taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

108 Comments

1. Enda said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 2:12 pm

   Pretty amazing stuff from the GP candidate alright. Speaking as a parent of a child with autism though, I’d have to admit a certain wariness around vaccinations, though not to the extent where I’d actually not do them at all. Though Wakefield has been utterly discredited, there is still not enough info out there for parents as to what does cause autism.

   The piling of multiple vaccines into one (we’re on 5-1 now, soon to be 6-1) has to make you wonder as to the side effects. Although the general benefits to society are undoubted, how do you ask parents of children (who may have a predisposition to autism, based on familty history or whatever) to potentially risk autism for the greater good? The days when people just did what the men and women in white coats said, are gone - the blood transfusion scandal saw to that. MRSA confirms it. It is the incompetent fools who run the HSE that are to blame for a lack of public confidence in the vaccination program. Patricia McKenna is a victim of this rather than a culprit.

   This, coupled with the coincidence of the emergence of symptoms of autism at around the time the MMR is usually given, leaves worried parents in a vacuum, and sadly many make the wrong choices.

2. Justin said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 3:07 pm

   Enda:

   ‘how do you ask parents of children (who may have a predisposition to autism, based on familty history or whatever) to potentially risk autism for the greater good?’

   The option of skipping the MMR jab in the hopes of avoiding an increased autism risk, brings with it an increased risk of measles for everyone, not just the one child concerned, and measles kills — and in fact has killed children right here in Dublin, recently. That, to me, means that there’s a higher burden of proof required by the “MMR/autism link” crowd, and it’s simply not there.

   In the meantime, the proof is rising on the other side of the argument: autism rose in Japan after the MMR was banned there, for example.

   Is there really a potential risk worth worrying about, if there’s no proof for such a risk?

   ‘It is the incompetent fools who run the HSE that are to blame for a lack of public confidence in the vaccination program.’

   well, one part of the problem is indeed that medicine and public health science is poorly explained — but that’s not just the HSE’s fault, it’s also the newspapers who love a juicy story, regardless of whether it’s true or not… and don’t bother following up if the more boring alternative proves to be the case instead.

3. dublinnorth said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 3:23 pm

   Oh no. This is not good. But I will vote Green. Luckily I have Sargent and Joe Corr in my constituency and they have never come out with stuff like this.

   I am actually voting for Sargent because he is the best candidate by a country mile in Dublin North but I have reservations about some Green policies. There is an anti-Science fringe in there. Don’t let it put you off voting Green - there are lots of great politicians in there too. Nothing is perfect in life and on balance the Greens have more great policies than any other party.

4. Conor O\'Neill said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 3:42 pm

   I’ll vote for the first party that promises to bring in a new health regulation banning non-vaccinated adults and children from all childcare facilities.

5. Enda said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 3:49 pm

   Justin,

   there’s a higher burden of proof required by the MMR/autism link crowd

   Absolutely - and that ship has long since sailed. No serious observer thinks there is a link between autism and MMR. But it is not yet proven that there is no link between the vaccination program in general and autism. (I know, how are you supposed to prove a negative anyway?) The fact is the incidence of autism is rising and people don’t know why. It might be vaccinations (unlikely) or it might be solar flare activitity (even more unlikely) - who knows? It will probably prove to be a combination of increased awareness and changing criteria, but that is not yet proven either.

   In this vacuum, it’s no good telling parents that the burden of proof is on them. Logically, that may be the case, but if the State is going to go around mass medicating our children, then I’m afraid the burden of proof is de facto on the State, since they can’t enforce vaccination. That burden is probably unattainable, so the HSE will just have to pour more resources into getting the take up rates into the 90’s again - you’ll never convince everyone.

   The problem as I see it, is that fear and ignorance are spread by the incompetence of the very people we should trust to set us straight - in Ireland this is the HSE and Dept of Health. Those idiots have let us down so often that people just don’t believe them anymore when they say “trust us, we know what we’re doing”. That’s why I’d say McKenna is as much a victim in all this. She’ll kick herself if her kids get polio.

6. ACE said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 3:50 pm

   I think it is interesting to ask why there is a growing scepticism about the advice dispensed by our health authorities. Having done so I have more sympathy for Ms McKenna’s position despite her potentially shaky rationalisation.

   There is good reason to be sceptical of the value of “scientific” conclusions that are made in the context of huge amounts of money to be made or lost.

   Our current processes for judging the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals relies heavily on commercial interests, and those who owe their comfortable living to the same.

   The link in the above paragraph is to a summary of a book by Marcia Angell

   Marcia Angell is a Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. A physician, she is a former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. Her latest book is The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It. (June 2006)

   Not exactly the resume of a crazy hippie.

7. Enda said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 3:54 pm

   dublinnorth is probably right. The fact that they’ve pulled some of this stuff from their site suggests someone has thought this through and maybe will have a word in McKenna’s ear!

   Conor, I think they have something like this is the States, yesno?

8. John said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 5:25 pm

   I was tempted to vote Green prior to hearing that interview when it went out but, like you, I was horrified by that anti-science stance. I have the same problem with the Greens and incinerators (though they’re not the only ones campaigning on the issue). People I’ve spoken to with strong science backgrounds and others involved in the waste-disposal issue are incensed by the shite being presented as science in that debate as well.

   So long as there’s a spurious, flaky, New Age, anti-science image associated with the Greens, they’re going to struggle to be a credible political party. It’s all very well being anti-Big Pharma and playing on mistrust of “pro-business” politicians, but what do they plan on doing once they get in power? Take their advice from lobbyists for the Alternative/Complementary Medicine crowd?

9. Paddy said,

   April 10, 2007 @ 6:24 pm

   Patricia McKenna is a stone moron. End of story. But I wouldn’t let her crass stupidity stop me from voting for the greens. I had a long chat with my local green candidate a couple of years back and I confessed to him that the primary reason I was wary of voting green in the past was because of McKenna’s constant diatribes on the radio on all matter of subjects of which she was entirely ignorant. He wholeheartedly agreed that it was a major problem and one the party recognised.

10. monica said,

    April 10, 2007 @ 6:40 pm

    The lady is no moron.

    I wish I had been more informed. My daughter had seizures, fever and rash 2 wks after the mmr, and then severely regressed within 2 wks of the reaction. We have since learned that she has an immune deficiency, and the virus over replicated. She also has pituitary damage that can only have been caused by an infection of the csf. Now her docs say no more live virus vaccines- EVER.

    Look at the science, do your own research. It is true. The US switched from the OPV (live polio vaccine) to the IPV Inactivated polio vaccine- as it was causing polio in children with immune problems. The only cases of polio in the US in the last 15 yrs is from the vaccine.

    There is mounting evidence that children with autism have genetic abnormalities in regions of DNA which control immune function. Even the CDC states in their own vaccine information statement for the MMR and chickenpox vaccines; “Some people should check with their doctor about whether they should get MMR vaccine, including anyone who: - Has HIV/AIDS, or another disease that affects the immune system” http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/VIS/vis-mmr.pdf

    “Some people should check with their doctor about whether they should get chickenpox vaccine, including anyone who: - Has HIV/AIDS or another disease that affects the immune system” http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/VIS/vis-varicella.pdf

    With the mounting evidence of immune dysfunction in relation to autism, it is plain stupid that we are giving these vaccines without knowing the status of immune function in these children!

11. MaryAnn McCarra-Fitzpatrick said,

    April 10, 2007 @ 6:59 pm

    With our second child (our first son had a reaction to his 1-year old vaccines and was subsequently diagnosed as autistic…he is six and still cannot speak) we chose to have the MMR given in single (separated) doses and each six weeks apart, to watch for any adverse reactions.

    The vaccine schedule here (USA) required my first son to have 20+ vaccine jabs in his first twelve months. At some of his well visits he had two shots. We noticed a profound change in him after his 1-year shots (two shots at the one visit). High fever, then stopped looking at us, stopped babbling, night sweats started. Terrible. It’s been four years and it is still hellish sometimes, for him and for the whole family.

    By contrast (I was born in 1967) I had, in total, about 6 vaccinations. No adverse reactions. I did, however, have the mumps, measles, and chicken pox, all of which I survived without any lasting health problems.

