This quote seems to be making the rounds on facebook right now:
Saying that your vaccinated child is at risk of disease because of my un-vaccinated child is like saying I have to take birth control pills so YOU won’t get pregnant.
Of course, this is nonsense on two levels. First, it is a bad analogy, because pregnancy isn’t contagious. You can’t “catch” pregnancy from a person who is pregnant, but you most certainly can catch vaccine-preventable diseases from those who have them.
Second, unvaccinated children most certainly can spread disease to vaccinated children. For example, in 2005 an unvaccinated teen went to Romania on a missions trip and brought measles back to her church. 34 people in the church were infected, 2 of which were vaccinated. One of the 34 required six days of ventilator support in order to survive.
If you have been fooled by those who use misinformation to try to keep you from vaccinating, please learn the scientific data behind the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
Dr. Wile,
Thank you for helping me find balance on this issue.
Melissa, I hope my posts help you make an informed decision. Whether or not you vaccinate is up to you. Just make sure you are making your decision based on accurate information!
Dear Dr. Jay
We admire your work and study books, it is the only science we use in home educating our 8 children, but if we had given our oldest son all the vaccinations suggest by the medical world, CJ Lues wouldn’t have been able to win the Science Question of the Week competition in 2009 twice – he would most probably have been autistic and miss out on the calling God has on his life!
Our son almost died due to the DTP vaccination, ending up with chronic whooping cough, damaging his immune system forever, and inhibiting his growth for more than 2years. We were only able to bring our son ‘back to life’ through natural medicine, after the ‘scientific’ medicine gave up on him.
CJ was our only child whom we vaccinated, NOT ONE of our following 7 children, who are highly allergic children, received any vaccinations and they flourish, due to healthy eating patterns and natural immune boosters!
Although they did get some of the ‘feared’ illnesses, we were able to guide them through it with natural medicine and prayer.
We haven’t been deceived by the lies of the “anti-vaccination-movement”. We didn’t even know there was such thing, when we vaccinated our eldest son. We EXPERIENCED the side-effects of vaccinations first hand! My husband has a naturopathic practice and consults many children monthly with autism. Most of these cases are a direct result of vaccinations and the crazy ingredients in vaccinations – mercury, aluminum (heavy metals), aborted fetal tissue, monkey kidney cells, to only name a few; in spite of what ‘science’ claims.
According to Dr. Johan Maxwell every human being has a blind spot, we as leaders must be very careful, that our blind spot, doesn’t cause the fall of many innocent people.
I appreciate the ‘facts’ you quote in the Apologia books and in the electronic media, but if we are blind to look at any alternative or natural alternative view on vaccinations, aren’t we the same as the blinded evolutionists desperately defending their own religion. I would encourage you to look at the other side of the coin. I have various related links but find the following, link very interesting and it includes many of the facts you refer to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IgLj2If44&feature=player_embedded
“The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement” Karl R. Popper
Regards
Linnie
Linnie, I appreciate your experience, but you have to understand that such anecdotes are not reasonable ways to make medical decisions. As mathematics tells us, vaccination will be coincident with many problems by random chance alone. For example, just by pure mathematics, you can see that 46-47 cases of SIDS will occur each year within 24 hours of the DPT vaccine by sheer coincidence alone. Thus, because something happened to CJ shortly after vaccination, you cannot conclude that the vaccination caused the problem. It takes studies to demonstrate that, and the studies clearly show the safety and efficacy of vaccines, as the link I put in the post clearly demonstrates.
I don’t know CJ’s medical history, so CJ might actually have a contraindication that makes CJ an unsuitable candidate for vaccination. However, I can tell you quite certainly that CJ would not have become autistic due to vaccination, as study after study after study clearly show no link between vaccination and autism.
I have listened to all parts of the interview you linked before, and I had to edit what you had posted, as your original link did not work. Unfortunately, Dr. Palevsky makes so many incorrect statements regarding vaccines that it is clear he does not know what he is talking about. For example, he claims the polio vaccine did not stop polio, and he refers to what he calls an “article” by Geier in the journal Pediactrics. In fact, it was not an article. It was a letter to the editor. It was just Geier’s opinion, and in fact, follow-up letters to the editor proved why Geier was 100% wrong in his opinion. Geier was making his conclusions based on death rates, and death rates are not the way to properly track a disease. Disease rates are. If you look at the incidence of diseases in history, you see a direct correlation between vaccines and the drop in disease. Indeed, sanitary practices CAUSED the rise in polio in the 1940s, and only the vaccine stopped it. Go here to see the graphs that show this quite clearly and the discussion that demonstrates sanitary practices cannot explain the decrease in those diseases. The discussion also shows what any competent doctor should know – you can’t track a disease by death rates.
