Listening to politicians, and even current public opinion, we are told that to fight the group currently being called ISIS by some and ISIL by others, we must have US Soldiers on the ground. To believe this is needed, or will even be helpful, is to ignore the current state of Iraq and Afghanistan.
As with so much world news, it appears that there is a huge amount of ignorance on why those wars were failures. The current state of those countries also seems to be a mystery to people in the US. It's time to shed some light on the situation.
The biggest reason troops has not worked, and will not work, is the same reason we failed in the Vietnam and Korean wars. The majority of the fighters on the other side are not in a standing army we can confront. The fighters are mingled in with large populations in very small numbers. It is a gorilla force that constantly moves. Their gear is portable and light. With the exception of the large offensives they wear the same clothing daily as the rest of the population. Distinguishing a fighter from a shop owner at a glance is impossible.
The US wars of yesteryear, like World War II, are not the same type of war as the US has tried to fight since then. If this was a war with a country like China or Russia conventional rules would apply and I would not make the claim that boots don't matter. The US has unmatched air superiority, naval superiority, and our ground troops are some of the best trained in the world with the best equipment in the world. Even though China boasts more soldiers than the US, our full spectrum dominance offsets their number advantage. This is NOT that kind of war!
The US Policies are generating soldiers to fight against us in the Middle East. There are thousands of stories of people being killed by drones in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and even in Pakistan. The overwhelming number of those attacks are accompanied by the deaths of innocent people. Oh, I hear what I'm told on the news about people harboring terrorists but let me give you a slightly different perspective.
Imagine a couple armed bank robbers bust into your house and hold you at gunpoint. Now imagine that a police officer fires a Hellfire missile into your house because the armed bank robbers are inside. Hey, you were harboring them so it's your fault you died in the missile attack. Right? If you believe the media in the US, every case of innocent people dieing is due to the unarmed populace not taking action against the guys with guns.
Consider a story I read not too long ago where two men in a pickup truck drove into a village. Nobody in the village knew who they were, so a few of the locals came out to see who they were and what they wanted. While the two strangers were being questioned, a Hellfire missile stuck the crowd. Then the pickup truck, and then a building next to where the locals were questioning the two strangers. A curious 13 year old was killed along with the town clergy, all told nearly twenty deaths.
The families of the innocent people killed have no justice, never get to face or question the people responsible, and have no option for reparations. Unfortunately there are hundreds of these stories.
We are making far more enemies than we kill.
It is this scenario that caused us to fail in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indiscriminate killing has resulted in large numbers of people that despise the US foreign policies, and therefor the US people responsible for the deaths of innocent family and friends. While many never pick up a weapon or plant an explosive, they can silently support those that do. That is exactly why troops won't help. It did not win in two wars that lasted over a decade, and it won't help now.
No critique of the war policy would be complete without pointing out a few other critical failures.
Remember how we went into Iraq and Afghanistan to "Liberate" them from horrible dictators? Well, when the "new" leaders the US puts into power are more corrupt than the dictators we ejected what do we expect? We never built political systems that these countries could use, democracy never existed. The US installed puppets who would support the US, but those puppets were in it for personal gain at the expense of the populace.
The US didn't stop at just destabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan, we helped to kill Gaddafi as well. Isn't Libya a great place today? Well no, in fact if you look at a map if ISIS held territory you will see what the US intervention achieved.
Syria is the real target, don't let anyone fool you. The US changed their mind two years ago about what kind of guy Assad is, and we want him out. The US for some odd reason wants Syria to be just like Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Why exactly is a mystery to me, because those places are a friggin mess. Wesley Clark's interview claiming 7 countries in 5 years seems to be correct with the exception of the time frame. This was after the war with Afghanistan started.
“This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven
countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon,
Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
Let's go down the list
Iraq - Destabilized and currently 60% controlled by ISIS
Syria - Destabilized and currently 40% controlled by ISIS
Libya - Failed and 100% controlled by ISIS (everything else is in chaos)
Somolia - Destabilized (has not been stable for over a decade) controlled largely by ISIS loyal
Sudan - Destabilized (has not been stable for over a decade, split into 2 countries in 2011 both unstable today) Extremist Militant States, affiliations with ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Iran - Stable
(I use the phrase "ISIS loyal" which take a bit of linking. The extremists, especially Al-Shabab claim allegiance to al-Qaeda, who have close ties and agreements with ISIS.)
