) 04:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The first point doesn't seem that relevant to vaccines; perhaps I'm missing something. Eubulides (talk) 05:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

text: The 2nd point is more relevant; I'll look for a source. Eubulides (talk) 05:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I found it; it's a source we already cite, Offit 2008. I made this change to add the 2nd point. Eubulides (talk) 05:29, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Neat - thanks. Zodon (talk) 06:52, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vaccines weakening the immune system 

message: I installed this change to reorder the article so that it discussions each topic one by one, rather than having one big section for the pro-vaccine side, and another big section for the anti-vaccine side. This sort of refactoring is long overdue. This article should be about the controversies; it shouldn't be a debate where one side gets the 1st half of the article and the other side gets the 2nd half. This sort of refactoring was done in August but that version was reverted as it introduced a massive POV problem. The refactoring I just did consisted entirely of moving text around, plus rewording section headers and moving some linking text into the lead (replacing inferior text that was already there). Eubulides (talk) 05:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice - I also thought something of the sort was needed. Zodon (talk) 06:45, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refactored to cover topics one by one 

message: This edit changed "the financial risks for producers are great" to "the financial risks for developers and producers are great". But the cited source nowhere says that the financial risks are great for developers; only for producers. The source says:
:"…the influenza vaccine market is very fragile because the increasing demand has been coupled with a decline in the number of U.S-based and U.S.-licensed manufacturers. Importantly, the market returns for producing this and many other vaccines are usually minimal, while the financial and other risks involved are great. Further, vaccine manufacturing requires careful and comprehensive controls, a complex and sometimes unpredictable manufacturing process and highly specialized facilities that can be expensive to maintain and update."
This is talking about production and manufacturing. It is not talking about development. I worked around the problem by removing "developers and" from the article. Eubulides (talk) 19:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Another way to handle it, if you feel that there is question of the verifiability of the riskyness of vaccine development would be to put a citation needed tag on that part of the item.  Zodon (talk) 09:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's not just verifiability; it's a mild skepticism of the claim. It could be, for example, that vaccine development is often done by nonprofits and thus the financial risks are not great, at least, not in the usual commercial sense. Let's omit the claim until we get a reliable source on the subject. Eubulides (talk) 20:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Or to put that another way - the risks are so great that the commercial entities are reluctant to undertake them.  (For instance, they don't seem to be similarly content to leave the hunt for the next Viagra to nonprofits.)  Research and development of new products (in most fields) is generally regarded as riskier than manufacturing an existing product.  (e.g. all the "me too" drugs, etc.)  The claim existed on the vaccine page (again without citation), when we find citation can put it back here as well.  Zodon (talk) 17:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  There is little charitable or government support for research into the next Viagra. But there is considerable nonprofit support for vaccine development, e.g., the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It could be that the risks are great for commercial entities precisely because there's so much charitable effort in that area; or it could be that a common pattern here is to have nonprofits develop the vaccines and commercial entities produce them. Either way, it would be misleading simply to say that the financial risks are great for development, implying that no work will be done in such a risky area, when such an implication would be inaccurate. Again, what I'm writing here is unsourced speculation, but it is plausible speculation, and we need a high-quality, reliable source in this area before putting claims about vaccine development profitability and risk into the article. Eubulides (talk) 18:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source talks only about financial risks of production 

message: Sears R (2007). The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child. Little, Brown. . This book provides very  useful information about vaccines. Hepatitis B for example. Hepatitis B vaccination and the risk of multiple sclerosis.He writes that one of the companies who  produce the vaccine warns that people should be informed about multiple sclerosis risk before they decide to use the vaccine. --Coyote3 (talk) 15:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hepatitis B vaccination and the risk of multiple sclerosis 