    Unfortunately, in my son’s case, he suffers from gastrointestinal problems (also started at one year) and frustration/distress at not being able to speak. He was a completely healthy, normal child during his first year of life and the change we saw in him after his one-year shots was marked. So, in our case, I think there was a reaction, if not to one vaccine, or one additive, but perhaps to the cumulative effect of the 20+ shots he’d had. I just don’t think his system was up to it.

    If I knew then what I know now I would still have had him vaccinated but I would have proceeded much more slowly with it and I would have enquired about what the components of the vaccines were. Look at Simpsonwood…..there has been documentation that meetings were held here in the States where pharmaceutical / governmental representatives suppressed information regarding the safety of vaccines and adverse effects in order to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. Of course, children should be vaccinated. It is terribly unfortunate, though, that my son has to be the collateral damage, sacrificed on the altar of herd immunity.

12. Daithi said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 3:34 pm

    The ‘altar of herd immunity’ is infinitely preferable to the altar of quack science.

    The child who is unimmunised acts as a danger to everyone else around them. If the anti-science fringe want to act this way, let them withdraw from society entirely.

    Although I am a member of another party, I am very sympathetic to the Green Party in Ireland (Euro-scaremongering aside), and transfer to them without fail, but it’s despite McKenna rather than because of her.

    This interview is very disappointing.

13. MaryAnn McCarra-Fitzpatrick said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 3:38 pm

    Yes, it’s preferable, except for the parents, siblings, and grandparents who must care for a neurologically damaged child who might otherwise have enjoyed a happy, healthy productive life. It is not right that my child’s life was sacrificed, destroyed.

14. Daithi said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 3:46 pm

    If there was clear, proven scientific evidence of what you are claiming, I would agree with you. However, there isn’t. While I appreciate that the issue of autism is emotional and personal, the reactionary nonsense that plays down measles and plays up spurious, discredited, unsound research does nothing for anyone’s health. It does pick up a few votes, though.

15. Ryano said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 4:40 pm

    Justin, Patricia was expressing a personal view, and one that is not part of Green Party policy - the Green Party has never opposed vaccination programmes. We did raise concerns about the MMR vaccine some years ago when there was genuine public concern about the issue (the quote Ruairi Hanley uses above dates from that time), but we’ve acknowledged that the science has moved on.

    If you don’t want to vote for candidates who oppose vaccination then fair enough, but you should be aware that the Greens in government would support vaccination.

    You mention incineration also, which we do oppose, and I’d be happy to debate this if it’s not too off-topic - and without lapsing into pseudo-science.

    I’ll probably post broadly similar comments on the other blogs you link to above, as a lot of people may be unaware of the party’s actual position.

16. Justin said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 5:04 pm

    Ryan — thanks for commenting!

    ‘If you don’t want to vote for candidates who oppose vaccination then fair enough, but you should be aware that the Greens in government would support vaccination.’

    Good to hear that. It’d be really great if the Green site was updated to note that though… right now it’s just not mentioned, hence the confusion.

    Also, who am I supposed to vote for if I live in Dublin North Central and want to vote Green, then? I don’t want to provide support for Patricia’s position, as I’ve noted. Are there other candidates?

    (btw it wasn’t actually I who mentioned incineration — I haven’t been following that issue.)

17. Ryano said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 5:11 pm

    Sorry, my mistake! I’ll save the incineration debate for another day. I take your point about the lack of any clarification on the web site - I’ll suggest that.

    Are you in Dublin Central or Dublin North Central? If the latter, then your candidate is Cllr Bronwen Maher.

18. Justin said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 5:37 pm

    well, look at that! So she is.

    It’s pretty hard to tell where I am, but I think I’m currently in Dublin Central (Stoneybatter) and about to move to Dublin North Central (Glasnevin). Know any good maps?

19. John said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 5:46 pm

    Hi Ryano–

    I was the one who mentioned incinerators, but I couldn’t claim to be an expert on the subject, so I doubt if I could meaningfully debate it. However, a close relation of mine is a county engineer and has travelled across Europe in the past couple of years looking at incinerators in Paris, Bremen, Belgium, and Italy (I think). His views on the subject were independently echoed by a work colleague of mine who has degrees in biology and ecology and who is a former biological and ecological young scientist of the year (so he tells me!!). As it happened, they were both commenting on an anti-incinerator campaign close to us in Drogheda rather than specifically on Green policies, so it was less a disagreement with the party’s views than anger at the absence of accurate science in the debate over incinerators (frustration, I think, at the naked NIMBYism being leveraged, as much as anything else).

20. dublinnorth said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 7:19 pm

    The real problem with incinerators is that they incentivise the production of waste. If we have big fires we’ll need to feed them.

    But even incineration is better than landfill where Ireland is seriously lagging. Here the landfill levy is e15 a tonne in Britain it is e36 rising to e72 by 2010 (Sunday Business Post: http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS+FEATURES-qqqs=news-qqqid=22351-qqqx=1.asp)

    I agree that the problem with NIMBYism is that it can wreck arguments on both sides. McDowell’s idea to lump a new super-prison with a psychiatric hospital in Thornton hall follows the logic: Lets deal with these two NIMBYs at one stroke. I find it offensive and insensitive to site these institutions together. Psychiatric patients are people who are unwell, not criminals.

21. Antoin O Lachtnain said,

    April 11, 2007 @ 10:50 pm

    The problem with incinerators at this point is there is little left to burn in them. Paper products are now mostly recycled. Brown waste (food, etc) won’t burn very well, and incinerating it won’t really reduce its volume very much. To get it to burn, you have to add something (like paper).

    You cannot burn significant quantities of plastic economically in an incinerator.

    Anyway, this is flying off-topic. Maybe the important point is that scientific evidence is hard to interpret. Emotions and commercial issues inevitably get involved, and politicians don’t always help the situation.

22. MaryAnn McCarra-Fitzpatrick said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 2:58 am

    The vaccine/autism debate has not had a clear answer, unfortunately, for the 1 in 150 children now affected. David Kirby’s book examined this controversial subject in detail and is worth reading.

23. Mark Waters said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 11:34 am

    Daithi said: The child who is unimmunised acts as a danger to everyone else around them.

    Is this true? Surely if everyone else is immunised then they should be ok. I understand that the unimmunised child gets a free ride in this case since they get the benefits of immunisation without having to be immunised but can they also be a risk to those who have been immunised?

    On the substantive issue I believe that we should advocate MMR immunisation but we shouldn’t make it compulsory. Of course I would have to change my mind on this if it’s true that unimmunised children can infect immunised children.

24. Daithi said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 12:26 pm

    There is a silly animation from the NHS that tries to simplify it here: http://www.immunisation.nhs.uk/article.php?id=78 and there are lots of nice mathematical explanations (Justin linked to some in his original post). Essentially, if there are substantial numbers of people who refuse vaccination, it lowers the effectiveness of the programme as a whole, and thus an unimmune person (perhaps due to failure of vaccine or whatever) is thus at greater risk than if vaccination had been comprehensive or close to comprehensive.

25. Justin said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 1:03 pm

    ‘Surely if everyone else is immunised then they should be ok. I understand that the unimmunised child gets a free ride in this case since they get the benefits of immunisation without having to be immunised but can they also be a risk to those who have been immunised?’

    As the Herd Immunity page at WP notes:

    ‘Vaccination acts as a sort of “firebreak” in the spread of the disease, slowing or preventing further transmission of the disease to others. Although no vaccine offers 100% protection, the spread of disease from person to person is much higher in those who remain unvaccinated. Virologists have found that when a certain percentage of a population is vaccinated, the spread of the disease is effectively stopped. This critical percentage depends on the disease and the vaccine, but 90% is not uncommon.’

    The important point is that even if you’re vaccinated, there’s no 100% guarantee that you’re going to be safe — there’s no such thing as 100% in the real world ;) The “firebreak” epidemiological model is crucial to the effectiveness of vaccination as an outbreak-prevention strategy, even for the protection of some of the vaccinated population.

26. Enda said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 5:22 pm

    Justin,

    Re: Herd Immunity - So Mark’s question is not unreasonable then? If we need 90% takeup to provide Herd Immunity, it is not unreasonable for people whose kids have a predisposition to autism to refuse vaccination and get the free ride, provided the number choosing this does not exceed 10% of the population. Given the incidence of autism is below 1% this decision should not be a threat to herd immunity. Granted, there is no proven link between the vaccination program and autism, but to my mind the onus is on the HSE and Dept of Health to:

    1) first prove to the 99% of families that have no known predisposition towards autism that the vaccination program is safe and cannot give your kids autsim.

