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by Nordic » Fri May 13, 2016 1:20 am
by 82_28 » Fri May 13, 2016 5:11 am
by Sounder » Fri May 13, 2016 5:25 am
(NaturalNews) The website of Dr. William Falconer, a homeopathic veterinarian based in the Texas Hill Country, has come under attack since he exposed the harmful (and sometimes deadly) side-effects of a widely prescribed drug used to control allergic and atopic dermatitis in dogs, a condition characterized by chronic itching that results in red, irritated and inflamed skin.
Dr. Falconer, a conventional vet turned holistic, has been reporting on the "damaging side-effects" of Apoquel, an anti-inflammatory drug made by Zoetis, a subsidiary of Pfizer. Released in 2014, the drug promises to alleviate itching in dogs within 4 hours, and "effectively" control the problem within 24 hours, with "minimal side-effects."
We Need to Talk
One group of immune messengers are called cytokines. These small molecules are produced by a wide variety of cells, and they signal other cells to do something, like come to the scene of an infection, let loose their chemicals, take part in signaling others, dump antibodies, etc.
You’ve likely heard of some cytokines before.
• Interferon
• Interleukins
• Tumor necrosis factors
When inflammation is triggered, these chemical messengers call in the troops. It’s time to heal!
(More on inflammation in context here. It’s not the enemy, by the way.)
Enter Apoquel (Oclacitinib)
A couple of words hidden in those names. A whole class of inhibitory compounds man has invented have “inib” at their end. Short for inhibit. And “quel?” You get that one.
Chill out this hot mess of inflammation!
So, this drug seeks to stop a piece of the inflammatory chemical cascade by interfering with certain enzymes called kinases, or JAK in the literature, which stops some cytokines from doing their thing.
And it works! But like all things that work, we need to look a bit deeper if we want to raise truly Vital Animals. (See Just Gimme What Works! for more on this).
Usually, there’s a price to pay in long term health when we interfere with Mother Nature, and this drug is no exception.
You vs Your Dog/Cat/Horse
Immunology has recognized for a great many years that viruses confer a long-lived immunity. This is why your physician is not sending you postcards every year to repeat your small pox or polio vaccinations annually.
Your physician understands that your immune system was adequately stimulated in childhood, and a cellular memory exists in you that will “wake up” if any future challenges from these viruses occur.
Is there some profound difference in animals that makes us think they need to repeat their vaccinations throughout their life?
The Experts Speak
Let me quote from the experts. The following was printed in Current Veterinary Therapy, Volume XI, published in 1992 (this is a very well-respected, peer-reviewed textbook that is updated every four years). The authors are veterinary immunologists Ronald Schultz (University of Wisconsin) and Tom Phillips (Scrips Research Institute).They are addressing vaccination efficacy directly here:
A practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification is annual revaccination. Almost without exception there is no immunologic requirement for annual revaccination. Immunity to viruses persists for years or for the life of the animal…… Furthermore, revaccination with most viral vaccines fails to stimulate an anamnestic (secondary) response…. The practice of annual vaccination in our opinion should be considered of questionable efficacy…”
In plain English, that means you are wasting a lot of money (and, as we’ll see later, risking your animals’ health) without much likelihood that your animal is actually becoming “boosted” each time you revaccinate.
by DrEvil » Fri May 13, 2016 6:22 pm
Nordic » Fri May 13, 2016 7:20 am wrote:Dr Evil, do you have any children? Serious question, not trying to be provocative.
by 82_28 » Fri May 13, 2016 6:53 pm
DrEvil » Fri May 13, 2016 2:22 pm wrote:Nordic » Fri May 13, 2016 7:20 am wrote:Dr Evil, do you have any children? Serious question, not trying to be provocative.
Nope, no kids, but if I did have kids I would have them vaccinated. Not just to protect them but all the other kids they come into contact with, and I would expect the same from the other parents.
by Nordic » Fri May 13, 2016 10:27 pm
DrEvil » Fri May 13, 2016 5:22 pm wrote:Nordic » Fri May 13, 2016 7:20 am wrote:Dr Evil, do you have any children? Serious question, not trying to be provocative.