The only thing I can think of here is possibly "Order from Chaos", but I can't see how order would ever be implemented without a full scale invasion.
Hypocrisy: US hypocrisy regarding foreign dictators is generating even more enemies. Saudi Arabia is a US ally, in fact when their King died not too long ago there was nothing but praise for him and the Saudi Arabian Monarchy. Saudi Arabia has zero Religious freedom. If you were to smuggle a Bible into that country you would be arrested and face death as your punishment. If you don't pray at the prescribed times, you will be arrested. If you blog that you don't like the policy, you will be arrested. Punishments for crime range from stoning to death and crucifixion to public whippings, like the thousand lashes a blogger was sentenced to near the same time the Kind died. If a woman is caught driving she faces public whipping, and women can not have a job without a male's permission (which can be revoked without notice)
So tyrannical rule is okay I guess, as long as you claim to play for the US team. Until of course the US changes it's mind like happened with Syria.
Troops won't fix a broken foreign policy and double standards. Troops won't fix policies that create enemies by harming a populace much more than helping it.
The Fix
Foreign policy must be stable and consistent. If we claim to want liberty and democracy we must either demand it and enforce it unilaterally, or just within our borders.
I'll vote for the latter.
Iraq and Afghanistan posed no credible threat to US soil, and neither does Syria, ISIL, or any other country being portrayed as a bogey man in the Middle East. They posses no navy that could reach our shores, no air power to race through our skies, and lack the logistics required to invade. Most of those countries could hold their border, but that's about it.
Maybe it's time to revert foreign policy to match the purpose of the Military our founders envisioned. Protecting US soil. If an evil dictator like Hitler comes about we have technology today we lacked in WW II. We would see troops massing, navies and planes being built, and at that point could make a decision about taking military action on foreign soil.
Write your representatives and demand change. If they ignore you, boot them out of office with your vote and start getting people into office that do listen to their constituents. Your voice matters, so make it heard!
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Vaccines and the missing debate Part 3
In part one of this series I showed the increase in the number of vaccines children are receiving today compared to thirty years ago. In part two, I provided my risk versus reward analysis for the Varicella vaccine (Chicken Pox) based on CDC information. The last part is going to cover vaccine contents, and of course I will provide some final thoughts.
What is in a vaccine? If you are like I was, you may perceive a vaccine as a virus suspended in a pristine saline solution. The virus can be dead, alive, or suspended, that part really does not matter. The important part is that the contents of a vaccine injection outside of the virus does not usually resemble what I perceived.
For simplicity we could call this a transport agent, but in reality it's more complex. The purpose is not just to transport, but also to induce your bodies reaction to the virus and keep the virus in a certain state (alive, weakened, and prevent mutation). The proper term for this is attenuation, and the solutions used for this are generally complex in both construction and composition. Most vaccines today are LAV, or "Live Attenuated Viruses" which includes things like Polio and Varicella (Chicken Pox).
Is there mercury in the vaccine? There was some heated debate a couple decades ago regarding a particular attenuation solution called Thiomersal. This is a compound containing mercury, so this is a yes and no answer. I'm not going to rehash the whole debate, but will ask that you read that complete page. Thiomersal was removed from vaccines for a ten year period due to the increased rates of autism I have already mentioned. Rates were not seen to change after removal, so today it's again used as an attenuation solution in some vaccines.
Science is pretty clear on the point that Thiomersal was not a direct cause for the increases. We have continued to see increases in the number of neurological disorders including autism, and we have continued to push for (and receive) more vaccinations during this same time frame. The correlation does not equate to causation, but until we have answers we should at least be keeping our eyes open to all possibilities.