    2) then to prove to the 1% that do have such concerns that the vaccination programme does not act as a trigger for the onset of autism in those so predisposed.

    1) Ought to be easy - just doing their jobs really. In this case obviously failing! 2) Is more difficult, but not as crucial to the maintenance of HI, given the relatively small numbers involved. To be fair though, 2) has been done with respect to MMR specifically but not wrt to the wider program.

27. Justin said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 7:29 pm

    ‘Granted, there is no proven link between the vaccination program and autism’

    That’s a very big “granted”, right there.

28. David Malone said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 9:38 pm

    In an exhibit in the London Science Museum about 18 months ago, Ireland had the dubious honour of being picked out as a country where the vaccination rates were low enough that we had had a number of ourbreaks of nasty diseases that had ended up killing measurable numbers of people.

    I think Patricia McKenna comes from an older, more hysterical school of green thought. The sort of school that produces “Nuclear Power, No Thanks” stickers showing a smiling sun, which is the largest source of nuclear power for some distance. To be honest, I feel this really shows whenever she is interviewed and has certainly made me think twice about voting green.

29. Ryano said,

    April 13, 2007 @ 12:51 pm

    “It’s pretty hard to tell where I am, but I think I’m currently in Dublin Central (Stoneybatter) and about to move to Dublin North Central (Glasnevin). Know any good maps?”

    There’s a good map here which should answer your question.

    By the way, did you really transcribe this yourself? That’s quite an effort to make - do you want a job transcribing all our media appearances? ;)

30. Justin said,

    April 13, 2007 @ 1:37 pm

    Thanks Ryan — that’s exactly the kind of map I was after. I’m still in Dublin Central it appears…

    Yeah, I did the transcription myself. I don’t plan to do that again in a hurry — it was longer than it sounded at first ;)

31. Enda said,

    April 13, 2007 @ 3:58 pm

    That’s a very big ‘granted’, right there.

    Yeah, I know ;-)

    But I hope I’ve explained why I feel the onus is on the HSE to prove safety here rather than worried parents. If David Malone’s last comment is true (and I’ve no reason to doubt it) then it is negligent for the HSE not to be making a massive effort in this sphere. It shouldn’t be up to you or me to persuade McKenna or anyone else, it should be up to Prof. Drumm and his merry band of morons. Lives are literally at stake!

32. joemomma said,

    April 14, 2007 @ 12:24 am

    “We have a woman there who knows, in her heart of hearts, that her argument is wrong but refuses to admit it because it relies on science.”

    I think Redmond is wrong there - it’s clear from the transcript that McKenna doesn’t know she’s wrong, she’s just completely mixed up, e.g.:

    “I think we have a tendency to over-indulge in vaccinating our children and vaccinating ourselves, because what we need - our immune systems are getting weaker and weaker by the day, it’s a - I think we need to be very careful about how we actually approach this so that when medicines are necessary, we will not be immune to them…”

    She’s obviously mixing up vaccines with antibiotics here - it’s a nonsense to suggest that vaccination will weaken our immune systems. She’s ascribing a genuine issue with overuse of antibiotics to all “medicines”, including vaccines.

    She just doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but she wouldn’t be the first candidate from any party to get tied up in knots trying to deal with an issue about which she’s ignorant. It needn’t be read as any sort of anti-vaccination tendency in the Greens: Matt Cooper recently had a Fianna Fáil councillor on expressing fears about cattle and deer interbreeding in County Clare, but we shouldn’t necessarily accuse Fianna Fáil of anti-scientific scaremongering over bovine-deer hybridisation.

    Or should we? ;)

33. Diarmuid said,

    April 14, 2007 @ 8:32 pm

    “Every policy they [the Green Party] define should be backed up with rock-solid science and a detailed long-term financial analysis proving why it is in our best interests to adopt them.”

    Why should this be expected of the Greens in particular? If we held certain other parties up to the same high standards the country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in now.

34. Lugs said,

    April 14, 2007 @ 10:42 pm

    Want a terrifying vision of the future?

    “Minister for Health Patricia McKenna”

    No thanks.

    Kudos to Cooper and his team for knowing the facts and exposing her shocking ignorance. I’ll be checking what my local Green candidate thinks of this.

35. joemomma said,

    April 15, 2007 @ 1:03 am

    “Kudos to Cooper and his team for knowing the facts and exposing her shocking ignorance.”

    She’s a bit of an easy target though.

36. David Malone said,

    April 15, 2007 @ 7:49 am

    Why should this be expected of the Greens in particular? If we held certain other parties up to the same high standards the country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in now.

    I guess it would be good if other parties also did this, but I guess it is particularly important for the Greens because their core claim is basically that they will use Ecology (which is an -ology) to set their policies.

37. Conor O\'Neill said,

    April 15, 2007 @ 9:14 am

    Diarmuid, the Greens continue to have a fundamental credibility issue in this country whether deserved or not. Getting elected is not about policies, it’s about marketing. My suggestion was a basic marketing proposal for them.

    Sure they can continue to tell us all we’re very bold for doing x, y and z, but that won’t get many of them elected. The Greens have to overcome the suspicion many people have that, with them in a strong position of power, Ireland would be a beacon of environmentalism worldwide, and bankrupt. Meanwhile China would continue to build coal-fired power stations and laugh all the way to the bank. Overcome that stereotype, dump donkeys like Patricia McKenna and they could probably do very well in 2011.

38. sarah said,

    April 15, 2007 @ 9:06 pm

    Herd immunity aside people should remember that newborn babies haven’t been vaccinated. I actually rang McKenna during the week to ask her about this stuff and asked her how she would feel if her children gave measles to a newborn. It simply hadn’t occured to her. She just thought about it from her own point of view and her children. This woman is a liability to the Green Party.

39. Philip said,

    April 15, 2007 @ 9:28 pm

    Joemomma, Are you sure it’s a nonsense to suggest that vaccination will weaken our immune systems? I’m just asking.

    I love science but blind faith in science has betrayed many a person and family. I have to say that some of the comments here appear to be pretty uncaring about victims of medicine. Scientific medicine is not all-knowing, as its history and its more thoughtful practitioners will tell you, and sometimes a parent’s (and an ecologist’s) instinct is correct.

    This is a fascinating and important discussion and I’m very glad I came across it (via Blog Posts about Irish TDs).

40. joemomma said,

    April 15, 2007 @ 10:23 pm

    Philip, I’m not a practising scientician, but a vaccine works by stimulating your immune system to combat a particular infection. I’m not aware of any sense in which “over-indulging in vaccination” can be said to actually weaken your immune system.

    Overuse of antibiotics, on the other hand, has been seen to cause antibiotic-resistant strains of infectious organisms to become more frequent. For example, if you’re taking an antibiotic to combat an infection against which it has no effect, e.g. a common cold, you may end up encouraging the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in your system - these bacteria prosper by natural selection because their non-resistant buddies are wiped out by the antibiotic.

    That’s my layman’s understanding of the situation, anyway. What McKenna was describing sounds much more like the issue of antibiotic overuse/misuse rather than anything to do with vaccination.

41. joemomma said,

    April 15, 2007 @ 10:28 pm

    Sarah, am I right in thinking that newborn babies share the same antibodies as their mother if they’re breastfed?

42. David Malone said,

    April 16, 2007 @ 7:08 am

    am I right in thinking that newborn babies share the same antibodies as their mother if they’re breastfed?

    I asked a microbiologist friend who works with blood about this recently. The immune system is pretty complex, and there are several classes of antibody that we use to fight infections. Some of the more robust antibodies can pass from a mother to their child through milk, but not all of them. (Providing I’ve understood their explaination correctly.)

43. Dave said,

    April 16, 2007 @ 11:53 am

    Justin, regardless of whether McKenna was acting alone or not, the statements linked by Winds&Breezes did exist on the GP website so it’s not like they can blame McKenna for that either.

    Matt Cooper had Dan Boyle on recently and he was being tackled on the subject of homeopathy by a doctor. More green support for pure rubbish.

44. joemomma said,

    April 16, 2007 @ 7:57 pm

    What did Dan say about homeopathy?

45. Treasa said,

    April 17, 2007 @ 8:41 am

    I’d like, if I may, to make a quick comment on this.

