Don’t Let Vaccine Critics Disrupt Supply to World’s Poor

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-26/don-t-let-vaccine-critics-disrupt-supply-to-world-s-poor.html

One of the greatest medical achievements of our time is at imminent risk of being undermined by bad science.

Thanks to a herculean effort by health advocates, 78 percent of children in low-income countries receive the basic set of childhood vaccines, covering diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenzae. This campaign will be disrupted, and lives lost, if immunization critics win their latest battle for an international ban on a vaccine component that has proved to be safe time and time again.

Groups such as the Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs and the Coalition for SafeMinds are pressing their case before the United Nations Environmental Program meets on Jan. 13 to prepare a global treaty reducing mercury use. One draft of the treaty bans the vaccine preservative thimerosol, a compound containing ethyl mercury. Vaccine critics have continued to link thimerosol to autism and other disorders, though the researcher who posited that connection in 1998 was found to have falsified the data, and no credible studies have replicated his result.

Those supporting the global ban say that with thimerosol no longer used in vaccines in the U.S., its continued inclusion in formulations meant for the developing world amounts to an injustice.

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. Man, if just once the conspiracy narrative of those who attack vaccines were directed against them..

Fighting life saving medications for poor youth? Sounds like absolute eugenics. But the only people you hear making that kind of at attack those fighting vaccines.

[kickysnana]

2. Slick, sick. They used the polio people to gather intellegence to get Ben Laden

and now they have blow back and have a scape goat to blame for the subsequent increase in disease and lack progress in vaccinations so they target the critics of the preservatives.

Last time I checked you and I had no say in what was in vaccines what-so-ever so how can asking for a less toxic preservative possibly disrupt the programs?

It cannot. I hate, hate, hate government propaganda, smoke and mirrors. It is poison to a free society.

My kids and grand kids were vaccinated for the big ones but I also taught them to find out who is making your vaccine and what is in it and opt for less toxic forms if available at a slightly higher cost. More of the possibly toxic for the third world, heh? The pharmaceutical companies have been shielded from all liability by law. Vaccines are not voted on by the public and the last time I checked even Congress had no input into vaccines except to ask questions that probably should be asked when there is no liability for screwing up.

My thoughts are that blood brain barriers are not intact in every person and that tiny dose of mercury directly into the wrong part of the developing brain can do damage. I do not think that vaccines cause autism but I think that in some cases it is a tipping point for an already stressed brain. Not all identical twins are autistic. Too many kids have dramatic reactions to the vaccines for it to be just a fluke and some of our research is just plain corrupt right now.

[Chemisse]

3. If it were my baby, I would prefer vaccines with no mercury in them.

It just makes sense to avoid injecting a known poison if other options are available.

I can certainly understand why people in third world countries would also have that preference, if they are aware of the details of the immunizations offered to their kids. It doesn't seem right to inflict on the poor the very substances that we have spurned. The problem is that the preservative makes it easier to get the vaccines to remote locations without them spoiling, so could make the difference in whether or not large numbers of children get ANY vaccine.

But if there were to be a worldwide ban/treaty, that might prompt companies to find alternatives to thimerosol.

I like the idea of the vaccine patch we saw news of in this forum a few days back.

[sense]

4. India’s Polio Eradication Campaign in 2011 Caused 47,500 Cases of Vaccine-Induced Polio Paralysis

http://digitaljournal.com/article/323371

A new report by two Delhi pediatricians suggests that the sharp rise in childhood paralysis in India is due to the increased usage of the oral polio vaccine, a drug that was banned in the U.S. over a decade ago.

Dr. Neetu Vashisht and Dr. Jacob Puliyel of St. Stephens Hospital created the report after analyzing data from India’s 10-year-old National Polio Surveillance Project, which is available online. Their findings, which were published in the Indian Journal of medical Ethics, revealed that rates of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) have increased 1200% since the oral polio vaccine was introduced to India a decade ago.


Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/323371#ixzz2GPm84RNn

The doctors provided other troubling details in their report:
“In 2011, there were an extra 47500 new cases of NPAFP [in India]. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received.”

[mzmolly]

5. What happened to the "mercury has been removed from vaccines"

talking point?