PART 4

[Guest guest]

Fabrications and Distortions

To discover why people would want " philosophic exemptions " from one or

more immunizations, I examined the Internet sites of the

anti-immunization activists. Here I found what I expected. There is

rhetoric about " making informed choices, " plus a mass of half-truths and

(at most sites) outright, obvious lies. The links are mostly to other

" alternative " medicine sites.

In particular, these people make a practice of citing scientific papers

and lying about their contents. Several cite references to 1990s-era

publications in refereed medical journals. None of the authors use their

sources truthfully.

A Web site called " Dispelling Vaccine Myths "

(www.unc.edu/~aphillip/www/vaccine/dvm1.htm) is typical. The author's

most obviously untrue claims -- that immunizations have not made the

diseases less common and that 29972 Japanese died of smallpox despite

having been immunized -- are referenced only to the works of other

anti-immunization activists.

The author also cites the Lancet[26] to claim that " Oman experienced a

widespread polio outbreak six months after achieving complete

vaccination. " A check of the source shows this to be a cynical lie.

Coverage was far from complete. Exposure was so massive where herd

immunity was low that a few immunized children were not protected.

The author cites MMWR's account[27] of an outbreak of measles spreading

from unimmunized people to vaccine nonresponders in order to support the

claim that the vaccine is ineffective. The statistics presented actually

showed that the vaccine gave a high level of protection.

He cites the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)[28] to claim that

Romanian children have contracted polio from the vaccine. The article

actually shows that polio was already common in the country, and that

those children who already had polio when they were injected were more

likely to develop paralysis -- a well-known phenomenon.

The site contains a fabricated quotation from a Swedish epidemiologist,

and the statement that " England, Wales, and West Germany had more

pertussis fatalities in 1970, when the immunization rate was high, than

during the last half of 1980, when rates had fallen. " This statement

does not appear in the article to which it is referenced.[29]

The author claims that " oth national and international studies have

shown vaccination to be a cause of [sudden Infant Death Syndrome] SIDS. "

He cites no international study. He cites one unrefereed paper by one

presenter at a scientific meeting, a review of 70 cases; the claim of

having a statistically significant clustering of SIDS deaths is made

without presenting any statistics.[30 ]

The author misrepresents an article in the American Journal of

Epidemiology[31] as arguing that confounding could have masked vaccine

as a cause of SIDS. The truth is that both participants in the

discussion agreed that it could not.

The author claims that the Japanese found that the whole-cell pertussis

vaccine was statistically linked to SIDS. He gives no references (and

can't, because it is not true), but the source of the misunderstanding

is probably a JAMA article.[32] SIDS, by definition, affects children

during the first year of life. When the Japanese stopped immunizing

babies under age 1, there were no cases of SIDS following immunization.

" Parents Advocating Vaccine Education "

(www.unidial.com/~metroprint/pave2.html) misrepresents the Italian

experience with pertussis. Citing a JAMA article[33] in which the

vaccine was only 36% effective at the height of an epidemic (when people

are inhaling huge numbers of bacteria), the author claims that this

means the vaccine only works when the patient is not exposed. The author

must actually know that pertussis bacteria are widespread throughout

Italy, and there are always opportunities for exposure.

The remaining claims are not referenced. The ridiculous claim that

rubella immunization places future unborn children at increased risk for

congenital rubella syndrome is referenced only to works by other

anti-immunization activists.

The author reports the views of an independent thinker on " stealth

viruses " as fact, and claims these may be in vaccines. No mainstream

virologist even writes about these hypothetical creatures.

The author cites reports of retrovirus fragments in vaccines, but fails

to add that despite much effort, nobody at the CDC could grow them,

indicating no infectious particles were present.

Finally, the author repeats the claim recently made by two indepoendent

thinkers using their private methods,[34] that some diseases, such as

childhood diabetes, are becoming more common, and perhaps immunization

is the cause. If this were true, some honest scientist would have made a

reputation by demonstrating a temporal relationship between immunization

and the onset of diabetes. It hasn't happened. And if this were true,

there would have been a tremendous upsurge in childhood diabetes when

immunizations first became widespread. It didn't happen, and the mose

recent work has shown no connection.[35] The author finishes by imputing

the most vile motives to physicians, industry, and government.