Nope, no kids, but if I did have kids I would have them vaccinated. Not just to protect them but all the other kids they come into contact with, and I would expect the same from the other parents.
by identity » Sun Jul 31, 2016 8:49 pm
Studies Outside the U.S. Show Unvaccinated Children Healthier than Vaccinated Children
July 31, 2016
Health Impact News Editor Comments:
Christina England has done an excellent job of digging up some previous studies conducted in New Zealand and Germany comparing vaccinated children with unvaccinated children.
In addition to these two studies, there was also a clinical study conducted in Hong Kong in in 2012 comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated children in regards to the flu vaccine. Researchers conducted a double-blind placebo-controlled trial on children with the trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine. Their results were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases in 2012, and they found that the seasonal trivalent flu vaccine resulted in 5.5 times more incidents of respiratory illness than the placebo group. Read more about the study here.
If you watch the video below of Congressman Posey questioning the CDC at an autism Congressional hearing back in November of 2012, you will hear the CDC admit that they have never conducted a study in the U.S. comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated children.
Studies Prove Without Doubt That Unvaccinated Children Are Far Healthier Than Their Vaccinated Peers
By Christina England
VacTruth.com
A study from the 1990s has come to light, proving that compared to unvaccinated children, vaccinated children were more likely to suffer from asthma, eczema, ear infections, hyperactivity and many other chronic conditions.
Furthermore, the study identified that there was a ten-fold increase in the incidence of tonsillitis in the children who were vaccinated, and a total lack tonsillectomy operations among the children who were unvaccinated. In 1992, the Immunization Awareness Society (IAS) conducted a survey to examine the health of New Zealand’s children.
Unsurprisingly, the results of their study indicated that unvaccinated children were far healthier than vaccinated children. Questionnaires were given out to IAS members, their friends and their associates asking various health questions. A total of 245 families returned their questionnaires, giving the researchers a total of 495 children surveyed. Of these children, 226 were vaccinated and 269 were unvaccinated.
Healthy Children and Ethics
The ages of the children ranged between the ages of two weeks – 46 years (obviously some friends were older with older children). Of the children studied, 273 were males and 216 were females. (Six children were unclassified.) Sue Claridge, who reported on the study, wrote:
“Respondents were asked to provide the year of birth, gender, vaccinations received, whether or not the child suffered from a range of chronic conditions (asthma, eczema, ear infections/glue ear, recurring tonsillitis, hyperactivity, diabetes or epilepsy) whether or not he or she needed grommets, had had a tonsillectomy, or were shown to develop motor skills (walking, crawling, sitting-up etc.). Parents also provided information on breastfeeding and bottle feeding and when a child was weaned if breastfed.”
During the study, another interesting fact emerged. Researchers discovered that 92 percent of the children requiring a tonsillectomy operation had received the measles vaccination, indicating that the vaccination for measles may have made some of the children more susceptible to tonsillitis. The study also revealed that 81 of the families had both vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Many of these families had vaccinated their older children but had grown more reluctant to vaccinate their younger children, due to their growing concerns regarding vaccine safety. Researchers concluded that:
“While this was a very limited study, particularly in terms of the numbers of unvaccinated children that were involved and the range of chronic conditions investigated, it provides solid scientific evidence in support of considerable anecdotal evidence that unvaccinated children are healthier that their vaccinated peers.” [1]
Although governments from around the world have continually stated that studying vaccinated versus unvaccinated children would be unethical, the New Zealand researchers are not the only group of researchers to study comparisons.
