Do vaccines do more harm than good?

Question

I would like to see links to actual studies completed on the results of vaccines vs. no vaccines.
Particularly in the dog/cat world. But I'm still very much interested in human vaccines. I do want children and if it is unnecessary to give them all the vaccines that are "required" then I'd like to be educated.

I've been googling, but all I find are articles that CLAIM vaccines are harmful and they don't provide me links to studies that were done.
Thanks!

Answer 1

No. The reason you can't find these claims being backed by evidence is because they don't have any.



Marc did his best. He claims to not be an anti-vaxxer, but seems to use their arguments and lie about what studies actually say - repeatedly, to argue against vaccinations.



Not JAQing off here are you, Marc?



Your first study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15249303 Notice how it doesn't say what you claim? Your pants are on fire.



Your second claim: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Safety/MedWatch/UCM201419.pdf Based on a single, 25 year old study. It doesn't speak about vaccine reports at all, just drug reporting in general.



You got your 10% number from an anti-vaxxer who told some Ohio newspaper in 1993. On Whale.to, they attribute it to a CDC or FDA official, depending on what article you look at. Kristine M. Severyn has never worked for either. You can find her writings on such websites as educate-yourself, vaccination council, and other various crank websites. I mean, if you wanted to bring us more cannon fodder.



In addition to Weise's link: http://www.aerzteblatt.de/pdf.asp?id=80869 more evidence that vaccines have nothing to do with allergies.



The SIDS paper you mentioned does not exist in the Neurology archives or PubMed. However, several other papers have found either no association or a drop in the SIDS rate after vaccination: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17400342



"The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons calls for an end to mandatory childhood vaccines."



They also say Obama is literally hypnotising people into voting for him: http://web.archive.org/web/20091023154655/http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/0089



Do you agree with that too?



@Mr E: "they have no proof whatsoever to the contrary."



And, according to you, any proof that is to the contrary has been bought by Big Pharma. Nice, little circle you've drawn there. All without any proof, too.



@Kathy: The BBB is fully developed before birth: http://www.livestrong.com/article/307566-infant-development-of-the-blood-brain-barrier/

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7323/full/nature09513.html



There goes that "theory."

Answer 2

No.



"I would like to see links to actual studies completed on the results of vaccines vs. no vaccines."



That's not going to happen. You can't deny a large group of children (and for us to learn anything, the study would have to involve thousands of kids) a safe and effective means of preventing diseases we know can maim and kill just to prove what we already know.- And all to placate the scientifically illiterate anti-vaxxers who are too deluded or incompetent to accept the overwhelming evidence already in existence.



" I do want children and if it is unnecessary to give them all the vaccines that are "required" then I'd like to be educated."



Why do you think they are "required" ? doesn't' logic dictate that they are required for a reason? Do you think scientists just...made it up? They are required because the benefits of vaccination CLEARLY outweigh the risks. Look here at the risks of disease verses the risk of vaccination:http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm#risk



"I've been googling, but all I find are articles that CLAIM vaccines are harmful and they don't provide me links to studies that were done"



Because there are none. Or the studies they provide are of poor quality and/or don't say what the think they say (see Marc's answer above). Most anti-vaxxers are scientifically illiterate to the core. Anyone else notice the similarities between the anti-vaxxers and the alties?

Answer 3

A vaccinated vs unvaccinated study for anything other than the efficacy of the vaccine in humans is completely unethical and cannot be done. You cannot lie to someone while giving them a placebo in place of something with a known benefit.



They don't link to any actual scientific papers making those claims because there really aren't any. For example, while Marc gave the name and authors of a studies without linking to them. This is because he just copy and pasted from one of those antivax sites and has surely not actually read them. In fact, his entire rant is from here:

http://andreabrisson.com/articles/vaccinations.shtml



For example, I tried to find that article in Thorax. Doesn't seem to be on their website. No such paper is on Pubmed either:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=McKeever%20TM%202002

The only record of it on the internet is from antivaxxers.

Here's a real study on the same topic:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15308362



At least the Epidemiology paper actually exists:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9345669

Of course most papers disagree:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC390206/



That's the quality of the antivax argument. As for animals, I'm not as familiar with the literature.



Edit:

"The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons"



Note this is a right-wing crank group that also claims HIV doesn't exist.



Edit:

There hasn't been any mercury containing preservative in vaccines for more than a decade.



Well...humans ones. I would not be surprised if it was still used in animal vaccines. It's cheap, effective, safe and no one claimed it caused autism in cats.

Answer 4

For one thing, I think you might need to narrow your searching a bit.

"vaccines" are a wide category, covering a vast group of diseases, and not to mention the vaccines themselves are very different from each other: live vs killed, etc.



As for formal studies on the effects of no vaccines in the developed world, search for "herd immunity" and the reoccurrence of whooping cough, mumps, polio within the US.

I suggest looking on Google Scholar, not just Google, for more formal scientific papers.