Dr. Palevsky also claims that doctors seem to support vaccines because they have been told that vaccines reduced disease in history. That’s not the case. Doctors support vaccines because double-blind studies, case-controlled studies, epidemiological studies, cohort studies, and prospective studies that are done year after year after year demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the standard vaccines. When studies of measles outbreaks in schools show that vaccinated children are 22 times (2,200%) less likely to contract measles than unvaccinated children, it is clear that vaccines are effective.
Dr. Palevsky tries to claim that the ingredients in vaccines have not been adequately tested, that the proper studies haven’t been done, etc. However, he is just plain wrong. Not only do vaccines go through multiple levels of clinical trials just to be approved, they are then followed by studies which are performed by those who have a vested interest in finding a problem with the vaccine. You can see that here.
In addition, Dr. Palevsky makes the same mistake that many mothers do. He assumes that because some people have a problem that is coincident with vaccination, the vaccine must have caused the problem. This is a mistake a first-year medical student shouldn’t make. Such coincidences can motivate studies, but only studies can determine cause. The studies are quite clear that things like autism and other neurological disorders are not linked to vaccination.
Dr. Wile
I am a sceptic as far as creation is concerned, but have found many of your articles helpful to influence my view on creation, and don’t see it as so far fetched as I did.
I have read many books by many well educated people on the vaccination issue. Personally I have vaccinated some of my children. There are as many for it as there are against it.
One thing is sure, the money factor behind pharmaceuticals is HUGE, and this means that true science would be very difficult to find. Many of these so called studies that show the efficacy of so called “lifesaving” drugs, later proof to be very detrimental to human health. Usually only after many many people have suffered or died – study history.
I would be very careful if it was me, to defend the “pro-drug” movement they way you do. There are certainly many wonderful drugs around, but to base your entire one sided view on so called $tudies, is shaky.
If a large number of people has a certain experience, it becomes a scientific phenomena in it self and CANNOT be ignored. This is true for the vaccination debate as well.
To tell this mother that something she and countless others have experienced first hand is not “scientific” as some study in a country 1000’s of miles away disproved it is as shortsighted as telling someone that what he heard God tell him is nonsense.
I think that the blind-spot idea the lady talks about is valid, and you should give it some consideration.
Kind regards
Johann, thanks for your comment. I am glad that my articles on creation are helpful. I am sorry to disagree with you, but a large number of people experiencing something does not make it a scientific phenomenon. As I mentioned in my comment to Linnie, mathematics clearly shows us that there will be large numbers of coincidences with vaccinations and medical conditions. Thus, a large number of people experiencing something may simply illustrate the mathematics of chance. It also may represent a scientific phenomenon. That’s why studies have to be done to determine which it is.
I think you need to learn a bit more about medical studies, as you seem to think that the pharmaceutical companies play a role in them. For clinical trials, that is certainly true, as it only makes sense for the pharmaceutical company that benefits from the drug to pay for the studies. However, that’s where the pharmaceutical company involvement ends. The follow-up studies are done by medical scientists who have a vested interest in finding a problem, because that’s when they get rewarded with more research grants, etc.
For example, consider the researchers who found the problem with the old rotavirus vaccine. Even though the study they did caused the old rotavirus vaccine to be pulled from the market, which cost the pharmaceutical company involved millions, they did not hesitate to publish their results. That’s because they knew they would be rewarded with more research grants, and they were. These same authors are on many of the current follow-up studies on today’s vaccines, so it is hard to see how they can be shills for the pharmaceutical companies now, when they were the ones who cost one pharmaceutical company millions with their research.
Please note that I have given the anti-vaccination movement lots of consideration. I have read Miller’s anti-vaccine book, Coulter’s anti-vaccine book, Mendelsohn’s “Confessions” book, all of Geier’s articles (of which I am aware), and many websites. The problem is that not only do these resources not make their case to someone who is reasonably knowledgeable about research and medicine, they often demonstrate the author’s ignorance of basic history, physiology, and methodology. For me, reading the anti-vaccine resources is the biggest reason I am so pro-vaccine.