Vaccinated Children 5 Times More Likely To Suffer From A Range Of Diseases
In September 2011, German researchers carrying out a longitudinal study surveyed a total of 8000 unvaccinated children from the ages of 0 –19. As with the New Zealand study, researchers collected their data by conducting a survey using questionnaires. [2]
Results showed that vaccinated children were up to five times more likely to suffer from a variety of diseases and disorders than unvaccinated children. Their results were compared to another German study (KiGGS), which examined a larger sample group consisting of 17,461 participants between the ages of 0 –17. Dr. Andreas Bachair, a German classical homeopathic practitioner, responsible for collecting the results of the survey from the website vaccineinjury.info stated that:
“Asthma, hay fever and neurodermatitis are seen very frequently today. A recent German study with 17461 children between 0-17 years of age (KIGGS) showed that 4.7% of these children suffer from asthma, 10.7% of these children from hay fever and 13.2% from neurodermatitis. These numbers differ in western countries, i.e. the prevalence of asthma among children in the US is 6% whereas it is 14-16% in Australia (Australia’s Health 2004, AIHW).
The prevalence of asthma among unvaccinated children in our study is around 2.5%, hay fever, 3%, and neurodermatitis, 7%. According to the KIGGS study more than 40% of children between the ages of 3 and 17 years were sensitized against at least one allergen tested (20 common allergens were tested) and 22.9% had an allergic disease. Although we did not perform a blood test, around 10% stated that their children had an allergy.” [3]
(As this study is a longitudinal study, the number of children being studied has since risen to 13,222. To join the study, you can fill in the questionnaire provided by clicking on the link listed as the third reference at the end of this article.) Although there were four cases of autism reported among unvaccinated children, Dr. Bachair reported that:
“Of these 4 children one tested very high for metals (mercury, aluminium, arsenic); in another case the mother was tested very high for mercury.”
However, this number pales into insignificance when we compare it to the 1 in 88 children currently being reported as autistic by the CDC. [4]
Other Conditions Found To Be Almost Non-Existent In Unvaccinated Children
Dr. Andreas Bachair continued her report by stating that their study found the prevalence of sinusitis, warts, skin problems and middle ear infections were also much lower in the unvaccinated children, as were the cases of diabetes and epilepsy. She went on to say that the results demonstrated that the prevalence of many conditions in the unvaccinated children were also significantly lower. These were:
As we included open questions in our survey we evaluated the prevalence (of the first 10,070 participants) of some other disorders and illnesses. Unvaccinated children show very low prevalences of the following disorders:
Dyslexia: 0.21%
Speech delay/articulation problems: 0.38%
Sensory Processing disorder: 0.28%
Anxiety: 0.25%
Depression: 0.12%
Bedwetting: 0.12%
Celiac disease: 0.12%
Gluten sensitivity: 0.41%
GERD (Gastroesophageal reflux disease): 0.06%”
Dr. Bachair concluded her amazing and intuitive paper by adding a number of statements from parents, which I believe really added weight to her overall findings.
Conclusion
I find it amazing that despite mainstream media and leading government agencies stressing repeatedly that studies comparing vaccinated children to unvaccinated children cannot take place for ethical reasons, groups around the world are taking it upon themselves to do these studies anyway.
by DrEvil » Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:46 am
A survey administered by a German anti-vaccine homeopath backfires spectacularly
Sometimes I feel a little bit guilty when I’m writing a post deconstructing anti-vaccine nonsense, “alternative medicine” quackery, or some other form of pseudoscience. This guilt usually derives when I end up picking a target that’s just too easy, a study that’s just so mind-numbingly, brain-meltingly awful that it’s not much of a challenge, even though at the time I perceive that it needs to be done. I suppose it’s like the feeling that a professional sports team might feel if it were ever paired with a high school team–or even a junior high–team for a game. In fact, I was half-tempted just to post the link to the “study” (which it really isn’t, not really) and let you, my readers, have some fun. I’d consider it an exercise in seeing just how much regular readers have learned, or even how much newer readers have picked up. At the very least, it’d be a nice new chew toy for you all.
But what fun would that be for me, other than sitting back like a proud papa and chuckling as I watch you guys rip into the study in a manner that makes a starving cheetah ripping into its prey look downright restrained by comparison? If I get the first chomps in, I can still sit back and watch you all have at it, as long as I leave just a bit left over for you. But, before I do, a wee bit of history.