Answer 5

So you want risk vs benefit?



Polio example:



Benefits: "Polio - a disease which has disabled millions and pulled people further into poverty – has been reduced by 99% over the past 25 years.



Global efforts have delivered incredible progress: immunising more than 2 billion children and saving more than 8 million children from life-long paralysis or death. In January, the world reached a remarkable milestone in the fight to eradicate polio - 12 months without a case of polio in India for the first time in history."

http://www.theendofpolio.com/home/



Risks: "IPV may cause mild soreness and redness at the site of the injection. This is usually not severe and lasts only a few days. There are usually no other symptoms and no other care is needed after immunization."

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002030.htm



Clearly the benefits vastly out weigh the risks.



This site should answer all your questions: http://www.immunizeforgood.com/fact-or-fiction/benefits-vs.-risks



Be skeptical of the loony anti-vaccination cults and their conspiracy theories. They lie, misrepresent, cherry pick and aren't interested in proper science or evidence based medicine.



Analysis of the anti-vaccination movement: http://www.skepdic.com/antivaccination.html



PS: Marc is a chiropractor. Chiropractors, while they may mean well, are often fundamentally opposed to vaccination as it conflicts with their concept of the cause of disease and beliefs system. I'm in Australia - here people are encouraged to report anti-vaccination chiropractors to the Chiropractors Board of Australia, see: http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/food-and-health/general-health/therapies/can-chiropractors-replace-doctors.aspx



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EDIT: @ Mr E: What truth? That your magic chiropractic subluxations actually exist and are the cause of all disease? For the umpteenth time, evidence please.

Answer 6

The bad thing about vaccines is that they are most of them mercury based the mercury "delivers" the shot. It is five dollars cheaper to make them this way and the mercury crosses the blood/brain barrier much quicker in children than in adults and is a major reason we have so many children now with autism. There may be a way you can insist on a vaccine that is not mercury based although I don't think you have the right to not get the vaccines. As far as rabies in cats/dogs one vaccine is a lifetime is enough. My vet who was a saint for animals an old time vet he has now passed on told me they made that yearly shot up to make money. You can try the Alliance For Natural Health USA I know they have had articles about vaccines also try infowars.com

Answer 7

Children vaccinated with DPPT (or MMR) had 14 times more asthma and 9.4 times more eczema than non-vaccinated children. This was discovered by McKeever TM, Lewis SA, Smith C. Does vaccination increase the risk of developing allergic disease? Winter Abstract supplement to Thorax, 2002; 57: Supplement III.



This is the most important question we can ask. The justification for vaccination, in spite of all the damage it is known to cause, is that the damage is miniscule: “one in a million.” Whenever vaccination criticism surfaces, the media will interview some health department official or MD who will repeat the mantra: ‘Sure vaccines have some slight chance of causing damage, but (repeat after me) the benefits far outweigh the risks.’ The only problem with that statement is that it has never been proven.



No one knows what the chances are that your child may be hurt or killed by a vaccine. Why?

In order to do a risk/benefit analysis, we need to know how many children are being hurt. We do not know that because doctors and health officials rarely report vaccine injuries.



Even though by law MDs must report vaccine injuries to the government’s vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS), only one in ten vaccine-injured children is ever reported according to the FDA. This government statistic may be conservative, the actual amount of underreporting may be far greater. Kessler D. JAMA, 1993; 269 (No.21): 2785. Only about 1% of serious events are reported to the FDA.



In a study from Epidemiology 1997;8:678-680, it was found that out of immunized children: 23.1% had asthma, and 30% had other allergic illnesses. In contrast, in non-immunized children: 0% had asthma or other allergic illness.



Dr. William Torch was Director of Child Neurology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Nevada School of Medicine. in his study Dr. Torch found that out of 103 children who died of SIDS, 70% received the pertussis vaccine within three weeks. 6.5% died within 12 hours of the vaccine, 13% died within 24 hours, 26% died within three days. As he wrote:



“DPT vaccination may be a generally unrecognized major cause of sudden infant and early childhood death…the risks of immunization may outweigh its potential benefits.”



This paper was presented at a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in 1982 and published in Neurology, a peer-reviewed journal. What was the medical profession’s response to this paper? Dr. Torch was attacked and condemned for presenting his study.



The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons calls for an end to mandatory childhood vaccines. “Our children face the possibility of death or serious long-term adverse effects from mandated vaccines that aren’t necessary or that have very limited benefits.” Jane M. Orient, MD, AAPS Executive Director. Nov. 2, 2000. www.aapsonline.org

Answer 8

like most of medicine in general, vaccination is based on fraudulent pseudoscience purchased by those who profit from the practice. it is disease producing, not disease preventing. they have no proof whatsoever to the contrary. as for reporting chiropractors, this is a reflection of the profound corruption of the medical system such that it cannot tolerate the truth. (once again, we observe how the subject of vaccination apparently hits a nerve, and gets the pharma shills awakened by their masters and busy typing lies.)