Swine Flu 4.95: Famous Penultimate Words

“You can give me all the public health statistics in the world, but I believe based on all I’ve read to date that vaccinations cause a body more harm than good.”

This was posted  on a doctors-only board yesterday, presumably by a doctor.  The sentiment is one I often heard before, and yes, sometimes from physicians; but rarely have I seen a statement that so honestly examines the mindset behind voodoo medicine.

Let’s try this again, slowly:

“You can give me all the public health statistics in the world, but I believe based on all I’ve read to date that vaccinations cause a body more harm than good.”

“You can give me all the public health statistics in the world” — Public health statistics usually come in the format of, “Of 10000 people who received the vaccine, 2 died, and of the 10000 who did not,  20 died”, or similar, and thus speak for themselves.  They also come from places entirely away from any influence from pharmaceutical companies (often blamed for messing with our own statistics) such as Cuba and Iran, and are usually in line with our own.

“I believe based on all I’ve read to date” — I like fiction, too, really I do, but I do not practice medicine according to THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, and I do not expect our foreign policy to be formulated by Tom Clancy.  A clique of quacks recycling each other’s delusions does not qualify as continuing education.

“vaccinations cause a body more harm than good” — the one thing they have harmed so far is the respect accorded a pediatrician, by taking much of the melodrama out of patient-doctor relationships.  Families look at the doctor differently when the encounter occurs in the Intensive Care Unit — I spent enough time running one at night, as Chief Resident back 20 years ago, to know this very well; and the other thing I know well is how well we vaccinated many of the diseases (that formerly put children in ICUs) into near-extinction (resulting in near-extinction for many of the ICUs, but that’s a different story).  Yes, saving a life in a close call generates more respect than saving 1000 with a shot and a bandaid — which also may be the reason why most people prefer reading fiction to statistics.

In other news:  CDC Flu tracker reports accelerating flu activity in the South but very little here in the Northeast as of yet.  Swine flu mania did at least some good, in promoting awareness that normal seasonal flu isn’t much (or any) better than the novel H1N1 2009, and seasonal flu vaccine demand is subjectively higher than it was in previous years — but, again, all too often, I hear the mantra:

“You can give me all the public health statistics in the world, but I believe based on all I’ve read to date that vaccinations cause a body more harm than good.”

Swine flu vaccines have been approved for adult use, and are being evaluated for pediatric use, with mid-October as the target date (which may be late in the season for some of the hard-hit Southern states).  The US-approved H1N1 vaccines are adjuvant-free, and contain about the same amount of antigen as seasonal vaccines, and are thus not expected  to have a significantly different side effect rate from the seasonal vaccine, but I certainly would not jump into endorsing the H1N1 vaccine for children until some of the data are in — but realizing that in the real world, and for real children, the decision point is very soon, I will continue to monitor the information.

By the way:

Ellen Kushner, SWORDSPOINT

John Scalzi, OLD MAN’S WAR

Samuel R Delany, EMPIRE STAR

These are some of the fiction books I read or re-read lately, and highly recommend — but not as sources of medical information.  I have not found nearly as much amusement and entertainment in the vaccine-related fiction found on the Internet.

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