message: This change by an IP address added an NPOV tag without any commentary here or specific suggestions for improvement. I'm inclined to remove the tag, unless someone can make specific suggestions. Eubulides (talk) 22:10, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems like a large omission that the article doesn't link to any antivax resources or websites.  (Ethan Mitchell, forgot to sign in.)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.142.47.166 (talk) 13:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is not a collection of links, and it does list several anti-vaccination resources (see Further readings). Zodon (talk) 19:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I also posted a NPOV tag which was removed.  I was told that I was not following customary procedure by not posting here.  While I do apologize for not knowing the customs, it would be preferred if I was asked for specification before it was removed.  Here are my reasonings: 1) The second paragraph in the introduction should not be in an introduction at all for it clearly starts the whole article in a pro-vaccination perspective.  It is also repeated later on in the article.  2) The first paragraph in the beginning of the supports for the article (beginning with "Mass vaccination helped...") is all stated as fact, while the following paragraph which is used to denote the opposing view repeatedly reads, "Some vaccine critics claim..." and other similar pieces.  The "some" denotes a small minority the idea that these are the claims of critics as opposed to the claimed facts in the preceding paragraph gives them a lesser strength in argument.  One reading these two paragraphs can obviously see the bias of the author.  3) The sections entitled "Population Health" and "Cost-effectiveness" have no opposing argument at all.  These sections and several other bits in this article should more likely be placed in an entirely different article denoting only the positives of vaccination.  The same can be said for "Events following reductions in vaccinations".  While I am pro-vaccination, this part could also be followed up, for instance, with examples of people who were supposedly vaccinated, but then contracted the disease instead.  4) It is in the "Safety" section where the biased paragraph is repeated but with added insults to the opposing side by stating it has "inadequate methodology" and "typically a poorly controlled or uncontrolled case series".  The paragraph goes on to use other derogatory words such as "premature" and "alleged adverse effects".  While this section is cited it not only leads to a site where one must entire their Credit Card number in order to view, but it leads to an article that is heavily biased toward the argument of pro-vaccination.  5) The next section entitled "Vaccine Overload" makes a statement in the first paragraph which reads "Although no scientific evidence supports this idea,...".  I'm sure looking into any of the work of Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. a leading proponent of the anti-vaccination movement (I found this through one Google search and supports for its accuracy) could prove this incorrect. Fontevrault (talk) 06:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please see #Removed tag below. Eubulides (talk) 07:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

text: In order to place the NPOV tag, the article really needs to violate WP:NPOV.  Rather than slapping a tag on the article, can you propose the changes to the article's text that you wish to modify it to?  Also, don't place it here but put it right at the bottom on this talkpage.  Thanks --Shot info (talk) 07:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks everyone.  I'll do that now too.  This is like trying to get something done in a bureaucracy.  Do I have to take the yellow form to one office and the blue one to another once it has a red and a green stamp from three different offices?  (Just joking.  I'll catch on, I'm sure.) Fontevrault (talk) 18:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag 

message: I removed the 2nd paragraph from the lede, as it implied that all anti-vaccination concerns are unfounded.
* Many vaccines have been recalled or discontinued because they were toxic or ineffective. The rotavirus and lyme disease vaccines are two recent examples. The Vaccine Controversy
Let's present both sides of the controversy, without telling the reader which side we are on. Better, yet, as contributors lets not take any side but merely give the pros and cons of each position. --Uncle Ed (talk) 13:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I  the paragraph and added an intro sentence (supported by the cited source) saying that vaccines may cause side effects and that public confidence in safety is needed for a successful program. While we're on the subject of NPOV problems, that edit also removed a recently-introduced and unsourced claim that vaccines can cause middle ear infections (!); removed a "Studies have shown" that is unnecessary and not in the cited source; and removed unnecessary verbiage in the lead sentence that distinguished between vaccination and general and a specific vaccination. That distinction is not necessary in the very first sentence, and was POV in making the suggestion a la Jenny McCarthy that it's OK to oppose (say) the measles mumps and rubella vaccines so long as you say that you don't oppose all vaccines. Eubulides (talk) 18:48, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV problems 

message: The first paragraph of the Financial Motives section contains text whose reference doesn't seem to support it. I'm removing the following: "Legal counsel and expert witnesses employed in anti-vaccine cases may be motivated by profit" as it is not supported by the reference. Also, in context, it seems to be anti-vaccine, while the reference itself speaks about unreliable anti-vaccine witnesses.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by RhoOphuichi (talk • contribs) 21:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The cited source, Fitzpatrick 2007, says "Of the £15million in legal aid funding spent on the MMR litigation, around £8million went to the solicitors, £1.7million to barristers, £4.3million was shared among expert witnesses; the children, of course, were left with nothing." I agree that this doesn't directly support the "motivated by profit" part of the comment, but it does support a claim about that particular litigation. I  the claim to say "in one UK case alleging a vaccine–autism link, legal counsel and expert witnesses received about £14 million of legal aid funding, and the children received nothing." Eubulides (talk) 20:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legal counsel 

