MMR Vaccines and other Medical Scaremongering
Dr. Sanity
talks about two scathing reports:
Medical Scaremongering
Nobel prizewinners in the Royal Society attack Lancet editor over publication of flawed research, and using "scaremongering" tactics:
The letter suggests that the decision to publish such research stemmed from a desire to attract headlines and not from balanced assessment of the best evidence. "The remarkably poor editorial judgment responsible for this policy is reflected again in the present egregious, error-strewn and wholly unwarranted attack on the Royal Society," it said.
Professor Mark Pepys, of the Royal Free Hospital, London, who drafted the letter, said: "The Pusztai and MMR papers are the two most serious examples. The MMR study was not well reviewed — it was a disgracefully bad piece of work and the decision to publish it was clearly scaremongering.
"It has had terrible effects: children have died of measles, mumps is now out there, it has ruined the vaccination programme for MMR and cost the British taxpayer millions to repair the damage." Other signatories include Sir Paul Nurse and Sir Aaron Klug, who have won Nobel prizes for their work, Sir Walter Bodmer, one of the world’s leading geneticists, and the neuroscientist Dame Nancy Rothwell.
The Lancet paper on MMR was trying to link a mercury-based preservative
Thimerosol used in this vaccine to incidents of Childhood Autism. Thimerosol has been in use in this capacity since the 1930's -- why the sudden connection...
The Pusztai paper referenced was one written by one Arpad Pusztai who discovered that if you fed Genetically Modified potatoes to Rats, they had problems. What Dr. Pusztai neglected to mention is that potatoes belong to the
Solanaceae family, the same family as Deadly Nightshade, and are toxic to rats. Any potatoes...
Dr. Sanity then goes on to a personal issue, Hormone Replacement Therapy and the problems that a Lancet paper has caused her:
The article goes on to discuss the infamous Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) study:
In 2003 Professor David Purdie, of Hull-York Medical School, a leading authority on HRT, criticised a Lancet study suggesting that the treatment could double the risk of breast cancer as "unbalanced and inflammatory".
An accompanying editorial that urged women to stop taking HRT in light of evidence about its health risks caused further outrage among doctors, who said that it would dissuade thousands from taking a medication with proven benefits.
I have lived in a state of mildly simmering outrage ever since the above was touted in the medical community some years ago. My own outrage stems from the fact that I was going through menopause at the time and began to get flack from my physicians about my decision to go with HRT and then ERT (Estrogen-only replacement therapy). What many of my doctors couldn't seem to understand was that I could not function without the HRT. I went for months without sleeping through the night; I had almost continual hot flashes; panic attacks, irritability and mood swings. One helpful doctor wanted to put me on antidepressants.
Why, I asked, couldn't I get back on HRT? Oh, I was told, the risks are too great. Well, I went to the original literature and read the articles--and lo and behold, it was exactly as Dr. Purdie suggested above. For example, when you are talking about a 20 in 1000 chance of developing breast cancer (which is the risk WITHOUT EITHER HRT OR ERT) doubling--you get 40 in 1000 (that's the actual risk of HRT; if you use ERT, the risk goes from 20 in 1000 to 25 in 1000). Let me tell you, that risk seemed pretty darn good to me in exchange for being able to sleep and function as a normal human being again.
She goes on for a few more paragraphs and then has this trenchant observation:
I know women who decided never to take hormone replacement therapy because of these studies. Some of them have never returned to feeling as well as they did pre-menopause. Others, it doesn't seem to bother much. I suspect there is considerable individual physiological variability associated with the number of estrogen receptors and such, which probably determines how sensitive one is to estrogen depletion. But it is an individual thing, and each individual should decide for themselves whether the risk is worth it or not. Everything in life is a trade-off, after all. It is only in a culture where litigation thrives that miracle drugs like HRT, or anti-inflammatory agents (e.g., Vioxx, Celebrex, Ibuprofen etc.) are damned because they have side effects. EVERY SINGLE DRUG HAS SIDE EFFECTS. Litigation is only possible if the individual abrogates his/her own personal responsibility in determining what the risk versus benefit is for each medication they are prescribed.
So true -- the concept that someone can assume personal responsibility over their lives is becoming alien to this culture. We see this all the time since moving up to a farm 45 minutes away from the nearest city. People from the city ask us what would we do if... and our answer is deal with it. They cannot wrap their brains around this simple concept.
One nice side effect is that Jen and I are a lot happier -- we are in control of our lives a lot more than when we were living in Seattle. Happier and healthier...
Posted by DaveH at June 18, 2005 9:29 PM