My two regular readers are probably sick to death from hearing about a certain HPV vaccine by now but I thought I’d put up a quick comparison of VAERS data for those that are interested.
The raw VAERS data is quite popular among those who wish to cast aspersions on the safety of the vaccine so I thought I would query the database myself to see what the results would be and compare the Gardasil figures against less controversial vaccines. I decided to compare the data for all reported adverse events between the time 2006-2009 for not only the HPV quadrivalent vaccine but also the flu vaccine and the MMR vaccine. If Gardasil is so dangerous the figures should be significantly higher for this vaccine than the others shouldn’t they?
So here are pictures of the actual VAERS database query reports, first will be a table showing the number of events under each category (Total number of events is top right of the table), for completeness next I show the query criteria used to generate the report so you may replicate the results yourself.
Now those with a keen eye for detail (not to mention keen eye sight, click the images for a better look) will notice that the results are not really all that different. Oh, they are up a little for one, down somewhat for another but they are all basically within spitting distance. What does this comparison tell us about the safety of these vaccines, well not much. These numbers are virtually meaningless when it comes to determining if a vaccine has caused any of these events or even it’s relative safety to other vaccines, without knowing the number of doses for each vaccine we can not even begin to guess about safety.
This is my main point about using the VAERS data in villifying Gardasil, without extensive follow-up work there is no way to go from this information to conclusions about how safe the vaccine is. It makes for great scare tactic fodder and singling out individuals from this mass of statistics (like Brook Petkevicius) makes a compelling story but without rigourous science behind it these are all simply anecdotes. The important thing to remember is corelation does not equal causation, this is only a single instance of correlation, should multiple lines of research lead to the same conclusion then it will be reasonable to find that the vaccine is at fault. Until then however, unfortaunate as these events are for those concerned, there is no reaseon to think they are anything more than coincidence.
(See my two previous posts on safety/efficacy and toxicity.)
Scepticon 
You’re missing a couple of things.
1) Gardasil did not even hit the market until mid 2006.
2) It is aimed at a very significantly narrower swathe of the population by age group and gender than the two vaccines you’re comparing it to.
You would therefor expect it to have half as many adverse effects as MMR, which is a closer comparable than the flu vaccine(and ignoring the fact that MMR is both standard and required, whereas Gardasil isn’t).
So if MMR has 120 life-threatening reactions, you’d expect to see 60 for Gardasil. Oops. 204. Almost 4 times as many as you should see.
3144 ER visits for MMR should mean 1550 ER visits for Gardasil. Nope. 5064. And so on.
Looks to me as if, according to your data, Gardasil is roughly 3 to 4 times as dangerous as MMR, and it is far less widely accepted.
I should have added that, at least in the US, only about 25 percent of eligible girls have had the Gardasil shot (contrast that to MMR, which is required for all children with few exceptions prior to entering school).
So all in all, serious adverse effects appear to happen 14 to 16 times as frequently with Gardasil as with MMR. Now that’s what I call statistically significant.
I’m not going to even begin to go into a comparison with the flu vaccine, which is usually given to a much broader but also much, much more vulnerable population.
I dunno. I’m happy you’re happy with it. As for me, I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. As long as it’s not mandatory, we all get to make our own choices.
As I pointed out in that post, without knowing all of this follow-up data the numbers can’t really be used to come to the conclusions that you do. Part of my point was, the data is used “as is” by the opponents without those considerations, so it is just as legitamate for me to do the same (ie. not at all)
In addition, to decide that adverse reactions are due to the vaccine and not merely coincidence you also need to have an idea of the normal incidence of the events in the population. Luckily this has been done, I intend to look over the data myself eventually.
The most significant thing I found with this excercise (and the most telling I feel) is that regardless of the absolute number of doses or adverse reports the relative percentages of adverse events for the different catagories remained the same. This implies a sort of background noise level to me that is independant of the vaccine. In other words I would have expected a spike in the serious events with Gardasil that was out of line compared with the others and this is not the case.
Thanks for your input. Sorry if I seem to be dragging this out, as blog owner I feel it’s my responsibility to reply to every comment.