Ever since the anti-vaccine movement started backing away the now thoroughly discredited claim that the thimerosal in preservatives cause autism and the even more thoroughly discredited claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism and pivoted to readjust its reality to embrace the idea that it’s all about “too many too soon” and “toxins” in vaccines (even though that’s scientifically unsupported too), they’ve been clamoring for what they like to call a “vaxed-unvaxed study.” Basically, this is a study of vaccinated children versus unvaccinated children. At first, having no concept of medical ethics, anti-vaccine activists demanded a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, apparently not realizing how utterly unethical such a study would be, given that it would leave the placebo control group unprotected against potentially dangerous childhood illnesses. Eventually, it started to sink in that such a study is neither feasible nor ethical (although sadly this wasn’t the case for all anti-vaccine loons). When that finally happened, it was so cute to see anti-vaccine activists try to propose epidemiological studies. Basically, it’s painfully obvious that anti-vaccine activists don’t understand the issues involved, particularly the size of the study that would be required, the difficulty in controlling for confounding factors in the sorts of designs that would be required (such as case-control, for example), and how expensive such a study would be. Also, to meet ethical standards, such a study would have to have a decent amount of preliminary data to support its hypothesis that vaccines cause autism (or whatever), and there is none, at least none not coming from anti-vaccine loons or investigators somehow associated with anti-vaccine loons.
Not that that’s totally stopped anti-vaxers from trying to do such a study.
For example, four years ago, J.B. Handley’s (now Jenny McCarthy’s) anti-vaccine propaganda group Generation Rescue did what was billed as a “study” of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children. It was nothing of the sort. Rather, it was a poorly designed phone survey whose results in some groups suggested that vaccines protected against autism, although Generation Rescue spun it as supporting the vaccine-autism hypothesis. Of course, the whole survey was so ridiculously badly designed that you really couldn’t tell anything from it at all, given its selection bias and failure to control for confounders, but that doesn’t stop it from periodically rising from the grave and shambling off to feast on the brains of antivaxers, who then cite it as though it’s evidence of anything other than the incompetence of Generation Rescue at any sort of research.
Now they’re at it again, although it’s not Generation Rescue who did this new “study.” Even so, not surprisingly, the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism is nonetheless promoting it under the title Vax UnVax Study Results, as is the one anti-vaccine website that can challenge NaturalNews.com for the sheer intensity of its burning stupid, Child Health Safety, which is promoting the study/survey breathlessly as New Survey Shows Unvaccinated Children Vastly Healthier – Far Lower Rates of Chronic Conditions and Autism.
It does nothing of the sort.
In fact, looking at the actual survey used, although it pains me to say so, Generation Rescue comes out looking more competent than VaccineInjury.info, the English-language version of Impfschaden.info, a German anti-vaccine website run by a homeopath named Andreas Bachmair, who conducted the survey. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. The survey begins with this introduction:For statistical evaluation of the state of health of entirely unvaccinated children we request you to fill out the following form. The data will be published anonymously and handled with utmost confidentiality. The results help us to acquire accurate information about the health of unvaccinated children.
Does anyone see a problem here? Well, actually, does anyone see several problems, but one glaring problem besides the problem of this being an anonymous Internet survey that anyone can fill out? Let’s just put it this way. Even Generation Rescue tried to have an actual control group, namely vaccinated children. Indeed, although Generation Rescue did a crappy and arbitrary job of it, its survey company at least tried to stratify respondents into different dose levels of vaccines, to produce three groups: unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, and fully vaccinated. What does Bachmair do? Nothing of the sort! He only collects data on “entirely unvaccinated children.” He even puts it in bold! Let’s just say that the construction of this survey demonstrates in this survey all the scientific understanding and rigor that I would expect from a homeopath, given that homeopaths believe that magic water cures people.
Before I come back to the horrendously bad methodology, why don’t we just summarize some of the results of this survey and then look at some of the reactions? There were a total of 7,762 children whose information was provided to the survey, and the general results are summarized as the state of health of unvaccinated children. Before we get to the “money results,” let’s take a peak at some anomalies that suggest that this particular group might not be–shall we say–strictly comparable to children in the population at large. For example:The parents stated that their preferred treatment was naturopathic and homeopathic. Less than 10% said they preferred conventional medicine. Treatment in the “other” column was mainly chiropractic and supplemental.
