Malaria vaccine by 2010!!!!!!!!!!

brianct

'The western mania against DDT has exterminated millions of "brown" people. '

You should take up work in PR. Your practise of selecting and exaggerating certain facts while ignoring others makes you a worthy contributor to the Rendon Group.

brianct

'It is true that, when I was at school, people were dyiing or being cripled by Polio and Whooping Cough was a dreaded disease.'

As i've written above, people were suffering from polo because they wer unaware of the relation of diet to their disease. They hadnt heard of the work of Benjamin Sandler, and today he has been forgotten by those happy to be ignorant of anything that would mean a change in their diet habits.

brianct

' guess the connection between evidence and concern isn't important. Note that this is now felt increasingly for DDT. The western mania against DDT has exterminated millions of "brown" people. But of course, they don't count in fashionable circles. In any case genocide is off topic. Returning to the point, there is very little hard evidence to link the majority of vaccines with more than a modest degree of side effects. When I was in school we were given health education on the treatment of Polio. Now there was some hard evidence, thousands of dead and crippled. Now I would strongly agree with exercise of judgement in taking vaccines. Some cover only a modest risk and may not be worth risks (JE) except in special circumstances. Still, few recall such killers as whooping cough. Perhaps the emotions obscure rational solutions for social problems or maybe the problems are all in our heads..
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Notice the words Edward uses: 'exterminated' 'genocide' ;thousands dead and crippled' 'killers'

This strategy of 'scaring the patients' is precisely that of the drug makers. It really works. How else are they to get people to inject their drugs into their arteries?!

'When I was in school we were given health education on the treatment of Polio'

What you werent told and your would-be educators may not have been aware of is the work of people like Benjamin Sandler, who proved conclusively the link between diet(high suger) and polio thru the agency of low blood suger. All you would have been taught is the use of drugs, withn maybe a token gesture toward sanitation.
The hypocrisy of the medical profession is that after maltreating Semmelweiss(know of him), and pontificating on the lesson of his life, they go right on ignoring or maltreating the latter day Semmelweisses, ensuring the ignorant masses remain enthralled to the vampires of the drug manufacturers and the medical profession. Its no wonder the public is so ignorant, given the miserable teachers they have.

edwardseco

Note that the Africans are increasingly using DDT after sufferring such losses for the west. Must be for a reason. Check it out on the BBC. Sorry if I offended religious sensibilities..

edwardseco

Polio as the result of diet! For once you have me speachless, lets go burn a witch..

brianct

I suggest you go read the Benjamin sandler article. Here it is again
http://www.whale.to/v/sandler.html

Witch burning is what the medical profession has been doing for centuries. Its less troublesome than investigating alternative ideas.

chappal

Brian, thanks for posting the link to Benjamin Sandler. I don't have time to read it right now, but I am very interested in this assertion that vaccines did not stop the spread of polio etc. but rather that sanitation did. I am skeptical, because other accounts say sanitation and vaccines worked together to bring to an end deaths of children and the elderly. I will be very interested to find proof that vaccines had nothing to do with it.

If this is the crux of your argument though, I will just suggest to you to begin your arguments with evidence of how vaccines are ineffective rather than alarm bells about their negative effects. As you can see from the development of the thread, there is plenty of alarmism to be dished out each way.

Have vaccines been effective in preventing deadly diseases? If the answer to this is yes, then the question arises -- are the benefits worth the drawbacks/exceptions? If the answer is vaccines have NO benefit, then there is little point in bickering about whether the benefits of vaccines are worth the drawbacks. You are now arguing are very different line of argument than the one you began with. Maybe to you it all seems the same because it all adds up to the conclusion -- anti-vaccine. But for those who don't start out sharing your conclusions, the lines of reasoning are very different.

brianct

I guess you havent heard of thePrecautionary principle. Even if a medicine, if it causes harm, it should not be used, or used only in certain cases. An example is the SSRI drugs like Prozac. They may do some people some good, but their dangers are too great. Whats more, there are others ways to treat depression, which the doctors prefer not to know about.