Well, now your reasoning appears to have gone way off track.
I fully agree that VAERS data is unreliable – it is both under-reported and over-reported.
Sure, I’m just guessing at the number of kids vaccinated, but I don’t think that anyone would argue that to say roughly 8 times as many kids have been vaccinated with MMR as with Gardasil isn’t broadly accurate–MMR being given to virtually all children, and Gardasil to only 25 percent of girls.
If you can say that 14-16 TIMES the number of adverse events reported isn’t a spike, and that it equates to the same “background noise”, well, I think you can no longer claim to be scientifically neutral.
I think you might have misunderstood my point. I’m saying that I would have expected a higher proportion of reported events to be in the serious category than the other vaccines but the relative numbers have stayed the same. This point is independent of doses given.
Think of it this way, if the number of people in the population who have red hair is 10% and you collected three sets of random people from that population , 1 with 30 people, one with 300 people and one with 3000 people you would expect the relative proportion of people with red hair in each of our groups to be 10%. This is independent of the original population size (number of vaccine doses given) or the set size (number of adverse events reported).
In the case of the vaccine being more dangerous you can equate this to a bias towards picking red heads out of your starting population, thus you would expect to see say 30% representation of red heads in your selected sets. This is what I mean by a spike, it seems to me that the data can best be explained by this underlying pattern in the population and not an effect of the vaccine itself.
In addition, I am not entirely neutral on this issue. While that is the goal I also have to be swayed by prior knowledge. In this case this vaccine is substantially similar in make up to other vaccines (except for the type [not the amount] of antigen load) so if I accept that those other vaccines are safe (as I do) then I must then also lean in the direction of this vaccine also being safe. We need not listen to Merk on this issue, GlaxoKleinSmith have a substantially similar vaccine with a similar safety record, so that is an independent manufacturer. There is also a study released earlier this year that did look at the VAERS data in depth and concluded that at least in the case of Guillain-Barré syndrome (an autoimmune disease) the incidence was the same as in the general population. The study was released by American Academy of Neurology and so independent of vaccine manufacturers. For me to accept the proposition that the vaccine is dangerous I would have to ignore the current scientific consensus on this issue and I don’t think I know more than immunology specialists and those who have done extensive background work on the subject.
So far I have been content to accept your assertions that the vaccine has these complications at face value and without asking for coroborrating data. Perhaps you would like to share your sources now as I am obviously not getting all of the information. Which studies show an incidence of disease higher that the general population and a causal relationship to the vaccine? I don’t mean to seem harsh, my problem is that many of these claims are made (elsewhere as well) without being supported by reliable data. Mostly it is a case of an argument from ignorance (we don’t know it’s not dangerous, therefore it is) and a combination of anecdote and argument from popularity (look at all these people complaining, they must know something). Unfortunately we as humans find this sort of information very compelling so it is important to use scientific methods to remove our biases from the equation and look at what the data actually says.
This is not a dig at you personally it’s just how we work, you could be right in thinking that it is my judgement that is clouded. I try to go where the evidence leads but perhaps I’m looking at the wrong evidence.
I am honestly glad you are willing to discuss these issues, thank you for that and I hope I have not offended you (do that quite easily so I try to go out of my way online to make my intentions clear).
Patty:
If you can say that 14-16 TIMES the number of adverse events reported isn’t a spike, and that it equates to the same “background noise”, well, I think you can no longer claim to be scientifically neutral.
Excuse me for butting in and my apologies in advance for a long reply.
Firstly, where do you get your “14-16 times” from? Your earlier claims say 3-4 times, too, which makes it more confusing. Perhaps you would like to tell us your source?
If your source is the VAERS database: as this is a a database of reports you will need to first reduce the counts of reports to counts of events, then to meaningful events (i.e. events related to the vaccine in question and not other things). You will also need to consider issues that might “confound” the analysis such as the number of doses given; other infections (etc) prevalent at the time of administrating the injection; time of year; other medications the person might be taking, etc., etc. Then do the same for the MMR vaccine. Once you’re done with all that, you might have a means to directly compare the two.