    I think the fact that you can have so much debate about whether vaccination is good or not is indicative of how successful it has been. When I was 8 years old, there is no way that it would have happened because the downside of vaccination was all too visible around you - the one which stands out to me in particular was the BCG for tuberculosis. Everyone who was a parent at the time realised how destructive it could be. Polio is another case in point.

    I think the problem here is people’s risk assessment. Patricia McKenna’s point that “I had the measles”, “everyone had the measles” is a key indicator this. Ultimately, if you take at value that vaccination may cause autism, what is happening here is that people are making a value call - risk of autism versus risk of death from measles and because few people die from measles, they reckon autism is a higher risk.

    But this is a questionable conclusion purely because the prevalence of measles has been so low thanks to vaccination. If the incidence of measles was far higher thanks to lower vaccination rates again, it might swing around. In some ways you can say it’s a generational thing: because we were so little affected by measles outbreaks, we don’t remember what it can do. We’ve never known what it can do.

    On the subject of the Green Party’s views on immunisation it would be beneficial if their primary care document strongly expressed support for vaccination particularly in light of their previous document, and particularly given the importance they attach to preventive measures in their current doument. I am told that the Green Party does support vaccination but it’s not all that clear. With respect to the other debate which I raised - regarding alternative cures - despite some discussion on that front on my own site, I still remain to be convinced of what the Green Party’s position actually is.

    I’d add that the GP’s raison d’etre depends heavily on science. I’d like to be able to believe that I can depend on the GP’s understanding of science. The fact that this debate blew up at all casts some doubts for me.

46. Conor O\'Neill said,

    April 17, 2007 @ 9:26 am

    If the clueless among us ignore facts and decades of data then the tools of social stigma need to be used.

    It is no longer acceptable to smoke in many places. It should be equally unacceptable to allow potential disease-carriers access to anywhere like creches where there are unprotected younger children who have not had the MMR yet.

    If that doesn’t work, the Health Boards (I assume this in now HSE) should simply add a requirement that all children who attend approved-childcare facilities must have received the MMR. Approval is removed from those creches that do not comply.

    Schools send around notes telling us all about headlice. They tell us not to send our kids to school if they have a virus like the flu. It’s about time they started telling us whether non-MMR-vaccinated children are in our schools too.

    In Cork, we now have the mess of the last (how many?) years to clean up in the area of BCG. Once we do, the same rules should apply for that.

    This is a serious public health issue and should be addressed as such rather than as some middle-class “choice” thing.

47. chancer said,

    April 17, 2007 @ 9:54 am

    Hmmm…. just sent this mail to the greens, interesting to see if there’ll be a reply….

    Hi,

    I just read what Patricia McKenna said on Today FM about the MMR vaccine, and also that your website, until feb stated that there were “serious question marks about the benefit of mass vaccination programs”.

    If this is the Green belief system, then your policies are based on luddism rather than science. It is appallingly irresponsible to still hold that the jury is out on the MMR vaccine, when the doubters have been utterly scientifically discredited.

    Congratulations, you’ve lost a voter.

48. soubresauts said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 12:15 am

    This discussion is just amazing for its inaccuracies and wild assumptions, along with a dose of paranoia.

    If people have a grudge against Patricia McKenna, maybe they should set up a blog for that and get it out of their system. The discussion centres on what McKenna said in that radio interview about vaccination. But many of the comments are going off on crazy tangents.

    If you are appalled by somebody questioning the value of vaccination, by all means say so, but you really ought to try explaining why.

    There are many people who have never been vaccinated, and refuse to vaccinate their children. I know quite a few of them myself. There is nothing wrong with them, and they’re not threatening anyone. They get the usual childhood diseases — measles, mumps, whooping cough, etc. — just like I got them myself. The parents expect this and regard it as normal.

    Why refuse vaccination? Well, take just one of the vaccines commonly used in Ireland — BCG. This is probably the best established and best “accepted” vaccination of all. And yet… when you search Ireland’s most popular source of orthodox health info you find: http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=9220 http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=9258 http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=7130 http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=4104 http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=4018 http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=4141

    Then consider that every vaccination has unwanted side-effects. Consider also the ingredients in those vaccines (if you’re squeamish or easily nauseated, watch out!). Consider also the track records of the pharma companies producing those vaccines. Consider also the financial incentive for GPs to administer vaccinations. Consider also the total obsession with vaccination that characterizes our medical establishment, so that other approaches to dealing with disease get scant consideration.

    Consider also opinions on vaccination that combine common sense with science, such as: http://www.doctoryourself.com/vaccination.html http://www.doctoryourself.com/vaccin_2.html

    There’s nothing “appallingly irresponsible” about McKenna not allowing her children to be vaccinated. Quite the opposite in fact. The assumption that anti-vaccination is anti-science is misinformed.

    Do you people not believe that our immune systems have evolved? You do believe in evolution, don’t you?

    If you believe that we’re “winning the battle” against diseases and that “eventually” we won’t even “need” to vaccinate because the diseases will have died out, then you’re living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Maybe smallpox was eradicated (I have my doubts), but then along came AIDS, BSE-CJD, MRSA, bird flu, and so on.

    I believe that Bill Gates, among others, hasn’t given careful consideration to all these issues, and I wish that the 750 million dollars he donated to vaccinate kids in southern countries had gone instead towards providing clean drinking water for them.

    Justin, you were “shocked and appalled” at McKenna’s statements, and you insist that any link between MMR and autism is “thoroughly discredited”, but the only evidence you give is Dr Ben Goldacre’s website. Goldacre is certainly a popular man but it’s worrying when he gives a link to the likes of Quackwatch.com. (You should be aware that Quackwatch is run by Stephen “Combover” Barrett who also works for the American Council on Science & Health, funded by big industry.)

    And Dr Andrew Wakefield has not been “utterly discredited”, as Matt Cooper insisted. Wakefield is continuing his medical research career in the U.S.

    Actually, the statements and behaviour of both Cooper and the PD candidate Keith Redmond were appalling. I’m amazed that none of you seemed to notice.

    Justin, you said that “skipping the MMR jab… brings with it an increased risk of measles for everyone”. Really? Aren’t all the vaccinated people supposed to be immune? So who’s worried?

    And you said: “The ‘firebreak’ epidemiological model is crucial to the effectiveness of vaccination as an outbreak-prevention strategy, even for the protection of some of the vaccinated population.” Do you accept that unquestioningly? Have you seen rigorous science supporting that idea?

    dublinnorth said: “There is an anti-Science fringe in there [the Green Party].” Really? How about YOU coming up with some rigorous science?

    Conor O’Neill wants “a new health regulation banning non-vaccinated adults and children from all childcare facilities.” Uh oh, here we go. What do you want to do with all those foreigners coming into Ireland, Conor? For “foreigner” read “carrier of disease”. Conor’s April 17 post was particularly ludicrous. I can only hope the Irish population is immune to his ideas.

    Enda said (of McKenna): “She’ll kick herself if her kids get polio.” Enda doesn’t know much about polio, nor about McKenna.

    Daithi said: “The child who is unimmunised acts as a danger to everyone else around them.” Daithi, that’s an amazing statement coming from a lawyer. What is this “danger”? Are you telling me I should be scared of all the fine, healthy unvaccinated people I know?

    Sarah said that “people should remember that newborn babies haven’t been vaccinated.” Really? And Sarah “rang McKenna during the week to ask her about this stuff and asked her how she would feel if her children gave measles to a newborn.” I take it, Sarah, you’re busy alerting everyone you know to watch out for McKenna’s threatening children…

    Lugs said: “Kudos to Cooper and his team for knowing the facts and exposing her shocking ignorance.” What facts might those be, Lugs?

    Joemomma, you thought that McKenna got mixed up, but did you not notice the unreasonable behaviour by both Matt Cooper and Keith Redmond? Cooper got far too emotional (perhaps because he vaccinated his kids and bottle-fed them with fluoridated water), and Redmond made a huge number of outrageous statements. “We know the science, we know the facts,” he said, but HE doesn’t know the science. He was “rubbishing” America’s highest scientific authority, the NRC.

    Treasa said: “…because we were so little affected by measles outbreaks, we don’t remember what it can do. We’ve never known what it can do.” I’m a bit older than you, Treasa. When I was young everyone got measles (and the same goes for EVERY generation before the present one). There was no problem, we got a little bit sick and recovered, and there was no worry about it. I never heard of anyone being badly affected.