I agree that the analogy is unwarranted. I also agree that from a scientific perspective single anecdotes have far too many confounding variables to be considered reliable data.
However by that same logic I do have to wonder about the strength of the argument “your vaccinated child is at risk of disease because of my un-vaccinated child”. You can of course provide anecdotes of people who were vaccinated and still caught an illness, so we know that it is possible.
However such things should be put down to a question of risk assessment. When smoking in public places is illegal, it is because it is wrong to endanger others as a result of your personal choices, while smoking in private (hazardous as it is) is still permitted. The question that remains is whether the chance of first contracting the illness and then transmitting it to a person WHO HAS BEEN VACCINATED.
As far as I know the balance of risk has not been assessed regarding the likelihood of infection of another, vaccinated, person by not being vaccinated against such costs as are considered by the individual to outweigh the vaccination benefit to him/herself.
Josiah, I am not recommending any legal action regarding vaccination. I don’t think ANY medical care should be legislated, whether or not it is the best thing for the population. The fact is that medical care is a deeply personal issue and should not be mandated in any way by any government. That is a serious encroachment on freedom. At the same time, in order to make your own decisions with regard to health care, you must be properly informed. That is my purpose for posting the scientific data regarding vaccines.
While I agree that no risk assessment has been done to determine exactly how much a vaccinated child is in danger from an unvaccinated child, the fact is we know that such infections do occur. If it weren’t for the one unvaccinated child who came back from Romania, the two vaccinated children in her church would not have caught measles at that time. This is certain, since the strain that the children had was the Romanian strain. As a result, we know that unvaccinated children can infect vaccinated children. This is quite different from the situation in which a person gets a vaccine and then something bad happens. Without studies, we don’t know whether the vaccine was the cause. In this case, we have a study that genetically shows the unvaccinated child was the cause of the two vaccinated children’s measles.
What am I missing it or do I detect a HUGE amount of arrogance, Dr. Jay? I know it all, and I worship science, and beyond science there is no other truth…?
If vaccinations were such a great miracle, why is my vaccinated child in in ganger of getting infected by a non-vaccinated child, I thought he wouldl be protected?
Johann, you clearly have the wrong impression of me, since even a cursory examination of my blog tells you that I don’t “worship science.” Neither do I think that “beyond science there is no other truth.” However, when dealing with medical issues, the most reasonable thing to do is look at medical data, and the medical data are very clear.
Your question seems to indicate that you don’t understand some very basic things about vaccination. As I make clear in my main vaccination post, and as every reputable medical professional makes clear, vaccines do not provide 100% immunity. Indeed, there is no medicine that is 100% effective in all cases. Human anatomy and physiology just doesn’t work that way. What vaccines do is provide a strong boost to your immune system when it comes to the diseases they target. Thus, they make you significantly less likely to catch the disease. They do not make it impossible for you to get the disease.
For example, when it comes to measles, vaccinated children are 22 TIMES (2,200%) less likely to get the disease than unvaccinated children when a population is exposed to measles. Thus, when measles sweeps through a population, 22 unvaccinated children will get it compared to 1 vaccinated child. That shows vaccines provide a lot of protection, but the fact that 1 vaccinated child gets the disease for every 22 unvaccinated children shows that vaccinations (like any other medicine) are not 100% effective. They are “only” about 95% effective.
Dr, I understand the vaccination’s supposed working 100%. The point I am making is that when people get sick because a vaccination fails it’s called science/the best we can do etc, medicine is the hero, only 95% effective.
BUT
When a mother and countless others say they experienced severe side effects from a vaccine, then a study’s conclutions is suddenly 100% relieable excluding something like autism or for that matter any other side effect 100%.
So your science only works one way?
If modern science cannot make a 100% effective vaccine, is it then not also “reasonable” to accept that a study does not tell the full story, and that there are detremental possibilities that may not be picked up in a study as NO study is 100% accurate.
If not, you may indeed be blind to the flaws of modern science…
Johann, the same studies that show vaccines are 95% effective are the ones that show their safety and efficacy. Thus, this is not a question of the science working only one way. The studies show both that the vaccines are roughly 95% effective and that they are safe for the general population. They work both ways.