(In principle, you could try compare VAERS data directly if you could estimate the variability of all these issues. You’d have to err on the side of caution in estimating the variability, so I strongly suspect you’d find the final variably you would have to allow for once all these are taken together would be so high as to render a direct comparison this way meaningless.)
Getting back to more mundane issues… I would like to point out that a simple multiplier (3 times, 4 times) does not by itself make something “statistically significant” (as you said earlier), nor does it say anything about it’s relationship to “background noise”. You really can only make those claims with appropriate statistical analysis; to make them without doing this analysis is (literally!) hand-waving.
Simple multipliers are often quite misleading, especially if the measured numbers are a small subset of a large total, as will be the case here, or if the thing being measured is known to be hard to measure reliably or “noisy”. (Measurements are “noisier” the more the values being measured tend to go up or down due to unrelated things.) It is fairly common to see non-scientists do the incorrect practice of presenting a simple multiplier and claim an increase or decrease in something, when in fact if the data were analysed (properly!) the change claimed actually falls with the expected range of values (statistical variation) given the nature of the data and thus means there is no meaningful difference.
For example, if the expected variation is up to 6 times (at, say, a 95% confidence level) and you present 4 times as the difference you have observed, then the only thing you can claim is that you can’t tell if the two are different.
Dodging this is used as a standard “trick” in advertising, for that matter. Think: “This product is 2 times better!”… but this does not say it’s meaningfully (statistically) better. (Nor what it’s better than for that matter; it seems to be standard to leave this out…)
This brings me back to my point: you can only make claims of “statistically significant” or “above background noise” by doing the hard yards. Looking at the multiplier alone won’t help and by itself it can be completely misleading.
The point Scepticon was trying to make (and elaborated on 6 May, 2009 at 9:30 am) is that if there is a “spike”, you’d expect to see it at all levels of severity, so a (say) 10% increase in severity would be seen in all levels of severity, not only in “deaths”. When you seen an increase strongly in one category and not the others, especially if it’s the category with the smallest number of individuals, you are most likely looking at some other factor causing the apparent “spike”.
Um, Scepticon? You might want to sign up for some logic classes.
I’ve asked a faculty member at the University of Waikato to look over my comments and provide some feedback. In the mean time those references might help me out.
Heraclides (you wish):
See trees much?
Here’s the wood. Scepticon pronounced that VAERS statistics showed no appreciable difference between adverse events/side-effects reported for MMR and Gardasil. The comparison was his idea, aimed at trouncing people who query the vaccine. It didn’t come from me, so you might want to have a little chat with him about “hand-waving.”
Here’s how the numbers boil down according to HIS figures, not mine:
Life threatening events: MMR 120, Gardasil 204
Permanent disability: MMR 70, Gardasil 320
Hospitalized: MMR 594, Gardasil 1098
Hospitalized, prolonged: MMR 12, Gardasil 133
ER: MMR 3,144, Gardasil 5,064
Not serious: MMR 7,466, Gardasil 9,622
I pointed out that not only is there a considerable difference in the figures themselves across the board—although in both cases, I grant you, they are a small percentage of the number of shots given—but at a rough guess, about 8 times more kids get MMR than Gardasil (because only girls get Gardasil, and only about 25 percent have got it so far in the US, where Gardasil has been used the longest). So if there were about 10 times more prolonged hospitalizations with Gardasil, effectively it would have been 80 times as many.
You can waffle on condescendingly all you like about variables and “non-scientists” and advertising (thanks for assuming that I’m stupid. Would you like to make a blonde joke, too?). I’m very well aware of the nature of raw VAERS data and associated pitfalls. But both shots are given to pretty healthy populations so one could assume approximately the same variables.
Of course this isn’t a detailed, finely-tuned analysis—I’d have said, in scientific terms, that that’s a “duh!” But when serious side effects come in at 2 to 10 times as often on a vaccine that’s given to an eighth of the population, I think you’re foolish to say that statistically there is no difference. And I’d say Scepticon is bitterly regretting trying to score the point.