    The bottom line is that parents have a right to refuse vaccination, and they also have good reasons to do so. Parents make their choice about vaccination and live with the consequences; they ARE responsible. If Justin, Daithi, Conor O’Neill, Sarah and others want to deprive parents of that right, they should say so and engage in an honest discussion about it.

49. Treasa said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 8:14 am

    Measles has side effects too, include death from complications. Just because it never happened to anyone around you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

    The issue with vaccination and choosing not to do it is that you force your choice on other people too. Our measles rate went up - and with it related deaths and complications because not enough people got vaccinated. It is not just a personal choice - it is a choice you are forcing on your children and on other people.

    Just because you were okay doesn’t mean they will be okay. Yes there can be side effects but in the main the complications arising from something like measles can be much, much worse than the side effects and include death. The Wakefield study has been discredited including by people who were involved in writing it so regardless of who is telling you, you cannot disregard that. Not only that, there are a bunch of larger studies contradicting its findings.

    Parents are forcing a health choice on their children and it may have serious consequences for their future health. Do you support those who refuse to allow their children have blood transfusions also?

50. Conor O\'Neill said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 8:41 am

    There is so much to laugh out loud about soubresauts comments but I think the attempt to turn my comments into a race issue really does hit rock bottom. “Foreigners” had never even entered my head, I was more focused on local nitwits who ignore centuries of science in favour of quack nonsense.

    Many foreign nationals, unlike wilfully misinformed people like soubresauts, have seen the utter destruction caused by measles, TB and other killer diseases and I’m sure they would leap at the chance to have their children vaccinated. Does anyone know if this service is offered to them and their families?

51. Dave said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 9:38 am

    If people have a grudge against Patricia McKenna, maybe they should set up a blog for that and get it out of their system.

    The thing that struck me reading the discussion was how many people had fancied the Greens as a party but this upset them. To paint the commenters as having a grudge against McKenna is absurd.

    Do you people not believe that our immune systems have evolved? You do believe in evolution, don’t you?

    And disease is subject to the same rules of evolution. What’s your point? Our immune systems are fantastic but the virii etc out there are just as incredible.

    (You should be aware that Quackwatch is run by Stephen “Combover” Barrett who also works for the American Council on Science & Health, funded by big industry.) What’s the point here again, how by it being funded by big industry is it wrong? All you’ve pointed out is that it may or may not have an interest in having a specific viewpoint, you haven’t outlined any proof of this.

52. Justin said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 11:24 am

    Justin, you said that ’skipping the MMR jab brings with it an increased risk of measles for everyone’. Really? Aren’t all the vaccinated people supposed to be immune? So who’s worried?

    No, vaccinated people are not all immune. Look, it’s getting boring going over this again and again! Once more with feeling: vaccination does not bring 100% guaranteed immunity. The real world is never black and white, it operates in shades of grey. See here for the background science, or here for a real-world study demonstrating it.

    And you said: ‘The ‘firebreak’ epidemiological model is crucial to the effectiveness of vaccination as an outbreak-prevention strategy, even for the protection of some of the vaccinated population.’ Do you accept that unquestioningly? Have you seen rigorous science supporting that idea?

    I love your use of oooh-scary words like “unquestioningly”. Of course I question it. ;)

    ‘Have you seen rigorous science supporting that idea?’ Enjoy: mathepi.com, pitt.edu, a good wikipedia article on mathematical modelling in epidemiology, a PubMed search.

53. sarah said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 12:12 pm

    Soubresaut’s arguments are just stunning in their ignorance. Let me tell you a bit more about my conversation with McKenna - I told her I was a journalist so everything was on record. After we discussed vaccination I was interested in finding out about her views on BCG and I asked what she thought about the situation in Cork. I’ll update foreign readers on that. The old Southern Health Board opted out of the national immunisation scheme for BCG back in the 70’s. People could still get it but they had to apply and there is a waiting list, so many don’t bother. I’ve contacted them and asked to speak to someone who can tell me why - no response yet. A creche worker who worked in two separate creches has now passed TB on to several children in each of the creches. These children have TB because they didn’t get BCG and the worker obviously didn’t get BCG.

    Firstly McKenna didn’t know about it, which considering the fact that its been in the newspapers - front pages - for a few weeks was alarming in itself. I asked her if her children had BCG. She had to think about it and thought that her eldest had but perhaps not her younger ones. When I asked why the difference, she thought that since the BCG is administered in hospitals when the babies are born, so she hadn’t really had time to think about it. So in other words, having thought about it, she would not get the BCG. She really was very unclear on what she had done with the younger ones. When I told her children in Cork now had TB and were being treated with antibiotics, do you know what she said? “Oh well, I am not really in favour of antibiotics”. I said, ” but THEY’VE GOT TB”. At that point I realised pursuing the conversation any further was fruitless. I don’t think she is malign - she just utterly utterly fails to understand the issue. All she has thought about is that her children got measles and they’re fine so no one should be vaccinated and if they do get sick they shouldn’t get antibiotics. Can you IMAGINE the millions and millions of lives that could be saved in Africa if they had immunisation or antibiotics? And MORONS like sobresauts shite on about developed immune systems? Immune systems don’t get to develop if the children are dead. Talk about the “altar of herd immunity”. What about the “altar of pointless deaths”? So one more time, vaccination is NOT about YOUR child. It is about ALL children. The ones with weak hearts, the ones too small to be immunised, the pregnant women who maybe missed their rubella immunisation for some reason, the malnourished ones. And quite frankly, when we are being offered something which tens of millions of people in the southern hemisphere would give anything for, it appalls me, beyond belief, that stupid fools like McKenna might be elected into public office. And quite frankly I think the Green Party shouldn’t be let off the hook on the “her personal opinion” excuse. In their press release against fluoridation they include a quote from her linking fluoridation with bone cancer. On John Gormley’s recommendation I read a summary of the York Review, a British study of all research on flouridation. That review expressly dismiss links between bone cancer and flouridation. So why include the quote? All parties have their renegades and that’s ok. But they’ll have to be stricter with her.

54. Justin said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 3:01 pm

    haha! “Oh well, I am not really in favour of antibiotics” — that takes the biscuit.

55. Conor O\'Neill said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 3:13 pm

    1.6 million people died of TB in 2005 worldwide. Let’s hear the proposals from these geniuses as to how to reduce that number to zero without vaccinations or antibiotics.

    I know let’s send those in danger of TB some diluted water, healing crystals, a book on reiki massage, some sugar pills and good vibes.

56. soubresauts said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 4:05 pm

    So, Sarah was able to catch out McKenna on some points about TB. Big deal. What do Sarah and Conor O’Neill know about BCG and TB? See http://www.whale.to/m/bcg7.html

    McKenna might have remembered more about TB if she had met the late Albert Schatz about eight years ago, when McKenna was an MEP. Schatz was going to come to Dublin from the U.S. to present expert evidence about fluoridation to the Oireachtas Health Committee (arranged by John Gormley). Unfortunately, at the last minute Schatz’s doctor advised him not to travel (he was about 80 years old).

    Who was Albert Schatz? As a 23-year-old graduate student in 1944 he discovered streptomycin, though his professor (Waksman) got the Nobel Prize for that (it should have been shared). See http://www.fluoridation.com/authors.htm#Albert%20Schatz and http://www.fluoridation.com/schatz.htm

    Streptomycin played quite a big role in Ireland’s 20th century history, and so did fluoridation.

    Anyway, McKenna was absolutely right on the core issue of the parents’ right to choose about vaccination.

    As for MMR, it’s not just that we know that no vaccination is 100% safe or effective. We have good reason to doubt the official line that MMR is “very safe”. See, for example, this recent paper:

    http://www.jpands.org/vol11no4/millerc.pdf “The conclusions of the Cochrane review on the safety and effectiveness of MMR vaccine violate the standards of evidence-based medicine and are not supported by the body of the review. There are material concerns that the conclusions were influenced by efforts of the British government to avoid liability in claims brought on behalf of allegedly vaccine-injured children.”

    Justin, I appreciate the links you posted. All good stuff, though we should be particularly careful with Wikipedia… But we also have to consider that epidemiological studies don’t prove safety. And there’s a lot more to it than that.