The point here is that there are many factors that go into making a person sick. As a result, a collection of stories about individuals becoming sick some period of time after getting a vaccine tells us only that it is possible the vaccine caused the sickness. The only way to determine whether or not the vaccine caused the sickness is to do studies that are designed to control all those factors. When lots of parents say, “My child was vaccinated and then developed _____,” that tells us very little about what caused the child to develop _______, as many other things happened to the child leading up to the sickness. The only way to determine cause is by studying a population in a controlled manner.
Whether or not science can produce a 100% effective vaccine has nothing to do with the reliability of a study. The reliability of a study is based on its repeatability and its conclusions holding up in the light of several other studies done by independent researchers. I agree that a single study is not necessarily accurate. However, when many studies done by many independent researchers come to the same conclusions, then the conclusions are accurate.
Are you saying then that ALL the vaccines are absolutely 100% safe? Absolutely without ANY side effects what so ever? No one can EVER get sick from taking a vaccine?
Johann, I am not sure where you get these ideas. Of course I am not saying that no one can ever get sick from taking a vaccine. In fact, in my main posting on vaccines, and in one of my earlier responses to you, I discuss the case of the old rotavirus vaccine, where studies showed it DID cause illnesses in some children.
What I am saying is:
1. When a parent thinks a child got sick from a vaccine, that parent is ignoring a huge number of other factors that could have caused the illness. As a result, only controlled studies can determine whether or not the vaccine caused the problem.
2. There are multiple levels of studies done, most of which do not involve any financial input from the pharmaceutical companies. In addition, the investigators are rewarded when they find problems, so they have a vested interest in uncovering a problem. These studies are specifically done to monitor whether or not vaccines are causing any problems. When the studies show a problem, the vaccine is removed (in the case of the old rotavirus vaccine) or contraindications are listed so that people who are susceptible to the problem are not given the vaccine (in the case of the flu vaccine).
I agree that vaccinations are then not 100% safe. I also agree that a HUGE number of factors play a role when a child get sick or NOT.
Therefore it’s equally illogical to state, as you did above, that an un-vaccinated child caused the other people in the church to get sick. The child did carry the virus but can we say without a shadow of a doubt that it was the fact that the child was not vaccinated? NO we certainly cannot, because even vaccinated people get sick!
So when a vaccinated child gets sick and gives it to the church, nobody says a word, but when a non-vaccinated child “spreads” the illness, then the reason is his/her non-vaccination.
By the same token, it is also possible that the mother who states that her child got sick because of a vaccination, may be totally wrong or 100% correct, Her child may have been “susceptible” to problems caused by the vaccine – as pointed out by the study.
So if certain individuals may be susceptible to “problems” (as pointed out in the studies) how can we protect them?
Johann, it is certainly not illogical to say that the unvaccinated child caused the others in the church to get sick. In fact, it is illogical to say otherwise, since it was the unvaccinated child who went to Romania, and all of those in the church who got sick had the Romanian strain of the virus. Thus, we KNOW that the unvaccinated child got all the other children (including the vaccinated one) sick.
I think what you are trying to say is that we cannot say for sure that the REASON the unvaccinated child carried the disease from Romania is because he or she was unvaccinated. I agree. However, it is LOGICAL to conclude that this is the reason, since unvaccinated children are 2,200%
lessmore likely to get measles than vaccinated children. Thus, by far the MOST LIKELY scenario is that if the child who went to Romania was vaccinated, no one would have gotten sick. Nevertheless, that was NOT the point of the post. The point of the post was to show that unvaccinated children can, indeed, get vaccinated children sick, which shows the stupidity of the quote.The mother who states her child got sick because of a vaccine is only correct if the studies indicate the vaccine can be a cause of the sickness. If studies show that the vaccine is not linked to the sickness, then the mother is simply incorrect. Once again, then, the final word rests with the studies, not the mother.
The way we protect certain individuals who are susceptible to problems with vaccines is to make sure the vaccine is given only under the care of a board-certified physician who knows the individual’s medical history. The physician will know what contraindications are given by the studies, and if the physician knows the individual’s medical history, he or she will know whether or not the individual will have problems with a given vaccine.
Mr. Boltz, please allow me to give an example that might explain Dr. Wile’s point that anecdotes aren’t proof.
