Re: Why insufficient research is done.

[Guest guest]

Since others have posted about immunization providing speculation and it is only

now that the " we can't talk about it rule is being applied " and the information

was not scientific is was SPECULATIVE. I'm all for speculation in that it gives

us ideas for further exploration. But speculation should not be construed as

proof. Particularly when it is the large scale " well this was occurring at the

same time as that so they MUST be related. To make my point, Norah Ephrom

stated in an opinion piece in the NY Times that breastfeeding was becoming more

common and some other condition -- I think it was allergies --- were also

becoming more common and so therefore breastfeeding caused allergies.

So I will not talk about what anyone might conclude from the science or their

own beliefs about immunizations. I do feel that I would like to respond about

how science SHOULD work, even though those who claim to be scientists don't

always operate that way. I'm giving two examples that straddle both sides of

the " opinions " out there so as to keep it balanced. I would hope that others

who are really fixed on one side or other of this issue would really take a

moment to delve deep and look into their own bias and challenge their own

opinions a bit. It is in this manner that we move from " we can't talk about it "

to " oh, here's how we can approach in ways that improve the health of infants

and young children " .

First, the original scares about immunization were created by Wakefield who

changed his data to suit his own firm. The evidence that he changed the data

has been known for years, but the final revelations of how he changed the data

are particularly shocking. Parents who were in his trials were shocked

themselves about how he changed data about their children. This went one step

further than Chandra who merely exaggerated his sample size. Chandra did many

of the studies on different formulas for babies who had allergies to cow's milk

and other proteins. The formula industry (I kind of enjoy this) was defrauded of

millions of dollars by Chandra because he didn't actually conduct the full scale

studies he said he did -- he just did very small studies and padded the data.

So, he may have changed the data sufficiently to make it seem like an apparently

insignificant effect was a " significant " effect -- which is bad. Wakefield took

a step further and actually postdated when parents reported their children's

symptoms -- completely falsifying the results.

Second, I have worked in plenty of countries that have no vaccine campaigns

agains meningitis and I have seen the effects of meningitis outbreaks up close

and personal. And measles outbreaks which can be extremely deadly when

nutritional status is poor. Meningitis is caused by a virus and it can be

devastating and it is spread by droplets. If you live in an area where everyone

is immune (via exposure or vaccines) you will not have an outbreak for a while.

But as we have seen from island populations, sooner or later the virus will

eventually creep back in via another person --- or if vaccine development is

rushed or done improperly-- yes it can enter into a population an the Cutter

Incident is an excellent expose on how this can happen. This happened back in

the 1950s when one lone scientist covered up that they were not really doing the

checks properly to ensure that the polio vaccine was deactivated. This became a

seminal event in litigation. It is well worth reading about.

The way science should work if research were funded independently from corporate

interests (we used to be closer to this before we decided that government was

evil and defunded many university research programs enabling corporations to

fund a much greater proportion of research institutions) is that independent

trials could be conducted on new drugs, vaccines, supplements (which are drugs

as far as I'm concerned). Proving a negative is actually impossible in science.

Proving something is NOT risky is therefore impossible in science. BUT you can

provide evidence that risks are unlikely. For rare and serious risks this

requires very large trials. For more common risks, you can pick it up in

smaller trials. Trials that are costly. Larger trials are more costly. When

it comes to " unknown risks " you can't do a trial until you think there may be a

connection towards the risks. Many of the trials are reported in the

literature. I suggest you actually read the actual trials rather than you-tube

videos of what I call the Martek industry approach (which was to string a series

of speculations together to scare mothers into using DHA only supplements --

without any confirmatory research that their supplements made any difference

whatsoever). From reading these trials you can see which questions may have

been answered and which questions have not yet been asked.

The CDC and the FDA have seen deep budget cuts over the last 20 years. Yet, the

CDC is obligated to respond to requests for more research when the public is

concerned about risks. An example of this is vitamin D deficiency. I remember

this first being discussed on Lactnet as a plot by the CDC to support the

supplement industry. In fact, PARENTS requested the CDC to investigate cases of

rickets because they were angry that their babies had suffered from something

that was entirely preventable. In this case, the CDC was able to respond

because The CD have been doing trials on immunization at public request within

budget constraints. If you want them to be more effective, you should write

your own representatives and senators and ask for more funding and/or more

oversight, whichever you might think would be most appropriate to counteract the

fact that in the last 20 years, independent research has become rare. There is

no big brother or big sister at the top looking out for the public. We are the

public.

Best regards,

E Burger, MHS, PhD, IBCLC

NYLCA President

sburgernutr@...