Look, if you’re willing to give Gardasil shots to your kids and get them yourselves–and believe me, Merck WILL eventually get around to you–then, heck, enjoy. Merck has just a dandy reputation in your neck of the wooods, doesn’t it, what with threats to researchers, fake journals, trumped-up studies and all.
Fortunately, we have free will and free choice, and we all get to decide for ourselves. And my family is saying no thanks.
Patty:
[Sarcasm on:] Thank you for presenting a strawman version of me and thus encouraging me to help you. [Sarcasm off]
I did not even I try portray you at all, never mind condescendingly! My guess is that you have chosen to read ‘you’ in the singular at various points, referring to yourself, rather than in the plural. It should be quite clear I was referring to others in general, such as media, etc. After all, my example was from a commercial! Furthermore, even when I read my post again with ‘you’ as singular referring to you, I can’t see how it can be read as condescending. Alternatively, I know some people try this “I’m shocked” ploy to try paint the other black, to avoid dealing with the points that they raised. Either way, I would appreciate an apology, thank you.
Getting back to the subject, you can’t have you cake and eat it too! 😉
Recapping from my previous post I first I pointed out that you can’t really use the raw VAERS data, a point that Scepticon made too:
I then went on to point out that using simple multipliers is not meaningful, unless you can show that they are statistically significant differences. The multipliers (2 times, 3 times, etc) don’t say this by themselves; you have to do the full analysis. There is literally no way to just say that “2 times” must be statistically significant: for some data it might and for others it won’t. There is no way of knowing ahead of time.
You at first seem to want to agree with this, making out that Scepticon did likewise but then immediately want to have your cake too!
In particular, could you read your comment “But when serious side effects come in at 2 to 10 times as often on a vaccine that’s given to an eighth of the population, I think you’re foolish to say that statistically there is no difference.” I’m sorry, but “2 times” (etc.) by itself says nothing about if the 2 times is statistically significant. I am not putting you down in saying that, that’s is just how it is. There is no way to pluck “statistically significant” out of thin air, you have to calculate it. For some kinds of data, for a difference to be significant, it might have to be over a 100 times different. For example, a lot of biological data analysis uses “two orders of magnitude” (i.e. 100x) or three orders of magnitude (i.e. 1000x) as a safe rule of thumb in the absence of sound statistics.
Statisticians present differences by presenting the probability that the difference observed is due to chance alone, a likelihood that it is significantly different. This value comes with a confidence level, what fraction of the time the claim should be true.
Finally, I would add you need to compare relative values, e.g. percentages in this situation, not absolute values, e.g. counts. The percentages are given in the tables Scepticon presented in the right-most column. So for example what I believe Spepticon will be looking at when saying that the figures were more-or-less the same for the three vaccines was:
(I’m not sure if the tag I’m using to present this table will be supported, as there is no previewing to test it!)
(By the way, the top 6 values with ‘Emergency room’ left out total slightly more than 100%.)
If you look at each set of numbers in each row, you will see that they are roughly the same and that the three vaccines show roughly the same pattern over the table.
A simple rule-of-thumb measure of difference of two values, V1 and V2, is the relative difference: abs((V1-V2)/(V1+V2))
If you apply this to the above data, none reach 2 times, e.g.:
Furthermore, the largest differences are from small counts. Smaller counts are less significant: they need a larger difference to compensate for the lack of reliability of small counts. In other words, what variability there is, is suspect.
But as Scepticon was saying, you can’t really use the raw VAERS data anyway, so while this is fun, it’s not terribly meaningful (meaning no-one can draw meaningful conclusions from VAERS until the data is reduced to meaningful events, as opposed to reports, and the various confounding events accounted for).
Scepticon: I was just looking for a cross-correlation: ideally a “spike” would be present (to some extent) at all severity levels; if not some other issue may be at play. It’s a likely sign that the thing be correlated against (the vaccine in this case) isn’t what is causing the “spike”. The presence or absence of this isn’t some sort of “evidence” of anything, just at the level of “consistent with”.