message: * "If you wish to use a statement to that effect, then simply attribute it to the source(s)." The current text does provide attribution, using a footnote. That's all that's needed here.
* "My sole contention is that the statement is formulated as a first-person opinion." There is no first-person pronoun in the statement. It is no more a first-person opinion than millions of other statements in Wikipedia that are simply cited using footnotes, the ordinary way of citation.
* "as long as they meet Wikipedia guidelines" The current and proposed wording both meet Wikipedia guidelines as far as neutrality goes. The problem is that the proposed wording does not meet Wikipedia guidelines as far as proper sourcing goes, because it's not supported by the cited source.
* Even if the "Studies have shown" phrase were directly supported by the cited source (which it's not), it would be classic bad wording. You don't see Autism (a featured article) saying "Studies have shown that autism has a strong genetic basis"; it says merely "Autism has a strong genetic basis", citing the review which makes this conclusion based on a large number of studies. Studies should be mentioned in article text only in areas where the studies themselves are part of the topic, e.g., because the research is controversial or unsettled and where there is genuine disagreement among reliable sources. For example, in Autism:
:* "Some studies have reported diagnoses of autism in children due to a loss of language or social skills, as opposed to a failure to make progress, typically from 15 to 30 months of age. The validity of this distinction remains controversial; it is possible that regressive autism is a specific subtype, or that there is a continuum of behaviors between autism with and without regression."
:* "Studies of interventions have methodological problems that prevent definitive conclusions about efficacy."
:* "Although some children with autism also have gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, there is a lack of published rigorous data to support the theory that autistic children have more or different GI symptoms than usual; studies report conflicting results, and the relationship between GI problems and ASD is unclear."
: In this part of Vaccine controversy, there is no controversy among reliable sources, so there would be no need to mention the studies directly even if the cited source directly supported the claim about the studies.
Eubulides (talk) 20:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attribute it to the sources 

message: A recent addition to the Effectiveness section added information regarding the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine.  It would seem this material would be more appropriate in the Influenza vaccine article (and a quick glance shows that most of the cited articles are already represented in the Effectiveness of vaccines subsection in that article).  I would think this article should focus on general effectiveness issues with vaccinations, with the specific issues relegated to each specific vaccine page, otherwise it would get too large with the effectiveness of each vaccine being added here.Yobol (talk) 01:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and  the material to Talk:Influenza vaccine #Material from Vaccine controversy. Eubulides (talk) 20:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influenza vaccine effectiveness 

message: If you want to express your opinion, your views, your conclusions about this, or any matter, start a Blog and go do it.
Wikipedia is not your soapbox, it is not for your original ideas or research, and it isn't about your point of view.  On that there is no controversy. On articles about controversial matters, (or any article) attempting to push a point of view and censor sources, is against Wikipedia. Stop doing it.
Thank you in advance.FX (talk) 16:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nobody cares what you think 

message: A  to the Vaccine overload section changed this:
: "The idea is flawed, for several reasons."
to this:
: "Experts in the field consider the vaccine overload theory to be scientifically unsupported. There are several lines of reasoning used to support this finding."
This change isn't directly supported by the cited source, Gerber & Offit 2009 (), for two reasons:
* The source doesn't say that the vaccine overload theory is scientifically unsupported (i.e., there is no scientific evidence for it); it says that the theory is "flawed" (i.e., the theory has important problems), a stronger claim. The article shouldn't water down that claim.
* The source doesn't say that "experts in the field say" the idea is flawed; it says merely that the idea is flawed. There is no controversy about this among reliable sources, so there is no need to qualify this statement with phrases like "experts in the field say", just as there is no need to qualify the statement "Drinking colloidal silver can turn your skin blue" with the phrase "Experts in the field say".
This wording has been extensively discussed (see #Concerning NPOV wording and #RFC: NPOV wording above, for example) and is currently awaiting mediation in search of a compromise. Before changing the wording in the article, I suggest looking at these previous discussions (and the mediation, once it gets going), and proposing new wordings on the talk page. For now, I  the edit's wording to the start of this thread. Eubulides (talk) 21:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scientifically unsupported 

