The Vaccine Song
Nice, very very nice.
Judge tries to save little girl’s eye….from her parents
Yes, you read it right. The 7-month old daughter of members of the Followers of Christ church, risks loosing eyesight in her left eye due to blatant medical neglect on the part of her parents.
The Wylands’ daughter, Alayna, had a small discoloration over her left eye when she was born.
The area started swelling and the fast-growing mass of blood vessels, known as a hemangioma, eventually caused her eye to shut, pushed the eyeball down and outward, and affected the eye socket, said Dr. Thomas Valvano, a pediatrician at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital at Oregon Health & Science University.
“This was medical neglect,” said Valvano, who testified at the hearing. Alayna could lose vision in her left eye and probably will need surgery, he said.
I’ve read versions of this sad story countless times, yet I still cannot get over them. How can a parent play dice with their child’s health because of their imaginary god? At what point do your parental instincts kick in and make you say “to hell with the church, I’m saving my child”? I guess never for these people; something’s wrong in their head!
The Wylands said they never considered getting medical attention for the growth and would not have if DHS had not intervened.
Attorneys for the Wylands said the couple weren’t given a chance to obtain medical care after DHS got involved in the case late last month and have been largely excluded from medical appointments.
So let me get it straight dear attorneys: the people who concede that they would not have taken their daughter to the doctor were impeded from doing what they weren’t thinking of doing by the DHS? That’s like saying : “The good Samaritan’s intervention prevented the rapist from stopping the raping of the victim”! Are you sure that’s the argument you want to make in defense of your client?
Gilmartin asked Rebecca Wyland why she didn’t take Alayna to a doctor.
“Because I believe in God and put my faith in him,” she replied.
And he let you down Rebecca; he let you down considerably. At what point will you consider dumping him?
TAM8 Update
The TAM8 news is :
- I’m not there
- It’s year-end (Our year ends in june) at work. I’m an accountant. It’s kinda f$%king crazy.
- My subordinate just gave birth. I have to cover for her.
- Everybody’s showing off on Twitter about being at TAM8
- I have no time to do what I love, blogging here and at Vaccine Central
- ….did I mention I’M NOT @ TAM8?
There; you happy?
Que She: The miracle diet pill that wasn’t
“This Pill Will Revolutionize Weight Loss!” gushed a supporter about a year ago! This is revoutionary, it’s miraculous, it’s all natural, has no side effects blah blah blah, here read for yourself:
It is a combination of 11 Chinese herbs that can help you lose weight. These herbs work together to help increase your metabolism and increase energy. This revolutionary supplement is not a stimulant or an appetite suppressant, and it does not leave you feeling wired or hungry. It simply helps your body perform at an optimized digesting level. This product is all natural and made from common Chinese herbs; it will not cause you to lose your appetite it will only allow your body to use the food you intake more efficiently.
I have read many testimonials about this product and it gets rave reviews. Everyone I have spoken to that has tried this product has gotten great results from it. I have not heard reports of nasty side effects. Some weight loss pills leave you feeling jittery, or they may have a serious crash if you stop taking them, but Que She does not have these effects. This weight loss pill actually helps you control thoughts of eating, and users report that they still get hungry, but it is not in a compulsive manner; they get hungry when they actually are hungry. Que She may be the herbal supplement dieters have been looking for all these years.
It may…except that it isn’t. A recent FDA report warns users to stop using it immediately.
FDA Public Health Alert: Que She Weight Loss Capsules Contain Potentially Harmful Ingredients
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today warned that Que She, marketed as an herbal weight loss supplement, contains active pharmaceutical ingredients not listed on the product label that could harm consumers, especially those with cardiovascular conditions.
People who have purchased Que She should stop taking the product immediately and consult a health care professional.
Wait a minute, this is all natural! There’s no way it contains anything “chemical”!