    For example, let’s accept the mathematical model, and suppose that for a given disease herd immunity requires 90% vaccination coverage. Now suppose that, despite every effort by the health authorities (propaganda, financial incentives, browbeating, and so on), no more than 89% of the people accept the vaccination. Basically we’re going to get “failure” — we’re going to get an outbreak of the disease, sooner or later. So public health officials start talking about the need for “extraordinary” or “political” measures, and they try to make vaccination mandatory. But that would deprive parents of their right to say No. Ergo, big legal and political problems, whatever about the science.

    Now Patricia McKenna had this vaccination issue sprung on her during a discussion about fluoridation, and she said nothing outrageous. In fact she was generally very level-headed about it, despite being understandably flustered at one point.

    I could go on at length about Keith Redmond’s outrageous statements in relation to fluoridation, and I might — on some other blogs.

    On fluoridation and bone cancer, Sarah should note that the York Review was seven years ago and was rather limited in scope, and there is significant new evidence. See “Fluoride/ Bone Cancer” on this page: http://www.fluoridealert.org

    Dave wondered what the point was about Quackwatch and Stephen Barrett. The point is that people who rely on Quackwatch are on shaky ground, and, unfortunately, Quackwatch is very influential. You can learn more about Barrett’s behaviour here: http://www.bolenreport.net/feature_articles/feature_article055.htm

57. dublinnorth said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 5:26 pm

    The American writer Kurt Vonnegut died last week. One of my favourite novels is Cats Cradle which explores the relationship between science, religion and man. Here is a quote:

    “Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn’t explain to an eight-year old what he was doing was a charlatan.”

    “Then I’m dumber than an eight-year old,’ Miss Pefko mourned. I don’t even know what a charlatan is!”

    Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

    I am in favour of science and reasoned debate. I think the MMR vaccination is a good thing. However hounding Patricia McKenna about her own kids is not pleasant and does not help us.

    Although I love science but Im not a fan of militant scientism and secularism. Richard Dawkins for instance is a clever guy but he is not particularly insightful. I find it hard to read his books because he is so full of hatred and invective. He is more concerned with burning witches than science. At the end of the day science only proves itself and we cant depend on it entirely - thats where the eugenics comes from.

    Consider this: An advocate of science might say that the Story of Genesis is a meme that has evolved and spread and whose function was to explain where we came from. But now we have the theory of Evolution through Natural Selection which is vastly superior to our old story. But if we follow this logic there are people who will look back at us from the future and laugh to think that we believed in Science, as they will have new vastly superior theories. And so on.

    This is not a fatalistic argument. It just says lets be pragmatic (and work with the best theories we have) but also try to be tolerant too. My earlier post was not very tolerant and I regretted that so just wanted to comment again.

58. Enda said,

    April 19, 2007 @ 12:06 pm

    Enda said (of McKenna): She’ll kick herself if her kids get polio. Enda doesn’t know much about polio, nor about McKenna.

    I’m not sure what more I’d need to know about polio or McKenna, other than it is A Bad Thing, and therefore unlikely that she would be very happy that her kids caught it. Unless it is well known that she and all her kids already have polio that in no way inhibits their quality of life. If that is the case, I stand corrected!

59. Conor O\'Neill said,

    April 19, 2007 @ 12:10 pm

    For fun I followed soubresauts first link. Usual bunch of loons and idiots spouting nonsense. One of them claims that homeopathy cures autism. No further comment necessary.

60. keith bohanna said,

    April 21, 2007 @ 9:31 pm

    I am (and will continue to be!) friendly with Justin and Conor (amongst others) in this debate.

    However there is a interesting slant here - if you disagree with the prevailing scientific opinion you are clueless.

    There is science on both sides of this discussion - and parents making informed judgements (never easy to go against medical opinion) which are not taken to weaken society but for the good of their kids. We did a lot of research before deciding not to vaccinate our two children.

    We do not go around telling other parents what to do or forcing our opinion on them. And in the school our kids are in there are a good number of parents who have taken similar decisions so the social outcasting would not work :-)

    keith

61. sarah said,

    April 22, 2007 @ 11:29 am

    “We did a lot of research before deciding not to vaccinate our two children.”

    Right…and ignored most of it obviously

    “We do not go around telling other parents what to do or forcing our opinion on them.”

    By weakening herd immunity you do.

    “which are not taken to weaken society but for the good of their kids.”

    Ah yes, the old Thatcherite there is no society just indviduals routine. In other words you gave the two fingers to society and made a self-centred decision. Nice one. I am sure the parents of the babies who die in the next measles outbreak will be grateful for your decision.

62. Conor O\'Neill said,

    April 22, 2007 @ 11:30 am

    Keith, of course we can disagree and remain friends but I think your line “or forcing our opinion on them” really gets to the heart of the matter.

    By not vaccinating your children you ARE forcing your opinion on every single person you kids interact with.

    They may shrug off a bout of rubella but what about a pregnant teacher whose parents may have made the same choice years before? TB may just require some anti-biotics to clear up but can kill someone with HIV who is immuno-suppressed. And your kids may not even know they have Hib but they end up causing meningitis in a newborn baby.

    I’m sure no-one wants their actions to negatively impact society but decisions you make for your kids have consequences far beyond just your family. And I’m not talking about some amorphous mass of “society” I’m talking about individuals.

    The only silver lining on the current situation in Cork where 220 kids have had chest x-rays to see if they have TB due to exposure is that maybe it’ll cause more people to realise what happens when vaccination stops. I believe those is the Southern Health Board who made the decision to stop offering BCG are criminally culpable.

    Vaccination is a victim of its own success, we have become complacent about it. It may take a few more terrible outbreaks and possibly even deaths for the message to get across again.

    Back to the question I asked in an earlier earlier Keith. Please propose a proven alternative to vaccination (with equal effectiveness) to prevent:

    • Mumps (encephalitis, meningitis, sterility)
    • Measles (pneumonia, encephalitis)
    • Rubella (birth defects, miscarriages)
    • TB (lung damage, death)
    • Diphtheria (neck swelling, skin disease, death)
    • Tetanus (lockjaw, death)
    • Whooping cough (pneumonia, death)
    • Hib (previously the leading cause of bacterial meningitis)
    • Polio (we’ve all seen the effects of this on older people)

    Or do we have to go back to some sort of survival of the fittest society?

63. keith bohanna said,

    April 22, 2007 @ 11:41 am

    hiya Conor, Sarah

    Sarah you are making an interesting assumption. That someone who comes to the opposite decision to you is wrong. Or has ignored something. Being on the opposing side of a decision does not automatically infer either of those things.

    Conor, at the time we made our decision we absorbed the information, then made the decision and then (or at least I did) moved on. I do not retain the understanding that I reached then because it is no longer relevant to us. And so I do not now get involved in debates on the science. Be assured that the decision was not just one taken in our selfish best interests but also encompassed the wider issue of the “herd”. You could not consider one without the other. And it would be a shame to dismiss the considered decisions of those of us who do so as motivated by pure selfishness. That is simply not true.

    keith

64. soubresauts said,

    May 4, 2007 @ 1:36 am

    About TB and the BCG vaccine, there was an interesting article in the Irish Times on April 24th. It didn’t focus directly on the ineffectiveness of the vaccine, but it did give some prominence to the views of Dr Charles Bredin, respiratory consultant at Cork University Hospital. In particular, the IT stated:

    “The HSE has announced that all babies will be routinely offered the BCG vaccine against TB from October 2007 after a 35-year absence, but Bredin says routine vaccinations are not the answer.”

    It seems obvious that the HSE is doing the vaccination thing because it must be seen to do something quickly and it can’t think of anything else.

    About other diseases… “The combined death rate from scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, and measles among children up to fifteen shows that nearly 90 per cent of the total decline in mortality between 1860 and 1965 had occurred before the introduction of antibiotics and widespread immunization.” — Ivan Illich: Limits To Medicine, 1976

    Polio is simply not a threat, in Ireland anyway.

    Is routine vaccination ever the answer?

    Why is so much public money being spent on vaccination when it could be used to reduce the distress of long waiting lists, patients lying on trolleys for hours, inadequate nursing care, and so on?

65. monica said,

    May 4, 2007 @ 3:22 am

    It would be idiotic to say that since you agree that Merck’s pain reliever, Vioxx was bad, killed people, and was pulled from the market, then you MUST feel that ALL medicine is bad, because Vioxx was bad.