So, right away, this survey demonstrates that the parents who filled it out were a self-selected, biased sample, the vast majority of whom favor alternative medicine and are hostile to scientific medicine. Indeed, 99.69% of the respondents report being happy that they did not vaccinate their children. One thing that this love of woo and hostility towards scientific medicine can mean is that a lot of these children could have subclinical or mildly clinical disease that goes undiagnosed because they never take their children to a real doctor, preferring instead homeopaths, naturopaths, and chiropractors.
To get a flavor of the health results, let’s look at the part of the report that asks about asthma and atopic diseases:Asthma, hayfever and neurodermatitis are seen very frequently today. A recent German study with 17461 children between 0-17 years of age (KIGGS) showed that 4.7% of these children suffer from asthma, 10.7% of these children from hayfever and 13.2% from neurodermatitis. These numbers differ in western countries, i.e. the prevalence of asthma among children in the US is 6% whereas it is 14-16% in Australia (Australia’s Health 2004, AIHW)
The prevalence of asthma among unvaccinated children in our study is around 2.5%, hayfever 2.5% and neurodermatitis 7%.
According to the KIGGS study more than 40% of children between the ages of 3 and 17 years were sensitized against at least one allergen tested (20 common allergens were tested) and 22.9% had an allergic disease. Although we did not perform a bloodtest, around 10% stated that their children had an allergy.
One wonders how, if these parents chose homeopaths, naturopaths, and chiropractors over real doctors, they had any idea whatsoever whether or not their children actually had asthma. One of the most common presentations of asthma is cough alone. In fact, milder cases of asthma can be difficult to diagnose in children; so once again, what the parents report probably doesn’t tell us much. Neither does the claim that far fewer of these children had allergies.
Which brings us to autism.
If you scroll down to the graph looking at autism and various other problems, such as ADHD, you’ll find that the overall prevalence reported in these children was 0.57%. In terms of raw numbers, that’s 44 children, which makes this statement rather puzzling:There are also autism cases in unvaccinated children. However over 80% stated, that it is only a mild form or a high functioning form of autism. Among all participants there were 4 severe autism cases.
Apparently, basic math isn’t a homeopath’s strong suit, which probably explains why they can’t understand the concept of Avagadro’s number. Be that as it may, if 20% of autistic children equals four, then there could only be 20 autistic children, but the survey suggests that there were twice that many in unvaccinated children. (One wonders what Tony Bateson would say.) In any case, a prevalence of 0.57%, even if this survey were accurate, would be within the range of estimated prevalences found in various studies. Perhaps Bachmair knows that, which is why he tried to emphasize “severe” autism and then came up with those additional factoids about some of these four to suggest that they had been exposed to mercury or heavy metals. Even worse for Bachmair, if you look at the graph of autism by age range in these children, depending on the age range it ranges from 0.37% to a whopping 2.36%, the latter of which is almost as high as a recent study in Korea found. In fact, if you look at the age range of the responses, nearly half of the responses (3,075) were for children under two years old, which is young enough that autism might very well have not been diagnosed yet, and in this group the reported prevalence was 0.37%, while in the 11-12 year range the prevalence was highest, at 2.36%. In fact, autism prevalence is so obviously not appreciably different in the unvaccinated in this survey compared to reported prevalence numbers that even a commenter at Age of Autism wrote:If you look at all the age groups >2 years old the autism incidence ranges from 0.63 to 2.36%, with most being in the range 1-2%, the population size was about 3500 replies. My main criticism is a self selected population with potentially varying diagnostic criteria, but on these data the incidence of autism in unvaccinated children seems to match vaccinated children.
There’s no “seems” about it. The prevalence of autism in unvaccinated children in this survey does closely match reported numbers for overall population prevalence in populations where the vast majority of children are vaccinated. This result is an unmitigated disaster for Bachmair and his groupies, which is why I couldn’t stop laughing when I read this from ChildHealthSafety:It is interesting neither the US National Institutes of Health [US$30.5 billion annual budget on medical research] nor the US Centers for Disease Control [US$11 billion budget annually] could find the time or money to fund this kind of research but instead waste US tax dollars on a great deal of pointless medical research and promotion of iatrogenic [man made] disease causing agents [modern drug company “treatments”].
