In article <4e4pj0$jor at nbc.ksu.ksu.edu>, tonys at ksu.ksu.edu (William
Schountz) writes:
>Maybe not always, but it does most of the time and it sure increases your
>chance of survial. If I was told I had to play Russian roulette with a
>6-chamber gun or a 100-chamber gun, you can bet I'd choose the
>100-chamber.
Much of the arguement about vaccines boils down to *do the benefits
outweigh the risks*. No one seems to deny that there are risks
associated with vaccines, but these are said to be so small that the
benefit outweigh this. This is a numbers game. At what *number*
do the risks outweigh the benefit. If you were told that you can
vaccinate your child with DPT, MMR, HIB, OPV, etc, but
you have a 1:1,000 chance that your child will be permanently
handicapped would it be worth it? What if the odds were 1:500?
Where is the cut-off?
The odds of adverse reaction are based on reactions that were so
dramatic and so soon after a vaccine as to be undeniable vaccine
related. Let's all remember - there is NO laboratory/medical test that
can be run to *prove* if illness/brain damage has occured due
to a vaccine.
I am the parent of a small son with autism. The onset of his autism
was so soon and dramatic after his 4th DPT vaccine that it has
been accepted as *temporally* related to the vaccine. Many, many
parents of autistic children have reported this. Many, many doctors
are aware of this. Does this change anything? No, because there
is no accepted medical test that can *prove* vaccine association. The
current incident rate of autism is 1:660 children born. Officially, the
medical community has no explanation what-so-ever for what is
causing autism. This is a life long affliction. Would you risk
vaccinating your baby if you knew that vaccines caused autism and
you are running an approximate risk of 1:660? And while we are at
it, what about ADHD. The odds for that are quoted as high as 1:10.
There is no medical explanation for this neurological condition either.
What if ADHD is vaccine related? Would you vaccinate your child if you
were faced with a 1:10 risk that your child would develop ADHD?
Can I prove that autism and ADHD are caused by vaccines? No,
I can not. But neither can anyone prove that these disorders
(at least in some cases) are not vaccine related either. What
would adding the incident rate of these disorders do to the
benefit/risk ratio quoted in immunization literature?
At the present time, very little is being done to research autism
from a medical point of view. This in spite of the findings in a
study be the Institute of Medicine. I will quote directly from the
abstract "The committee found insufficient evidence to indicate
either the presence or absence of a causal relationship between
DTP vaccine and chronic neurologic damage, aseptic meningitis,
erythema multiforme or other rash, Guillain-Barre syndrome,
hemolytic anemia, juvenile diabetes, learning disabilities and
attention-deficit disorder, peripheral mononeuropathy, or
thrombocytopenia and between rebella vaccine and radiculoneuritis
and other neuropathies or thrombocytopenic purpura." Article:
Adverse events following pertussis and rebella vaccines. Summary
of a report of the Institute of Medicine. JAMA 1992 Jan 15;267(3):
392-396.
