The real danger to children comes from messages like the one reproduced to the left, since it could scare parents out of providing their children important–indeed, potentially life saving–vaccines. This is particularly true now that the unlikely charge against vaccines as causing autism have proved to be unfounded according to two courts in strongly worded opinions. From the story:
Vaccines that contain a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal cannot cause autism on their own, a special U.S. court ruled on Friday, dealing one more blow to parents seeking to blame vaccines for their children’s illness. The special U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that vaccines could not have caused the autism of an Oregon boy, William Mead, ending his family’s quest for reimbursement. “The Meads believe that thimerosal-containing vaccines caused William’s regressive autism. As explained below, the undersigned finds that the Meads have not presented a scientifically sound theory,” Special Master George Hastings, a former tax claims expert at the Department of Justice, wrote in his ruling. In February 2009, the court ruled against three families who claimed vaccines caused their children’s autism, saying they had been “misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment”.
But that won’t end the matter, alas:
But advocates for the idea that vaccines are dangerous said they would not give up. “We hope that Congress will intervene in what is clearly a miscarriage of justice to vaccine-injured children,” said Jim Moody of the Coalition for Vaccine Safety.
As Rabbi Kushner has put it, sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes, there is simply no one to blame.
March 12th, 2010 | 9:56 pm
The courts don’t determine the actuality of this; science does. And it did this a long, long, long time ago.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
But sometimes courts have to go over conflicting scientific claims. In this case, it seems clear that the science was all on one side.
March 13th, 2010 | 8:18 am
A number of years ago I wrote this as a point of view as to why we can never throw out the baby with the bath water as Science & human varibles asre not always going to be in cync. However if most folks are served by the medicine then it is up to us to find cures for the varibles as they arise & not throwout the previous good results.
PROGRESSIVE MONITORING:::Regarding the link between animal testing, progressing forward to human testing.
Would you summit to venom tests without animal tests first?
(1) Anybody who thinks that animal tests are misleading, can buy the rights to drugs which failed animal tests. They can then test such drugs/medical procedures them on themselves and their like-minded friends (if any wish to play case test A.) No one has ever done so,because no one really believes that animal tests have no predictive value.
Consider rattle snake venom. As a project,science wants to find a cure for quick stable life saving reasons. How many animals in North America are born with a natural antidote to the venom? One that is assured, would be the California ground squirrel. We know of few animals immune to the poison other then this ground squirrel. Bitten, most animals succumb as the rattler strikes and the poisoning begins. The venom invades the veins and travel towards the heart.
Thus the best method to provide a antidote would be {1) Injecting venom into humans and other animals to see what defensive mechanisms crash. That would show where the life support systems break down. However knowing the breakdown which has occurred, would it not make sense to check the ground squirrel and see what DEFENSIVE methods the squirrel has within its makeup which defeat the snakes venom. The answer should be a combination of both the imune 7 the venom threatened animals in the above equation, minus humans for the initial tests.
Not many ARA would like to subject themselves to this trial, so the squirrel is a good choice.I have not seen many human guinea pigs in this field, but maybe that can change.
Just to keep things simple, lets suppose that a antidote is found which is a proven success in saving everything over a period of years, but Rhenis monkeys and humans. The test is then narrowed to what does man and RH monkey have in common which other animals do not?? Is there a protein or coagulant missing or in place, which all other animals don’t have? The tests continue and the results are monitored. Finally they find out that all subjects tested with antidotes are surviving in the primate category.
It could be found that every primate will survive on original antidote plus B & A additives, but man. Man might need an ABC additive as a common antidote. However maybe Some men might need a additive E. People with O RH negative blood might need all abce plus d additives.
Progressive monitoring might have taken 10 to 30 years of lab work. In the general human population of 6 billion people with a 100% success rate for venom control realized for 30 years.
Then one day a person with an odd protein mixed with O-RH negative blood and an even rarer liver disorder shows up with a snake bite. He gets antidote injection, goes spastic, then drops blood pressure and progresses into heart failure, which becomes terminal.
Should we throw away the antidote that worked for so many years at 100% success and classify it as a failure because something makes it suspicious now? No! We would continue to use the antidote and specify that a person with x protein,O-rh negative blood and Z liver condition is at a HIGH RISK of death, until a new antidote can be found for that specific condition.