Let us say I’m a typical Teenager with a typical teenage day. This entails:
Getting up, having a shower, having breakfast, going to school
Playing a game of football, watching AvP2, playing WOW.
Forgetting my homework and chores.
Logging onto facebook, checking my email, phoning my girlfriend.
Having a Toasted Cheese sandwich for supper.
That night I happen to have a nightmare.
Now I cannot reasonably say that I’m living proof that cheese gives you nightmares, even if I did have both cheese and a nightmare. It could just as easily be the movie. Or romantic anticipation, or knowing I’ll be in trouble with my teacher the next day, or any number of other factors. That only deals with a handful of events from a single day, and if we widen the net… the problem is obvious. This shows why anecdotal evidence can’t be trusted.
However if I select a random sample of 100 schoolboys from my year, asking half of them to eat cheese for a week and ask the other half to refrain. If I then perform a survey of those boys asking how many nightmares they had that week, I have some more valid results. Either there will be a significant difference between the groups (such as an average of 4 nightmares in a week as opposed to 1) or there will be no appreciable difference at all (average 2:2 for example). Either of these is an acceptable scientific result, one showing correlation and the other showing a null affect.
Yes, Dr. Wile, I know there are plenty of flaws in my methodology. Please don’t try to embarrass me by pointing out too many of them.
Excellent example, Josiah. While your methodology could be tweaked a bit, it is clearly valid.
Gentlemen, I have been following this debate since I am the (unscientific) mother.
The last point made by Dr. Jay on how to protect a child is my concern.
I had my child vaccinated by a board-certified physician, and my child got sick FROM the vaccination. The reason I am quite sure is because the vaccination given was the DTP and my son got the “P” in the DTP vaccine – Pertussis. It is MOST LIKELY that he got the Pertussis from the DTP vaccine as there was no epidemic at the time in our area, neither did any of our friends’ children have Pertussis before or after my son developed it – you may want to see this anecdotal – that’s your opinion only.
Furhtermore, after CJ got sick, no specialist physician was able to tell me what was the problem with my child – I had to find out for myself – those were his exact words!
Also your comment that the board certified pediatrician should establish the individual’s personal medical history does not hold much water. How do you establish a 3 month old baby’s medical history….?
You also said “Unfortunately, Dr. Palevsky makes so many incorrect statements regarding vaccines that it is clear he does not know what he is talking about.” How would I as a mother know which doctor to believe then?
This Doctor and Doctor Mercola states that they have seen many mothers come to them with ‘vaccine reactions’ after vaccinations. They also had no vested interest – as they first of dismissed these claims, in the same way you currently do, with similar arguments. They simply saw many mothers over an extended period of time complain, and independently got to the same conclusion, but then, that’s unscientific according to your scientific model. I call it being open minded to reality.
To you this may just be a debate on scientific terminology or mathematical chance, but to me and other concerned mothers, it’s our children’s lives.
They only have ONE CHANCE.
I pray that God may open your eyes to some of the tragic results of vaccinations in the real world where we, (unscientific) mothers, live, away from the clinical laboratories of statistic significance and numbers.
Kind regards
Linnie, I understand what you are saying. However, I still think you are jumping to conclusions. You say yourself that “no specialist physician was able to tell me what was the problem with my child .” Thus, I am led to conclude that it is your diagnosis of pertussis. Given the fact that many other illnesses can look a lot like pertussis, forgive me if I am skeptical. In addition, it is not my opinion that your story is anecdotal. It is the definition of anecdotal: “based on or consisting of reports or observations of usually unscientific observers.”
Please note that I am not saying you are certainly wrong about CJ being harmed by a vaccine. I am saying you are more than likely wrong about that. However, as I stated earlier, I can say without a doubt that CJ would not have developed autism, as autism is certainly not linked to vaccination.
A board-certified physician would know A LOT about the medical history of a 3-month-old. Remember, a huge part of medical history is the genetic history – the medical history of the parents, grandparents, etc. That’s the job of a board-certified physician.
In answer to your question, “How would I as a mother know which doctor to believe then?,” you need to carefully look at all sides. Start by reading my main post on the subject. Notice the many detailed references, and compare them to the vague statements on that video. Also, compare the fact that I rely on studies to the fact that the doctors in that video rely on letters to the editor. Actually check some of the references. You don’t decide who to believe based on who your experiences make you inclined to believe. You decide who to believe based on the evidence, and the evidence is absolutely not on Dr. Mercola’s and Dr. Palevsky’s side.