    Very stupid logic indeed.

    One can be against the use of certain vaccines, while agreeing with vaccination, and with the knowledge that vaccines are inherently beneficial.

    Certain vaccines have been found to be dangerous. Some have even been removed from the market, such as the live virus polio vaccine, aka OPV. Interestingly, this vaccine is the only cause of polio in the US over the last 20 yrs.

    Dave, you stated “And disease is subject to the same rules of evolution. What’s your point? Our immune systems are fantastic but the virii etc out there are just as incredible.”

    This statement is accurate, as many viruses mutate, but we have used the same viral strains since the beginning of vaccination, according to your theory, our current vaccines would have a much higher rate of failure.

    Conor, you have stated “It is no longer acceptable to smoke in many places. It should be equally unacceptable to allow potential disease-carriers access to anywhere like creches where there are unprotected younger children who have not had the MMR yet.

    If that doesn’t work, the Health Boards (I assume this in now HSE) should simply add a requirement that all children who attend approved-childcare facilities must have received the MMR. Approval is removed from those creches that do not comply.”

    Suppose a child has an immune deficiency, and medically cannot receive a live virus vaccination? What about the 10% who do not build immunity to the vaccine? Should we quarantine these children forever?

    Autistic children often have genetic abnormalities in their immune systems. There are many studies supporting this- the MET gene variant is a good example- http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=+%22autism%22+MET+gene

    Children with immune deficiency should not receive live virus vaccinations, a statement that is supported by the NIH, WHO, and CDC, as the virus can over-replicate and cause the disease it was meant to prevent. http://www.google.com/search?as_q=over+replication+vaccination+live+virus&hl=en&num=100&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=immune+deficiency+&as_oq=&as_eq=simian&lr=lang_en&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=off

    That is why the US made the switch from the OPV to the IPV in 2001.

    Many children are often vaccinated with live virus vaccines in close proximity to colds, ear infections, etc, at a time when their immune system will not create a typical immune response.

    In addition to immune deficiency, my daughter also has autism. She had a reaction to the MMR and Varicella vaccines. She had a high fever, seizures, and strange rash, erythema multiforme- http://images.google.com/images?&hl=en&num=100&btnG=Google+Search&lr=lang_en&as_ft=i&as_qdr=all&as_dt=i&as_rights=&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi&q=%20%22erythema%20multiforme%22

    At the hospital, no testing was done, and I was assured it had NOTHING to do with the vaccines my daughter had 2 wks prior, just “some virus”, and febrile seizures. After that my daughter began losing weight, spinning in circles all day, grinding her teeth, had severe digestive problems and facial tics, stopped talking, stopped looking at me, and stopped growing.

    She has since been diagnosed with autism, and has an empty sella, the structure holding the pituitary gland, causing her stunted growth. The only cause that can be explained, is brain infection.

    When no doctors could explain why she was having such digestive and growth problems, they had simply said “be positive”.

    We began using a homeopathic doctor who identified the immune disorder, and has her on a couple medicines, and dietary supplements to regulate her immune system. Since we began these, she has stopped having GI problems, has gained 2 pounds in 10 mos, stopped grinding her teeth, no longer has facial tics, is communicating, and has even grown a bit (3/4 inch).

    Since this discovery, all of my daughter’s doctors have admitted that she most likely had a reaction.

    While my daughter may never be “cured”, this homeopathic doctor has helped eliminate very real physical problems my daughter has faced. Her development has greatly improved as well, and she may be mainstreamed by kindergarten.

    If you would like to see more of my daughter, fully autistic, and her progress since, you can see videos at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=aware4autism

    We have created inactivated versions of most live virus vaccines. We need to switch from live virus vaccines to inactivated vaccines as quickly as possible.

    And please remember, just because a person cannot take aspirin, does not mean they do not find benefit in modern medicine.

66. Conor O\'Neill said,

    May 4, 2007 @ 9:18 am

    Ah yes, Dr Bredin. We’ve just been finding out about him over on my blog. The parent of one of the children in one of the creches with the TB outbreak found an article from 2001 which highlighted that as a member of the Southern Health Board , he has always been one of the key figures opposing the re-introduction of BCG in Cork. I found a few more bits on him and like soubresauts his opposition does not appear to be balanced in any way by an alternative solution.

    I pointed out the irony of him presented at an event last year called “TB - A Global Disease, International Approaches for Control and Prevention & a Model Programme for Ireland”.

    His presentation was titled “TB - approaches for control and prevention - a Southern Irish perspective”.

    Presumably his presentation consisted of four slides:

    “Do nothing and hope for the best” “If something happens, screen potentially infected people including babies with XRays” “Give everyone exposed some preventative antibioitics” “Give those infected major doses of antibioitcs”

    The simple fact is that we now have 35 years of comparative data in Ireland between Cork and the rest of the country. Any medical statistician should be able to state with a strong degree of confidence whether BCG works here or not. Several major TB outbreaks in Cork would indicate that it does.

    If I get TB I’ll be sure to go to someone like Bredin. If I want to find out how to prevent TB, I’ll talk to an expert in Public Health. The same Public Health experts who have spent years trying to get BCG re-introduced in Cork.

    “Ivan Illich is an ex-professional itinerant teacher and philosopher” - Seriously, is that the best you can come up with?

67. soubresauts said,

    May 4, 2007 @ 11:36 am

    Conor, please try to put aside the ad hominem arguments. The statement from Illich is based on undisputed statistics. What’s your problem with it?

    In this 1998 paper in the Irish Medical Journal http://www.imj.ie//Issue_detail.aspx?pid=153&type=Papers, Dr Luke Clancy stated:

    “In the 1986 National Tuberculosis Survey we clearly established that policy with respect to BCG vaccination varied in the Republic of Ireland with some areas having a policy of neonatal BCG, others of BCG at age 12-14 years and some having a policy of not using BCG.”

    Cork wasn’t unique…

    Who is confident that BCG works?

68. Conor O\'Neill said,

    May 4, 2007 @ 12:04 pm

    That is a superb article soubresauts, thanks. And written by someone with deep expertise in the field. A few items jumped out at me:

    “Bredin, using routinely-collected and published data from both jurisdictions confirmed that the Republic had a higher reported incidence of tuberculosis. There was no information on case definition, age structure or BCG vaccination”.

    So one of the leading opponents of BCG did a study where he did not factor in BCG statistics. Wow!

    “The incidence of tuberculosis in people younger than 15 years is equally low in areas of the Republic which use neonatal BCG. This could be an effect of the vaccine in the prevention of tuberculosis, as we have shown elsewhere”

    The rate per 100,000 in the South for those under 15 years of age is 13.45 with no BCG and 3.4 with BCG. I think those stats probably match the numbers of kids infected in Cork in recent times. Real kids with real lives and parents who are worried sick.

    So whilst we do have a much higher incidence than the North, those areas that use BCG are less affected. It is very interesting that the “why” is still so difficult to pin down after all this time.

    From everything I have found to date, “some”=”Cork”. can anyone else confirm any other region which doesn’t have routine BCG?

    But BCG is just one of the vaccinations you oppose soubresauts. How do you propose we deal with Mumps,Measles, Rubella, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Whooping cough and Hib? I find your flippant dismissal of Polio interesting. That scourge was removed through vaccination. If it ever returns to Ireland it’ll be due to complacency like yours.

69. Treasa said,

    May 4, 2007 @ 12:14 pm

    Smallpox was eradicated from the world using vaccination. Read this on polio vaccination: report on increased incidence of polio in Pakistan for a salutary lesson in why vaccination is important. It is far better to prevent these things than try to fix them/cure them.

70. soubresauts said,

    May 4, 2007 @ 3:56 pm

    Conor, I’m pretty sure I read a report recently that Galway discontinued neonatal BCG years ago. There are probably other places too. Anyway, many parts of Europe gave up on BCG a long time ago. Bredin is no isolated figure. I’d give more credibility to Clancy if he had ever acknowledged that the main cause of mortality and morbidity from coal smoke is fluoride (as HF and particulates). But despite his experience, despite all the papers he has published, and despite the scientific evidence (for example, http://www.fluoridealert.org/f-pollution.htm), Clancy has failed to do so. You have to wonder about such failures…

    Treasa offers us a WHO-inspired report about polio in Pakistan. What chance do those people in north-west Pakistan have, with their lives dominated by religious lunatic warriors and American bombs? They need peace, clean water, and proper sewerage, but the WHO (backed by American money) just wants to give them polio vaccine.