message: This whole article reads like pro-vaccer screed! I thought wikipedia was supposed to be an objective, encyclopedia resource. Glossing over the bad science used by pro-vaccers to back up big pharma and the research-industrial complex isn't really doing much to support ACTUAL science. 
Or are you just going to keep pretending that the reality ISN'T that the overwhelming majority of vaccinated children get autism or ADHD????? 136.159.117.2 (talk) 20:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The article relies on mainstream medical and scientific opinion, regardless of whether it's supported by big pharma. No reliable source supports the claim that "the overwhelming majority of vaccinated children get autism or ADHD"; nor does it support other claims of a significant connection between vaccines and autism, or between vaccines and ADHD. Wikipedia is supposed to rely on reliable sources for medical information. Eubulides (talk) 22:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Besides what Eubulides has already pointed out, it really isn't constructive (nor civil) to make conspiratorial accusations. If you have a contribution that can cite a reliable source that substantiates a correlation between vaccines and autism/ADHD, then submit it. Otherwise, such additions to the article are not appropriate, as they would obviously contradict Wikipedia's  undue weight policy. Cheers. Sebastian Garth (talk) 15:17, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

text: The article was originally called "Antivaccinationisism".  Several of the antivaccinationists insisted that they do not exist, and as is occurring above added excess verbiage to obscure clear meaning, changed the title, and then as usual wrote about another topic.  Has anyone else seen November's edition of Wired? Midgley (talk) 18:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Vaccine overload has always been pure bollux.  Try to prove it as a hypothesis, it is not up to people who understnad the immune ssytem to demonstrate with each new antigen that it has not crossed some magic threshold of overload. Midgley (talk) 18:04, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, although I obviously agree that VO cannot be categorically ruled out, on principle, the scientific method can nonetheless be used to assess the possible risks associated with a given combination of substances in order to reach a conclusion about the general case. Even so, it's practically impossible to predict the response in every possible situation, so there is always the chance that some unforseen (even deadly) reaction could arise. Of course, when that does occur it then becomes a factor in the overall statistic, and thus represents at least some additional percentage of risk. Sebastian Garth (talk) 19:03, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Propaganda 

message: I see that many people are editing the lead sentence to the Vaccine overload sentence. The current tagging is inappropriate, and appears to reflect more editors' personal disagreements with reliable sources, rather than any real issues among the sources themselves. Rather than join the edit war, I am going to suggest a new draft here, which is based more closely on what the cited source says.
: Vaccine overload is the notion that giving many vaccines at once may overwhelm or weaken a child's immune system, causing long-term damage to health. Although no scientific evidence supports this idea, it has caused many parents to delay or avoid immunizing their children.
The Hilton reference is the same as what's currently in the article, namely this one:
* 
It uses the word "notion" when it first mentions overload. Eubulides (talk) 20:24, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hilton (2006) also refer to "immune-overload" as a "concept", which is why I changed it.  I have no particular preference between concept/notion/assertion as wording. Yobol (talk) 20:30, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  If the source uses both "notion" and "concept", I also have no preference between the two words. "Assertion" seems a bit out of place, but I guess it'd be OK too. Eubulides (talk) 20:49, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vaccine overload lead sentence 

message: Is the recently introduced attribution necessary and in accordance with WP:ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 20:26, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, per the multiple threads above.  Not only does the attribution have the problems as noted above, but why does this fact require this level of attribution (we're giving the journal and university they work at too?) while others don't? Would support revert to previous version.Yobol (talk) 20:34, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The edit both agrees with and is most relevant to the guidelines of WP:ASF. The attribution is indeed appropriate for all matters of debate.Sebastian Garth (talk) 20:49, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  The edit is not appropriate when there is no disagreement among reliable resources. Eubulides (talk) 21:11, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