Given the correlation, I started to look for other science that could provide answers. How many of the attenuation ingredients are tested? How many are tested in compounds, and what compounds are they tested in? I can't seem to find that type of information. At least as worrisome to me, I could not find ingredients lists on the CDC. I see attenuation solutions discussed, but not much in the way of details.
Since I could not find full ingredient lists at CDC I had to dig for a site that listed the ingredients. Here is what I found, and I'll start with the Chicken Pox vaccine which I covered in part two. If Merck wants to contact me with corrected information I will be happy to update this page, or even link to the appropriate Merck information page.
According to what I could find, and not in order of quantity, here is what it takes just to produce the Varicella virus for vaccines.
human embryonic lung cell cultures, embryonic guinea pig cell cultures, WI-38 human diploid cell cultures, MRC-5 human diploid cell cultures, sucrose, phosphate, glutamate, processed gelatin, urea
And the attenuation solution, well that is more complex.
sucrose, hydrolyzed gelatin, urea, sodium chloride, monosodium L-glutamate, sodium phosphate dibasic, potassium phosphate monobasic, potassium chloride, residual components of MRC-5 cells (DNA, protein), neomycin, bovine calf serum, sodium phosphate monobasic, EDTA, fetal bovine serum
Some of this is as simple as table salt, but other parts are not quite so simple. Compare this to something we had immunized for a long enough time to eradicate in Small Pox.
Creation: Vero cells, human serum albumin, sodium chloride, mannitol USP, meomycin, polymyxin B
Attenuation: glycerin USP, phenol USP in Water for Injection USP
The purpose of the ingredients is not to frighten anyone, but to clearly demonstrate that vaccines are not all the same. Each has it's own ingredients and composition, each has it's own side effects and warning labels, each has different reactions to different drugs and conditions (read the warnings), and each has a different rate of success for vaccination. Compositions change not only between manufacturers, but over time within the same manufacturer. Those are facts, not speculation or opinion.
Here is where I will get into some opinion...
I don't believe that any manufacturer of vaccines or medical professionals have bad intentions. Success at eradicating a disease like Small Pox and nearly eradicating Polio give a lot of hope for further reduction and eradication of diseases through vaccination. That said it's important to remember that there is no such thing as perfection. Many vaccines have incredible success rates, and I'm sure that most manufacturers hope to have similar success rates in all vaccines, but some are much worse than others.
Until we are at perfection, it's important to allow people to choose which vaccines to get. Education should be all that's required for people to make the right choice for them. Whether or not you wish to educate yourself, be sure to talk with your Doctor and follow their recommendations. If you don't trust your Doctor, find a Doctor that you do trust.
Society has gone through massive changes in the last three decades, and as rates of neurological issues increased we can say that not all of it is good. There are plenty of places to look for those increases outside of the increases in vaccines. Areas such as agriculture, food processing, and overall diets are just as important to investigate. Pollutants and other environmental changes could be having impact as well. Until we have answers, we should not rule anything out. This includes vaccines and the attenuation solutions that go with them. While there may not be a direct cause and effect relationship to vaccines, there may be indirect links.
Passing legislation to force vaccinations is the wrong thing to do. Legislation can not effectively account for the differences in risks we have with the various vaccines today. If that was done, rapid advances would have to wait for legislation to catch up. That is a lose lose proposition!
This is not a one size fits all issue, it should not be a one size fits all debate, and we can not resolve the issue with a one size fits all piece of legislation.
Society needs to be educated, not forced into things. Intelligent people can, and usually do, make intelligent decisions.
What is in a vaccine? If you are like I was, you may perceive a vaccine as a virus suspended in a pristine saline solution. The virus can be dead, alive, or suspended, that part really does not matter. The important part is that the contents of a vaccine injection outside of the virus does not usually resemble what I perceived.
For simplicity we could call this a transport agent, but in reality it's more complex. The purpose is not just to transport, but also to induce your bodies reaction to the virus and keep the virus in a certain state (alive, weakened, and prevent mutation). The proper term for this is attenuation, and the solutions used for this are generally complex in both construction and composition. Most vaccines today are LAV, or "Live Attenuated Viruses" which includes things like Polio and Varicella (Chicken Pox).
