The Miller Family: The Rolling Pertussis-Mobile

[mirele]

My mother was all about getting us the vaccines that were available when we were kids (early 1960s). She had measles in first grade, was quarantined for it, emerged partially deaf and was a year behind in school. And she used to scare us kids with scary stories about polio before the Salk vaccine became available in 1956. Because there weren't vaccines available for mumps and chicken pox, I had both of those diseases as a girl. When the rubella vaccine came out in 1969, the entire neighborhood trooped down to the high school to get the shot, because even us kids knew that rubella could cause birth defects and miscarriages.

When I was in law school three decades ago, we weren't permitted to go back to class until we could show proof of a recent measles vaccine or get a new shot at the student health center, because someone had contracted measles and exposed a bunch of people. I got the shot.

I was listening to the BBC a couple of days ago as I was driving through far northern Arizona (i.e., north of the Grand Canyon, which is incredibly vast and empty). There was a story about Italian parents who were refusing to get their children vaccinated. If they're newly entering the school system, the Italian government won't let them in without the full vaccine schedule. If the children are already in the school system, the government will fine them 500 euros for failing to comply with the vaccine schedule. I swear, if I'm ever in the presence of former doctor Andrew Wakefield, I might need someone to keep me from beating the everloving tar out of him, because there was at least one Italian parent citing that bogus crap Wakefield had been spreading about the MMR vaccine as a reason to to vaccinate his kids. 

Parents like this are going to bring back polio, I just feel it. 

[Lurky]

@mirele I agree with everything you'd said, except 1 thing, and I've FTFY:

Quote

former doctor convicted fraudster Andrew Wakefield who lost his medical license after it was proved he was promoting harmful theories he knew were incorrect, in order to make himself a lot of money

 

Edited September 22, 2017 by Lurky

[apple1]

On ‎9‎/‎1‎/‎2017 at 11:06 AM, catlady said:

  i don't know if the rubella vaccine was available then,

The first rubella vaccine was not licensed until 1969. (There was a large US rubella outbreak 1964-65).

[ILoveJellybeans]

You mean, they were travelling, visiting lots of different churches....all while knowing they had pertussis????? How horrible and irresponsible. They could have killed someone's baby. Theyre lucky their own baby didn't die. Vaccinate your damn kids.

[Jana814]

Wednesday night was the start of the Jewish New Year. A family friend of ours went over to her sons in-laws house. Someone that was suppose to come decided not to because their child that was vaccinated got whooping cough.  They didn't want to take a chance and get the other guests sick. The Millers didn't seem to care if they got anyone else sick. 

[guitar_villain]

2 hours ago, Lurky said:

@mirele I agree with everything you'd said, except 1 thing, and I've FTFY:

 

And I'll pile on to FTFY.  Wakefield didn't lose his medical license for the vaccine stuff, he lost it for doing dangerous medical experiments on autistic kids without their parent's permission.  He claimed to have both hospital and parent approval, but he didn't fully disclose what tests he was running.  Given that those tests included colonoscopy with biopsy as well as spinal taps, that's kind of a big deal. 

I just finished the autism and vaccine part of my class.   I have my students read Wakefield's paper.  It's highly technical and they don't really understand good chunks of it, but you can learn an awful lot from it.  For example, he only had 12 kids, and a number of them didn't even have diagnoses of autism.  Virtually none of them had bowel symptoms even remotely alike.  Time from vaccination to onset of parent reported symptoms ranged from hours to months, and one wasn't even linked to MMR.  It's a real ratbag of a paper.

His prospectus to investors for his autism test was much better written, but when you're aiming for 75 million pounds a year of sales you need a lot more polish.

[SoGladIWasCofE]

Didn't he collect blood samples at his child's birthday party or something?

Edit: yes, yes he did https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925209/

He offered kids £5 to give him their blood at a children's birthday party.

This is not a man who should be trusted.

Edited September 22, 2017 by SoGladIWasCofE
Checked sources, actually worse than I remembered

[Dandruff]

2 hours ago, ILoveJellybeans said:

You mean, they were travelling, visiting lots of different churches....all while knowing they had pertussis????? How horrible and irresponsible. They could have killed someone's baby. Theyre lucky their own baby didn't die. Vaccinate your damn kids.

There would also be the risks from any stops they made between churches; e.g., rest areas, restaurants, and/or parks.

Pro-life?  Yeah, right.

[mirele]

2 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

There would also be the risks from any stops they made between churches; e.g., rest areas, restaurants, and/or parks.

Pro-life?  Yeah, right.

Pro-life for germs, bacteria and viruses is more like it. *scowl*

[chaotic life]

This might have been an experience you've had with pertussis, but when my vaccinated twelve year old son and husband had it, neither of their doctors did anything to diagnose it and I think only my husband was prescribed antibiotics way too late to help. I know that pertussis in babies is a lot more serious and it is treated more seriously by doctors. Not to say that it wasn't horrible for my son and husband. Because their doctors weren't on the ball with the diagnosis, I don't think either of them missed any work or school. Who knows if they infected others. This was about five years ago and it seems like it was the beginning of the outbreaks because I don't think there was as much discussion about it as I read now.

