CodeBlueBlog: Where is the Anti-Vaccine Crowd (The Vagans) Now?

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Where is the Anti-Vaccine Crowd (The Vagans) Now?

The Plague, The Flu, Children, & Vagans: The Immunity of the Herd

It is not the means by which the end is achieved, it is the justice of what is achieved in the end.
Sir Thomas More

The Rats, The Fleas, and The Black Death

In the Dark Ages, combatting the bubonic plague, forerunners of modern pubic heath officials noticed that the disease was particularly severe in areas where the rat population was dense. Logically, they hunted down rats and destroyed them.

But something went wrong in the leap from theory to fact. As they destroyed more rats, more cases of bubonic plague surfaced.

Researchers eventually solved the puzzle: it wasn't the rats that were the problem, it was the fleas that fed on the rats. Kill the rats and the fleas fed on their second choice: humans. The strategy for fighting the plague – until that time limited to frank abandonment of the cities and mass eradication of rats was changed to modulating the vector of the disease. This represents one of the the signal events in how public health problems are approached.

The Flu, the Vaccines and the Vagans (short for Vague-ans)

The recent shortage of flu vaccine has been beaten over the headlines the last several weeks. Millions of people clamoring for the vaccine want to know where it is. Accusations fly – it’s because of Bush; it’s because of Kerry; it’s John Edwards and the Torters; it’s the free market system doing dirty little Adam Smith things. I have a different theory, about a malevolent force acting behind the scenes of theis public health disaster: the anti-vaccine crowd (the Vague-ans, shortened to Vagans).

In case anyone was unaware, there is a large group of people around the world whose children suffer all sorts of maladies -- especially autism and attention deficit disorders -- who blame these ills on vaccinations. (go here if you really need to read this pitiful stuff-- just do any Google search, it's not hard to find these sites all over the net).

The major culprit was supposed to be Thimerosol -- a mercury-containing preservative -- present in exiguous amounts in MMR , flu, and other vaccines. The hypothesis was inferential and the empirical data were thin, and both the FDA and CDC both long ago decided there was no issue at all -- and now the Institute of Medicine has denounced the idea with a respectible study reviewing the data.

It won't surprise any readers of this column that much of the power of this movement was generated from deep within the bowels of humanity, in the office of Torters who were(and still are) hoping for a HUGE payday suing the bejesus out of anyone who ever even said the word "vaccine" to a child with attention disorders. Some law firms even claim vaccines to be their "specialty."

The movement against vaccines has been going pretty strong for over a decade and in 1997 some of the most severely affected victims of this movement were the elderly of Japan.

Not because these people were getting flu vaccine. They weren’t. In fact no elderly adults were getting flu vaccine in Japan. But ALL of the children were.

You see, the Japanese were doing what the British did in the 14th century, they were addressing the vectors of disease to thwart its spread. And the major vectors of the flu are children. Beginning in 1977 the Japanese mandated that all children must be vaccinated against the flu, and they were. As a result mortality from the flu in the elderly dropped dramatically, despite the fact that the elderly were not being vaccinated. Truly a forward thinking (preventative) health care stragtegy that saved millions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.

In the 90’s as Vagans began to promulgate their emotional conspiracy-fueled ratiocinations for attention deficit disorders all over the world, the Japanese government was forced to back off of its position mandating vaccinations and the program was halted.

As a result, as far as best estimates can be made, nowadays, somewhere between 37,000-49,000 elderly deaths from the flu are occurring each year in Japan that were being prevented by the mass vaccination of children.

Where have all the Vagans Gone?

The anti-vaccine crowd has been pretty silent as of late. One of the odd side-effects of the current flu vaccine shortage is that now everyone wants it – and there is an unchallenged public assumption that the vaccine is good and needed. So where are Vagans?

One wonders if they are simply hunkered down, like the leftmost-liberals post 911, waiting foir their time to recrudesce with a vegence. Maybe. But I think there’s a different explanation.

The attractive, satisfying, and Tortologically (my word, derived from Torters) attractive demonization of the evil empire of PHARMA has been turned on its ear. Not just by the obvious universal acceptance of the importance of the flu vaccine (by John Kerry and everyone else in earshot -- right?), but by a deeply disturbing report in the Journal Pediatrics which
in April, 2004 found a different foe of young children. Not Pharma, not Thimerosol, not even Coca Cola, but an inciting mechanism far closer to home --- the family television and poorly supervised television habits of young children. The study is compelling, and the site I've linked has several other sites to peruse for further documentation. The study makes sense to me, as a physician, and helps piece together some of the mysteries surrounding the exponential growth of this diagnosis. I believe it.

Anyway, we’ll see. If the Vagans resurface to fight the vaccine that is coming against cervical cancer then we’ll find out if the current behavior is just a PR dodge or if a mortal blow has been dealt to a foe that is only slightly less intimidating that the diseases we vaccinate against.

Posted by Doctor CBB on November 02, 2004 at 04:29 AM | Permalink

Comments

Interesting post. We have friends who have not vaccinated their three kids for *anything*. If the topic of health care comes up, they steer it to vaccinations and go off on a rant about the dangers of vaccines.

It happens that we used to share the same pediatrician. Our friends say they "parted ways" with him over the vaccination issue. When we discussed our daughter's vaccinations with our doctor, we asked him what he thought of not vaccinating children.

He said if the current generation of parents could see first-hand what some of these diseases could do to their children, they wouldn't think twice about vaccination. I guess one of the strange outcomes of controlling a disease is that the next generation fails to appreciate its dangers, for lack of a better word?

Anyway, our doc indicated he's had parents who declined to have their kids vaccinated, and he's told them he would prefer not to continue treating their kids. Do you think that's ethical?

Posted by: Randy | November 02, 2004 at 12:27 PM

In the ideal world, in most situations, it would not be ethical to deny children further care if the parents are fully informed about the issues and then decide not to employ a currently advised treatment plan.

However, in this particular case, because the unvaccinated children are at elevated risk for life-threatening communicable diseases (pertusis, mumps, chcken pox, etc), it is ethical for the pediatrician to refuse these children access to his waiting room and office where they might infect other children who are yet to be vaccinated.

Posted by: CodeBlueBlogMD | November 03, 2004 at 08:49 AM

Absolutely I think that it would be ethical for a pediatrician to refuse to continue to treat children who's parents refuse to have them vaccinated (with the caveat that the physician do so only for non-emergent care and give the family a referral to another pediatrician, or continue to treat if there are no other pediatricians available to take up the case).

Vaccines against childhood illness are some of the most successful preventative treatments ever developed as well as some of the safest medications ever (the rates of adverse evens are extremely low). When patients (or their parents in the case of minors) refuse to follow their doctor's recommendations for good preventative medicine, I think that that patient needs to find another doctor. I know internists who have "fired" patients from their practices when the patients were noncompliant with their medications and follow-up office visits and generally refused to follow their doctor's advice to quit smoking, loose weight, and exercise.

From an ethical standpoint I raise the question of if, in such a case, the physician continues to see the concomplient patient then does this make the physician an accomplice in his/her patient's continued poor health habits?

Posted by: Chris Rangel MD | November 03, 2004 at 02:06 PM

I am doing a power point presentation on the need for vaccinations in my health ed. class and found this article a wonderful bedfellow for it. If any one has more information I would appreciate it. [email protected]

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Vaccine's are death....look around you fools...can't you see....

i will not waist my typing on you, who so ignorantly denies the natural way of the body...

the end

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