Non-overlapping magesteria. I always loathed that concept, as if one aspect of culture could be separate from, and not answerable to, reality. However, there might be something to the concept, as there certainly appears to be two approaches to medicine, and they are non-overlapping. I am not certain the two approaches are even in the same universe.

One approach to medicine is reality-based, where understanding of the world is seen though the lens of science, and as the science  evolves, so does the understanding of reality. What characterizes this approach is, in part,  an understanding of cognitive errors and logical fallacies and the insight of understanding that these cognitive errors and fallacies apply to themselves as much as they apply to others. Skeptics and science-based medicine (SBM) practitioners attempt to live in this magisteria.

The other approach is opinion-based, where reality is fixed and objective data ignored or warped to fit preconceived notions as to how the world should be.  Cognitive errors and logical fallacies are the foundation of this world view, and its practitioners behave as if these concepts do not apply to them. This is the not so magisteria of much of alt-med.

It is two world views that do not, and cannot, talk to each other since neither one understands the language of the other. I, for example, cannot understand  arguments based on information that has been repeatedly disproved yet still promulgated as fact.  The creationist viewpoint is an example of arguments using information years after the information has been discredited. I cannot wrap my head around deliberately misusing information that runs contrary to my current understanding of how the world works. I have a respect for, and a fidelity to, the truth.

A far better description of this dichotomy is to be found in The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin.  As I write this I am about a quarter of the way through the book and I cannot recommend it enough.

The  International Medical Council on Vaccination, with the probably not intentionally ironic motto “Critical Thinking for a Critical Dilemma,” released a position paper entitled Vaccines: Get the Full Story Doctors, Nurses and Scientists on Protecting Your Child and Yourself (direct download link here) with 83 signatories with various initials after their names (conveniently listed here). 83 seems like a lot at first, but the numbers are not that impressive.

After all, there are 800,000 physicians in the US; so that represents 0.006% of physicians,  about .0004% of PhD’s (out of about 2.5 million) and .00017% of nurses (out of 2.9 million).  Not a ringing majority of the medical industrial complex; a fringe on the medical surrey.

They note at the beginning “MD, DO, MB, MBBCh all indicate a doctor of medicine. ND indicates a medically trained and licensed doctor in some areas. FNP indicates a family nurse practitioner,” leaving out an explanation of DC. I suppose even the International Medical Council on Vaccination feels that DC’s are not really doctors, and do not want to call attention to the fact.  I always think of comic books when I think of DC.  I was never a Marvel guy as a kid.

Of course these are all courageous mavericks, including a brain surgeon with a Galileo-like understanding of The Truth (big T) and are fighting against a corrupt and blind authority who are protecting their turf at the expense of you and your children. As an aside, I often find it odd when Galileo is used as an example. I just realized his first name is Galileo.  In that respect he was like Cher or the Donald.  Galileo was a man of science oppressed by the irrational and superstitious.  Today,  he (Galileo, not the Donald)  is used by the irrational and the superstitious who say the are being oppressed by science.  So 1984.

I prefer to quote  Arthur Schopenhauer:

All antivaccination “truth” passes through three stages. First, it is based upon feelings instead of reality. Second, it is opposed by the rationally inclined. Third, the more complete the information that falsifies it, the more vehemently it is embraced as self-evident.

Or something like that; I am using Bing for my search engine.

Then, without referencing any primary literature, the Vaccine Council of Vaccination proceeds with their Critical Thinking for a Critical Dilemma and where are sarcasm html tags when you need them:

These are some of the diseases that have documented associations with vaccines.

A laundry list follows.  Are any of the diseases on list been shown to be CAUSED by vaccines.  Nope.  Association is not causation, although the decline in pirates is not only associated with global heating, it is the cause of global heating. Or is it the contrariwise, for if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic. Praise be to the Flying Spaghetti monster!

The list is interesting. I quasi-randomly picked sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) to Pubmed, since that is the scariest one on the list. In my reality based understanding there is an association:

AIMS: To conduct a meta-analysis examining the relationship between immunization and SIDS.

METHODS: Nine case-controls studies were identified examining this association, of which four adjusted for potential confounders.

RESULTS: The summary odds ratio (OR) in the univariate analysis suggested that immunisations were protective, but the presence of heterogeneity makes it difficult to combine these studies. The summary OR for the studies reporting multivariate ORs was 0.54 (95% CI=0.39-0.76) with no evidence of heterogeneity.

CONCLUSIONS: Immunisations are associated with a halving of the risk of SIDS. There are biological reasons why this association may be causal, but other factors, such as the healthy vaccinee effect, may be important. Immunisations should be part of the SIDS prevention campaigns.

Cancer is also on the list. Again, there is an association. The HPV vaccine is used to  decrease risk of  cervical cancer and the hepatits B vaccine to decrease the risk for hepatocellular carcinoma. Of course, I am assuming that the Vaccine Council of Vaccination means a beneficial  association, but that is not stated explicitly. I was surprised to find the Vaccine Council of Vaccination trumpeting the benefits of vaccination and oh wait, I misunderstand. They imply vaccines cause SIDS and cancer. That’s different. The data to support the assertion? None that I can find. Maybe the Vaccine Council of Vaccination motto should really be, “I reject your reality and substitute my own” Or maybe, “There is no reality but what we make for ourselves.” Sara Connor almost had it right.

Autoimmune and allergic diseases?  Data?  Nope.

If you generate a list of diseases, unreferenced and unsupported by the literature, that you attribute to vaccines, what could be more worrisome and frightening than

And many, many more.

Not just one many, but two. Two many’s!!! If you Google “many” and “vaccine,” there are over 16 million hits!!! If you Google “many, many more”  and “vaccine” you get a quarter of a million hits. That is an incredible association between vaccines and many, many more. That is the kind of compelling arguments that I find convincing. No more vaccinations for me and mine!

They follow with another list, this time of vaccine side effects. After the first list I am not so confident of the rigor used to generate the document.  I will never say that vaccines are 100% safe. Nothing is. Life, as I understand it, is about relative risks. Seat belts and air bags kill people every year. I still want my car equipped with both.  Nothing is perfect, and it is an issue of the relative risk. An accident without seat belts is far more likely to cause morbidity and mortality.

Life without vaccines is likely to have more potential morbidity and mortality  with 250,000 kids injured each year in car accidents, approximately 2,000 die from their injuries. Your best bet, if you really want to prevent vaccine associated injury, is to not let people drive their kids to the doctors.

Few aspects of medicine offer as much benefit for as little risk as vaccination.  But people do not remember the plagues of the past and pay little attention to the outbreaks of the present unless it directly affects them and theirs.  I understand that.  Who cares if children are dying of pertussis in California, of measles in Africa, and paralyzed by polio in Nigeria?

Every anti-vax is an island entire of itself;
…no childs’s death diminishes me,
because I am uninvolved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it is none my concern.

or something like that.  Again, my searches are not working quite right.

Fainting a side effect?  Sure.

Kidney failure requiring dialysis.  They say that these side effects are “documented in medical literature and/or in package inserts.”  but I can’t find the reference that a vaccine side effect is renal failure.  Maybe it is this underwhelming reference, but given the lack of documentation, it is hard to know. It is probably there somewhere, since the Vaccine Council of Vaccination would not make up data.

More worrisome is “Many common diagnoses given for hospital admissions,” which, when combined with ‘vaccine’, results in 3,350,000 Google hits, although which package insert and which reference in the medical literature  is hard to precisely narrow down.

I am shocked they did not mention that vaccines are associated with hip fractures.  Really. 3% of children get a fracture each year and most are vaccinated.  The Amish, who do not get vaccinated, have less fractures. Coincidence?  I think not.  Maybe I should write for the Vaccine Council of Vaccination.

Then the Vaccine Council of Vaccination says “Autism is associated with vaccines” and point to Fourteenstudies.org, which Dr. Gorski, Dr. Novella, I have discussed before. The approach of 14 studies can be summarized in one ‘critique’: “We gave this study our highest score because it appears to actually show that MMR contributes to higher autism rates.”

If a study agrees with their position, that defines  a good study.  The bass ackwards approach to the medical literature, but telling nonetheless.  It is the world were belief determines the facts. But I am not swayed by such incisive analysis as “What is it with Eric Fombonne and Pediatrics?” and “Fombonne again,”  linking him to a paper he is not an author of.  Still.  I pointed out the mistake years ago.  Seriously, if you are going use guilt by association, at least get your association correct.

The Vaccine Council of Vaccination continues with “Drug companies, insurance companies and the medical system get rich when you get sick.”

The first and third do make money when you are ill, but the second?  Then why do they spend so much time denying coverage?  It is an opinion that seems removed from reality.

The issue is not that vaccines have almost eradicated numerous childhood diseases for which I could make a healthy living if they existed.  The issue is “Vaccine side effects can make you sick for the rest of your life. Conveniently, there are many drugs to treat the side effects caused by vaccines.”  The odd idea that most medical problems are due to “the zeal to eliminate a short list of relatively benign microbes, we have traded temporary illnesses for pervasive, life?long diseases, disorders, dysfunctions and disabilities.”

All the  “many many more” and the “many common diagnoses given for hospital admissions” that result from vaccines.

Nothing specific, ominous appearing, unsupported by data, and feeding into the peculiar paranoid conspiracy  train of thought so common in parts of the world.  I have to confess, I have little appreciation of the conspiratorial mind-set.  As best I can tell,  life is dominated by inadvertent stupidity and randomness mixed with a dollop of greed; one does not need to invoke the Trilateral commission or Big Pharma machinations, although they have machinated enough over the years to earn our distrust.

And, as the data would suggest, most physicians who give childhood vaccines break even.

For hoots and giggles, I Googled  random names of the list  and 6 of 7 are selling products online of an “alternative” nature: books, tapes, DVDs, etc.  I do not know if the names of the signatories are the same people I found who are shilling on the net. Still, later in the paper they bemoan the conflicts of interest of  Dr’s Offit and Gerberding and pediatricians:

…the average U.S. 10?doctor pediatric group has over $100,000 of vaccine inventory in their office to sell. These doctors make money from office visits and from giving your children vaccines, and also from follow up office visits for assessing reactions.

For 250 workdays a year, that is  40 dollars a day, or 5 dollars an hour, before taxes and expenses,  of inventory they have to sell off on their patients.  Less than the minimum wage. Yeah. That’s the way to get rich, selling vaccines, not peddling material on the internet.

Oddly, neither the paper nor the website have a Conflict of Interest (COI) Statement that I can find.  I wonder if the Vaccine Council of Vaccination are in the palms of big Alt.  Who knows how much money  the Vaccine Council of Vaccination are paid by homeopathic preparation  and supplement manufacturers?  Who knows how many thousands of dollars of herbs, supplements, homeopathic products, books and videos the members of Vaccine Council of Vaccination has stocked away to sell for a profit over the internet. It is probably nothing, since I am sure the signatories are not in for the money, but for the benefit of their patients, but with no COI, no transparency,  it is impossible to say.   In the pursuit of openness, I have two ebooks for sale on my website, but really, I am using this as an opportunity to shill for myself in the guise of openness. Or am I?

The Vaccine Council of Vaccination  then notes “Many doctors and healthcare practitioners do not get vaccinated and do not vaccinate their children” and declare that HCW’s do not get vaccinated because they know all the dangers of vaccination. More often it is laziness and inconvenience that prevents HCW’s from vaccination although there is a subset who sign manifestos whose reasons appears to be a profound and pervasive misunderstanding about vaccinations efficacy and safety.

There are the mavericks  who question the status quo, who notice plate tectonics, or that the gravity of the visible  mass  of the universe is insufficient to hold everything together or that  ulcers are caused by bacteria.  Mankind owes a debt of gratitude to those who have extended our knowledge and understanding against the dogma of the day.

Then there are those who publicize cold fusion*, perpetual motion, and water powered cars. The same world view that also writes

“Vaccines are the backbone of the medical system. Without vaccines, healthcare costs would go down because we would have a healthier overall society. We have exchanged chicken pox for autism, flu for asthma, ear infections for diabetes. The list goes on and on. In the zeal to eliminate a short list of relatively benign microbes, we have traded temporary illnesses for pervasive, lifelong diseases, disorders, dysfunctions and disabilities.”

The words are there.  I understand each word individually.  When strung together they are, when compared against the last 100 years of advances in infectious diseases and medicine, gibberish. That paragraph is as divorced from medicine as I understand it  as anything I have ever encountered.  I feel like I am reading

a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Unfortunately, the preceding paragraph was not written by “a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/And then is heard no more”

Anti-vax is probably forever.

The Vaccine Council of Vaccination continues with “If U.S. children receive all doses of all vaccines, they are injected with up to 35 shots that contain 113 different kinds of disease particles, 59 different chemicals, four types of animal cells/DNA, human DNA from aborted fetal tissue and human albumin.”
Well, vaccines are evidently a step up from Taco Bell beef.

As discussed, vaccines are nothing compared to the volume of particles the child receives from the real diseases.  Biochemistry is not the strong point of those who are against vaccines.  As usual they point to the presence of formaldehyde, ignoring that the concentration in the vaccine is less than the body makes as part of normal biochemistry in the course of a day.  The net effect of the concentration gradient should be to remove formaldehyde from the blood and into the vaccine.  But in the upside down world of homeopathy, promulgated by some of the signatories, the less the chemical, the stronger it becomes.

And gelatin.  Vaccines have gelatin. The horror, the horror.  I always knew Jello was bad. Not as dangerous as dihydrogen monoxide, a major ingredient in all vaccines that kills 4000 Americans a year, 20% of them children.   And it is in our vaccines.  Think about the children.  Come on. Gelatin? Really? Really?

The Vaccine Council of Vaccinations  wind down by emphasizing you do have the right to refuse vaccination, and that doing so is a shameful, embarrassing, repellant act, which is why, I suppose, they say “Vaccination decisions are between you and your spouse/partner. No one else needs to know. It is not the business of your family members, your neighbors, or your in-laws.”  Or am I reading it wrong?

They conclude with a combination of advice on how to avoid vaccinations and how wonderful  infections are compared to vaccines:

Babies are born with powerful, natural defenses. If this were not so, all would die shortly after birth. Enormous cascades of complex immune processes start with the first cry. This needs to occur naturally, without the interruption caused by the injections of toxic substances.

Learn about the “vaccine preventable”  diseases. Your children will never come in contact with most of them and if they do, nearly all healthy and unvaccinated children recover uneventfully, with long term immunity. Health cannot come through a needle.

Tell that to UNICEF :

Almost 40 per cent of all under-five deaths occur during the neonatal period, the first month of life, from a variety of complications. Of these  neonatal deaths, around 26 per cent, accounting for 10 per cent of all under-five deaths, are caused by severe infections. A significant proportion of these infections is caused by pneumonia and sepsis (a serious blood-borne bacterial infection that is also treated with antibiotics).

Around 2 million children under five die from pneumonia each year‚ around 1 in 5 deaths globally. In addition, up to 1 million more infants die from severe infections including pneumonia, during the neonatal period. Despite progress since the 1980s, diarrhoeal diseases account for 17 per cent of under-five deaths. Malaria, measles and AIDS, taken together, are responsible for 15 per cent of child deaths.”

The industrialized West, having routed, at least locally, three of the four hoursemen of the apocolapse (War, Famine, Pollution (Pestilence having retired in 1936 following the discovery of penicillin)),  has developed  many interventions, including vaccines, that have resulted in a decrease in childhood infectious diseases, not a one discovered or implemented by the practitioners touted in this manifesto “a naturopathic doctor, a pediatric chiropractor, a doctor of oriental medicine, or a homeopathic doctor.”

I do not want to return to the bad old days when

For example, in 1900, 21,064 smallpox cases were reported, and 894 patients died. In 1920, 469,924 measles cases were reported, and 7575 patients died; 147,991 diphtheria cases were reported, and 13,170 patients died. In 1922, 107,473 pertussis cases were reported, and 5099 patients died.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to be against vaccination.

The Vaccine Council of Vaccination bids you remember

Learn about the vaccine preventable  diseases. Your children will never come in contact with most of them” and “Understand that your child can be vaccinated and still contract the illness you are wishing to prevent.

Which is it? They will be exposed or they won’t.   I know.  A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

They finish, with a not so subtle reminder that they take Visa, Mastercard and cash, but not Blue Cross:

“Know that healthcare is something you pay for; sick care is covered by insurance. Your insurance will pay for drugs and vaccines.

Budget accordingly to stay healthy. Your life depends on it.”

The Vaccine Council of Vaccination concludes not with  primary references,  but links to more web sites.

The Vaccine Council of Vaccination is the group who wanted to debate vaccines. Besides the fact that I am a lousy debater, having lost every substantive discussion with my wife, how can  one debate the Vaccine Council of Vaccination?  My assumption is that those who hold opinions that are contrary to mine are not bad people. I presume good intentions and, since the Road to Hell is paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen,  I need not fret about ultimate consequences of their intent, although the Vaccine Council of Vaccination strains my credulity.   I always feel like I am constrained by the truth as best I understand it, and a fidelity to reality is a handicap in any argument.   It would be like debating the nature of the moon with Wallace. Bad example.  He had objective data to support his position, unlike the Vaccine Council of Vaccination.

Non-overlapping indeed.

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* Dude.  You know who you are.  Don’t fill the thread with cold fusion commentary again.  It is not the point of the entry. Thanks in advance for understanding.