It is progressive monitoring which will offer a more conditioned response to ANY VARIABLE in the science of preventing death by Rattler venom. Funny thing is, it started with a ground squirrel and a snake. Who knows how long progressive monitoring would take? However! Without testing, what synthetic compound will save each and every individual. NO ANIMAL RIGHTS volunteers were involved in this testing. NO surprise there, as they had to go through a lot of lower classed animals to reach today’s standards. I feel comfortable with that. The human community has been spared more friends and family longer because of animal testing and PROGRESSIVE MONITORING SYSTEMS.
December 20, 2008
Recently::: They began a new test to find out a venom control as a antidote for platypus spur injection and cancer pain controls. Apparently the male has spurs which can inflict one of the most painful venoms known in nature. It causes extreme swelling in the area of the strikes. The venom actually decomposes flesh in the general area, rapidly. The venom can travel through muscle absorption causing the flesh to wither and die.It is supposed to be the most painful toxin known to man.
Science feels that same toxin is deadly to cancer cells more so than to healthy cells. Have you any friends willing to play the ground squirrel? The venom’s pain can not be blocked by Morphine which is a common complaint of cancer victims. Cancer science have expressed interest because certain pain blockers might be found in that platypus which will help people without giving them the crippling drug morphine. Science is being built at a faster pace than any other time in the history of man. Progressive monitoring in the human condition, has to start with animals .
It’s not rocket science nor is it any different then the actions of our ancestors who fed their animals new foods(ex:mushrooms) before eating them ? That is why we have ancestors.
Their is also a very interesting bit of research being done on the bite saliva of the Komodo dragon.
Their saliva is a seething mass of bacteria from the decaying flesh they eat. Average about 52 types of blood poisoning bacteria that cripple and kill any animal bitten by a Komodo. They just bite and wait for the animal to drop dead of blood poisoning somewhere between 48 & 72 hours latter. Side Note: Komodo is thought to have caused the extinction of elephants on the islands Komodo inhabit.
Well eating the Komodo’s serrated teeth overlap causing server rips in their own gums.
Science observes analyzes and questions. If they bite themselves what keeps the bacteria from causing blood poisoning in their bodies?? Research teams have recently discovered a peptide in the Komodo blood stream which prevents those bacteria from blood poisoning their host. Neat observation and opening new doors for our medical practitioners as they enter operating rooms.
Researchers are very close to copying that peptide. The end result will have to be through animal research as nobody in their right mind would inoculate themselves with the bacteria that cause blood poisoning resulting in death. However we are all subject to those blood poisonings and it would be of great importance to the medical community to know your doctor has a cannon to fight bacteria that he once fought with a pop gun.
March 13th, 2010 | 9:51 am
Wesley,
You may be correct in what you state in your response to David’s comment about the evidence presented at the hearing, nevertheless, I think your statement in support of the court’s decision that the connection between vaccines and autism “have proved to be unfounded” is too conclusive. I think you should have at least qualified your statement about the court’s decision to say something to the effect that the court made its decision based on the weight of the currently available scientifically based evidence. In truth, the article to which you link says little about the evidence presented at the hearing.
My reason for going on about this, other than apparently having nothing better to do on a Saturday morning, is that the tone of the your statement seems at odds with how you have addressed questions of fact and doubt in other issues you have written about. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the court that decided in favor of Terry Schiavo’s husband’s decision making authority base its decision in part on its estimation of Terry Schiavo’s cognitive and physical state. Even if that question were outside of its specific scope, it seems pretty clear the court took the side of the predominant view of her condition and was dismissive of attempts to argue against it. If nothing else, the general tone of those who supported the husband, and the court’s decision, was essentially, the courts and “science” have spoken, nothing more to discuss here and go ahead and deny her water, even though we don’t know how she may actually experience this.