You actually point out the major flaw in Dr. Mercola’s and Dr. Palevsky’s reasoning. They ignore the studies and instead concentrate on anecdotes. It is not a question of dismissing claims. It is a question of dismissing the fact that the claims are inconsistent with the studies. Since the studies are the only way to determine cause, it is quite unscientific to dismiss the studies in deference to anecdotes.
I agree that your children have only one chance. That’s why you should not based their medical care on misconceptions and misinformation.
“2,200% less likely”
Er, you do mean more likely, right?
hehe – thanks Josiah. I corrected that.
@ Linnie
Dear Linnie, thank you for what you have shared. I want to encourage you to go with what the Lord has shown you and many other parents. I am old enough to have seen the massive holes in so called ‘modern science’
There is more that science don’t understand than what it understands.
These people live out their faith in sceince, you live out your faith in God, and his revelations to you. You obviosly have revelation as you are humble. God will honor your humility.
This Dr. is beaming with self confidence and pride and is educated beyond his intelligence . Only the Lord can take away such blindness, no arguing will do it.
Blessings
Hannon, you should spend time actually reading this blog, and you would find out that I do not live out “faith in science.” There is no pride in what I am saying. I am simply educating people on the science behind health issues.
Thanks Hannon 🙂
Wow, reading these comments it seems at worst Dr. Wile could be accused of being naive, but proud or blind to the facts he is not. Hannon’s comment was completely unwarranted, and came off very condescending.
Also, it really annoys me when people say things like “Only the Lord can take away such blindness, no arguing will do it.” because it so often translates as “the facts won’t work, so we have to rely on God” (even if that’s not the intent).
Kyle
Well said, Kyle!
Kyle, you beat me to it.
Hannon, the phrase “educated beyond his intelligence” can apply to a great many people in the modern world, but not to Doctor Wile. I say that with confidence because IF somebody is educated beyond their intelligence then they CANNOT even consider the possibility of their education being wrong. If you bother to read this Blog you will find that Dr Wile was educated in the ways of science including the framework of atheism, evolution, and a very old earth. However because (contrary to your accusation) his own powers of reason outweighed the raw facts presented in his education, a significant majority of the posts on this blog have to do with presenting the evidence for a Young Earth Creationist framework.
You will further find that true education does not merely reveal a world of facts to be pieced together like a jigsaw. It actually boosts the person’s ability to use their own mind. The mark of a truly educated man is that he can hold two completely contradictory ideas within the realms of concious thought, evaluation both against the other and all the while accepting neither. A truly educated man will be (and has been) convinced by argument. This is closer to the manner of education that you will see in Dr Wile’s work here, if you care to look.
You may have seen massive holes in many areas of modern science, but that does not demonstrate that it is at all wrong in this area. Such a generalization is foolish; comparable to examining portrayals of Aphrodite or Venus in renaissance art, and then declaring that all renaissance art (including Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and “last supper” are pornographic.)
If instead you show a little discernment you will see that while Science has been wrong in places and still has flaws, the fact is that modern medicine (a branch of science) saves the live of millions. The rise of basic Sanitation, Antibiotics, and vaccinations are the three great advances responsible for extending the lives of many to 80 or 90 who would have died. Some would have died before they were five, more before they were 18, and the majority before they were 40. Now they live to see their great grand children.
Wow Josiah. Thanks!
“The point of the post was to show that unvaccinated children can, indeed, get vaccinated children sick, which shows the stupidity of the quote.”
I find the logic here a little mushy … perhaps the purpose of the quote is to point out the ineffectivity of vaccination.
Which is not to say I agree, or don’t agree. I don’t actually have an opinion on vaccination, and I take no sides. But I do object to fuzzy logic. 🙂
Returning to the sentence I quoted… how do you know all the vaccinated people were infected by the unvaccinated child? Perhaps the child gave it to one vaccinated person, who then passed it to other vaccinated people. Perhaps other vaccinated travelers were also carrying the disease, but being vaccinated, didn’t show enough symptoms for it to be recognised, and also was the cause of spreading the illness?
The only thing conclusively demonstrated by your story is that vaccination is not a guarantee against infection.