    There are many strange things happening in Pakistan, and not just in relation to American interference or Saudi money. The Cork dental researchers, who are also the WHO’s “experts” on fluoride, have been collaborating with Pakistani researchers; see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15503849

    And what did they find?

    “RESULTS: The maximum reduction of caries in relation to fluoride levels in Pakistan was witnessed between the fluoride concentrations of 0.00-0.33ppm. CONCLUSIONS: There are no gold standards for setting up a universal optimal level of fluoride in drinking water…”

    Nevertheless, those UCC people are keeping mandatory fluoridation going in Ireland at an “optimal” concentration of 1 ppm (currently being reduced slightly, because of widespread dental fluorosis — fluoride poisoning). See: http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=11399

    I don’t take statements from the WHO at face value. See my paper here: http://tinyurl.com/b4bez

    Nor do I take statements from public health doctors at face value, particularly when those doctors are highly placed. PHDs are trained to do very little except vaccination, fluoridation, chlorination and pasteurization.

    Vaccination is the biggie, and people rarely get the full story about it. Apart from the links I gave above, the following sites are enlightening: http://www.whale.to/vaccines.html http://www.vaccines.bizland.com/vaccinesafety.htm http://www.909shot.com/ http://www.vaccination.inoz.com/about.html http://www.avn.org.au/

    As for the other arrows in the PH doctors’ quiver…

    There is not one Irish medical doctor, let alone a PH doctor, who is willing to defend fluoridation in public debate. It is quite clear that fluoridation is contrary to fundamental medical principles. The PHDs are dodging responsibility and letting a few dentist academics run the fluoridation show — forcing unmeasured amounts of a highly toxic chemical down the throats of every Irish citizen.

    Chlorination doesn’t stop cryptosporidium, and it leaves toxic chlorine compounds in the water. Continental Europe shows how to deliver safe drinking water — without chlorine. But the PHDs don’t seem to know.

    There are serious downsides to pasteurization. I’m glad to note that the Greens are somewhat enlightened about this: http://www.greenparty.ie/en/policies/agriculture__1/appendix_1_raw_milk_cheeses

    Quite frankly, I think the PHDs do more for the pharmaceutical industry than for public health. And that industry operates by these laws: www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/PHARMACEUTICAL_BUSINESS/laws_of_the_pharmaceutical_industry.htm

71. Andrew said,

    May 5, 2007 @ 10:35 pm

    Just to bring it back to the first question, about how this would affect voting in Dublin Central. Lets be clear, Patricia admitted these were her personal views, and not party policy. It is NOT Green Party policy to get rid of the vaccine.

    At the end of the day, in Dublin Central, you have 3 real choices: Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein or the Greens. I may not like McKenna, but I vote for the government I want, not the personalities, and come the 24th I’ll be voting Green, cos its the most I can do to get rid of the crowd we have in power now.

72. The Tank said,

    May 6, 2007 @ 10:09 am

    It depends where in the constituency you live. Joe Costello Lab is probably going to get in if you want to vote for and alternative govenment, and Tony Gregory is obviously known for helping form government in return for massive investment in the constituency.

    Anyway it will be McKenna and Mary Lou fighting it out with one of the FFers for the final seat.

    The Greens are nuts and are in denial about alot of things. They’d be the last people I’d want in government. Their party ethos often stops them from being able to follow viable and reasonable solutions to problems.

73. Andrew said,

    May 6, 2007 @ 1:12 pm

    I’d really appreciate it if you could back up “The Greens are nuts” with some of their actual policies. Ive combed through their manifesto (www.greenparty.ie) and found nothing but sensible solutions. Especially on public transport (which is my hobby-horse) the Greens are way ahead of the competition.

74. Justin said,

    May 6, 2007 @ 1:28 pm

    ‘Just to bring it back to the first question, about how this would affect voting in Dublin Central. Lets be clear, Patricia admitted these were her personal views, and not party policy. It is NOT Green Party policy to get rid of the vaccine.’

    So what? Does that mean we should vote for her, then?

    I still don’t understand why it’s a good idea to vote for a candidate you disagree with, on the basis that their party also disagrees with them and that somehow balances it all out. That makes NO sense.

    If someone could explain that logic, I’d appreciate it…

75. Antoin O Lachtnain said,

    May 6, 2007 @ 3:08 pm

    Unfortunately, we live in what is known as a representative democracy. This means that we choose the representatives who best reflect our values and who we think can do the best job for us. In turn, these representatives are members of political parties which have a common ground. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get a perfect match between voter, candidate and party. That is the nature of the thing and you have to work with it as best you can.

    You might decide that having the Greens in government is a priority for you. The fact that it means you have to vote for someone you disagree with on some issues is really tough luck and you will just have to eat the cabbage.

76. soubresauts said,

    May 6, 2007 @ 3:52 pm

    Andrew said: “It is NOT Green Party policy to get rid of the vaccine.” But it does seem to be Green Party policy to get rid of Patricia McKenna.

    As Treasa rightly pointed out, the Greens changed their policy on vaccination. They changed from a sensible McKenna-type approach to one of bending over backwards towards the medical establishment, with nods to the Irish Times, the PDs, and bloggers like Justin (congratulations Justin!). The GP manifesto (www.greenparty.ie/en/election_07/manifesto_2007), published last Thursday, says:

    The Green Party will: * significantly increase the budget for health promotion and support public immunisation programmes.

    I wonder what “public immunisation programmes” they’re thinking of. Do they want to vaccinate me (a member of the public)? Have they arrived at Conor’s attitude of “vaccinate or leave society”?

    That is all pretty surprising, given that the Greens always seemed to stick to their principles (not to mention the fact that Patricia McKenna is an accomplished and impressive politician).

    But what REALLY floors me is that the Greens have now abandoned their commitment to stop fluoridation immediately. The manifesto says (page 22):

    “The Green Party will… * set up an independent study into the total fluoride intake of the Irish population, as called for by the Oireachtas Health Committee, and if the study shows excess levels we will stop the current fluoridation of drinking water.”

    What a turn-around!

    Ten years ago, Trevor Sargent told the Dail: “It is time to stop this crazy experiment with our health. It cannot be lawful for a state to poison its own people. We have ample evidence that fluoridation is damaging our health.” (http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0474/D.0474.199702060021.html)

    With ten years more evidence accumulated, the Greens declared, on March 13th: “The Green Party today said that it would stop the fluoridation of Irish water supplies if elected to Government. … Recommendations: * Fluoridated water should not be used to bottle feed babies. * Given the impracticality of sourcing non-fluoridated water for the bottle feeding of babies, on the basis of the precautionary principle the practice of water fluoridation should cease immediately.” (www.greenparty.ie/en/news/latest_news/greens_in_govt_would_stop_water_fluoridation)

    Needless to say, the Greens’ new-found idea of “an independent study into the total fluoride intake of the Irish population” would keep fluoridation going for years at least. In fact it looks pretty unworkable, given the power of the people who would be out to thwart it.

    It looks like the Greens forgot that Fine Gael are already committed (since six years ago) to stopping fluoridation immediately: http://www.fluoridationcenter.org/papers/2001/irishindependent011501.htm

    Imagine… In negotiating the new government, the Greens will be trying to STOP Fine Gael stopping fluoridation!

    So, for very different reasons, I have to agree with The Tank that “the Greens are nuts.” Excepting the beleaguered Patricia McKenna.

77. The Tank said,

    May 7, 2007 @ 10:25 am

    OK so I was slightly over the top but there is one thing that gets me about the Greens, energy policy, and in fairness it pretty much the energy policy of every party in Ireland but if they changed it they would get my vote (but possibly lose thousands of others!).

    Our CO2 emissions are quite large, so large in fact I think we’re spending something like €250 or €300 million a year on ficitious “Carbon Credits”.

    The manifesto talks about Cutting Emissions and reducing Oil Dependency So we’re investing in energy rated homes, advertising campaigns telling us to unplug our phone chargers when we’re not using them and wind power and well not much else.

    Well there is one massive source of reletively safe non-CO2 energy production, which the founder of Friends of the Earth - John Lovelock - believes can play a major part in slowing down and po