An FDA analysis of Que She found that it contains:
- fenfluramine – a stimulant drug withdrawn from the U.S. market in 1997 after studies demonstrated that it caused serious heart valve damage
- propranolol – a prescription beta blocker drug that can pose a risk to people with bronchial asthma and certain heart conditions
- sibutramine – a controlled substance and prescription weight loss drug, sibutramine was the subject of a recent study whose preliminary findings showed an association between sibutramine use and increased risk of heart attack and stroke in patients who have a history of heart disease
- ephedrine – a stimulant drug that is legally marketed over-the-counter for temporary relief of asthma but can pose a risk to people with certain cardiovascular conditions.
These active pharmaceutical ingredients also may interact with other medications and result in a serious adverse event.
Woops!
Fear the ghosts, there’s gonna be a million of them!
At TAM8, or more precisely, in protest against TAM8.
Clairvoyants, mediums and psychics worldwide are invited to contact spirits in a major nonviolent protest of an annual convention of skeptics taking place at the South Point Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas July 8-11, 2010.
Now I’m not sure what “contacting spirits in a major nonviolent protest” means exactly: will the psychics gather in a protest of their own and nonviolently contact the spirits or do they mean to contact the ghosts and ask them to gather in a nonviolent protest? Wonder what that would look like? You can read the rest for yourself, sounds like a joke to me (the event’s main organizer is called Doc Paranormal!!), but you never know with these mediums and psychics everything is possible. I mean get a hold of this:
“The beauty of this event is that it will be held at multiple locations. So even during the height of the march, traffic will not be interrupted and police will not have to restrain crowds. The spirits and ghosts will be invisible, although their presence will be sensed by psychically-sensitive pedestrians and autograph hounds.
Edgar Allan Poe Community College? POE? I sense a joke, but then I’m not psychic!
Pneumonia vaccine ineffective?
READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY AT VACCINE CENTRAL
“Pneumonia vaccine ineffective against repeat infections: study” screams the headline. The article goes on to clarify that a study just published seems to suggest that the pneumococcal vaccines in use in Canada do not seem to perform any better than no vaccine. How is that possible? Well, so far as I can tell, it isn’t, and this seems to be another case of dubious reporting by the journalists, and careless conclusions by paper authors.
I could not get my hands on a copy of the full published study the article refers to, although I will probably be able to in the near future. In the mean time, all I can go on is the abstract which can be found at PubMed or at Chicago Journals. Let us examine exactly what this study seems to suggest, based on the publicly available abstract.
Background.
There is debate surrounding the effectiveness of the 23‐valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV). We determined whether PPV was associated with reduced mortality or additional hospitalization for vaccine‐preventable infections in patients previously hospitalized for community‐acquired pneumonia (CAP).
Ok, so first thing to keep in mind: they only studied people who got pneumonia. This is not a study comparing vaccinated vs. unvaccinated, and seeing if there is any protection offered by the vaccine in the form of reduced infection rates. This is a study consisted of only people who got sick, breaking those down into two groups and seeing how each group fared.
Now, it is an accepted fact that no vaccine is 100% effective, meaning that no vaccine will prevent the disease on all people who receive it. For one reason or another, some people get no benefit from any given vaccine. Those people will get sick from the disease, regardless of their vaccination status. By definition, if you are gathering together people who are sick in the hospital, you are already limiting yourself to only that subset of the vaccinated population for whom the vaccine has already failed. So from that point alone, this is like saying “Well let me find all the people for whom the vaccine failed & let me measure how effective the vaccine was for them“. Just to make a comparison, this sounds kind of like saying “let me find out which team lost, and see how likely they are to have won!“.
Vacation Break
Beloved Readers, Skepdude will be taking a much needed vacation break through the beginning of July. As I will be spending time in an internet free beach in the Mediterranean (yes, such places still exist), and given that the World Cup will be happening, do not expect many entries from now, through the beginning of July. I know the internet will not be the same without my lovely ramblings, but until then, may I suggest Hulu?
Stupid quote of the day
Haven’t done one of these in a while so here goes.
