State lawmakers likely won’t do anything more this session with a bill to mandate that Kansas sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, which causes 70 percent of cases of cervical cancer. Until Kansas is ready to rejoin the raging national debate about such mandates, our lawmakers have some things to think about, starting with new research indicating the infection rate among women is about two-thirds higher than previously thought. One alarming point exposed by the HPV debate — how little trust people have these days in the FDA. As our editorial Friday noted, vaccine backers can keep educating Kansans about HPV and the vaccine. “And if lawmakers want to do something about children’s health this session, they can proceed with the primary seat-belt law for teens, seek ways to further improve the state’s solid 83.8 percent childhood immunization rate, and stop stalling on Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ call to insure all Kansas kids from birth to age 5.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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35 Comments
You are absolutely right about none of us trusting the FDA and CDC anymore. And I hope our new congress will start addressing this ASAP so that when our new President takes over, they can fix it. But it’ll only happen when we collectively demand it.
With autism affecting 1:150 people now, we’re a loud voice against immunization mandates.
Immunization vaccines and shots do not cause autism.
But other than that. I agree with Rhonda.
Whatever happened to the right to privacy? Shouldn’t this be between you and your doctor? What this amounts to is forced medical treatment. Follow the money and you will find the goons behind this proposal.
I’m glad you’re an expert Joe. How much research have you devoted to the autism/vaccine debate?
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/story?id=2892683&page=1
Trying to link vaccines to autism is just another slick class action lawyers attempt to extract money from pharma companies and the government.
If you have a child with autism I understand that you want to blame something or somebody for it. But vaccinations are not it. If you don’t vaccinate your children, then you are putting them in great danger.
You bought into the myth. Vaccines can have side effects, but causing autism isn’t one of them, and the enormous benefits to the child and to our civilization as a whole out weighs any of the miniscule rates of side effects that are caused by the current crop of exception vaccines we administer to the young.
No, Joe, I’ve done more looking into it than just one national news link. That’s why.
Oh and, the news reports you hear about leave out SO much information, it just slays me whenever they do it.
It’s defenative. I’m sorry p-mom. I’m sure you spent years into it and research heavily into the subject making you close to being an expert on the subject, but it’s been proven with study after study. Vaccines do not cause autism.
No it hasn’t been proven study after study. And you’ll never convince the many many parents who had normal kids before the shot, and autistic kids after the shot.
Explain why the CDC altered it’s own research and was caught red-handed if there was no reason not to do it?
Please provide link to your claim about the CDC altered research.
Because actually I was going to post the CDC link, but since you don’t believe them, then I must ask where do you get the information.
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/autism/autism-research.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/autism/autism-mmr.htm
I’m sorry P-mom! From the things I have read over the years, it’s pretty much a done deal. Vaccines do not cause autism.
I’m sure they will continue the research for many years. It’s keeps them busy at least. But it isn’t going to go in your favor.
It’s not just the CDC.
In 1997, the National Childhood Encephalopathy Study (NCES) was examined to see if there was any link between measles vaccine and neurological events. The researchers found no indication that measles vaccine contributes to the development of long-term neurological damage, including educational and behavioral deficits (Miller et al., 1997).A study by Gillberg and Heijbel (1998) examined the prevalence of autism in children born in Sweden from 1975-1984. There was no difference in the prevalence of autism among children born before the introduction of the MMR vaccine in Sweden and those born after the vaccine was introduced.In 1999, the British Committee on Safety of Medicines convened a “Working Party on MMR Vaccine” to conduct a systematic review of reports of autism, gastrointestinal disease, and similar disorders after receipt of MMR or measles/rubella vaccine. It was concluded that the available information did not support the posited associations between MMR and autism and other disorders.Taylor and colleagues (1999) studied 498 children with autism in the UK and found the age at which they were diagnosed was the same regardless of whether they received the MMR vaccine before or after 18 months of age or whether they were never vaccinated. Importantly, the first signs or diagnoses of autism were not more likely to occur within time periods following MMR vaccination than during other time periods. Also, there was no sudden increase in cases of autism after the introduction of MMR vaccine in the UK. Such a jump would have been expected if MMR vaccine was causing a substantial increase in autism.Kaye and colleagues (2001) assessed the relationship between the risk of autism among children in the UK and MMR vaccine. Among a subgroup of boys aged 2-5 years, the risk of autism increased almost 4 fold from 1988 to 1993, while MMR vaccination coverage remained constant at approximately 95% over these same