Five years ago we were still debating if antibiotics helped. Thanks to the outbreaks since then, the research had definitively answered that question today. Your doctor might have outdated information but the one advantage of being a new graduate provider is that your treatment knowledge is cutting edge for about five years before it starts to outdate if you do not keep yourself updated with the times and research. Thus it's not my experience but how I practice, how I was trained to treat pertussis and based upon evidence based practices.

[StepMonsterInLA]

It's the state law here to show proof of vaccinations before being enrolled in school.  I know of a family who for "medical reasons" was given a note from their children's doctor that they could not be vaccinated. The dude texted me last week and asked me if I have any drops for pink eye that he could have. Nope!   Take your kids to the doctor like everyone else!  

[JMarie]

On 9/1/2017 at 11:06 AM, catlady said:

 the surviving twin is the now-53-year-old man whom i have discussed here on occasion and has lived with me for the past three years.  his disability was caused by the prenatal rubella, and he will never have any level of independence because of it.  he has the mental capacity of a 9-year-old, has very poor logic skills, and needs daily supervision for most of his life skills.  

I don't really buy into the "God only gives you as much as you can handle" argument, but BLESS YOU for caring for your cousin.

[catlady]

34 minutes ago, JMarie said:

I don't really buy into the "God only gives you as much as you can handle" argument, but BLESS YOU for caring for your cousin.

thank you!  i do truly appreciate it. i don't buy into that concept either, mainly because i'm not a person of faith, but also because i believe that life just happens, and as adults, we deal with it and make the best of what we have and seek help when we have to.  some days, i feel like i'm failing.  but most days are better, so we get through.

[Shoobydoo]

On 9/22/2017 at 5:53 PM, guitar_villain said:

And I'll pile on to FTFY.  Wakefield didn't lose his medical license for the vaccine stuff, he lost it for doing dangerous medical experiments on autistic kids without their parent's permission.  He claimed to have both hospital and parent approval, but he didn't fully disclose what tests he was running.  Given that those tests included colonoscopy with biopsy as well as spinal taps, that's kind of a big deal. 

I just finished the autism and vaccine part of my class.   I have my students read Wakefield's paper.  It's highly technical and they don't really understand good chunks of it, but you can learn an awful lot from it.  For example, he only had 12 kids, and a number of them didn't even have diagnoses of autism.  Virtually none of them had bowel symptoms even remotely alike.  Time from vaccination to onset of parent reported symptoms ranged from hours to months, and one wasn't even linked to MMR.  It's a real ratbag of a paper.

His prospectus to investors for his autism test was much better written, but when you're aiming for 75 million pounds a year of sales you need a lot more polish.

 

On 9/22/2017 at 6:22 PM, SoGladIWasCofE said:

Didn't he collect blood samples at his child's birthday party or something?

Edit: yes, yes he did https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925209/

He offered kids £5 to give him their blood at a children's birthday party.

This is not a man who should be trusted.

Okay, I didn't know much about the guy beyond that he was a ratbag and started (or made mainstream?) the anti-vax movement, but good god, reading that stuff gave me literal chills.  What a fucking Mengele of a man. I wish THAT stuff was more widely known. Maybe it would make some idiots out there have second thoughts.

[SoGladIWasCofE]

Yeah, there are reasons patient consent protocols and ethics boards exist, and it's so you can't do shit like that.

[Lurky]

@Shoobydoo This is why it's so disgusting that Wakefield is presented as a legitimate doctor.

I recommend everyone always reads Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, because he sets out how people like me, with minimal science education can translate media reports and begin to understand the bigger science issues that come up (eg what's a good study/what are good stats?).  He's super-readable, and he has a great blog that covers the same topics.  He's UK based so of course is talking from a free/taxpayer-funded perspective, but international friends love it too, and don't see the UK background too much of a problem

http://www.badscience.net/

http://www.badscience.net/books/bad-science/

Edited September 27, 2017 by Lurky
SOTDRT is infectious. Also it seems I can't spell "science", aaargh

[ILoveJellybeans]

Wakefield also has jumped on the bandwagon of promoting autism "cures", which don't work as autism is how your brain is wired. This includes chelation, which is a legitimate treatment for heavy metal poisoning but is harmful when done wrong (often given long term in alternative medicine) sometimes mixed with drugs to suppress testosterone, one of the doctors who invented this lost their license as they were telling the insurance companies that all the kids they saw had precocious puberty and needed it for that, the other would too, if he was actually a doctor. Then there are dodgy stem cell treatments and bleach enemas (which apparently kill the intestinal parasites that interact with vaccine ingredients to cause autism...a good explanation  cover how it makes long wormy things fall out their butts, which are actually parts of intestinal lining). Plus loads of supplements and special diets. Kids have been put in hospital and even died from these kind  of things.