I wouldn’t have said that Heraclides was assuming you were stupid (in his advertising comments or anything else) – he was simply trying to explain the maths underlying Scepticon’s comparisons.
I have pointed out approximately three times that my point in comparing the VAERS data was to show that with-out the follow up look at number of doses and confounding factors they can’t not be used to show anything. This includes my own comparison, I admit it and have from the start. My original point was where-ever I have gone the proclaimation has been “Gardasil is leathal X people have died!”, without the extra information of how many doses had been given, complications with other medications and so on. So I thought I’d show what you get if you do not consider those other factors. Useless data.
I’m fine with the idea that I might be wrong I just prefer to base my opinions on reliable data rather than speculation. So far I have not seen this data, nor seen any reference to it if it exists. It must do otherwise where does this hysteria come from? So if you could point me in the right direction I’d be quite appreciative.
Heraclides, could you possibly expand on the “Spike” at all levels of severity point, I’m not sure we’re actually on the same page about that and I’d like to see why.
Cheers.
Yay, the pre’s worked 🙂
See trees much?
Ah well, I’m just a parent who looks at children. I don’t look at flu vaccine numbers, because I’m smart enough to recognize that the flue vaccine is most often given to unhealthy polulations.
I don’t try to make numbers of children disappear
hit post by accident.
I don’t try make numbers of real, live children merge into the general population. I feel the pain of each disability, each paralysis, each convulsion, each case of ALS-like death, and wonder if that would be my kid – and I look at the potential benefits,and the potential for replacement diseases, and the potential alternatives, and say no.
Those are kids who have been paralyzed, and a lot more of them have been paralyzed with Gardasil than with MMR, out of a much smaller population.
Have fun with your books.
Patty, thanks for indulging us. I was hoping we’d work-out an understanding of eachother’s point of view but I guess that isn’t going to happen.
I hope the long term studies back me up eventually but that’s more because of what the alternative means for the children than it is because I like being right. I’ve tried to emphasize reliance on robust data and carefully controlled studies in order to form opinions on this subject but I can’t force someone to change their way of thinking.
Thanks again, and good luck in the future.
Thanks Heraclides I think I understand your perspective now. I appreciate the second opinion.
See trees much?
With all respect, could I suggest you take your own advice before giving it to others?
I’m smart enough to recognize that the flue vaccine is most often given to unhealthy polulations.
Actually, they’re not. Vaccines only work if they are given ahead of time: giving them after someone already has the disease they target in most cases won’t do much good. (There are specific diseases where the vaccine for that disease received very early in infection can help, but as a general rule once you have the infection, vaccines aren’t going to help.)
Furthermore, vaccines are generally not given if people are ill.
I don’t try to make numbers of children disappear
Either do I. The work I did doesn’t make anything “disappear”. You only have to look at the original percentage values to see the gist of what I was saying, after all.
I don’t try make numbers of real, live children merge into the general population.
I don’t (and didn’t) do that either.
I feel the pain of each disability, each paralysis, each convulsion, each case of ALS-like death
Most people have the same sympathy. However, you do want to make sure you are “blaming” the actual cause, not some other unrelated thing.
Imagine if your immediate area was struck down with a infectious disease that caused fatalities. Now imagine someone “just decided” you were the source and pinned it on you without bothering to do the work to make sure that claim was right. How would you feel? Wouldn’t you at least ask that they do their job properly?
I’m asking much the same of you. If you don’t want to do the work, that’s fine, but in that case, you really can’t blame any particular cause.
and I look at the potential benefits,and the potential for replacement diseases, and the potential alternatives, and say no.
I notice that you are making out that the vaccine is the cause of the effects you describe without having established that actually it is. You really want to establish that the vaccine in question is really the cause before levelling “blame” on them. This really is the main point of Scepticon’s earlier articles, as I read them.
(What do you mean by “the potential for replacement diseases”?)
Those are kids who have been paralyzed, and a lot more of them have been paralyzed with Gardasil than with MMR, out of a much smaller population.