I had an outbreak of shingles several years ago, and all 5 of my children contracted chicken pox–including my oldest, who had been vaccinated for it. Only on her it only showed as a few stray scattered spots. I would not have recognised it except I knew what we had–but she (the vaccinated one) could have been responsible for passing it to others of my kids. It went through the family in stages, so we had it the house for at least 6 weeks, and I can’t sort out who gave it to who–though I know I started it.
Sonia, there is no fuzzy logic here. While vaccination makes it SIGNIFICANTLY less likely for a person to get the disease, it is still POSSIBLE to get the disease. In the case of measles, vaccinated children are 2,200% less likely to get the disease than unvaccinated children. Nevertheless, SOME vaccinated children will get the disease, and since unvaccinated children are such likely carriers, they can get it from unvaccinated children.
We know for a fact that the unvaccinated child gave it to everyone who got it, including the vaccinated children, because the infected people were tested to see what strain of measles virus they had. They all had the ROMANIAN strain, and only one person that came into contact with any of these people went to Romania – the unvaccinated child. Thus, it is quite clear that the unvaccinated child got infected in Romania and carries the virus back to the U.S. to infect others.
I hope this clears up your confusion on the issue.
Ahh … I read your post incorrectly, I somehow missed that only two of the infected were vaccinated–my apologies!
Dear Dr Wile
I came accross this interesting video clip by Bill Gates.
We know that the whole CO2 thing is a lie but towards the end of the clip he seems to suggest vaccinations as a possible use against ‘over population’
Do you have any views on this?
Kind regards
Anna, Bill Gates is not saying that new vaccines will reduce population growth. Here is what he said:
Thus, he is saying we must REDUCE all of those things. If we reduce new vaccines, reduce health care, and reduce reproductive health services, we will end up lowering population growth. There is certainly no way to increase vaccination and reduce population growth. The studies are quite clear that fewer children die and children are healthier when vaccines are used.
Dr Wile, I beg to differ…. the context is “we must get the population down” also taking into considderation that “reproductive health services” is part of the “really good” plan to reduce the population. It follows logically that Gates sees vaccines, in the same light as reducing the population – NOT reduce all those things…
If it is as you assume then what you are saying is that REDUCING reproductive health care will lower the population growth – but the opposite is true! This is any thing – he wants MORE reproductive health care services, more effective birth control.
I don’t think you understand Gates’s quote at all. First, how does “health care” fit into your interpretation? How does he plan to use “health care” to reduce the population? The only way caring for people’s health can reduce the population is for less of it to occur. I also think you need to learn the definition of “reproductive health services.” As Reference MD defines it, “Health care services related to human REPRODUCTION and diseases of the reproductive system.” Thus, reproductive health services includes many things, not just birth control. Indeed, it also includes such things as making infertile men fertile! One again, then, the way to reduce population through reproductive health services is to have fewer such services.
This is an old post, I realize, but I have just come across it. One thing you say strikes me as odd, considering what I have read several times from your General Science book with my children. You said to Linnie that you can tell her with CERTAINTY that Cj’s problems were not from the vaccine because study after study shows contrary. Yet, in your science books you say science can NEVER be certain. I am confused.
Denise, my General Science book does NOT say that science can NEVER be certain. It says science can never PROVE anything. There is a big difference. Science is often certain, even though what it is certain about cannot be proven. Indeed, science treats every one of its laws as certain. However, those laws might be overturned, so they have not been proven.
To give you an illustration, I am CERTAIN that Jesus Christ is God’s Son and that He was crucified, He died, and He rose again. I am also certain that His shed blood is an atonement for my sin. However, I cannot PROVE any of that.
Ok, so what he is saying… Reduce all those THINGS so more people can die, thus reducing the world population. Evil man…
Anna, I think you are correct. Of course, you would be correct even if your original interpretation of his words is right. Whether he wants to use some damaging new vaccine to reduce the human population or whether he just wants to withhold good medicine to reduce the human population, he is suggesting something that is quite evil.
I am not against vaccines, for the record. But you cannot guarantee someone- with certainty- that their child did NOT become adversely affected by a vaccine anymore than they can say, with certainty, their child DID become affected by a vaccine. That is the point I am trying to make.