When " Think Twice " (thinktwice.com/studies.htm) tells its visitors that

" Science reported on a possible link between polio vaccines and the

origin of AIDS, " the author fails to mention that this was nothing more

than a pair of letters about a Rolling Stone article whose author

admitted it was idle speculation.[36]

The author cites " studies " (actually, only one study in JAMA) as support

for the claim that asthma is more common in recipients of the pertussis

vaccine.[37] A subsequent large study refuted the claim utterly,[38] and

scientific misconduct was described in a previous study claiming a

link.[38] In the original JAMA article, 16 of the 203 unimmunized

children had already had pertussis, compared with 1 of 243 in the

immunized group.

The author cites the Journal of Infectious Diseases,[39] alleging that

DPT makes it more likely that a polio infection will turn paralytic. The

article merely reported an illustration of the previously mentioned,

well-known phenomenon resulting from injection during acute polio.

The author cites an increasing prevalence of hepatitis B among

intravenous drug abusers despite the existence of a vaccine.[40]

However, the author neglected to say that the vaccine never reached

these people.

The author cites an old article in NEJM to claim that the original

hepatitis B vaccine may have contained AIDS virus.[41] This was mere

speculation at the time, and now we know it never happened.

The author cites another NEJM[42] article to claim that hepatitis B

vaccine causes acute polyneuropathy. Actually, this was the report of a

single case following immunization. Subsequent studies have shown no

statistical relationship.

" Vaccinations -- Not Safe, Not Effective "

(www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/online/vaccine/vacc.html) cites a NEJM paper as

support for the claim: " A report on a study of 11 healthy individuals to

determine the effects of routine tetanus booster vaccinations showed

that the vaccinations weaken the immune system of the recipients. " What

actually happened is that the circulating counts of T4 cells dropped,

though not to dangerous levels, as these cells migrated to the site of

immunization. And the author of the Web page fails to mention that all

blood work returned to normal in a month.

The author quotes Pediatrics[43] as saying that the H. flu meningitis

vaccine has been shown to cause serious reactions including convulsions,

anaphylactoid allergic reactions, serum sickness-like reactions, and

death. Actually, these were only reports of temporal associations,

without further evidence of causality.

The author claims that atypical measles, which is wild-strain measles in

people who received only the killed vaccine, as " a very severe form of

the disease in which it appears that, because of the vaccination, there

is an increased susceptibility to measles virus, resulting from a

damaged immune system. " The truth is that atypical measles is not " very

severe, " but variable; only one patient in the cited JAMA[44] article

was seriously sick, and both patients recovered. Actually, atypical

measles results from a vaccine-enhanced antibody production to wild

virus in those whose T-cells did not respond to the immunization. To

characterize this as a " damaged immune system " is a shameless lie.

The author cites MMWR's note[45] that mumps is now largely a disease of

older people, and twists the language to claim (falsely) that it is now

more common among these people than before immunization was available.

" Unknowing Women Victims of Hidden Birthcontrol [sic] Vaccine "

(home.sprynet.com/~noshots/hcg.htm) tells a frightful story of women in

developing countries being giving a tetanus vaccine that caused them to

miscarry. The vaccine was supposedly the work of Orwellian UN officials

bent on controlling population. Thankfully, it's just another cynical

lie, as a check of the actual Lancet[46] reference will show. The women

did not know why they were being immunized, and were suspicious. But

there were no miscarriages reported.

An anticontraception conspiracy buff site

(new-atlentean.com/birthcon.htm) is a " Think Twice " mirror. It claims

that human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) was introduced into tetanus

toxoid to sterilize women. If this were true, it would be a terrible

human rights violation. But the only evidence is an unpublished report

that hCG was assayed in the vaccine. Using assays with extreme

sensitivity but relative nonspecificity will generally give a small

positive number even when none of the analyte is really present.

These are not isolated examples, but are typical of how these Web sites

use scientific citations. Obviously, the activists making these claims

are yelling " Fire! " when there is none. What disturbs me the most is

that there seems to be no internal self-criticism in the

anti-immunization community. The most obvious lies go unchallenged.