No, it’s not really that interesting. Say what you will about the NIH, it does have a pretty rigorous peer review process, which means that it doesn’t (usually) fund crap. In fact, this survey was so poorly designed and analyzed that I doubt even the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) would fund it. Unfortunately, now this “study” will no doubt join the Generation Rescue “study” in the annals of crap vaccine/autism science, to circulate around Whale.to (where it belongs) and be dredged up as “evidence” periodically. Old, refuted anti-vaccine studies never die, alas.
In any case, I take some comfort in the hilarious result of this survey that demonstrates that autism prevalence in the unvaccinated is similar to autism prevalence among the vaccinated, no matter how much anti-vaccine activists try to spin it otherwise. I realize that this survey is in fact so poorly designed that it really doesn’t tell us much of anything, but it is fun watching anti-vaxer brains explode trying to spin this result as supporting the vaccine/autism hypothesis.
The enjoyment I get watching that assuages my guilt for picking on homeopaths so.
NOTE: I notice that the total number of children is increasing. It’s now up to 7,799 at this moment, suggesting that 30 people have filled it out since last night. Given that Child Health Safety lists it as 7,724 five days ago that suggests that the surveys still open and is automatically updating totals.
Hmmmmm.
by identity » Sat Sep 10, 2016 8:20 pm
by DrEvil » Sun Sep 11, 2016 2:28 pm
THE HERD MUST BE PROTECTED AT ANY COST!
(fun fact: almost 100000 people, mostly children, die from measles every year because they haven't been vaccinated.)by slimmouse » Sun Sep 11, 2016 4:41 pm
by DrEvil » Sun Sep 11, 2016 5:56 pm
slimmouse » Sun Sep 11, 2016 10:41 pm wrote:Would that be the complete idiot, or only half the idiot you need to be to justify telling people that a plant is illegal?
Or do you just need to be a seriously disturbed psycopath to promote that kind of meme?
I do believe its important to understand that the same people who are telling you that a plant is illegal are telling you that vaccinations by the shitload are what our kids need.
by slimmouse » Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:18 pm
DrEvil » 11 Sep 2016 21:56 wrote:slimmouse » Sun Sep 11, 2016 10:41 pm wrote:Would that be the complete idiot, or only half the idiot you need to be to justify telling people that a plant is illegal?
Or do you just need to be a seriously disturbed psycopath to promote that kind of meme?
I do believe its important to understand that the same people who are telling you that a plant is illegal are telling you that vaccinations by the shitload are what our kids need.
It's doctors, researchers and health officials who are telling us that vaccines are important.
Pharmaceutical companies are patenting plants (which I agree is 100% bullshit). Not the same thing and in no way related, but that's as expected from you.
I do think you have to be a seriously disturbed psychopath to try to prevent people from getting vaccinated (or more likely - a gullible fool who would rather listen to a known fraudster than pretty much every single doctor and actual expert on the planet. You people sound like Trump supporters. Knowledge is evil, dumb is good).
Here's some numbers for measles:
Deaths in 1980: 2,6 million
Deaths in 1990: 545,000
Deaths in 2013: 96,000
Guess why.
Or how about smallpox:
Deaths during the 20th century: 300-500 million
Deaths in 1967: 2 million
Deaths today: 0
Again - guess why?
But hey, as long as I get to be a selfish prick it's OK for a bunch of other people to die, right?
by OP ED » Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:04 pm
![\<]](./images/smilies/confused0044.gif "confused")
by Burnt Hill » Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:00 pm
OP ED » Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:04 pm wrote:The American medical establishment, that is the AMA, among others have been recommending the decriminalizing and regulating of marijuana in most of their official position papers since the nixon administration. I've had two different doctors write me prescriptions for it as an alternative to standard pharmaceuticals. Or are we talking about a different plant?
By the way, Doctors don't create laws.
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