Denise, you are not correct when you say “But you cannot guarantee someone- with certainty- that their child did NOT become adversely affected by a vaccine anymore than they can say, with certainty, their child DID become affected by a vaccine.” The fact is when hundreds of thousands of children are studied with all possible methodologies (cohort, epidemiological, prospective, and case-controlled) and the vaccinated children have the same autism rates as the unvaccinated children, you can, indeed, say with certainty that vaccines don’t cause autism. In addition, when some of the same researchers who caused a vaccine to be pulled from the market cannot find a link between vaccination and autism, it is hard to believe such a link exists!
Well, I believe you are wrong when you say, “The fact is when hundreds of thousands of children are studied with all possible methodologies….”. I may not be a doctor, phd, etc. But I am a college educated, intelligent, thinking, reading, researching, individual. And there are several educated doctors and scientists who disagree with you. My point is not that you are wrong- you could be right (even probably are)- my point is that your position cannot be proven correct. I won’t comment further on this- I will simply agree to disagree.
Denise, I agree with you that my position cannot be proven. That is definitely not something science can do. However, it can provide certainty. Please note that I can find “educated doctors and scientists” who say all sorts of wacko things. That’s why I look at evidence, not the opinions of people.
Dr. Wile,
Regarding the unvaccinated person who went to Romania, contracted measles and passed it on to others, two of whom were vaccinated; how can you say that if that person had been vaccinated that he or she still wouldn’t have come down with it and given it to others, since obviously being vaccinated is not guaranteed? Do you really not have any problem with the ingredients in these vaccines and the fact that they bypass the natural (God designed) immune system, and are injected directly into the bloodstream? May I ask if you are a pro-life person? I realize this is long after your original post, but I would love to hear your reply. Thanks. P.S. we do use & appreciate your science books!
Tammy, thanks for the comment. You ask, “how can you say that if that person had been vaccinated that he or she still wouldn’t have come down with it and given it to others, since obviously being vaccinated is not guaranteed?” The answer is simple. People who are vaccinated are 2,200% less likely to contract measles than those who are not. Thus, while vaccination is not a guarantee, it is an INCREDIBLY EFFECTIVE means of protection. If the person had been vaccinated before going to Romania, the chance of the outbreak occurring would have been 2,200% lower. Those are pretty darn good odds!
You ask, “Do you really not have any problem with the ingredients in these vaccines and the fact that they bypass the natural (God designed) immune system, and are injected directly into the bloodstream?” Your question demonstrates a misunderstanding of what vaccines do. They certainly DO NOT bypass the God-designed immune system. In fact, they USE the God-designed immune system. That’s the beauty of vaccines. They take an incredibly well-designed system that has been degraded a bit by the Fall and give it a “kick-start.” This is much like giving your battery a jump to get your car going. You aren’t bypassing the car’s engine. You are USING the car’s engine.
I don’t have a problem with the ingredients in vaccines because I understand chemistry. As a result, I know that what is in the vaccines are not toxic. Of course, you don’t have to understand chemistry to find out that the ingredients are not toxic. Just look at the studies that compare vaccinated to unvaccinated children. Those studies find vaccinated children to be significantly healthier.
I am certainly a pro-life person. If you are under the misconception that vaccines contain fetal tissue or that vaccines need abortions to get produced, you need to learn the truth. Now, if the tangential relationship between vaccination and a couple of abortions that happened 40 years ago are a problem for you, I understand. I do not agree (and neither does the largest pro-life organization in the world), but I understand. Thus, you should avoid a total of four vaccines.
In fact, if you are pro-life, you should be pro-vaccine. Being pro-life means protecting the lives of children when they are outside the womb as well. As California has recently demonstrated, anti-vaccine misinformation leads to the death of innocent children.
I think what Bill Gates is trying to say is that improved health care, etc., will reduce population since people will have fewer children. In some areas of the world, where infant mortality is high and children often die early, parents have five or six children or more just to guarantee that at least one or two of the children will live long enough to take care of them in their old age. Gates contention is that if the children can get vaccines and better health care, then people will have fewer children since those children are more likely to survive. Also, if the parents have better access to birth control (which is what I think he means specifically by “reproductive services”), that would also reduce population by enabling them to quit having children. I think Gates is off in a lot of things he says; but I think in this case there was no ill-will meant.
Steve, that is an interesting interpretation. I had not thought of it that way. It seemed to me that he was actively trying to keep people from staying healthy. However, your comment has caused me to rethink that. It is certainly true that in countries where health care is easily accessible, the birth rate is lower.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment!