Battle over Vaccines

[Dennis P Brown]

I am at a lost for words since this 'law suit' is so over-the-top evil. Science is and remains under attack by people for many reasons. But I'll not speculate on this persons motives. Aside: For many people, their ignorance occurs because they do their 'own research' and end up reading extremely incorrect and even fake information and most of these sources are self serving blogs that provide very false results. This level of danger is really serious since vaccines are the greatest and most successful medical procedure developed in the last hundred plus years.


"RFKJr’s lawyer is bringing suit to revoke FDA approval for the polio vaccine and others.

One of Mr. Siri’s arguments against vaccines is that some, including the polio and hepatitis B vaccines, have not been tested against placebos in randomized, double-blind clinical trials — the gold standard for medical research, in which some patients get inert vaccines and doctors don’t know which patients get which.

He has called in his petitions for the shots to be pulled from the market until placebo-controlled trials — which would deny some children polio shots — can be completed. Given the known risks of polio causing paralysis that can seize major organs and kill people, such work is considered unethical.

Randomized, double-blind clinical trials, however, are not the only way to get data. We have decades of data that can be compared to the decades before the vaccines. That data shows that vaccines are the most effective and safest of pharmaceuticals. Here’s the incidence of polio over time. The Salk vaccine was licensed in 1955, the Sabin vaccine in 1960.


Data source: Our World In Data based on US Public Health Service; US Center for Disease Control; and WHO
OurWorldinData.org/polio | CC BY
The source article for this graph is a very good overview of polio, and the graph is interactive there. (Poster, not now and I will not link to this blog. Sorry.)

Hilzoy did a thread on the ethics of a double-blind trial this morning. Bottom line: it is unethical to withhold these vaccines to do a trial now, when we have so much other data."

[Richard Hull]

The chart clearly shows that baby booms after soldiers return from battle, WWI and WWII, create a vast number of births and polio classically hits young people at an age where they are outdoors playing in what are less than hygienic environments. I lived as a boomer in the 50's where classmates would contract polio over summer vacation and not return to school. We got the Salk vaccine (shots) in the 3rd grade and we never lost another classmate to polio 4th grade all the way to the sugar cube polio oral ingestion in high school. I call that rather proof positive as iron lungs became old unused curios.

The covid vac is a joke. It prevents nothing! Certainly not Covid. I know several folks who took the jab regularly and caught covid over and over again. True, they survived, however the vaccine does not prevent covid. It seems to keep the most vulnerable from dying should they contract the disease, but it will not keep anyone from contracting covid. The polio vaccine prevents polio. Many other vaccines out there also prevents what ailment they claim to stop.

Out of fear I allowed myself the virtually mandated two jabs and the first booster. I have never had another covid shot since late 2021. I have never contracted covid while others about me rather constantly test positive and live. I do religiously get the yearly "tuned" seasonal flu shot and have not contracted the flu in many years. ( due to the shot?? or just luck??).

Richard Hull

[Dennis P Brown]

The covid virus (like many in that family) simply can not be fully prevented via a vaccine - there are many virus that no vaccine can be developed or the efficiency is poor. The reasons are complex but part of the reason is that covid is an entirely new virus that humanity has never experienced previously. We have no innate defense during its infection start. Now, thanks to most people either having had a vaccination or having survived the illness, that has changed. Once having the vaccination, the body does keep some specialize antibodies for that virus for many years; for some people, that is all that is required to prevent illness. For most, no. But it does give those people an advantage that prevents it from generally getting deadly. So past vaccination is a major advantage in preventing serious illness.

That said, the covid vaccine is certainly an effective overall preventative of serious illness. That is, it is extremely effective against death and long covid - so currently, millions throughout the world are no longer dying due to covid nor are we seeing the huge excessive death rates in the U.S. that we saw before the 'jab' (that was 300K needless deaths.) The completion of decades of complex R&D and finally using "warp" speed to get the finished product into production under the Trump administration was a fantastic achievement and saved huge numbers of lives (and glad he takes credit for that achievement, it was earned.)

For some, it actually does prevent the illness (I am one of the lucky ones like Richard - I've been around a lot of infected people and never had even a hint of either covid or a cold (the other vaccine, the one for flu only works, maybe 40% at best yet for the last twenty years I've never had either the flu or a cold after getting that vaccination. Previously, I got both types almost every year. Considering my age, that to me is extraordinarily good results.).) That said, the mRNA vaccine is effective but covid is nasty and frankly, gonna be with us for good.

Just hope bird flu does not get a foothold as a human infecting and airborne virus - that extremely nasty bug is well over an order of magnitude more deadly than covid at its worse. If it mutates then it could be 1918 all over again. That we certainly don't need, thank you.

Facts are facts - all vaccines have some issues but these are so trivial compared to the benefits its simply staggering better to be vaccinated. Various vaccinations against many deadly/dangerous viruses is simply 'common sense'; its is beyond the pale that anyone who is remotely reasonable or not trying to profit off lies could object to vaccination (in general, not for specific adults; some can't and some will always refuse - their right to do so.) But all children should always get the logical set of approved vaccines since they are most vulnerable and unable to ask for themselves. Believing in natural immunity is ludicrous since that will, and usually does, lead to many having serious illness from an easily preventable pathogen; failure to vaccinate can and does for many, lead to dangerous complications, possible long-term damage or even death. That natural method was a significant reason half of all children died before age 5 in pre-vaccination days.

[Frank Sanns]

These are tough calls for sure. Are vaccines needed for eradicated illnesses like small pox and polio in the US?

Out of 100,000 cases in the mid 1950s, 40,000 of those cases were due to a mix up with the vaccine. A live virus was used instead of a deactivated one.

Blood clots with the Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine.

I am NOT an anti-vaxer. It is important to weight the risks to benefits when it comes to health and life. All vaccines for all is not a good strategy for many of the injectables.

Then as stated, the ethics of it are complicated. In the early days of HIV, a good friend of mine enrolled in the initial study for the first drug to combat the disease. We had discussions about the double blind study that he was on. It was not certain if the drug could work but he had to try something as he had a death sentence at the time.

As his illness progressed, he knew that he had to be on some drug that had hope and not on a placebo. He asked my help to determine if he was on the drug or a placebo. Being a chemist also with some analytical experience, I ran Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) on a portion of one of his meds. Without a keen eye, it might have been missed. The drug was AZT. now known as Zidovudine. The placebo was keenly chosen to be the molecularly very similar, uracil.

Uracil is part of the chemical structure of AZT so the FTIR analysis had many of nearly exactly the same peaks in the spectra. It was surprisingly well masked as at first glance I thought it was the real deal. I had expected a sugar or starch pill and got something that looked like the real deal. A closer look though did reveal that it was not AZT but was Uracil used as a placebo.

Jim dropped out of the study and paid a high cost and went on to AZT. The study doctor did petition for the official information and did confirm that he was on a placebo. Jim only lasted another year. I often wonder if those first months that he was not on an effective treatment, had he survived long enough to make it to the more successful drug cocktails that could have saved his life.

With each of those stories are other experimental ethical ones that actually do harm with the experimental treatments. It is all about the risk to benefit ratio. When you only have a year to live, you have little to lose by trying something that may or may not help. That is vastly different than something given to an infant or a child that has their entire life a head of them. Will that treatment shorten or lengthen their entire lives?

We really don't know as human studies are notoriously complicated by genetics and environmental factors.

[Dennis P Brown]

Here is a very recent article on how a group of researchers have discovered a possible method to vastly improve flu vaccines (and could help with bird flu, too.)

To learn about this exciting work see: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-12- ... ccine.html