All the court really decided in this case, from what I can tell, is that the claimants were unable to support their claim for compensation. I don’t think one can say that either the court or “science” have definitively proven anything more than that. Your statement giving the court’s decision more weight than that seems at odds with your consumer protection sentiments (see your post praising Ralph Nader below) and your general attitude of skepticism regarding the use and abuse of both the scientific method and studies in support of bioethical or public policy decisions. I would have at least expected you to at least leave some room for the possibility that later studies might show a link between the ingredient in vaccines and autism.
The public health benefits of vaccines are clear, and I wish that parents who have worries or doubts would go with the weight of the current evidence and with the benefit to the greater good that we derive from universal vaccination. There are also good reasons, from what I can tell, to view the belief in the vaccine-autism link as a form of (I wish I could think of a less pejorative sounding word) hysteria. But, at least some of this belief appears to come from the intuition and experience of parents who have seen changes in their children after they received vaccines. Sometimes peoples’ hunches are later proven to have merit even if current scientific studies do not support them.
March 13th, 2010 | 10:41 am
I’m old enough that I knew people that were disabled by polio, and one enduring memory is of a girl my age in an iron lung, which she had little chance of leaving alive. Any parents considering skipping vaccinations need to Google “iron lung.”
I also knew people who were made deaf or partially deaf by mumps.
Jenny McCarthy, who acts as spokesperson for this movement, now says that she has “cured” her son’s autism, and also says she’s not anti-vaccine, and also says her son will never receive another vaccination.
All this autism/vaccine thing has ever been was:
1) Overdiagnosis of autism for a syndrome that over the years has been called hyperactivity, ADD, or if you go back far enough, “ants in the pants.” I’ve known real autistic kids, and the kids diagnosed as ADD or “autistic spectrum” are a handful, but they are not in the autistic kids’ league as far as disability.
2) Parents seeking economic help for their autistic kids that at one point appeared to be available from funds intended to reimburse legitimate victims of adverse reactions to vaccinations. Such things do occur, but the funds were bulging because such events have become rarer.
3) Shiny attractive idiots like McCarthy seeking publicity, and getting it by telling overwhelmed parents, “It’s not your fault. You’re not a bad parent.”
I have tremendous sympathy for parents of troubled kids, but they need to drop this bull$#!^ campaign and focus on their kids.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Me too, padraig. I was terrified as a kid of ending up in an iron lung. I was one of the early recipients of the polio vaccine, an event I remember lo these 55 or so years later.
March 13th, 2010 | 12:19 pm
Peter S. emphasizes an important point about science, evidence and the conclusions that arise: “…leave some room for the possibility that later studies might show a link between the ingredient in vaccines and autism.”
said more generally,
“The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in WHAT opinions are held but in HOW they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.” — Bertrand Russell 1950
Mr. Russell went on to say “This is the way opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology” … but that is for another day.
March 13th, 2010 | 1:39 pm
Smith,
Definitely agree, just the inimical, obligate post.
But seriously folks, I think the gap between medicine/science and our ability to enforce law in these areas is widening. In other words, I think science and medicine are moving forward faster than the courts and legal system (or the FDA, it seems) can keep up – they hardly have the means to prosecute all the domestic abusers and child support cases, let alone this stuff.
I foresee this causing problems in the future, and I don’t see many raising this concern.
March 13th, 2010 | 2:54 pm
Wesley:”Me too, padraig. I was terrified as a kid of ending up in an iron lung. I was one of the early recipients of the polio vaccine, an event I remember lo these 55 or so years later.”
I also knew the fears of Polio. I had two classmates that never ran a day in their lives because they were diagnosed with Polio before they got to school age. I received the vaccine in school and grew up playing a varity of sports which I loved from Hockey to just plain running or even hunting in backwoods by two school chums will never see. If I had it to do over again I would chose the vaccine.
March 15th, 2010 | 5:30 am
A judge concluded that there is no link between thimerosal (a mercury based preservative in vaccines) and autism. That’s all.
From where I sit, the biggest reason drug companies are going to have trouble convincing parents, is that so many of them saw *dramatic* changes in their kids’ behavior immediately following the administration of vaccines, in particular MMR. I know two people whose kids went almost overnight from being normally developing babies to demonstrating serious autistic symptoms.
Just because science can’t explain a link, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
March 15th, 2010 | 5:33 am
BTW: I’m new to this blog. Have you addressed the use of tissue from aborted fetuses in the development and manufacture of certain vaccines?