With this, you seem to have travelled a full circle and are re-stating what you started with. You have not shown that these kids were affected by Gardasil, only claimed that is the case. Until can someone can clearly demonstrate that is the case it is inappropriate to be “blaming” Gardsil or any other thing for that matter. Furthermore, as I have been trying to point out to you, you cannot claim “a lot more” until you can reduce the reports to meaningful events and show that any difference found is statistically meaningful.
You’re most welcome to demonstrate your claim, to back it by showing how you can say that, but what you have shown here doesn’t do that.
PS: I am not the university faculty member that Scepticon referred to earlier, but a reader of their blog.
Just a note, the replacement disease issue relates to the filling of the niche vacated by the strain of virus targeted by the vaccine by another strain. Thus perhaps the vaccine will not be effective in it’s stated goal of reducing cancers and warts and perhaps we will end up worse off in the long run.
Along with the other claims it’s still in the “this could happen” phase but it’s not unreasonable just currently unsupported.
Thanks, I was thinking that Patty meant something quite different!
H:
Flu shots (at least in the US) are not given to the general population. They are given to people who are elderly and/or otherwise vulnerable, with a history of respitory diseases etc. Yes, I do know they are not given to alleviate flu itself; as I said, I’m not actually stupid. I’m surprised you didn’t know that most people DON’T get flu shots. Now I look at VAERS stats on flue vaccine and assume that a lot of people died or were hospitalized because of underlying medical conditions.
Gardasil and MMR, au contraire, are given to generally healthy populations so are somewhat (‘tho not totally) comparable to each other.
Seriously? You don’t know what replacement diseases are? And that a similar vaccine, Prevnar, demonstrated the potential for strains of a pathogen that are NOT covered by a vaccine (in Gardasil’s case, more than 100) to grow stronger (in Prevnar’s case, antibiotic resistant strains at that)? You didn’t know that type 16 was already showing signs of being “replaced” even before Gardasil?
I see I’ve been assuming a level of knowledge that isn’t actually there.
Sure, I’ll agree that no-one has as yet indisputably proved a causal link between the vaccine and convulsions etc.
I particularly loved that case in Spain, where 3 different girls went into convulsions almost immediately after being vaccinated and the official verdict was that the vaccine didn’t CAUSE the convulsions, but it might have TRIGGERED them. There are many in the medical profession–reputable, conservative neurologists and immunologists, and one of the researchers who worked on Gardasil–who consider it very plausible that the vaccine or the vaccine process could TRIGGER immune disorders, such as the ALS-like symptoms that killed Jenny Tetlock and two other girls shortly after they had been vaccinated with Gardasil.
The intelligent thing is to explore the possibilities and the things we don’t know yet, rather than say, oh well, statistically they’re improbable/insignificant. Let’s just roll our eyes at people who bring up a rather unpleasant and unprofitable subject.
My dad was a researcher (he’d be 88 if he’d lived).
Now he was all about vaccines. But you wouldn’t have caught him sitting around pulling his plonker and playing with statistics until you could make them disappear. He was no apologist for the marketing division of Merck, with all those sordid little strategies that are currently coming to light.
He’d have said, “Good God! A kid had convulsions? Let’s get to the bottom of that!”
He wouldn’t have cared if it was one kid or a million; they were all living, breathing people who deserved the best care he could give them. I don’t think there are too many like him any more; certainly not on this blog.
Look, you love Gardasil. I’m happy for you. Me, I look at the downside (potential for autoimmune TRIGGERS and replacement diseases etc.) and the upside (pretty good effect on genital warts but not so hot on lesions–as of today’s results, a 17 to 45 percent reduction in abnormal Pap smears) and the alternatives (GML looks like a good bet). And I say sod Gardasil for a lark. It’s not worth it.
So we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I’m surprised you didn’t know that most people DON’T get flu shots.
I never wrote that “most people get flu shots” nor implied that. Making others out to say things that haven’t is a poor form of argument and amount to attacking them, rather than deal with subject at hand.