Is there mercury in the vaccine? There was some heated debate a couple decades ago regarding a particular attenuation solution called Thiomersal. This is a compound containing mercury, so this is a yes and no answer. I'm not going to rehash the whole debate, but will ask that you read that complete page. Thiomersal was removed from vaccines for a ten year period due to the increased rates of autism I have already mentioned. Rates were not seen to change after removal, so today it's again used as an attenuation solution in some vaccines.
Science is pretty clear on the point that Thiomersal was not a direct cause for the increases. We have continued to see increases in the number of neurological disorders including autism, and we have continued to push for (and receive) more vaccinations during this same time frame. The correlation does not equate to causation, but until we have answers we should at least be keeping our eyes open to all possibilities.
Given the correlation, I started to look for other science that could provide answers. How many of the attenuation ingredients are tested? How many are tested in compounds, and what compounds are they tested in? I can't seem to find that type of information. At least as worrisome to me, I could not find ingredients lists on the CDC. I see attenuation solutions discussed, but not much in the way of details.
Since I could not find full ingredient lists at CDC I had to dig for a site that listed the ingredients. Here is what I found, and I'll start with the Chicken Pox vaccine which I covered in part two. If Merck wants to contact me with corrected information I will be happy to update this page, or even link to the appropriate Merck information page.
According to what I could find, and not in order of quantity, here is what it takes just to produce the Varicella virus for vaccines.
human embryonic lung cell cultures, embryonic guinea pig cell cultures, WI-38 human diploid cell cultures, MRC-5 human diploid cell cultures, sucrose, phosphate, glutamate, processed gelatin, urea
And the attenuation solution, well that is more complex.
sucrose, hydrolyzed gelatin, urea, sodium chloride, monosodium L-glutamate, sodium phosphate dibasic, potassium phosphate monobasic, potassium chloride, residual components of MRC-5 cells (DNA, protein), neomycin, bovine calf serum, sodium phosphate monobasic, EDTA, fetal bovine serum
Some of this is as simple as table salt, but other parts are not quite so simple. Compare this to something we had immunized for a long enough time to eradicate in Small Pox.
Creation: Vero cells, human serum albumin, sodium chloride, mannitol USP, meomycin, polymyxin B
Attenuation: glycerin USP, phenol USP in Water for Injection USP
The purpose of the ingredients is not to frighten anyone, but to clearly demonstrate that vaccines are not all the same. Each has it's own ingredients and composition, each has it's own side effects and warning labels, each has different reactions to different drugs and conditions (read the warnings), and each has a different rate of success for vaccination. Compositions change not only between manufacturers, but over time within the same manufacturer. Those are facts, not speculation or opinion.
Here is where I will get into some opinion...
I don't believe that any manufacturer of vaccines or medical professionals have bad intentions. Success at eradicating a disease like Small Pox and nearly eradicating Polio give a lot of hope for further reduction and eradication of diseases through vaccination. That said it's important to remember that there is no such thing as perfection. Many vaccines have incredible success rates, and I'm sure that most manufacturers hope to have similar success rates in all vaccines, but some are much worse than others.
Until we are at perfection, it's important to allow people to choose which vaccines to get. Education should be all that's required for people to make the right choice for them. Whether or not you wish to educate yourself, be sure to talk with your Doctor and follow their recommendations. If you don't trust your Doctor, find a Doctor that you do trust.
Society has gone through massive changes in the last three decades, and as rates of neurological issues increased we can say that not all of it is good. There are plenty of places to look for those increases outside of the increases in vaccines. Areas such as agriculture, food processing, and overall diets are just as important to investigate. Pollutants and other environmental changes could be having impact as well. Until we have answers, we should not rule anything out. This includes vaccines and the attenuation solutions that go with them. While there may not be a direct cause and effect relationship to vaccines, there may be indirect links.
Passing legislation to force vaccinations is the wrong thing to do. Legislation can not effectively account for the differences in risks we have with the various vaccines today. If that was done, rapid advances would have to wait for legislation to catch up. That is a lose lose proposition!