years.Researchers in the U.S. found that among children born between 1980 and 1994 and enrolled in California kindergartens, there was a 373% relative increase in autism cases, though the relative increase in MMR vaccine coverage by the age of 24 months was only 14% (Dales et al., 2001). For more on this study, see California Data on Theory of Autism and MMR Immunization.Researchers in the UK (Frombonne & Chakrabarti, 2001) conducted a study to test the idea that a new form, or “new variant,” of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) exists. This new variant IBD has been described as a combination of developmental regression and gastrointestinal symptoms occurring shortly after MMR immunization. Information on 96 children (95 immunized with MMR) who were born between 1992 and 1995 and were diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder were compared with data from 2 groups of autistic patients (one group of 98 born before MMR was ever used and one group of 68 who were likely to have received MMR vaccine). No evidence was found to support a new syndrome of MMR-induced IBD/autism. For instance, the researchers found that there were no differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups with regard to when their parents first became concerned about their child’s development. Similarly, the rate of developmental regression reported in the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups was not different; therefore, there was no suggestion that developmental regression had increased in frequency since MMR was introduced. Of the 96 children in the first group, no inflammatory bowel disorder was reported. Furthermore, there was no association found between developmental regression and gastrointestinal symptoms.Another group of researchers in the UK (Taylor et al., 2002) also examined whether MMR vaccination is associated with bowel problems and developmental regression in children with autism, looking for evidence of a “new variant” form of IBD/autism. The study included 278 cases of children with autism and 195 with atypical autism (cases with many of the features of childhood autism but not quite meeting the required criteria for that diagnosis, or with atypical features such as onset of symptoms after the age of 3 years). The cases included in this study were born between 1979 and 1998. The proportion of children with developmental regression or bowel symptoms did not change significantly from 1979 to 1988, a period which included the introduction of MMR vaccination in the UK in 1988. No significant difference was found in rates of bowel problems or regression in children who received the MMR vaccine before their parents became concerned about their development, compared with those who received it only after such concern and those who had not received the MMR vaccine. The findings provide no support for an MMR associated “new variant” form of autism and further evidence against involvement of MMR vaccine in autism.Madsen et al. (2002) conducted a study of all children born in Denmark from January 1991 through December 1998. There were a total of 537,303 children in the study; 440,655 of the children were vaccinated with MMR and 96,648 were not. The researchers did not find a higher risk of autism in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated group of children. Furthermore, there was no association between the age at time of vaccination, the amount of time that had passed since vaccination, or the date of vaccination and the development of any autistic disorder. Though there were many more vaccinated than unvaccinated children in the study group, the sample was large enough to contain more statistical power than other MMR and autism studies. Therefore, this study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism.DeStefano et al. (2004) conducted a study to see if there was a difference in the age at which children with autism and without autism received their first MMR vaccination. The study’s findings showed that children with autism received their first MMR vaccination at similar ages as children without autism.
http://www.momsagainstmercury.org/safemindsreport.htm
There is your CDC altering.
There are many studies done by many people who are either 1. Government funded, or 2. Drug company funded.
And your studies on the MMR, the MMR never had mercury in them to begin with.
So you see why all of those studies are a misnomer, a diversion from the real problem.
Now don’t you feel like you’ve been had?
Sorry P-mom! I read the information on the link you provide. Doesn’t provide enough information or makes a strong enough case, I’m not convienced. A link to Bias from one Doctor who was fired from GSK?
Have any other sources? Especially ones that are not from activist sites that do not post their FIOA papers online for media to check the accuracy of a few lines of conservation in a private meeting.
Any Media sources? NPR, AP, Major Papers?
Look them up yourself my dear, that’s what I spent days and days doing.
And the deeper I dug, the more I was convinced there is a link- but only a piece of the whole.
I gave you the basis for the question, now go seek for yourself, grasshopper.
OK! Fair enough. But since they have proven their is no link between vaccines and autism, and if you are convinced that all the studies are bias, wrong, manipulated and mincontrued.
I then must ask what your motivation is to find the link between vaccines and autism and what are you trying to achieve?
If you don’t want to vaccinate your own children, that’s your business and I respect that.
But are you trying to end the vaccination of children? Are you looking for a paycheck from a lawsuit? Are you just trying to build awareness to find a cure for autism? Or are you just trying to seek answers other than genetic influences?
My granddaughters have participated in a longterm study of the HPV vaccine since they were 13 and 14. Since receiving the shots, they’ve become moody, sometimes insolent and secretive, sometimes spending days at a time online and/or texting their friends and talking on the phone about boyfriends and gossiping!I’d like to know how many other teenage girls who received the vaccine have exhibited the same symptoms.
Jed,
I’d say with girls that age, those symptoms exhibited by your granddaughters are pretty much standard. That’s puberty. :)
First pot was a gateway drug now the HPV vaccine is considered a gateway drug. Thank goodness before this drug came out there weren’t ever any unmarried teens having sex.
These are the same nuts who opposed treating syphilis and don’t want AIDS research because eradicating a disease will lead to promiscuity and take power away from the gods to smite people. These same people used to treat disease by burning women at the stake.
Religious nuts need to move out of the 15th century. I know many of the fundies find science evil but you’re the same people using the internet, wearing eyeglasses and taking lifesaving cures when it’s your life on the line.
I have real mixed feelings on this issue. While I do not trust the government and drug companies, I do recognize that medical science has made tremendous progress in the past decade.
The government has a poor track record when it comes to trust issues but this vaccine would appear to have real promise in preventing cancer.
As I have posted before, I don’t have a dog in this fight as my girls are beyond the recommended ages. My granddaughter is just six, so her mother’s decision can wait for a few years. Hopefully, when that tome comes, there will be more information to facilitate an informed decision.
No Joe I”m not on any lists to sue the drug manufacturers. I just want parents to not have to endure what autism brings.
And my child is already affected, and I won’t have any more. Believe it or not some people don’t always have an ulterior motive for what they post about.
Would I love it for this to be completely safe, absolutely.
Unfortunately I know a little boy in person who was one of those who had the shots one day and was in the hospital for weeks afterwards, and now has autism-like symptoms (but no formal diagnosis yet). I have little doubt that will come in time though.
“My granddaughters have participated in a long-term study of the HPV vaccine since they were 13 and 14. Since receiving the shots, they’ve become moody, sometimes insolent and secretive, sometimes spending days at a time online and/or texting their friends and talking on the phone about boyfriends and gossiping!I’d like to know how many other teenage girls who received the vaccine have exhibited the same symptoms?”.
Jed I was laughing while reading this as I am sure you were laughing while writing it!
I too have mixed opinions on this, if as it clams it should go without saying that of course every girl and for that matter if it can be shown it would stop boys from being a carrier.Should have this vaccination, it would just be foolish otherwise and denying of the truth.But I have to admit that it being pushed by the company that makes it and would as a result profit from it. Some moments of pause, bold claim and to say it they better be 100% right! Even if it is not 100 % effective in all cases, it would be better then nothing at all.
My daughter has “Marie tooth’s disease” it is a form of M.D. and the Doctor when she was first discovered to have it said it was more then likely caused by one of her childhood immunizations she had. But as with all immunizations, it is a crap shoot if any side effect will be worst or deadlier then the disease it is suppose to prevent.
Mom I saw the program that Joe is referring to, one of the statement that came out was that with Autism. It may not be that it is on the rise as much as it had been misdiagnosed in the past as some other curse. I do pray for you and your son, I use to talk with a woman who has three of her four children have Autism. The woman is a saint and we discussed in depth the effects of it on her. Have you heard of sorry I wish I could remember the author’s name. But she has Autism herself but can function at a higher level, she actually has found that to some extent animals and people with Autism have several traits in common. Her book gives a great understanding of the disease and again I wish I could give you her name. But I would suspect you may already know of her, my friend did.
The only reason I see that this vaccination should be compulsory is as I stated once before. Often we as parents do not see our children in the same light as our children see themselves. A twelve years old does not always see the inherit pitfalls and dangers of having sex. Nor do parents see their twelve year olds even being in danger of having sex, they still see that baby that use to climb into their lap during thunder storms. They may give lip service to the subject but in the back of their mind it is still “not my child!”.
I have an understanding of how the R.R. thinks having the benefit of one of my best friends was raised in a strict Christian home. He went to a strict Christian high school (Brean academy in White water, Ks.) the subject of sex was never truly discussed. With the only mention being Abstinence, but no warning or explanation of what to do if it occurs. Leaving him with only misinformation and idol gossip to learn from. (he will kill me!) So much so that though no one told him this, he believed that if he had sex out of wedlock that the woman’s head would fall off! One girl from his high school actually believed that sand burs were Porcupine eggs! So in such a delusional state it would be easy to believe that having this immunization and explaining the why of it. Would lead to having sex in the first place.
Some one has pointed out that this is not like other disease in that it can not be contracted by simply being in the same room with another. But as I have pointed out, with the exemption of a few… Who does not have sex in their life time?
I believe you’re referring to Temple Grandin.
There have been plenty of those studies that say autism is TRULY growing, and it really dispells the myth that it’s simply being more diagnosed.
I think the parents back then would have ABSOLUTELY known something was not right with their child just as we did.
Didn’t the medical profession recently put different kinds of diseases under a bigger autism category? I believe I saw a snippet of a documentary stating that.
There are a lot of different ‘types’ of autism. That’s why it’s a spectrum disorder.
.That does ring a bell, I read some takings from her book.
I’m in favor if providing parents with the information and allowing them to make the decisions. But, I would ALSO allow an underage girl to get the vaccine if she chooses.
Two things HAVE to happen if we want to mandate the vaccine – a move I’m not really in favor of.
First, if the government is going to make it a requirement – the government HAS to pay for it.
Second, since that means taxpayer dollars – the government MUST provide the drug formula to ALL manufacturers and allow them to competitively produce it. At $300 a shot – this is a CRAZY thing to mandate at this point.
This fiasco about Merck being the ONLY one to make a drug that the government is going to require all 6th grade girls to have – stinks to high heaven.
Follow the money trail – right now there is a bigger payoff for Merck than there is for the girls some would like to force the vaccine upon.
And – off note – I’m pretty sure PoliticalMom is correct – autism is becoming a MAJOR problem, and although some deny it is linked to vaccines – others think it is. Any studies claiming there is no link are premature.
The drug manufacturers are going to protect us from cervical cancer – but who’s going to protect us from the drug manufacturers?
I think I’d rather have cervical cancer than autism. At least I would have my senses about me.
Years ago, I took care of a woman with Multiple Sclerosis. At the time, nobody knew what caused it, but speculation abounded. Many people thought it must be mercury from fillings, and many victims of MS had fillings replaced or teeth pulled in an effort to stop the disease. Others were just sure that vaccinations were to blame. All sorts of “alternative” treatments were promoted, including bee stings and starvation diets. Of course they didn’t work, but that didn’t stop a huge number of patients from trying them- it was better than the nothing conventional medicine offered. MS reearch finally developed drugs that can help the ones tht weren’t killed by the alternative treatments.Autism is in the same boat MS was in a few years back; nobody knows what causes it yet, and there are no effective treatments, so parents of autistic kids will try everything and blame anyone! I would suggest that, as hard as it may be, parents stay away from the snake-oil peddlers and wait until real medicine has something to offer. There have been breakthroughs recently in understanding the genetics of autism that, with much research, may lead to an effective treatment for those who survived the snake-oil.
Jed, MS isn’t cured, and it isn’t prevented. And mercury still goes into fillings.
Hmm.
Ms is thought to be an autoimmune disease, all the autoimmune and neurological disorders are increasing. It’s not just autism.
You can get dental fillings that contain no mercury now. Some methods use ceramics and polymer compounds.
PM,Yes, it’s an autoimmune disease, but the interesting part is that the drugs that most successfully treat it are anti-virals. There is evidence that one of the herpes viruses plays a role in MS along with genetic factors.And I don’t know of any dentist who is still using amalgams to fill teeth; the polymer/ceramic compounds are cheaper, easier and work at least as well.
dude, kansas has tax on food. that alone should tell ya how fucked up we are. I love Kansas. I wouldnt leave it for anywhere else in the world. Here;s where I was born and here’s where I’lldie. If its fucked up cause its run by a bunch of idiots, well what can Ido? Im just one man.
My granddaughters have participated in a longterm study of the HPV vaccine since they were 13 and 14. Since receiving the shots, they’ve become moody, sometimes insolent and secretive, sometimes spending days at a time online and/or texting their friends and talking on the phone about boyfriends and gossiping!I’d like to know how many other teenage girls who received the vaccine have exhibited the same symptoms.”
I’m so sorry I couldn’t read this when it was posted. I was waiting for the punch line, and finally figured out that Jed was serious.
TD,You bet I’m serious- in pointing out how some of you handle causation.