 

He also teamed up with a guy who secretly recorded a CDC researcher talking about a study and then cut out snippets of this conversation to include in a movie about how vaccines are bad. The truth behind the study was that it said no, vaccines don't cause autism, but if you were to cut up the data in a certain way (controlling for sex, race and age range) it does appear to show a correlation, but that little group was less than ten kids so isn't conclusive, in fact, on a larger scale it was proven that this was a coincidence. The reason the guy did it was because he was trying to sue vaccine manufacturers for causing his child to be autistic, but he was failing miserably at this and eventually lost the case. According to the guy (Brian Hooker), after his son's vaccines at age 1 he suddenly became limp and regressed. According to the kid's actual medical records, he was missing developmental milestones since he was a tiny baby and had actually been to the doctor 3 weeks after his vaccines (for a suspected ear infection), with no other unusual symptoms.

[BobTheWalrus]

On 9/24/2017 at 5:27 AM, catlady said:

thank you!  i do truly appreciate it. i don't buy into that concept either, mainly because i'm not a person of faith, but also because i believe that life just happens, and as adults, we deal with it and make the best of what we have and seek help when we have to.  some days, i feel like i'm failing.  but most days are better, so we get through.

I agree. So many people quote that wrong, and imply that if you say you can't handle your situation then you're not trusting God. But the verse in the Bible they're thinking of (in 1 Corinthians 10) actually says that God won't let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, and if you reach your limit He'll give you a way out.  So even for people of faith, it shouldn't be the restrictive guilt trip it so often is.

[Carol]

Oh Fuck, the Stoopid is really working overtime on the Millers thread.  Paul is complaining about his rights as a parent.

"Our rights as parents from God alone. No state, no government, no authority whatsoever has a right to tell me what's best for my child".

Paul, the government has the right to take your children if they can prove they are being abused or neglected.  It's the law, you moron, and there is nothing you can do about it if they decide to.  You want everyone to respect the constitution and yet you think it's OK to pick and choose what laws you follow. You put the lives of your family and everyone else in their vicinity in jeopardy by not vaccinating your children.  You base this on flawed research which, if you were even vaguely a critical thinker you would know is dangerous.

The truth is, FreeJinger cares more about your kids than you do.  You're a patriarchal prick raising ignorant children whose idea of critical thinking is whatever it says in the Bible.

[Ozlsn]

On 9/19/2017 at 9:52 AM, chaotic life said:

Just, you know, vaccines AND antibiotics....oh and a highly accurate test to identify it, and immunoglobulin treatments to specifically target.....and all of nifty options when you ignore all of the EASY treatment options and wait until your kid is in respiratory distress before seeking help.

Cheaper too. By quite a lot. You might think that would factor in somewhere.

1 hour ago, Carol said:

Oh Fuck, the Stoopid is really working overtime on the Millers thread.  Paul is complaining about his rights as a parent.

"Our rights as parents from God alone. No state, no government, no authority whatsoever has a right to tell me what's best for my child".

Paul, the government has the right to take your children if they can prove they are being abused or neglected.  It's the law, you moron, and there is nothing you can do about it if they decide to.  You want everyone to respect the constitution and yet you think it's OK to pick and choose what laws you follow. You put the lives of your family and everyone else in their vicinity in jeopardy by not vaccinating your children.  You base this on flawed research which, if you were even vaguely a critical thinker you would know is dangerous.

Yeah Paul your kids have rights too and they can override your "sacred" parental rights. They have the right to food, shelter, education, medical care,  safety - of course most parents provide these things without thinking too hard about it. Personally I would put preventative medical care in there too rather than just emergency care.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I'm dying! Look at what they posted! Poor Jill

[formergothardite]

Well at least one person admitted Plexus doesn't work. I bet Jill was not happy she got tagged. 

[Beermeet]

Have any of you seen the super fake news site natural news on FB?  Or the site www.naturalnews.com ( same thing but if you don't FB)?  There is a person I'm very loosely connected to that I sorta stalk because she is so into the antivaxx thing among other fuckery.   Ck it out.  Maddening!  No sources, all propaganda.   

[Beermeet]

On 9/18/2017 at 9:47 AM, ThunderRolls said:

Does anyone know what the deal is with essential oils? I have a few friends who have been shilling doterra oils on Facebook. At first I thought it was rather innocent since I've been seeing diffusers for sale in a lot of places - make your home smell nice and maybe use a calming scent at the same time. Now many of the posts are increasingly nutty: sick child? Use this combo of oils in the diffusers and they'll get better! Diaper rash?: Use this combo and the rash goes away. Another friend, who I've known for years and has always been normal, has started to go anti-vaxx since selling doterra. It's very bizarre and almost seems like a cult. 

Yep, that woman I mentioned above id all into essential oils.  She posted her teen daughter had a UTI and was suffering for days, she was all happy about whipping up a batch of oils and within an hour, her daughter felt great.  Her friends praised her great mothering.  Next days post was about how they just got back from the ER for the UTI.  No mention of the fuckery, just prayers.  Poor kid, those suck and get way worse fast.  Not to mention the use of the ER instead of a doctors office.  Always the ER after failed oiling.  Dumbass!

[JermajestyDuggar]

Natural news is complete garbage. It's like the national enquirer for paranoid hippies.