This is not a one size fits all issue, it should not be a one size fits all debate, and we can not resolve the issue with a one size fits all piece of legislation.
Society needs to be educated, not forced into things. Intelligent people can, and usually do, make intelligent decisions.
Vaccines and the missing debate Part 2
In part one I primarily focused on greatly increased numbers of vaccines today compared to thirty years ago. The numbers gathered were from the CDC, and not some random web site. In part two, I'm going to relate the first time I questioned policies and mandating vaccines from first hand experience, again using the CDC as the primary source of information.
It's traumatic for children to get vaccines, and I'll say traumatic for parents as well. My kid's vaccinations always caused reactions. Outside of pain and irritation in the injection area, there was always at least a day of mild fever, sometimes nausea. This would lead to irritability and sleeping more than normal. Nothing I would say is abnormal, and nothing really unexpected. These same side effects are listed on the CDC web site for nearly all vaccines.
When I became a parent, like most adults, I trusted the CDC and State Government for information and requirements for vaccines. Then came the Chicken Pox vaccine.
The CDC reports show that that prior to the vaccine 0.00005% of cases each year were fatal in the US. None of those cases were solely due to the virus. Infections and other complications were major contributors to death. Key in on that number, and this one. The amount of cases that required hospitalization for Chicken Pox was 0.0005%.
And now the personal back story...
When my child was in elementary school he contracted chicken pox. Like nearly every generation before him, this was not a big deal. Everyone I know had the Chicken Pox at one time in their life. The treatment was simple. Prevent itching, quarantine for a couple days, and treat any wounds from scratching. Our pediatrician saw and confirmed the Varicella virus, and that was pretty much it. In a few days time, life was back to normal.
Michigan schools started requiring vaccinations for Chicken Pox about a year after my kid was diagnosed and recovered. Like the good parent should, I asked the State authorities if my son was required to get the vaccine since they were already exposed and had recovered. I was told that the vaccination was still required, and that since he already had the Chicken Pox he should see no side effects. Except that within twenty four hours, he had come down with a second case of Chicken Pox, this time accompanied by the same vaccination symptoms I described above which seem to accompany most vaccines. Digging around, I found that this was not that uncommon. The contraction can not just occur from a shot after an exposure, but the opposite direction as well. In fact the success rate for the vaccination according to the CDC is about 90%, less by other Government agencies so one in ten gets the virus even with the vaccination series.
Speaking from strictly a numbers perspective, the vaccination doubled my kids chances for a severe reaction to the virus. More concerning to me as a parent, the vaccination has complications that are much more severe than the virus. Severe allergic reactions occur in 0.002% of people injected, severe nervous damage in 0.0008%, and severe life threatening side effects in 0.0004%. (Note: For simplicity in numbers I used a beneficial population number of 200,000,000 instead of the reported nearly 234 million. These numbers favor vaccination, not the other way around).
Remember those numbers from above? Putting this in perspective 1 in 2,000,000 mortality rate prior to vaccination compared to at best 1 in 1,000,000 today, and at worst 1 in 500,000. The CDC is pretty clear on this.
We have greatly increased our risk, and to what reward? Not quite a 90% success rate in preventing a virus that to the majority was a couple days of nuisance. This is not wild speculation, or "anti-vac" insanity, or "conspiracy" nonsense. This is the math based on the science we currently have available from the CDC and other Government sources. Believing anything contrary to the numbers is insanity and delusional.
In reality, all vaccinations have different risks and different rewards. I fully advocate the Polio and MMR vaccination for example. Vaccines are improving all the time, and this should be something you constantly educate yourself on. My opinion of the Chicken Pox vaccine in time will probably change as improvements are made. This is how science works.
In part three, I will be adding the contents of vaccines to the discussion and provide some closing thoughts.
It's traumatic for children to get vaccines, and I'll say traumatic for parents as well. My kid's vaccinations always caused reactions. Outside of pain and irritation in the injection area, there was always at least a day of mild fever, sometimes nausea. This would lead to irritability and sleeping more than normal. Nothing I would say is abnormal, and nothing really unexpected. These same side effects are listed on the CDC web site for nearly all vaccines.