“These poll data should be a wake-up call to the government and the media that a majority of American parents believe that parents, not the state, should decide when and whether to vaccinate their children,”
Mary Holland, co-founder of the Center for Personal Rights.
Skepdude says: Yes Mary, a wake-up call that they need to educate these parents better. Maybe a majority of parents also believe that they should decide when and whether to use car seats too, don’t you think?
CDC releases preliminary data on 2009 H1N1 vaccine and Guillain-Barre Syndrome
READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY AT VACCINE CENTRAL
As part of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a report titled “Preliminary Results: Surveillance for Guillain-Barré Syndrome After Receipt of Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Monovalent Vaccine — United States, 2009–2010“. This publication reports on an analysis of preliminary data, the focus of which was to look for any signs of increased risk of GBS rates among individuals receiving the 2009 monovalent H1N1 vaccine in the United States.
Guillain-Barre Syndrome is a rare neurological disorder (affecting about 1.65 and 1.79 in 100,000) in which the body’s immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. On some occasions, it has been identified to be triggered by surgery or vaccination. For example, as has been widely reported, especially by the anti-vaccination crowd, the 1976 influenza A (H1N1) vaccine was associated with a statistically significant increased risk for GBS of over 10 cases per million, and it appears that some vaccines may account for a slight overall increase in GBS risk.
Given the history with the 1976 H1N1 vaccine, the CDC has been closely monitoring the 2009 H1N1 vaccines, through its Emerging Infections Program (EIP) since October 2009. Preliminary results of this analysis show an excess of 0.8 cases of GBS for 1,000,000 vaccinations, similar to the rate for seasonal influenza vaccines. If this holds up when the full review is released some time in the Fall of 2010, it would mean that the 2009 H1N1 vaccine will be associated with an 8% increase over the expected GBS rate of 1 in 100,000.
To put things in perspective, while the H1N1 vaccine may be associated with less than 1 additional case of GBS per million vaccines, the disease it protects from, H1N1 influenza has been associated with 9.7 deaths per million. According to Wikipedia, 80% of GBS patients recover fully, which means that of the 0.8 additional cases per million vaccination, only about 0.16 will have permanent effects (including paralysis and death). To put this further into perspective, if this association holds, we should expect about 16 cases of additional GBS with permanent side effects, for every 100,000,000 vaccinations. At the same time the death rate from influenza A (H1N1) would be at about 970. And if that is not enough perspective, according to this study, the mortality rate, at least for the period 2000-2004 was at 2.58 %, whereas Wikipedia estimates overall mortality rate to be at around 4%. Using the larger number, the 4% from Wikipedia, if the association holds at the same level, we would expect an additional 3.2 vaccine induced GBS deaths versus 970 influenza H1N1 deaths, per 100 million people.
Another Wakefield paper retracted
Yet another Andrew Wakefield paper has been retracted. After the Lancet retracted his 1998 paper that started the unreasonable MMR scare, the results of which we’re still dealing with, and after being struck from the the UK medical register, now the American Journal of Gastroenterology has retracted a 2000 Wakefield paper based on the same 12 children that the 1998 study was based on. Here is the text of the AJG retraction:
Retraction: Enterocolitis in Children With Developmental Disorders
A J Wakefield, A Anthony, S H Murch, M Thomson, S M Montgomery, S Davies, J J O’Leary, M Berelowitz and J A Walker-Smith
Am J Gastroenterol 2000; 95:2285–2295
On 28 January 2010, the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practice Panel raised concerns about a paper published in the Lancet by Dr Wakefield et al. (1). The main issues were that the patient sample collected was likely to be biased and that the statement in the paper, that the study had local ethics committee approval, was false. There was also the possibility of a serious conflict of interest in the interpretation of the data. The Lancet has now retracted this paper (1). This paper in the American Journal of Gastroenterology (AJG) (2) also includes the 12 patients in the original Lancet article and therefore we retract this AJG paper from the public record.
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