Gardasil and MMR, au contraire, are given to generally healthy populations so are somewhat (’tho not totally) comparable to each other.
Would you care to show where there is this targeting of the flu vaccine for the unhealthy? You claims are continuing to not make sense to me, not because I’m ignorant, but because they conflict with what I know.
Of course vaccines are promoted especially to those most at risk from the targeted disease, e.g. the elderly for seasonal flu, but that’s not “targeting the unhealthy”.
Seriously? You don’t know what replacement diseases are?
I did not ask to you “tell me what they are”, I asked you to tell me (as in clarify) what you mean by that. I had the impression you meant something other than what it does: the sentence it was in was confusing to my reading of it.
I see I’ve been assuming a level of knowledge that isn’t actually there.
OK, gloves off. I see that you are repeatedly trying to foist things on others things that they haven’t said. Given the approach you are taking, I am now going to make a few remarks then leave. I have better things to do that try help someone who just wants to be dishonest in reply.
Consider: Why should I bother try help someone who just repeatedly twists my words in reply? You tell me.
…
The intelligent thing is to explore the possibilities and the things we don’t know yet, rather than say, oh well, statistically they’re improbable/insignificant. Let’s just roll our eyes at people who bring up a rather unpleasant and unprofitable subject.
More trying to plant incorrect stereotypes on me. It’s also very ironic as the statistics is part of how exploring the possibilities and how you get pointers to what you don’t know yet.
He’d have said, “Good God! A kid had convulsions? Let’s get to the bottom of that!”
Sure, never said otherwise. But don’t plant the blame without first showing that it is the real cause. (Something you repeatedly have done.)
Look, you love Gardasil.
I didn’t say anything for or against it. I only commented on the use of statistics. Again you are placing things on me that I haven’t written.
You are clearly not worth interacting with because you repeatedly try attack the person rather than deal with the subject. You certainly avoid what is presented to you. In my experience, both these behaviours are when a person is “losing” badly and feels the only chance that they have is to attack the other person.
What you don’t realise, and I really doubt I could show you because of your attitude and repeatedly planting things on me, is that I do explore the issues you refer to. I don’t just plant blame before things are known for certain. It’s not a matter of agreeing to disagree as you writ, it’s matter that you won’t look at things objectively, but persist in trying “give” others words and stances that they don’t hold and try to assign blame before it’s known. I’ll disagree on that.
Scepticon, I see you just posted about replacemet disease.
“Along with the other claims it’s still in the “this could happen” phase but it’s not unreasonable just currently unsupported.”
Not at all.
I’ll make it easy for you since you don’t appear to know anything about this.
Look for a study of Prevnar led by Dr. Lee Harrison of the University of the Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The study found that by 2005 non-PCV7 strains of meningitis had increased by 60.5%. The percentage of strains not sensitive to penicillin rose from 19.4 percent in 2003 to 30.1 percent in 2005.
I was talking in regard to Gardasil not the concept in general nor other examples in particular. If you can point me in the direction of that research I’d appreciate it.
Thanks.
I’d like to clarify something, I have never advocated for anyone to get the vaccine, re-read all my posts if you think I have. Neither have I claimed the vaccine is perfectly safe, I am merely trying to show that the level of hysteria in regard to the vaccine is not warranted and not supported by current knowledge. If you disagree, as is your right, point me to the relevant papers please.
Thanks
A final note on flu shots, here in NZ they are given to anyone that wants one (in the US I believe also) I get one every year.
The Flu vaccine is AVAILABLE to anyone who wants it here, too, but it isn’t RECOMMENDED for everyone, and most healthy people don’t get it. Heavens, I didn’t realize you were so neurotic over there. I thought Americans were supposed to have cornered the market on neuroses.
Good grief. I have asthma and it wouldn’t cross my mind to get it, even though I’ve had virtually all of the vaccines recommended for adults (as a kid I just got the diseases and survived perfectly happily) because in general I’m fairly healthy.
The point is, it can’t remotely be compared to MMR or Gardasil, which are recommended for absolutely everyone at an age when the vast majority are healthy.