text: "Writing in 2009 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Jeffrey Gerber and Paul Offit of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia reviewed the scientific literature dealing with this hypothesis. They stated that the idea is flawed, for several reasons."
The edit summaries said "attribute" and "closer to what a review does", but this is not the sort of language that one would normally find in a review, when summarizing material that is not controversial among reliable sources. Reviews normally do not mention journal names in main text, nor do they spell out author names (unless they do so for all citations, Harvard-style, which is not the style here), nor do they give author affiliations. Furthermore, the discussion in this section is not supported merely by Gerber and Offit 2009 (); it is supported by several other reliable sources that say pretty much the same thing (e.g., Schneeeweiss et al. 2008, , and Gregson & Edelman 2003, ), and attributing it only to Gerber and Offit in the text gives the misleading impression to the reader that the opinion is held only by some reliable sources and not others. I suggest that the change be reverted and that we discuss better wording (if needed) here. Eubulides (talk) 20:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Also, for other editors who may be reading this thread: the topic of attribution has been discussed recently in several other threads above, which you may want to read in order to avoid repeating the same points; please see #RFC: NPOV wording, #Concerning NPOV wording and #Changes not supported by sources. Eubulides (talk) 20:41, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

text: To see an example of such "list and attribute" writing read A4M#Credential_dispute. Clunky, but unarguable. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:50, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

text: If every time a controversial article had to resort to this level of attribution due to one editor's personal preferences or biases, all our controversial articles would be so clunky as to be unreadable.  Some of these articles have over 100 separate citations; can you imagine what these articles would look like? Yobol (talk) 20:57, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you could omit the institutional affiliations, but these are useful when you are attributing the opposite view, to make absolutely clear to the reader what level of expertise the proponents of an idea have. See A4M#Divergent_views_on_anti-aging_products for an example of this. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:03, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Per WP:ASF if there is no "serious dispute" we should assert facts as facts. Since there is no "serious dispute" in the scientific community about vaccine overload, we should not load the article with superfluous material.  If the reader wants to find out who is cited and where they work, they can look at the citation themselves. Yobol (talk) 21:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yobol is right. A Simon-says style may be necessary in A4M#Credential_dispute (which is about assertions of fraud by unscrupulous practitioners), due to Wikipedia's policy about biographical info about living persons. It may also be helpful in A4M#Divergent views on anti-aging products, as that is a narrow article about a particular controversial organization. However, the style is harmful in any discussion of facts that are not disputed by reliable sources. Imagine if Evolution had to use this style for discussing routine facts about evolution, merely because creationist editors didn't believe them. The section in Vaccine controversy is supposed to be a high-level summary of various topics about vaccine controversies: it is not the place to go into detailed blow-by-blow description in the main text of exactly where source X said Y, and what source X's affiliations are. Doing that for the Vaccine controversy sections would balloon this section of the article to ten times its size, raising serious WP:WEIGHT issues, not to mention making the section far less useful as an encyclopedia entry. Again, I ask that the edit be reverted and that we discuss here what the section would look like, rather than inserting potentially-controversial changes without discussion. Eubulides (talk) 21:11, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: True, if there is a detailed sub-article on vaccine overload then you just need to summarise this article. Can't see one under that title though. I'll revert myself since consensus seems to be against this. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:56, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attribution 

message: Today I reverted another users edit that changed the wording in the "Effectiveness" section from 
 Fully vaccinating all U.S. children born in a given year from birth to adolescence saves an estimated 33,000 lives [...]
to 
 One source states that fully vaccinating [...]
which has been reintroduced now, but I (obviously) don't think it should stay that way. First of all, it's really hard to tell how many sources there are because the article we use as source is speaking about CDC officials, but what is more important is that to me the wording sounds like it's meant to question the validity of the estimation (in which case it would be more appropriate to find another source with a trustworthy estimation). However, I'm not a native speaker so I might be wrong about how the average reader would understand this sentence. What do uninvolved editors (ideally native speakers) think of the wording? --Six words (talk) 14:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good revert.  There's no need to be modest about your English-language skills — the change had exactly the (inappropriate) effect that you read. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentence about the effect of "full vaccination" 