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The precautionary principle, a phrase coined circa 1988, is the ethical principle that if the consequences of an action, especially the use of technology, are unknown but are judged by some scientists to have a high risk of being negative from an ethical point of view, then it is better not to carry out the action rather than risk the uncertain, but possibly very negative, consequences.

It is similar to one version of the Hippocratic oath, First of all, do no harm, or, Better do nothing than cause harm. Another way of describing it is that it favours inaction, at the risk of the negative consequences of doing nothing, over action, which risks negative consequences
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

chappal

LOL, Brian. I'd be a lot more receptive to your comments if you'd stop assuming that my point of view is based on utter ignorance. Again, I just don't agree with this strong interpretation of precaution. Yours is a good point to consider. My personal consideration is I am glad to have medicinal choices including those with adverse side-effects.

brianct

'My personal consideration is I am glad to have medicinal choices including those with adverse side-effects.'

i assume you arent serious Would you expose your child to a dangerous drug? One that might cause injury, or death?

chappal

This would depend on whether the perceived benefit outweighed the perceived risk.

SydneyKate

Chappal, you have been extremely patient and restrained throughout this debate! Brian, I am wondering if you have children. I used to be a little "alternative" in my thinking (sorry, I cant think of a better word), but when I had kids suddenly became quite mainstream! My kids are fully immunised according to our local health guidelines, and I would certainly never take them on a trip to India without all the shots and precautions. It's interesting how conservative one (well, me anyway) becomes when you are responsible for someone else's health.
Regards

brianct

If theres anyone being patient, its me, as i patiently explain why the vaccine route is at best a stopgap, which pays no attention to the root cause of illness. Did you read the Benjamin Sandler article on Polio? I recommend you do.

You exemplify what i said about the medical profession playing on peoples fears that only their medicine can help and any other will be useless or dangerous. You say you were a 'little 'alternative'', with 'alternative' in quotes, meaning not very 'alternative', not really convinced. You were raised up in orthodox medicine, and in times of fear, people revert to their earliest conditioning.

Its clear you have never heard or know little of iatrogenesis. A question: what is the leading cause of death today? Is it cancer, heart disease, accidents? none of the above. Its the medical profession:

I recommend you read the following linked articles:
Modern Health Care System is the Leading Cause of Death, Part I

'One of the most prominent articles on this site is Doctors are the Third Leading Cause of Death. Well that article was written in 2000 and now it appears that, based on a variety of references noted in the below article, some from prior to 2000 some after, doctors are in fact the LEADING cause of death in this country. Not heart disease, not cancer--doctors. In all fairness, doctors themselves are not to blame for all of this. The entire modern health care system, however, is to blame for allowing, even promoting, so many unnecessary procedures, drugs and mishaps. This illustrates precisely why the system is so desperately in need of change, and why facilitating this change is, and will continue to be, such a substantial portion of my vision. '
(read articles in link)
http://www.mercola.com/2004/jul/7/healthcare_death.htm

Conservatism i would define as a state of ignorance and fear.

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Final caveat, im not saying that immunization wont work, just as antibiotics do work, but both have their unwanted and unanticipated effects. Antibiotics can cause strains of viruses that resist the drug; vaccines can 'compromise'(favourite medical euphemism) the immune system, because they are introducing the very thing you are trying to avoid.

brianct

'This would depend on whether the perceived benefit outweighed the perceived risk.'

that word 'risk' is out of place. A more accurate word is 'danger'. The medical profession(and back of them the drug companies) has it in its interest tro reduce 'dangers' to 'risks'.

Benefits vs danger. And a medical philosophy that places such a choice before the patient is unworthy to be called a healing art and is certainly non-hippocratic, whose maxim is "first of all do no harm'.

goangoangone

Would you expose your child to a dangerous disease?

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GoanGoan......here