March 15th, 2010 | 12:45 pm
Wesley,
Sorry to throw down the gauntlet, but I really would appreciate a response from you to the questions I raised in my earlier post. In addition to me, Douglas just made a similar point regarding the limitation of the court’s decision, and Paidrag echoed my views on the contingency of conclusions based on scientific research (I hope I accurately paraphrased your statement, Paidrag).
To reiterate what I already said above, I take vaccinations very seriously, both for individual health and for public health. I remember my mother (of blessed memory) telling me that the swimming pools would sometimes be closed due to a possible Polio outbreak. But, as you always point out, principles matter, and there have always been real tensions in regards to individual liberty vs. the common good (often couched in utilitarian terms) when it comes to vaccination.
I think my fervent response to this has as much to do with the headline on this article as anything else. There is an art to writing an interesting headline that does not excessively simplify or overstate the case, and I think it is one that anyone who writes reports or opinion pieces should master.
Also, I relish any opportunity to not sound like a dittohead on this blog ;)
Douglas, At the risk of speaking for Wesley in regards to your question about the use of material from aborted fetuses in vaccines, you may want to look at the index where he has articles arranged by topic.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Peter: I don’t see any empirical basis for thinking vaccines cause autism. These cases are clear about one of the biggest theories. I think not vaccinating children would be far more dangerous.
March 15th, 2010 | 2:21 pm
Wesley,
Regarding the lack of an “empirical basis” for believing that vaccines cause autism, I agree with you, at least, based on everything I have read about this controversy. I already said that. And, as I already said, I agree that the court made the correct decision to deny compensation based on the evidence.
But, as I think I made very clear, my real question, and challenge, regard the degree to which you appear to rely in this Comment (post) on the same type of argumentation that you challenge in others. You want to shut down the argument on the basis of “Science says” (Science says, take two steps forward . . .rub your belly, hey, you didn’t say “Science say’s . .).
Empirically speaking, a blastocyte is a clump of cells. So are you and I, except that we have opposable thumbs and keyboards which allow us, according to some, respond blindly to some neurochemical impulse to push buttons on a keyboard because we apparently have no free will to opt to instead, say, just sit on the beach with a tequila and watch the waves come in.
Empirically speaking, according to the laws of the state of Florida, Terry Schiavo’s husband was her legal decision maker, regardless of the powerful arguments against that conclusion. Empirically speaking, Terry Schiavo, based on MRI’s and “expert” opinion, was in a “permanent vegetative state”, even though her parents, siblings and others with close, constant contact disagreed.
But, of course, all of the right, good forces of science, progress and “privacy” mocked those who advocated against the state’s order that she be dehydrated to death based on these simplistic, subjective observations in defiance of the “empirical” evidence and the orderly march of the judicial process.
I have relied (never blindly) on writers such as yourself and Nat Hentoff in regards to issues of life and bioethics when writing to my (mostly “liberal”) legislators and speaking out in my predominantly “liberal/progressive” circles. I consider that my duty as a thinking citizen. Likewise, I ask that you not just duck the questions and concerns I have raised here about your reasoning and conclusions in this particular post.
Respectfully,
Peter
March 15th, 2010 | 4:45 pm
There’s an excellent article by Shapiro in the magazine Commentary, regarding those who deny science. I would recommend it, (and the magazine itself) to all. The cause, or causes of autism, currently, is/are unknown, but like many disorders, it probably is a complex mixture of genetic and environmental influences, that affect the neurobiology of the sufferer. Sadly, we have those on the cultural, hollywood left, who, bizarrely, feel competent to render a verdict on this, and other issues. The harm that they’ve caused, in terms of convincing parents to not vaccinate their children, is considerable.
March 15th, 2010 | 9:27 pm
[...] grief what next? I posted previously that two courts found no connection between autism and childhood vaccines. But integrity requires that I now post about the latest twist in that ongoing controversy: One [...]
March 17th, 2010 | 4:09 pm
Courts don’t belong in any of this. The only place courts have re science and medicine is in ordering criminal investigations and as venues for malpractice cases and the criminal prosecutions that should occur re science and medicine.
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