With regards to replacement disease, Gardasil flat out hasn’t been in circulation long enough to have literature on RD, as well you know–Prevnar was introduced in the late 90s. However, particularly when type 16 was already beginning to be replaced prior to Gardasil’s introduction, and the shot covers less than 4% of HPV strains, I’d say the likelihood is more than “not unreasonable.”
So let me get this straight. Are you saying you WOULDN’T get Gardasil when it’s recommended for you, as should probably happen before too long?
No, I’m not saying that or even implied it.
Are you saying that unless a vaccine covers every strain it is useless?
I can put words into your mouth too.
Nice try, Heraclides! LOL!
As I said before, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. And if you can’t, I will. I don’t think there’s a whole lot to be gained here.
Patty,
I’m not “trying” anything. Writing an out-of-hand dismissal then repeating yourself–ignoring the points made–and doesn’t get you anywhere in my book 😉
To repeat myself, since you have side-stepped my point: it’s not a matter of disagreeing with your claims or not. The reason for that is substantiated claims don’t amount to anything much.
Either way, what I more particularly disagree with is your approach. Not substantiating your claims and yet insisting on them, and thinking that “put downs” of others somehow constitutes constructive discussion or learning isn’t an approach I will ever agree with.
You are most welcome to substantiate your claims, please do: it’s your not doing this that I disagree with. Instead you seem to focus on “attacking” others. Why not learn from people and see how you can better judge learn what can be learnt data and not?
If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine, it’s not everyone’s thing after all. But if you choose not to, you’ll to rely on others who are willing to (and capable of) working through the data and making sense of it.
Sometimes feel a lot of the “natural health”, etc., objections to vaccines or other medicines stem from a fear of losing control of making decisions for themselves. The odd thing about that–to me–is that the same people accept others making decisions for them all the time in other areas.
Modern society has specialists: we let others do the things we are disinclined to do, or are ineffective at doing, or unable to do ourselves. Lawyers do legal work, builders build, etc.
Watching non-specialists try take on your own speciality, whatever it is, is like watching a bloke who thinks he’s the last word in DIY talking about his upcoming project, anticipating the mess he’ll make of it, then watching him turn his house into wreck. He might mean well, and probably does, but most people have the good sense to know their limits and call on others before they reach them.
There is an important difference in DIY “I can call the vaccine science” to DIY house renovation. In the latter, the damage is (usually) mainly financial and usually limited to the DIYer’s own house. In the case of the DIY vaccine science crowd, the damage is not financial, but people’s health and, in some cases, lives. Furthermore it is not limited to the health and lives of the DIY vaccine science proponent, but affects other people.
(By the way, just to make it clear I’m not being condescending, as you seem to like to frame me: scientists call on others’ expertise all the time; we all work within our particular expertise and call on colleagues when we need expertise outside our patch. The thankfully few scientists who don’t do this, rapidly find they waste enormous amounts of time.)
Thanks for your input Heraclides, I agree with you both that the end of this conversation has come and there is nothing to be gained by continuing. Thank-you Patty for your time especially as it must seem like you’ve been banging your head against a wall for the last 10 days. As you say we can agree to disagree and we’ll see what the long term studies find in a few years.
And I finally get time to come & take part, & Heraclides has been here before me.
In case Patty is still reading these posts – in NZ the flu vaccine is indeed available to anyone who wants it. It’s promoted to the elderly & those with a history of respiratory disease, not because they are ‘unhealthy’ as such but because for them the consequences of getting the flu can be severe. My employer, like many others, offers the vaccine free to its staff because it wishes to avoid the disruption & economic costs associated with having staff off sick for up to a couple of weeks. I want to avoid them too, so I have them.
On the gardasil issue, as Heraclides has pointed out, it’s the relative numbers that are important here; that’s the only way you can really make these comparisons. I’m the ‘faculty member’, but he’s the mathematician here.
And finally – I don’t know about the other two, but I’m also a parent who looks at children. But I also recognise that personal anecdotes =/= data 😉
Thanks for dropping by Alison, your two cents are always welcome.