message: The edits of banned Blowme c===3 and their newer account Panicfanatic001 need to be examined for fragments that might not have been deleted. Apparently the ban was because of the original username, but the disruptive nature of the individual's edits should still draw attention. If the edits aren't NPOV, they should be reverted or modified. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:02, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As of now the cumulative changes look clean. - 2/0 (cont.) 07:34, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  User's edits need watching 

message: Recently strong evidence for a direct link between mercury in vaccines and autism has become what must be described as more than just relatively abundant. Interviews with scores of doctors, researchers, investigators, organizations and publicly led and supported research groups are propping up globally as well as clear evidence from the so called "danish studies", faults or flaws in the interpretation of those studies, evidence from the respected Oxford NPO, The Cochrane Collaboration, an institute for evidence based medicine and research. Recently revealed sources of the pharmaceutical industry's own meetings, reports and minutes from their meetings all indicate or rather effectively prove the strong correlation between mercury use in vaccines and autism and hundreds of other severe long term adverse side effect that have impaired people or led to serious disability or been seriously detrimental to their health in any number of ways. The obvious flaws in the interpretation of the Danish studies that allegedly proved that autism rose even after thimerosal was removed was based on the fact that the danish health institute started up a program for registering autism and autists after the correlation was noted, effectively leading many more to come forward to gain the help that the authorities offered and be registered. This is even to this day still erroneously reported on this wikipedia page and shows how a lack of understanding of what research and public debate and reporting actual controversies are about on the part of wiki admins. It is such a blatant disregard for actual controversy and public knowledge that it borders on intent to mislead the public. Its as repugnant as it is intellectually dishonest. Wiki admins have become notorious in their lack of following links, reading public documents and summarily posting one sides of current controversies effectively portraying themas if they were actually already settled and that one party was irrefutably confirmed by the public  community as a whole. I find it disturbing, but at the rate and speed with which information floats and have started to circulate only the last 12 months they will be thoroughly discredited within the year.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nunamiut (talk • contribs) 01:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Eubulides (talk) 04:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agreed. Putting a hat on this nonsense. In the whole world of alternative medicine pharmanoia, I know of no other branch that is more dishonest and dangerous, especially to children and the weak, than the antivaccination quacks. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strong evidence for link between mercury in vaccines and autism 

message: /* Alternative medicine */ field --> profession. The source used the word "profession". I should probably seek consensus before making arbitrary alterations of this nature for this controversial topic. QuackGuru (talk) 06:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd laugh if I didn't think you were trying to be contentious. Moving along, wording revised as requested. Sebastian Garth (talk) 07:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Field or profession 

message: made the following change in the Vaccine overload section:
: "It has The Toronto Star reported that it had has been proposed as a cause for autism without attrributing the suggestion to any particualr soruce, or offering any suggested evidence or cause."
with the edit summary " I read the reference, it is not a soruce for teh suggestion, it merely asserts that it has been made. I say again, who, as a reliable soruce, actually came up with this stupid".
The vaccine-overload theory has not been proposed by any reliable source. But that does not mean that the theory has not been proposed as a cause for autism; it clearly has (by Andrew Wakefield, and by others). Today the vaccine overload theory is perhaps the most common reason why parents in Europe and North America don't follow vaccination recommendations. There is no need for the article to cite a "reliable source" that has proposed a popular-but-unsupported theory: this article is about vaccine controversies, regardless of whether the controversies have scientific support on both sides.
There is no dispute among reliable sources that the vaccine-overload-causes-autism theory is popular. Inserting text like "The Toronto Star reported" makes it sound like only the Toronto Star is reporting the theory's popularity, and that it is seriously disputed whether the theory is popular. No such dispute exists. Furthermore, the edit introduced the text "without attrributing the suggestion to any particualr soruce, or offering any suggested evidence or cause" which is clearly editorializing.
I attempted to improve the situation by  the text in question with "Many parents of autistic children firmly believe that vaccine overload causes autism", a statement that is more-directly supported by the cited source. Eubulides (talk) 07:50, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: So we are agreed that without a reliable source, this meme is now part of the encyclopaedia?  Should this not be in the article on mass hysteria, rather than immunisation?  Midgley (talk) 21:44, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is an article on vaccine controversy, not about vaccines themselves. We do have reliable sources that a controversy exists. If you'd like to see more sources (along with a long discussion of them), please see Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Vaccine controversy: that talk page discusses Gerber & Offit 2009 (), Gregson & Edelman 2003 (), Hilton et al. 2006 (), Bonhoeffer & Heininger 2007 (), Schneeweiss et al. 2008 (), Tickner et al. 2006 (), Leask et al. 2008 (), Heininger 2006 (), and Bedford & Lansley 2007 (). There is quite a bit of support for the notion that this is a controversial issue among the lay public, even if there's no controversy in the scientific and medical community. Eubulides (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toronto Star 

message: * This proposal is for Alternative medicine after the sentence: These include anthroposophy, some elements of the chiropractic community, non-medically trained homoeopaths, and naturopaths.[10]
* Proposed sentence: "The reasons for this negative vaccination view are complicated and rest, at least in part in the early philosophies which shape the foundation of these professions."
* 
*Requesting review of proposal. QuackGuru (talk) 04:54, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be a good addition, I think. The only problem with the reference though is that it only links to the abstract. Do you have a link to the complete article? Sebastian Garth (talk) 06:30, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not have a link to the full text. You can e-mail Ernst in the UK and they might have a copy of the full text. QuackGuru (talk) 06:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

text: It is available through libraries, as is much genuine science.  Midgley (talk) 21:46, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Basis for anti-vaccination attitude 

message: Please see WP:ASF. Attribution is a policy violation. QuackGuru (talk) 18:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, even if stating opinions of general consensus, WP:ASF requires attribution. Sebastian Garth (talk) 21:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, ASF does not require attribution when no serious dispute exists. QuackGuru (talk) 23:37, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

text: No serious dispute has been presented. Attribution is against ASF. Please provided evidence of a serious dispute. QuackGuru (talk) 23:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  WP:ASF does not require in-text attribution for information where there is no serious dispute. Requiring in-text attribution for widespread consensus of reliable sources on the grounds that it is "opinion" would allow a contrarian reader to insist on in-text attribution for material about which there is no serious dispute, using the argument that the material is an "opinion". This would mean, in the end, that all material in Wikipedia would require in-text attribution, even if only one Wikipedia editor insisted on it, which is not the intent of WP:ASF or of WP:CONSENSUS. Eubulides (talk) 00:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  No serious dispute 

message: When there is a dispute over something "out there in the real world", we must not pretend that the dispute doesn't exist. Also, if we (as writers) cannot agree on what percentage of the general public (or some special group such as research scientists, or school principals, or pediatricians, or drug company representatives) favors the various sides, then we should not guess or assume. 
It is a fact that some people (myself most definitely included!) are cheerfully and confidently in favor of vaccination in general, but there are others who oppose the concept or who worry about the side effects or other ramifications of certain particular vaccinations. 
A neutral article would not bother to say which group is right about which aspect, but would only try to identify the positions, the adherents and (if available) their reasoning. --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Wikipedia policy on neutrality does not preclude summarizing the scientific consensus on an issue. The vaccine controversy is (in large part) over what the scientific consensus should be; this article cannot cover the controversy without stating the consensus. Eubulides (talk) 06:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few ideas about neutrality 

message: Smallpox outbreaks were contained by the latter half of the 19th century, a development widely attributed to vaccination of a large portion of the population.[79] Vaccination rates fell after this decline in smallpox cases, and the disease again became epidemic in the 1870s (see smallpox).
Are not the 1870's part of the latter half of 19th century? 
24.36.78.185 (talk) 21:04, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Smallpox was contained in the latter half of the 19th century, then vaccination rates fell around 1870, upon which a resurgence in smallpox cases was witnessed. I see no contradictions here. Mkemper331 (talk) 16:15, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  minor contradiction 

message: Interested editors should check out the RfC & contribute to the discussion at the Bill Maher talk page (here). Valerius Tygart (talk) 20:51, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ongoing vaccine debate at "Bill Maher" article talk page 

message: We are going to have same problems that USA and Canada in some years. It is time to prepare to translate that anti-vaccionists are wrong. Thank you.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.179.55.198 (talk) 12:24, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please open spanish language page