Re: The unofficial vaccine educators: are CDC funded non-profits sufficiently independent?
This is a brave article.
WHO and others are at present running research programs aimed at overcoming vaccine resistance.[1] I wonder if any of those involved put any thought into assessing how much efforts to force vaccine uptake is creating vaccine resistance - among people like me who have traditionally been pro vaccines and had all my children vaccinated, and what the consequence of this resistance might be. The only thing that would undo my growing resistance at this point would be evidence of a genuine collection of the data on harms that would enable me or anyone who asked my advice to balance the harms of a specific vaccine against the harms of a specific condition. I'm not prepared to accept there is someone out there who can make these judgements for me, given the track record of the authorities in tolerating a medical literature that for on-patent products is almost entirely ghost-written and tolerating a total denial of access to the data on harms in clinical trials.[2]
1 Dubé E, Laberge C, Guay, M, Bramadat P, Roy R, Bettinger J Vaccine hesitancy. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2013; 9: 1763–1773.
2 Healy D. Pharmageddon. California University Press, Berkeley CA 2012.
Rapid Response:
Re: The unofficial vaccine educators: are CDC funded non-profits sufficiently independent?
This is a brave article.
WHO and others are at present running research programs aimed at overcoming vaccine resistance.[1] I wonder if any of those involved put any thought into assessing how much efforts to force vaccine uptake is creating vaccine resistance - among people like me who have traditionally been pro vaccines and had all my children vaccinated, and what the consequence of this resistance might be. The only thing that would undo my growing resistance at this point would be evidence of a genuine collection of the data on harms that would enable me or anyone who asked my advice to balance the harms of a specific vaccine against the harms of a specific condition. I'm not prepared to accept there is someone out there who can make these judgements for me, given the track record of the authorities in tolerating a medical literature that for on-patent products is almost entirely ghost-written and tolerating a total denial of access to the data on harms in clinical trials.[2]
1 Dubé E, Laberge C, Guay, M, Bramadat P, Roy R, Bettinger J Vaccine hesitancy. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2013; 9: 1763–1773.
2 Healy D. Pharmageddon. California University Press, Berkeley CA 2012.
Competing interests: No competing interests