When I became a parent, like most adults, I trusted the CDC and State Government for information and requirements for vaccines. Then came the Chicken Pox vaccine.
The CDC reports show that that prior to the vaccine 0.00005% of cases each year were fatal in the US. None of those cases were solely due to the virus. Infections and other complications were major contributors to death. Key in on that number, and this one. The amount of cases that required hospitalization for Chicken Pox was 0.0005%.
And now the personal back story...
When my child was in elementary school he contracted chicken pox. Like nearly every generation before him, this was not a big deal. Everyone I know had the Chicken Pox at one time in their life. The treatment was simple. Prevent itching, quarantine for a couple days, and treat any wounds from scratching. Our pediatrician saw and confirmed the Varicella virus, and that was pretty much it. In a few days time, life was back to normal.
Michigan schools started requiring vaccinations for Chicken Pox about a year after my kid was diagnosed and recovered. Like the good parent should, I asked the State authorities if my son was required to get the vaccine since they were already exposed and had recovered. I was told that the vaccination was still required, and that since he already had the Chicken Pox he should see no side effects. Except that within twenty four hours, he had come down with a second case of Chicken Pox, this time accompanied by the same vaccination symptoms I described above which seem to accompany most vaccines. Digging around, I found that this was not that uncommon. The contraction can not just occur from a shot after an exposure, but the opposite direction as well. In fact the success rate for the vaccination according to the CDC is about 90%, less by other Government agencies so one in ten gets the virus even with the vaccination series.
Speaking from strictly a numbers perspective, the vaccination doubled my kids chances for a severe reaction to the virus. More concerning to me as a parent, the vaccination has complications that are much more severe than the virus. Severe allergic reactions occur in 0.002% of people injected, severe nervous damage in 0.0008%, and severe life threatening side effects in 0.0004%. (Note: For simplicity in numbers I used a beneficial population number of 200,000,000 instead of the reported nearly 234 million. These numbers favor vaccination, not the other way around).
Remember those numbers from above? Putting this in perspective 1 in 2,000,000 mortality rate prior to vaccination compared to at best 1 in 1,000,000 today, and at worst 1 in 500,000. The CDC is pretty clear on this.
We have greatly increased our risk, and to what reward? Not quite a 90% success rate in preventing a virus that to the majority was a couple days of nuisance. This is not wild speculation, or "anti-vac" insanity, or "conspiracy" nonsense. This is the math based on the science we currently have available from the CDC and other Government sources. Believing anything contrary to the numbers is insanity and delusional.
In reality, all vaccinations have different risks and different rewards. I fully advocate the Polio and MMR vaccination for example. Vaccines are improving all the time, and this should be something you constantly educate yourself on. My opinion of the Chicken Pox vaccine in time will probably change as improvements are made. This is how science works.
In part three, I will be adding the contents of vaccines to the discussion and provide some closing thoughts.
Vaccines and the missing debate Part 1
Very few things in the world are clearly black or clearly white. Vaccines are one of those things, and with the media and politicians pushing vaccines today I feel it pertinent to point out some dialogue we should be having... yet we are not.
Which vaccines people are discussing in their attempt to force vaccines? Is this only MMR/Polio? What about HPV? Influenza? These discussions are absent in the "all or nothing" reports in media and all or nothing political opinions on both sides of the debate.
As a bit of background, I am a US Army veteran who has had more than my fair share of vaccines. I had no moral objection to my own vaccines, I understood the risks on both sides and accepted those risks. Some of the vaccines I took required a waiver to be signed, because there were very known risks to those vaccines which included potentially death. These were not what most of us think of with MMR and Polio, but more rare diseases.
At the time I made those decisions I was a single person without children. I signed up to serve my country, and I did exactly that. I was a young healthy adult and if something went wrong the impact would not have impacted dependents. I had medical professionals provide information on the vaccines and provide counseling to be sure I knew what the risks were.
There are a few important items to key in on here.
1. My decision only impacted me.
2. Back then we openly admitted that vaccines had risks.
3. Doctors regularly discussed those risks with patients.
The amount of research required then was not as intensive as is required today, which I'll show in a moment. This was about 30 years ago...
Fast forward to today, and the world is not the same place. The vaccine schedule recommended by the CDC today drastically different. Compare the 1983 vaccine schedule here to the 2014 schedule. I was going to attempt to summarize in a nice clean table, but the differences are not as simple as that. Today, as you should see for yourself, there are lots of fuzzy schedules. For example many vaccines are scheduled from six to nine months, or six months to eighteen months, etc... So in the most simple terms here is what we had, and have.
1983 - 6 vaccination shots from 2 months to 6 years old, and 4 doses of OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine). As a teenager, you would receive DT (diphtheria/tetanus)
2014 - 31 shots starting from birth to 6 years and 4 doses of OPV. In addition to DT, you have to add in annual flu shots and HPV if you follow the recommendation.
This is a drastically different landscape. By 18 months children are receiving 312% more vaccines today, by age 6 years 450% more vaccines, and if we total up all of the vaccines from birth to 18 years old it's 862.5% increase in vaccinations. This site has an interesting file to view here.
I don't advocate jumping to correlation equals causation so hold that thought. I will state that all parents want healthy children, so when planning or prospective parents see that autism rates have risen in the same time frame by over 1,000%, it should be expected that they ask questions. Given the similarly high numbers, people are going to begin to correlate. Increased ability to detect autism does not explain the massive rise sufficiently.
Perhaps there is some room for valid concerns.
The links I provided contain a lot of data, and you should absolutely read everything you can. I'll continue this in part 2.
Which vaccines people are discussing in their attempt to force vaccines? Is this only MMR/Polio? What about HPV? Influenza? These discussions are absent in the "all or nothing" reports in media and all or nothing political opinions on both sides of the debate.
As a bit of background, I am a US Army veteran who has had more than my fair share of vaccines. I had no moral objection to my own vaccines, I understood the risks on both sides and accepted those risks. Some of the vaccines I took required a waiver to be signed, because there were very known risks to those vaccines which included potentially death. These were not what most of us think of with MMR and Polio, but more rare diseases.
At the time I made those decisions I was a single person without children. I signed up to serve my country, and I did exactly that. I was a young healthy adult and if something went wrong the impact would not have impacted dependents. I had medical professionals provide information on the vaccines and provide counseling to be sure I knew what the risks were.
There are a few important items to key in on here.
1. My decision only impacted me.
2. Back then we openly admitted that vaccines had risks.
3. Doctors regularly discussed those risks with patients.
The amount of research required then was not as intensive as is required today, which I'll show in a moment. This was about 30 years ago...
Fast forward to today, and the world is not the same place. The vaccine schedule recommended by the CDC today drastically different. Compare the 1983 vaccine schedule here to the 2014 schedule. I was going to attempt to summarize in a nice clean table, but the differences are not as simple as that. Today, as you should see for yourself, there are lots of fuzzy schedules. For example many vaccines are scheduled from six to nine months, or six months to eighteen months, etc... So in the most simple terms here is what we had, and have.
1983 - 6 vaccination shots from 2 months to 6 years old, and 4 doses of OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine). As a teenager, you would receive DT (diphtheria/tetanus)
2014 - 31 shots starting from birth to 6 years and 4 doses of OPV. In addition to DT, you have to add in annual flu shots and HPV if you follow the recommendation.
This is a drastically different landscape. By 18 months children are receiving 312% more vaccines today, by age 6 years 450% more vaccines, and if we total up all of the vaccines from birth to 18 years old it's 862.5% increase in vaccinations. This site has an interesting file to view here.
I don't advocate jumping to correlation equals causation so hold that thought. I will state that all parents want healthy children, so when planning or prospective parents see that autism rates have risen in the same time frame by over 1,000%, it should be expected that they ask questions. Given the similarly high numbers, people are going to begin to correlate. Increased ability to detect autism does not explain the massive rise sufficiently.
Perhaps there is some room for valid concerns.
The links I provided contain a lot of data, and you should absolutely read everything you can. I'll continue this in part 2.
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